Monday and Tuesday's Things - Animation and Mechanical Drawing

Over the weekend and Monday I learned a lot about animating in Maya and setting up a proper skeleton for animation.  I had a lot of issues figuring out how to bind a skeleton the right way, Maya fools you into thinking you've done it right by behaving as if nothing's wrong... most of the time.  Then it just does something random that makes no sense until you start from scratch.  Thats what I did.  And I learned that I have to go in and literally click on every joint before I hit the "Smooth Bind" button.

From there, I was able to successfully animate the looping sequence for the Batflower as it sways in the light breeze.  The pedals animated nicely and I tried making them resemble fabric blowing around in the wind.  The tough part was the draping buds that come from the center.  I had alot of trouble making them flop around freely.  I honestly sort of half assed that part because this is all going to be seen in what will eventually be a 5 second clip.  I'll just slow the animation down it doesn't seem quite as strong of a wind. 

I've moved on to another part of this little scene I'm building.  I've decided to make it a showcase map just to drop in some props I've made and do a few matinee sequences which I'll record and put into my new demo reel.  So, my next piece I'm working on for that scene is an alien computer terminal.  We made a rough version of it for Progeny during my last semester at SCAD but it was rushed and I was not happy enough with it to put it right into my new reel.  I've decided to redo the concept for it and really flesh it out so I can just jump into creating it without having to do a lot of thinking about it.  This is good practice since it is how professionals work.  Think, plan, and design in 2d.  Then just build it 3d. 

I suck at technical drawings of mechanical objects.  I suck at drawing in perspective.  I thought I knew how.  But I now realize the reason I always do characters is because they're so much more interesting than a bunch of straight lines (which are a pain the butt to draw straight with a tablet).  Its so awkward to draw within the constraints of perspective! I'm not happy about it so, I've been practicing perspective and watching all kinds of lessons on how to get it right.  They all say the same things.  I got it in my head.  But when I get to it in Photoshop, it just feels so un natural for me.  I'm used to making organic curvy shapes and rough textures.  Anyways, this is what I spent the day on.

Work in Progress Mechanical Drawing

I'm using different line weights because it helps the drawing read better.  Here is a video I've learned a lot from for this type of work.