3D Art Homework #4 - Blueprints and Sequencer Rendering in UE5

 This week, we were required to take the abstract scene we created last week, animate it in UE5, and render out some video of it in action using a camera sequence.  So, that's what I did.  Here is the result of that: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp9X0vJuc8c

We were also required to take pictures of the various blueprints we created as we followed along with the instructional video, so here are those, too.

Rotating Movement:

Add Local Rotation:

Add starting Location, Rotation, and Scale using the Construction Script:

Random Values using Random Float in Range:

Material Array and Material Index:

Complex Hierarchies/Set World Transform:

Timeline with Lerp Node:

Common Art HW #3 - Use of Value and Contrast

 Here's what I created for the third homework for common art.  As you can see, I've taken the provided image of a little space-suited alien, and given him some dimensionality using the techniques demonstrated in the video.  Shortly into my experimenting with the techniques, I realized I had a bit of a hard time making my shading as smooth and realistic as the professor's.  I decided to lean into it a bit, going intentionally for a little rougher style, almost reminiscent of painting, or maybe charcoal drawing.  In any case, here's what the end result wound up as:

Here is the layer setup:

3D Art Homework #3 - Hierarchy, Unreal, and other things

Here are the various tasks I needed to complete for this homework.  First, here's an image of the crane, featuring the hierarchy in Maya.

Next, here's a video of the crane going through the animations I set it up to do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f33sSecu7oE

Now, here are some high resolution screenshots of the scene I created with my crane in unreal, featuring new materials on the crane and emissive materials in the background.

Finally, here's the abstract scene I created in Maya, including an image of the hierarchy I created.  There's also an image of the PureRef board I created, which helped provide inspiration for the abstract scene.

Common Art Homework #2 - Use of Silhouettes

 For homework #2, I decided to create a few thumbnail re-designs of the Jersey Devil.  Being a folkloric creature, the Jersey Devil is completely public domain.  I briefly considered doing Mothman or the Flatwoods Monster, but I felt like the Jersey Devil's explicitly supernatural nature let me do more fun things with it's anatomy.  My biggest inspiration was an old illustration of the Jersey Devil, posted below - a remarkably uncanny little thing that looks equally dangerous, pitiful, and wretched.  That was design ethos I took into account when I created the rest of the drawings, and it outlined some of the features that the designs would share - goat horns, horse-like head, hoofed legs, bat wings, "demon" tail.  I also drew some inspiration from things like medieval bestiary drawings, and Hieronymus Bosch paintings when I made some of the bizarre, unnatural designs of the creature.

3D Art Homework #2 - Basics of Topology

 Here are the various objects and images I created as I went through the demonstration videos:

Basics of Topology Part 1:

Basics of Topology Part 2:

Basics of Topology Part 3:

Tiny Robot Modifications:

Finally, we have the changes I made to the Tiny Robot model.  I decided to give the robot a comedic pair of glasses, since I figured I might as well do something no-one else was doing.