Portfolio Reflection

Castle Project

This is my castle project that I made in maya. While making this project, I learned about how to use the extrude tool so we could make the pillars on the top of the castle. I picked this project because i thought i did a good job of making it and adding nice textures to the materials. One of my strengths on this project was being able to make the structure of the caste. One of my weaknesses was I had a lot of black in my images. Next time i should make a background or extend the grass. Overall though I thought I was very successful in making this project.

Polything

This is the poly thing project, made in maya. In this project I learned how to use the difference tool to take away parts of the same and how to use lighting to shade. One of my strengths in making this was the lighting, I used a fill light, back light, and key light. One of my weaknesses was the textures I used are very plain and I didn't go above and beyond to find better looking colors for my shape or ground. I could improve this by taking my time and thinking through how it looks. This project was very helpful to me because i use the difference tool and lighting all the time in animation.

Hammer and Nail

In this project we were asked to make a hammer and a nail to go with it. When making it we learned how to move vertices and edges to make a nice curve for the back of the hammer. I picked this project because I thought it was very fun to make and I really like my nail. My strength on this project was making a really good shape for the hammer which looks very real. My weakness was the lighting because it is very darkened hard to see in my rendered images. This project was very informative for me because moving vertices has helped me on my most recent project. 

Pen

My most recent project was this nail. I learned a lot in this project because i had to make it on my own and figure things out for my self. One tool that was very useful was the soft serve tool. My strengths for this project was making the structure of the pen and the shadows. My weakness was I could have made the clip of the pen have a cleaner curve. I could change this by adding more vertices and making sure they have a clean and consistent movement. I am very proud of this project and myself for using the things i have learned and putting them together.

Multiplane Project

This is my multilane project that I put together in after effects. Wen making this i learned how to make a multi plane and put different layers infant of each other. My strengths were i used good images for my animals and made a nice volcano. My weakness as the making things look bigger or smaller for the different layers. Next time i would focus on resizing thing to make it look more realistic. Overall i thought i could have done better but i did a fine job in the time frame.

Alex Kuehn Story Project

The Process:

My story animation was meant to be a chase scene animation that included clowns since they were a big thing when I started. When making this project I started by doing a story plan and story board. Then I made the forest, graveyard, and house backgrounds. After that I had to make my characters. Once I had them done i put everything into after effects. When I got everything in after effects I started to add the walk cycles for both of my characters and setting up the timing. Then I rendered it out and turned it in. 

What I Learned:

While making this project I learned more about how to make a good story and the parts of a story. I also learned how to make better multiplanes and how to use the puppet pen tool. How to put different compositions from after effects into one comp. to make a story.

Final Thoughts:

Something I would change if i could do it again is make the walk cycles cleaner and make sure their feet aren't sliding. Something that I thought I did well on was making the backgrounds. I thought my backgrounds were clear and were good for the video. One experience I will use from this project on other projects is being put on a deadline and being expected to have a good clean project finished by the due date.

ravens and crows

DreamWeaver

This project was the first one that we did in dream weaver. It made the project a lot easier because we could see what the website looked like and we could change things in design view. I like it a lot more than having to write all the code like we did in textmate. We learned how to make different divs to separate all of the parts of the website. 

Web Fonts and Colors

The Project:

In these projects we were asked to display the core fonts and show the rainbow of colors. On the fonts website we showed the font in multiple sentences and in 1-9 for each font. On the color website we had to make the traditional rainbow, a lighter rainbow, and black-white.

What I Learned:

In these 2 projects I have learned a lot more about coding. One thing I learned were the 8 core fonts for websites. Another one is that the code for colors can go 1-9 and a-f. We also learned about the <div> and what you use them for. In the color website i learned how to round the corners as well.

Textmate:

I think i did well in making the websites in text mate. I feel like i had to rush through the fonts one but my colors website came out really good. It probably would have been much easier to make the websites in dreamweaver. But overall I think it was a good experience to write all of the code for a website instead of doing it visually.

The Internet: Then vs. Now

 Amazon

Amazon has changed a lot over the years. Starting as a website that sold only books to now one of the most known shopping websites. The usability has definitely changed. The homepage now is a lot cleaner and simpler to use instead of the huge clutter it had. Plus they now offer a lot more the they did previously. One big change 

is that they don't have the sidebar with the clutter of ads like it did before.

 Web Code

Both of these pages have a lot of code for them but the newer website definitely has more code than the older one. The new code is a lot more neat and spaced out. The old one is just in one big clutter. But most of the code looks pretty similar to the other.

CNN

The CNN website has dramatically changed since the early 2000's. It has found a new modern logo. Also they have changed to a darker color scheme with the black instead of the blue colors. The homepage now has a more noticeable main story or breaking news with the side topics on the side. The old website has multiple ads on it and a lot of links on their main page. The newer website is very clean and structured so it is very easy to use.

Web Code 

The code between these websites is extremely different. There is an amazing amount of code for the newer website in comparison to the older one. On the newer websites code there is minimal empty space. One big difference is the amount of links that are in the new one. Almost the entire thing is filled with links.

ESPN

The ESPN website has become a lot easier to use since 2005. They have a list at the top which shows all of the scores. Also it has menus that let you find choose a certain sports team if your looking for your home team. It has actually gotten more ads now than it used too unlike the other websites. They both have the same color scheme with the black red and white. But they have made the ESPN logo look much better than before.

 Web Code

Just like the CNN website the newer code is so much bigger than the older one. The newer code has a lot more code for images compared to the older one. Also the newer code has <meta/> on almost every line of code.

Wayback Machine

The wayback machine is a website that archives websites The purpose of the wayback machine is to record the history of the internet and the websites on it. But they don't just archive websites they also archive music, podcasts, software, images, videos, and texts. One thing I found interesting was that in their images they have everything from like movie posters to pictures of art in museums and historical things. 

Group Project

Our team was named the chargers and our product is the Pocket Charger. Our team did good at dividing up the work and making everyone do their part. We struggled with a lot of people being absent so we had to do some extra work. Next time i do a group project i will try to get another guy in the group so it isnt one sided. I would probably work on my lines for the presentation more next time.  I have improved a lot in my efficiency. One example of this was making the website in 4 days. Another is when i made the ad and the web banner in 6 days. On this project i made the website, the web banner, and the ad.