This is my puppet dialogue. I decided to just think of something random and go along with it. Such as taking a recording from a video and just make an animation out of it. I did not actually think it would take that many scenes and waited till the last day to actually do the project. Although it turned out better than I expected, I probably could have done better. Regardless, this animation was done using Flash because I wanted to have some experience with both After Effects and Flash. Both programs are basic and easy to understand but I seem to have more trouble with Flash. Though, they both have their pros and cons in animation. Nonetheless, I still prefer Flash over After Effects in animation after finishing this last project for my Computer Animation class. It has been a really fun semester and I really enjoyed all the animations I've created in this class as well as the knowledge I've gained from this class. Thank you to all my classmates and teacher who helped me this entire time.

Before I forget, this was the kinetic typography video that I actually did before the walk cycle. I wanted to use a song that I really liked in my childhood so I chose "Technologic" by Daft Punk. It was a fun experience using After Effects. Everything was actually really simple and basic, only time consuming. Setting the appropriate times was the most difficult thing about the assignment. Everything else was basic fundamental animation. By far, this is one of my favorite assignments and the project result that I am satisfied with. I ended up drawing my story board on paper rather than animating it because it just kind of came to me as I went.

So my animation for my walk cycle is pretty simple. Just link from Legend of Zelda walking. I decided to use some extra effects since I felt like it was pretty lame for a mere walk cycle. Still turned out pretty lame but it was worth the experience.

My original storyboard was actually quite different from what I planned to make it. Some animations led to other ideas and it ended up going from a fight scene with two stick figures to the attempt to pull out the Excalibur.

Finished version of a stickman's attempt to pull out the Excalibur from the stone. Yeahh...he failed.

Today was the day my group finished our first Stop Motion Animation Film! It took us quite a while to finish this movie, although I really enjoyed drawing the ugly circles and throwing everything away. Directing the position of the camera was also cool too and the break from the bird's eye view helped create three dimensional perception. Overall, I enjoyed the film and I am looking forward to the next video my group makes, unless the next one is a solo. Oh nooo!

My next project idea

This week I had to come up with at least two topic ideas that my group can use for a stop motion animation project. After much thinking, I have decided to have an inanimate object come to life and bring personality into the animation. I thought this might have some cliche attitude attached to it but nevertheless I wanted to do something like this for my project. I want to experience how it is to work in a team to formulate and create an epic movie! Although one idea wasn't enough to appease my group members. Therefore my second idea was to make a mortal combat scene were two people fight a death match using amazing cinematic effects and show appeal. This would attractive much of the adrenaline folks who love action. I used to do some martial arts so I would easily be able to teach my group some cool techniques to use. Even though these are only two ideas, I eventually came up with many more and presented them to my team. My team compromised and added some of their ideas into mines and we had an idea we were all happy with.

My own video made with Adobe AfterEffects

This was technically the first video I made myself. WOOOH! It is just a basic bouncing ball just bouncing peacefully until a baseball bat comes out of nowhere and hits the ball flying at an incredible speed. The comet was just there for props not much else lol. I mean c'mon who doesn't like comets.

My first video made on DragonFrame

This was done in the two hours of my first class in ART3616 with my awesome teammates. We decided to throw a snowman's head or you can call it, Olaf's head, down a slope. Although it is only about three seconds long, I am still pretty satisfied with the work. :D

My Introduction

Hello everybody that is reading my blog!

This is actually the first time I have attempted to make a blog about anything so it is kind of nerve wrecking but it's alright. I'm sure I can handle it.

First and foremost, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Steven Wang and I am attending University of South Florida as a second semester freshman. I am here to major in computer science because it has always been my passion to be able to code and create something just from typing. 

The main reason why I am making this blog is because it is an assignment from my ART3616 class (aka Computer Animations). From the very moment I heard about this class I was astonished because this is actually the first class I can take that is somewhat related to computers! I am quite excited to learn about animations and creating several different models on my computer to represent my knowledge on computer animations. Hopefully I will be able to learn a ton from this course!!