Just to detail my ability to model and animate, I’m posting this quick video I made in my junior year of a 20 second 3D animation. My main tool is Autodesk Maya, but I usually add any post-production in AfterEffects. This animation was for my Animation III class, and I used a video of my roommate smoking a cigarette as my reference for animating.
Hit the jump for a few character renders, the final animation, and the reference video.
I modelled, and rigged the character myself, placing a particular emphasis on using as few polygons as possible, and still achieving the best edge-flow and deformation as possible.
I was pleased with how fluently the finger and arm movements ended up being, but rigging and painting weights on the low poly model was extremely difficult. This led to me paying a lot more attention to edge flow in future projects, especially in my senior thesis.
I can now say that I am comfortable working with low and high poly models, but my favorite things to model are non-organic objects such as machinery, architecture, and household items.
I got the idea for the project when I was talking to my roommate about the assignment, and saw him fumbling to get a cigarette out of the pack. I decided that doing a similar thing with my character would be a good opportunity to practice with parenting an object to different fingers as he shifted it from one hand to the other. I shot the reference video in the same sitting, and got to work on the animation immediately.
Patrick B Art 