Animation Training!

Recently, Shanda and I were told about an upcoming animation project that has an emphasis on character animation, my main speciality! I haven’t been able to get a lot done on this project, but I made a practice rig in Adobe Illustrator to get prepared. It’s pretty simple, but here’s how it looks.

Next, I’ll be working on a female rig with more characteristics such as facial expressions and maybe accessories.

New Logo Design

I was assigned to make a new CSMS logo for their class Distributed Systems.

This was a bit tricky to figure out since there weren’t too many references provided to base a logo off of so I made a few draft designs.

They emphasized distribution amongst computers but we decided that two computers made the logo feel too busy. My supervisor provided me with some better icon references and I started to go off of those.

This project is still in the works, but these new designs worked well with the clients so now we can decide and start animating.

10/1 – 10/18

Fall Postcard (Brainstorming)

Initial brainstorming: We wanted to offer the team a first-person and third-person perspective option for the postcard. We took last year’s Alcalde ad and put it on the postcard, as well as stock images of people studying/on a laptop in various locations to illustrate how these classes can be taken *ANYWHERE*

Feedback: The team wanted to continue exploring both options. They liked how the diagonal line draws attention to the $500 sticker, but they also liked how the orange’s curved movement implies a wav– every summer. However, while the image had beautiful colors, the team wasn’t sure how to feel about the trendy clothing (it seemed fashion-ad-like) and how unrealistic it was to bring a laptop on the beach. They wanted something a little more realistic– maybe a student traveling in the city (but not Austin).

The team did appreciate all of the options still feeling very UT in their appearance (burnt orange and institutional).

first drafts:

drafts after feedback and meetings:

• The font was tweaked to be more legible
• gradient was utilized in the third person pov’s because it opened up more space for imagery
• a sticky note holding the QR code to our website
• still finding ways to incorporate the ” select $500 courses” into the scene
• there was a suggestion to see if we could put an image of UT in the laptop, so an image of t he tower can be faintly seen. This prompted a change in the background since the blue skies in the background and foreground were blending together.
  • shifted to more greenery in the background

• Changes (first person POV):
  • Cleaned up the font for legibility
  • Moved all the main text to the laptop screen (central)
  • Option with and without a $500 sticker ($500 is also mentioned on the back of the postcard)
  • QR code on a sticky note
  • Moved up laptop to reduce negative space

October

After being out for the first week of October due to being sick, I was left with one less week to work on the Early Voting animations and the rest of the animations. While I was able to get the Early Voting animations in on time, I feel the animations could be better if I had more time for a couple more rounds of feedback.

It was then time to move on to the last two animations: “Tomorrow is Election Day” and “Today is Election Day.” I was able to complete these rather quickly because I was able to use assets and animations from the previous animations. A few adjustments later- I officially completed all of the Voting PSA animations!

Here are the final icons used (Credits to De’sha for the vote early icon!):

And here are the final two animations:

Overall, I felt like this project allowed me to really get comfortable in After Effects! I had fun experimenting with different animations and learning the best workflow for me.

My October!

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working on web development projects for the UT Lifespan Lab and our Alumni network site.

UT Lifespan Lab

I was tasked with redesigning the website shown down below, to be more user-friendly and visual dynamic while keeping a lot of the same elements (like the header).

I was coming back to WordPress after a very long time, so there was an initial learning curve, but I was able to come up with the layout below after some trial and error:

The header was the most difficult to work on– being able to preserve the original design while somehow finding a way to avoid a clash with the newer layout was a challenge.

I went through multiple iterations before deciding that a gradient could help preserve what the client still wanted to showcase while allowing for a softer approach.

This was the final header:

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Other Pages

About Page

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People Page

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Directions Page

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STA Alumni Network Site

The most recent project I’m currently working on is the new STA Alumni Network site. The site houses resources for alumni, chances to connect, and recent news regarding STA alumni. SInce this project started very recently, my current progress is limited to the Home page.

I was tasked with adding the following elements to the layout:

1. Header
2. Hero Section
3. Highlight/Mission Section
4. Carousel Section
5. Featured Alumni Section
6. Check Us Out/Latest News

Next Steps

• About
• Alumni Showcase
• Events
• Job Board
• Register as an Alum/Log In

Photoshop Training – Photo Sourcing and Color Grading

In-between the projects I’ve been working on so far this semester, I had time to do a quick training in Photoshop to enhance my understanding of color and blending modes in Photoshop.

Activity 1

For this first activity I was told to choose a scene from a movie that had an interesting color palette. I chose this screenshot from Into the Spiderverse:

Next, I used Image > Mode > Indexed Color to choose reduce the image down to its 8 most prominent colors. Then, Image > Mode > Color Table… > Save and Import Swatches to turn these colors into a usable color palette.

I then found a random stock photo (left) to apply the color scheme to (right). To do this, I added a gradient map to the image using the colors from above. I then played around with blending modes and opacity until the colors weren’t too overpowering.

Activity 2

For this next technique, you find a source image that you want to pull colors from to apply to another photo. I chose this as my color source image:

And this as the photo I wanted to edit / Then, using Image > Adjustment > Match color and playing around with color luminance, intensity, and fade, I was left with this:

Notes: Recently, I’ve been interested in how color and light works, so I figured this training would be insightful. I think it’s interesting how much color affects the mood of a picture. Applying the bright color scheme from the Spiderverse screenshot gave the stock portrait more intensity and volume. In the second exercise, the edited photo feels colder than the original. It looks like the first photo was taken in the spring and the second in the winter.