Alissa Powell's 3D Animation - Sophomore Year 2023/24

Stella, the Overworked Ballerina

Introducing Stella: an overworked professional ballerina who is desperately in need of a break. She has done her routines “one more time” one too many times, and she is fed up with everything and everyone. 

With this assignment, I was challenged to create my first fully articulate character rig. Another new territory I encountered during this project was the utilization of Zbrush for the initial character sculpt. The retopology and rigging (utilizing Advanced Skeleton 6) was continued in Autodesk Maya. All of her textures were created in Adobe Substance Painter.

Animation Test

Before jumping into more complex storytelling animation, I animated Stella with some basic animation exercises (an A to B pose/emotional change, a walk-in/out, and a continuous walk cycle). These tests allowed me to discover and correct any issues with my blend shape facial rig and test the limitations of the Advanced Skeleton 6 body rig and added platter tutu rig. 

These tests proved especially useful when considering how the platter tutu disrupts and hinders the extremes of the appendages. When animating the arms and legs, I had to adapt my arcs to compensate for the limited range of movement allowed by the platter tutu. However, by altering the appendage arcs and articulating the platter tutu itself, I was able to achieve a workable range of motion and create a fun overlapping element in the tutu.

Sit Stand Animation

The final animation I did with Stella was an exercise to practice moving a character between sitting and standing positions. For this assignment, I decided to play into my own experiences, and nightmares, as a dancer waiting in the wings for the cue to start the performance. I modeled the environment in Autodesk Maya and textured it in Adobe Substance Painter. 

I enjoyed the lighting design of the backstage and the greater stage areas as the lighting transition and music cue play a major role in the plot of this narrative. I chose to make the initial spotlight color a cool, blue tone to instill feelings of calmness and to contrast with the change to the warm, orange lights that inspire urgency and alertness.

Patrick the Pancakes

Introducing Patrick: an ambitious stack of pancakes that is always ready to show off, sometimes to his detriment.

This project was my first time working with a simple biped character rig and was also my first introduction to the rigging process. He was sculpted and rigged in Autodesk Maya (utilizing Advanced Skeleton 5) and was textured in Adobe Substance Painter.

Walk, Jump, and Turn Exercises

With this project being my introduction to character animation and basic body mechanics, it was important to test out my rig and practice some fundamental movement principles with a simple walk, jump, and turn exercise. 

While this project was meant to focus on the basics of believable movement, I was still able to incorporate some of Patrick's confident attitude into these exercises.

Jump-Starting the Day

The final project I completed with Patrick was also my final project for my fall semester of sophomore year. I utilized the concepts of movement I had learned from the previous exercises whilst also incorporating more acting and emotion-driven poses.

Even though his eyes are represented by blueberries, I wanted to make Patrick's emotions and thought process clear through his exaggerated poses and the physical shape of his blueberry eyes. I also enjoyed adding fun movement to the camera through the dolly zoom and the crashing shake at the end.

Ball Bounce Animation

This ball bounce exercise was completed at the beginning of my sophomore year and is the first full 3D animation that I created in Autodesk Maya. This project introduced me to the basics of CG animation and helped me to develop a distinct separation between exaggerated, "alive" animation and realistic, "neutral" animation.

Thank you so much for taking a look at my work! I hope you've enjoyed this showcase!