Primitive: The First and Only Episode

Hello Loyal Viewers! I won't lie to you, this project didn't turn out the way I intended it. I originally planned for it to be a full length animation told in four separate episodes, each representing a different point in history. The goal of the project was to be somewhere between a mockumentary and a satire, featuring penguin-like creatures instead of humans (mainly because 2D humans aren't exactly easy to animate).

Unfortunately, I bit off a bit more than I could chew. I originally planned to finish all four episodes over the course of the year, and even had the characters rigged and ready for future episodes. However, after I got started, progress was much slower than anticipated. After finishing the first few scenes, I decided it was simply best to finish up the Stone Age at semester rather than rush the entire project and wind up with a half finished mess of varied penguin bits. This unfortunately means the project will likely never be realized in it entirety, but at least it has a single episode of decent quality.

To create this single episode, I drew primarily on what I learned from last year, and then slowly learned new techniques as I continued on the project. Scenes like the first Red scene took me a long time to finish, at is involved a lot of moving parts, as well as a rather uncooperative cow creature. Scenes like this forced me to improvise, as well as create multiple assets that I could increase and decrease opacity on to make transitions seem relatively seamless.

I learned a rather obvious lesson over the course of this project: don't let your eyes be bigger than your stomach. Although metaphorical in this particular example, the same rule applies. I went into this project believing I could get this all done, but quickly discovered my own lack of full planning. As a result, I was forced to compromise by cutting roughly 3/4 of my original project.

Despite these facts, I'm still quite proud of my work. The sound work proved much better than anticipated, lining up unexpectedly with a number of events. I ended up using the Jak and Daxter soundtrack, as well as Morning Mood, which took much longer than originally anticipated to find. Other scenes turned out remarkably well, and really stood out once sound was added.

All in all, Primitive was an interesting experiment, and I'm happy I invested as much as I did. The animation has its flaws, but it still turned out an enjoyable experience. Enjoy Loyal Viewers, and thanks for your patience.

Animation Article Review

A recent study by psychology today, 130 people were shown the same animation, and each had a different response as to what they thought it meant. The blog details 10 different interpretations of the video's possible meaning.

The author uses the attempted explanations to help make her case. Each interpretation comes with the age and occupation of the person who said it, and I was quite suprised when a few matched my interpretation. The entire article goes to show not only that different people have different opinions, but that those opinions change in interesting ways as we age. All in all, I really appreciate this part of the animation, and it's certainly something I wish to emulate with my own work.

Hello Loyal Viewers! This was our first real project in animation class this year. Our assignment was to produce a 3D model of a fish in Maya, before texturing and coloring it. We also ended up animating it, but due to the temperamental nature of Maya's animation rendering, I didn't post the video here. I decided instead to just post a photo of the fish model, creepy hollow eyes and all. My next project won't be done for a while, but I'll have a preview out soon.

Review of the Short Film 9

Greetings Loyal Viewers! In honor of the new school year, I'm posting a review of my favorite short film of all time (Ironically enough, it also inspired my favorite animated movie of all time: 9). I credit this film as being the inspiration for much of my work from last year, including my Character Animation. You can find the short itself on this website.

The project itself was an animation final created by college student Shane Acker. There are many examples of advanced animation techniques, most notably, when 5 unfolds his spear, or when 9 and 5 pull the light bulb from the old lamp. Each of these examples looks amazing and flows like the animation of a professional.

9 tells the story of a group of rag doll creatures working to stop a machine that is hunting them down and stealing their souls. The premise seems strange at first, but you leave feeling emotionally invested in the story and characters. I feel like the biggest thing I can take away from this animation is the aesthetic and sense of mystery that the animation creates. The creator did a really good job of keeping tension high the entire time, leaving you constantly wondering what will happen next. However, the sense of wonder extends a little too far, leaving you with too many unanswered questions.

In the end, I believe 9 is a great short film, and an even better full length movie. Shane did many things well but left some to be desired. 9 still ranks as one of my favorite films of all time and Shane, wherever you are, good job.

Greetings Loyal Viewers! I have returned! It's been a great summer, but now I'm back at school and rocking animation. I'm excited to be bringing you some new and exciting projects (including a fish). This is my Junior year of high school at Olathe Northwest, and I'm taking a number of AP classes this year, as well as advanced debate. Expect to see my first new project coming soon.

Hello loyal viewers! Here it is, my final blog post of the school year (for Web Design). I've updated my Web Index Page to make even more epic than it already was. I added a photo, some new links, and my email.

My favorite project this year was probably the WorldBuilding site, which you can find on my Web Index. I loved how much I was able to put into the project. I was able to show my own interests, as well as what I had done in the hobby.

This summer is going to be quite enjoyable. I'm going out of town with my Dad on a cross country road trip, and we'll probably head to the beach with my Mom. I'll also probably get a job this summer as well.

Next year, I'm going into Animation, so expect plenty of new projects next year. I chose Animation primarily because I've been an animator for most of my life. I've always animated stuff, from LEGOs to simple stick figures, so I figure a class is a good way to hone my skills.

Have a great summer everyone!

Animation Fighting Game Final

Hello loyal viewers! The end of the school year has come at last. As a result, this is my last project until next Fall. Our final Animation Project tasked us with utilizing all that we have learned about special effects over the last few weeks.
We decided on making a fighting game (In real life). Our first step was planning everything out. We were forced to make a number of cuts in order to get this done in the time allotted. Our next step was filming, which I didn't do as much in. I was busy working on the 3D Models of Adam's dolphin thing and Cade's tennis ball.
I mainly learned how to collaborate with a larger group. It was an interesting, enlightening, and an often annoying experience, but I was delighted to work with some friends. I also learned how to use green screen.
Next time (And there will be a next time) I'm going to take the field. We also won't dress anyone in teal. That was a mistake, but at that point, we just called him the ghost of 1972.
All in all, this was an awesome project, and I can't wait to come back next year for Animation (Not for Math though, that's miserable no matter what you do). I made some friends, learned a ton, and enjoyed every second. See you next year!

These are the green screen shots for our film. Looking back, they look ridiculous compared to the final shots. There was much objection (From me) about my character select shot being in Comic Sans, but everyone insisted it was funny and original.

This was my green screen shot prior to editing. (bound 

to be appearing next year... Stay tuned...)

Hello Loyal Viewers! We have had some pretty interesting projects in Animation recently. We have delved into the realm of special effects, and one of our first projects was to digitally add an explosion into a clip we film in our school using After Effects. We'd already done some similar work on previous projects, so this project much was easier to animate. The best part of this project was certainly are day of filming. During it, I ended up jumping into the hallway a total of five times onto hard tile. However, even our best clip had Adam (The guy in the blue jacket) falling a good second or so after myself. This was the original clip.

This is the same clip after an explosion, debris, a glow, and fire were added. There was an intense debate on whether or not to set me on fire; but in the end, we decided against it... Enjoy!

Hello loyal viewers! For persevering so long in Web Design, our teacher awarded us all our own website off the e-Comm server. On it, I will usually post the full websites from past projects so that you, the loyal viewer, can finally view my full web design projects. Enjoy! Web Domain Link

Hello loyal viewers! Responsive Web Design is an approach to web design aimed at creating an optimal viewing experience. Things like a page adjusting to fit a phone size when looking it up on your phone. This approach has grown in recent years due to the exponential increase in smartphones and tablets, making it necessary to have responsive web design to fit the smaller screens. This is done using a media query, a CSS rule that adjusts the site given the screen size. Breakpoints are also used. These breakpoints are a means of acquiring knowledge about a program during execution.
I did a search for best responsive websites, the one I found was accroachcode.com. It was drastically different given certain width while still maintaining a charming look.

This is a screenshot of the website at desktop view. At the top it has a menu, banner, and a link to a project list. Below that is the main home page graphic. Below that is two text columns detailing the site's information.

Not much is different down on tablet size except the complete exclusion of the header area. The menu, banner, etc. have all vanished. All that remains of the header is the logo.

The mobile phone size is drastically different. The header has now completely disappeared, and the main home image has moved below the main text. The area below that is now down to only one column.

Hello loyal viewers! I have a question for you all. When you access the internet and visit a website, do you use a desktop or smartphone? The number of mobile users has been increasing almost exponentially over the past several years. In 2014, the number of mobile users overtook the number of desktop users. For my school's website alone, mobile viewings have more than doubled over the past two years. Desktop viewings of the school website have fallen by over 30% over those past two years. The interesting thing comes from the times that each spends on the school site. According to this year's statistics, desktop viewers spent an average of two minutes and nineteen seconds on the site, with a 41.53% Bounce Rate (Possibility of viewing only one page before exiting site). Mobile viewers, on the other hand, spent an average of one minute and twenty eight seconds on the site with a 56.68% Bounce Rate. This information points to the fact that mobile users most likely go to a site to retrieve only a little information, while desktop viewers actually take more time to view the site.


Sources: http://www.cnbc.com
http://www.smartinsights.com
http://www.onwravens.net

Hello loyal viewers! I've been very busy over the past week working on this blog. Among the new features and edits are the favicon, view counter, translation software, labels ,font, and new style overall. Each of these new additions is explained more in depth below.

 The first new addition is the creation of a new favicon for the search bar. This allows the blog to appear more professional, as well as provide a slight idea of the site's content.

I also made some big additions to the sidebar. First, I added a translate button for all those nonexistent international viewers. I then added a view counter, so all of my loyal viewers can see how many other loyal viewers have checked out the blog. A description of the blog was added below that. Finally, I added some labels to several posts, so that my projects can be sorted through, and viewed with relative ease.

I made some serious changes to the blog's look overall, most notably, a change in the background color from white to blue. I also changed the font color to better fit with the background. I added a new Quotation of Power (They change every once in a while, so stay tuned for occasional Josh knowledge). And finally, I added a new banner image to match the favicon. I hope you all enjoy the new additions and I keep you coming back.

Maya Projects

Hello loyal viewers! Lately in Animation, we have been working a lot in Maya, a 3D animation software. Over the past few weeks, I have learned many different tools to create and animate in Maya.
Our first project was something our teacher called the Polything. With it, our job was primarily to learn the basics of Maya Rendering: lights. We had to be sure to position the lights correctly, as well as make sure the shadows lined up.

The next lesson we learned was about building a detailed object from scratch. During the project, we primarily used the cut face tool, extrude face tool, and the bevel tool; each used mainly to extend the faces of one particular object, or edit them prior to extruding.

Our next lesson had us sculpting an ice cream parlor. We used bump mapping to give the ice cream a bumpy texture, and used edit material tools to give the other objects a shiny appearance. We later built it all into one looping video.

Our next project was pretty cool. We first had to create and texture three spheres so that they appeared as three different pieces of sporting equipment: a baseball, golf ball, and a bowling ball. After dropping the real thing on the floor of our flex theatre, we now had the times for when each ball needed to hit the ground, as well as reach its peak height. Using keyframes, we painstakingly animated the bouncing spheres.

We then began using NURBS, which act more like a rounded polygon. We used an interesting new tool which involved tracing an outline before rotating into a full NURB. From there, all it took was a change in transparency to make it look like glass. After the glass I also created a bowl with lid.

The final project was quite similar, and involved carefully placing outlines upward, before connecting them using a technique called lofting. I used this new tool to create a salt shaker, and fill it with salt. In the end, I lit the scene, added some shadows, and it was finished.