Final Project: Closing Time, 5/13
After the coffee's been drunk, the cash counted, the counters wiped, the dishes done, the doors locked, what happens? This is an animation about an adventurous espresso cup who decides to give itself a steamy shot of espresso after hours...
Modeling and Texturing:
Most of the models and textures in the scene I found on the Internet (here and here). The exception was the espresso cup, which I managed to model myself.
Animation and Effects:
I animated the movement of the espresso cup character by hand to get fine control on its bounciness (see the Squash and Stretch?). The animation should end with the cup pouring itself a steamy shot of espresso (animated with nParticles), but the effect is very weak. I ran out of time here because of rendering issues.
Rendering and Lighting:
Rendering, as I've come to expect at this point, was a headache. To speed up the process, I decided to run the rendering remotely on the CS Lab machines, then stitch everything together on my own machine. This required learning the Maya command line interface, and due to file path issues, editing the Maya ASCII files for my scene. Due to software limitations, it also meant I had to use the Maya Software renderer and so had to spend lots of time tweaking the lighting to get shadows. I really missed Arnold area lights!
Editing:
All the editing was done in OpenShot. The music is a bossa nova tune called "O Morro Nao Tem Vez", by Stan Getz. I found it here.
Lights and Shadows!
Anticipation! Squash and Stretch!
Steamy Particles!
Storyboard:
