Here is my final project for IMM 211 - Animation I.
My final project is a procedure 3D animation of a stage-4 Menger Sponge assembling itself. A Menger Sponge is a complex fractal (meaning it follows a pattern that could theoretically be repeated indefinitely). The animation begins with polygonal planes which assemble themselves into cubes which are used to form the four stages of the Menger Sponge.
Much of the research that went into this project dealt with learning the specific functions available in Maya. I am very familiar with the underlying structure of the Menger Sponge, so the modeling aspects of the project did not require much outside research. Since I created a procedural animation, the, it closely follows the project storyboard. The completed storyboard can be seen in the blog post below. A significant amount of time and research went into selecting a song to enhance the animation as well. In terms of timing, the beat of "Kiara" by Bonobo closely matches the animation of the Menger Sponge, so I decided to use it in the final project.
Production Log
Work on this project began several months ago. After the pre-production and research stages, I began the modeling work in Maya. I began by animating the assembly of planes to form basic cube (which was used as a building block for the rest of the Menger Sponge). From there, I animated the motion of the cubes to form the first stage of the Menger Sponge. I learned a lot about changing reference points, perspective views, and cameras during this stage. Afterwards, much of the work animation work was similar, just more complex. The second, third, and fourth stages of the Menger Sponge are built upon previous stages, so the animation got increasingly more complex. Once the fourth stage of the Menger Sponge was completed, I began working with cameras. I learned a lot about using all of the perspective views in conjunction to get the desired camera effects. After the camera's was key-framed, it was time to work on materials and texturing. I wanted to give the Menger Sponge a metallic appearance, so I used the EnvChrome preset in Maya and changed its properties and attributes until I created the material that I was looking for.
After the Menger Sponge was modeled/textured and the animation was key-framed, it was ready for rendering. The biggest problem that I encountered during this process occurred during rendering. Due to the reflective nature of the EnvChrome, rendering the animation was very memory-intensive. For this reason, I was unable to batch render the animation. Each of the 490 frames were keyed, renamed, and saved individually. After countless hours of rendering, I compiled all of the stills to create the final animation. I then added a soundtrack to the animation ("Kiara" - Bonobo). The final render was then uploaded to YouTube, and the completed animation can be seen above.
I have learned a lot about Maya (and 3D animation as a whole) throughout the course of the semester. I am not particularly interested in modeling characters or creating organic movements, which is why I chose to work on a procedural animation. It was interesting to learn about all of the NURBS creation and manipulation techniques although I did not incorporate them into this particular project. I am more comfortable and interested in working with polygons, so this project is composed entirely of polygonal models.
Prior to this class, I had no animation experience whatsoever. Throughout the semester, I created many NURBS models which I ended up using as a part of my final project for IMM 370. However, I am most proud of my work with polygonal models. Figuring out how to accurately model and animate such a complex polygonal model was a great learning experience. In all, I am very satisfied with the final result of my project. I hope to continue working on similar projects in the future.
