Introduction In this blog post, I will be analyzing how Professor Heagney models a 3D human leg compared to how another YT video models a 3D human leg. Video This is the video I chose to compare Heagney's work to. I'm so sorry that it's so freaking big on the screen! I have no idea how to fix it! :(
Analysis The video started off doing something similar to Heagney, as they first created a cylinder with 6 edges. Instead of deleting the top and the bottom of the cylinder itself, they deleted half the edges on the top and bottom.
I was surprised to see that their next course of action was creating swift loops. They started with no height segments at the beginning, and then created swift loops where they saw fit to do so. I found this super interesting because that was one of the last steps that Professor Heagney did in his video, yet this was one of the first steps that this person did.
Their next courses of action were similar to what Heagney did; they made sure the segments weren't straight up&down, and adjusted the cylinder to be as close as the size of the leg reference frame as possible. I did notice that when they did scale the cylinder to size, they didn't follow the little triangle thing that Heagney talked about in his video.
Instead of modeling one singular leg and making sure it fits both the side and front view of the model, the person modeled 2 separate legs--one that follows the front view and one that follows the back.
I don't have 3DS Max at home, so I tried to break down my chair into pieces and show the steps I would take to model it. Here, I show that I would start with a simple box and use bend modifiers to bend the chair to the lounge shape I want. This would be the main shape of the chair. Next, I'd create a small cylinder underneath the main chair shape, and use the bevel & extrude tools to change the shape of it (and creating many edge + swift loops). For the final part of the base, I would create a much shorter and wider cylinder, and create a lot of swift loops and bevel the shape so it looks like the image above. I'd also use turbosmooth to make sure the base looks as even as possible.
Well, here we are at the end of the road. I have finally made it to the end of the semester. In August, I barely knew how to properly export an audio file. From audio files to video to animations and more, I’ve learned so much this semester than I ever thought I would.
Goal
In my last blog post, I added a single little animation to my video. It was definitely one of the easier assignments of this year. However, for this assignment, I added a whole bunch to my still image video. Like, it’s a lot. I think I’ve pulled 3 all nighters in a row, and I’m barely awake, running solely on venti peppermint mochas (that’s where all my Magic Meals have gone).
My main focus was to add more text in my video to provide accessability to the hearing-impaired. I made sure that each person in my story was introduced visually, and included important quotes from the interviews. On top of that, I took many of my own pictures to add more of a personal feel to my video.
I also edited my original audio story to fix some prior mistakes that I made. I edited the audio levels so they rested at an average of -12 dB instead of -20 dB, cut out stutters and unneeded audio, and fixed poor audio quality. I also shortened my podcast so it was exactly 2 minutes in length, instead of 2 minutes and 12 seconds.
Now for the moment I’ve been waiting for ALL semester, I can present my final assignment!
Thank you !! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
Thank you so much for the awesome semester, Professor Heagney! On top of learning so many technical skills that I can use in future classes and projects, I created something really cool that I be super proud of. My friend was also super psyched that I used his original beat in my project (shameless plug, go check out his music!).
I look forward to future GAM classes with you! Have a wonderful winter break!
In this blog post, I used animation to enhance my previous audio (video?) story from 2 weeks ago. I used Adobe Premiere to edit my project.
Audio Story
In my previous blog post, I once again shared my audio story, but this time with a visual supplement!The video can be found below.
This week, the first animation I added was a purple rectangle block, along with text that reads, “Why is rap such an important genre of music?” as I say it in the voice over. This signals to the listener / viewer that what I am saying is important and that they should pay attention to that line. I chose the purple rectangle block because it stood out on the red background in the picture. I set the font to a fancy cursive that wasn’t too difficult to read, and the rectangle to 100% opacity because I felt that it looked too muted if it was any lower. I added key frames to both the text and the rectangle block so they both moved up the screen at the same time and rate. I did this by positioning the Timeline playhead at the start of the clip, and clicking and dragging the animation so it would be off the screen at an earlier time in the video (Jago, Aug 18).
I did the same thing a few other times in the video, as I am listening to random POS’s responses.
Here is the final result:
Reflection
Overall, I had a surprisingly much easier time on this assignment than the last one. I think it was partly because last week I was still getting to be familiar with the software, and this week I am infinitely more comfortable using it, as I now know my way around it. The supplemental reading helped as well, especially Animate a layered title fly-in (Jago, Aug 18) which helped me figure out how to move my animation blocks and texts.
Introduction In this blog post, I (once again) build upon my audio story by adding supplemental image stills to start to bring my audio story to life. I did this by importing my audio story to Adobe Premiere, and placed images on Premiere’s timeline. POS Project In my latest blog post, I finally shared the 2-minute audio story that I had been working on throughout the semester. The result can be found below.
The Process At first, the software was very overwhelming and intimidating, since I had never worked with something like Premiere before. However, once watched the weekly videos and started playing around with the software, it started to become a lot more clear. It was a lot more tedious than I thought it would be, since I had to make the images line up exactly with what was going on in the actual video, but I figured out how to layer things together and add transitions (Adobe “Build a sequence”) to the video. I also had to fill and increase the size of each photo that I added. I added transitions in between every photo so the video looked smoother, which made a huge difference in the quality of my video. The result of my work can be found below:
What I Learned The process of learning Adobe Premiere was harder than learning Audition, Photoshop, and InDesign. Despite this, however, I had a lot of fun putting my video together and I want to continue to learn more. The Creative Captioning video was interesting, and I can't wait to incorporate more elements into my project like the ones they talked about, such as using text and Pictograms. I want to continue to find better images to use for my video story, and continue to mess around with the transitions in Premiere.
My Official Audio Story
Welcome back to my blog! Today, I will be sharing my audio story that I've been working on throughout the semester. As a refresher, the question I am looking to answer is, "Why is rap one of the most popular genres of music today?"
In my previous blog posts, I interviewed random POS as well as brainstormed potential experts I could interview and some songs I would use for intro, background, transition and outro music. I also made my very own Foley sound effect of a record scratch.
My music choices for my audio story turned out a bit different than I had originally planned, but I felt like I liked my final decision better than I did previously. My transition music turned into my intro music, my background music became my outro music, and my wonderful friend allowed me to use one of hisoriginal beats as transition / background music. (shameless plug)
Introduction In this blog post, I will build upon my audio story project by brainstorming experts I can interview, finding sample royalty-free music to use, and even creating my own Foley sound effect!
POS Project As a quick refresher, my audio story topic was, “Why do you think rap music is one of the most popular genres of music today?” Two weeks ago, I recorded three people’s responses to this question, edited them together, and posted it on SoundCloud.
The resulting audio story can be found below.
Experts on... Rap?
To better understand why the popularity of rap today, I would need to interview people who are experts in music. Unfortunately, I’m not friends with any famous rappers, so they weren’t an option for me. I could also interview people who work in the music industry, such as somebody who works at a record label or company. Other people that I could consider experts on rap or music would include music majors, or, even better, music professors here on campus.
Background Music For my background music, I wanted something that had a rap-style beat but still very chill and would not distract the listener from what was being said. I would start this music at 0:23.
Transition Music My main goal for transition music was to find something that still had hip-hop/rap elements to it, but didn’t distract or lose the listener in the midst of the transition. I was very surprised yet intrigued when I found this beat because it reminded me of lo-fi style music while also having “rap” beat feel to it, which are two very different genres of music. I would start this music at 0:10 because that is when the drum kits start.
Intro Music For my intro music, I wanted to immediately start off with a solid beat that sounds a lot like what would be behind a rap track. This would immediately give the listener a glimpse of what I would be talking about in the rest of the audio story. I would start the audio story by starting at 0:10 of this track.
Outro Music I wanted my outro music to keep a similar style beat as my intro music, but be less intense than the intro so the listener knows that the audio story is reaching its end. A good way to do this would be to start the music at 1:32 and have it fade out at the end of the audio story.
Foley Sound Effect Foley is the reproduction of everyday sound effects that are added to films, videos, and other media in post-production to enhance audio quality. I created my own Foley sound effect of a record scratch by recording myself aggressively running a dry erase marker against a whiteboard, which didn't quite give me the sound I wanted. I immediately entered panic mode because I had absolutely no idea how I was supposed to make it sound like the real thing.
After what felt like hours of thinking, I had the idea to use FL Studios’ “Fruity Scratcher” tool to edit the audio into sounding actually somewhat like a record scratch. This sound effect relates to my audio story because the vinyl records play music, and the record scratch would essentially "stop" the music.
