Project Profile: Journey to the Oceans of the World

(2001 - 2002)

Overview:

The goal of this project was to create a 360 degree looping animation intended as an installation that would border the cylindrical ceiling of an aquarium entrance way. The animation was rendered using six cameras that would all connect seamlessly, with the fish swimming from one camera view to the next. When projected, it would all appear as one image completely surrounding the viewer.

The "Fish Project" was the brainchild of my former 3D computer graphics professor, Russ Pensyl, and was created by a team of 10-15 people in a little under a year. The installation was featured at SIGGRAPH 2002.

More images and information can be found at Russ Pensyl's website:
http://www.pensyl.com/commerc/fish/installa.html


My involvement:

I modeled, textured, and did some of the animation for the hawksbill sea turtle.


Lessons learned:

As my first major team project, I covered a lot of new ground with this one. At the time I was still relatively new to Maya, modeling, and animation in general. The sea turtle was the first character I had created with the intention of going for a realistic, lifelike design. This project is also where I first got experience texturing and bump mapping a NURBS model. I think it was also my first real attempt at animation in Maya. I spent a lot of time watching nature documentaries to study how turtles swim. I also had to learn to animate along a path. The animation involved the turtle swimming through all six camera views over the course of two minutes and ending exactly where it began so that the animation could loop properly.

Aside from technical aspects, this was also my first time working in a structured team environment and facing strict deadlines. Of course, this would soon become the norm...


Software used:

Maya 3.0
Photoshop 6.0

Oops.

Okay, so apparently, the whole posting-artwork-on-a regular-basis thing didn't quite work out. Now, I've been busy, no doubt about that... Only problem is that most of the stuff I'm currently working on is project-related and isn't quite ready for the public eye.

So in the meantime, I think I want to sum up some of my previous projects: what they were, what I did, what I learned from them. I'd like to someday add this as a section of my website.

The mission

I've created this blog in order to have a public outlet for my work separate from my website. My intention is to post mainly sketches and works in progress, and feedback and critiques are more than welcome. I may sneak in the occassional rant or commentary, as well, either relating to art or certain aspects of the entertainment industry.

At the moment, my audience is mostly just going to be myself, though anyone out there who might be reading this is more than welcome to peek in over my shoulder. I really just want to encourage myself to draw (and model) more and really just put more critical thought into my work. So often my sketches end up in random piles of papers around my room, or I'm left with half-finished works abandoned in forgotten corners of my hard drive, and I'd like to have a more organized record of my little sketches and works in progress, whether or not they ever actually take on a final form.

So, for anyone who might happen to be reading this, welcome. And Karen, get to work. :)