We started out with the idea to create an animation where someone gets abducted. We started out with raw footage of Josh and the green screen. Markus, Josh, Aaron and Matt were in charge of the video, I didn't take part with the filming. We had to use two different kinds of shots because we could not figure out how to cut the video in half with After Effects. I think the green screen lighting could have been slightly brighter so there wouldn't be any shadows. Other than that the filming went well.
While the guys were filming Josh against the green screen, I was upstairs working on modeling a Saucer. It took me a bit to review Maya but it turned out better than I expected. I had to model it first (which was pretty easy) and then I textured it. Then I had the idea to give it some pazazz and add lights. I knew what I wanted to do with the lights (which was make them blink at different times) but it was a little frusterating when trying to make them blink on and off at the same time. I finally got fed up with it and decided to get help, turns out it was a lot easier to make them blink at different times than I thought it was. Lastly, I animated it. I made it spin but then it was easing in and out so I checked the graph editor and the keys weren't there. I searched for a while but then ended up getting help to try and find the keys. But eventually I got it done and it turned out really nice in my opinion.
Choosing the type of background we were gonna use was pretty simple. For the Earth image we just had to choose an image that would kinda match the lighting on Josh's face and the lighting for the saucer animation. Choosing a background for space was probably the easiest choice to make out of the 3 images. Lastly, the other planet image was probably the hardest because we really wanted to make the lighting match with Josh's face, and it did. I thought the background color and shades matched the color of the lighting on Josh. Matt was the one that picked out most of the images and sound effects for the animation.
This was the final product of all of the "things" combined. Markus was the one that pretty much put it all together. I personally think that the finished product turned out better than I thought it would. He did the normal routine of key lighting and adding all the different layers to the animation. Overall, I actually really liked the idea of having a group project as our final in animation. We only had a week or two to put this together but having a group project made it easier to put together because we could work on different parts of the animation and then put them together in the end. I think this project was super cool and super fun and I enjoyed it in the end. This project turned out way better than expected.
