It's quite hard to believe we are already near the end of the year! It has been pretty rough. I am not a fan of online school, however I am finishing out the year virtually. Next year in person will probably be much much better for me in terms of learning and actually absorbing information, and on my mental health. I think we are starting animation soon, which I am very terrified for as I barely have a grasp on anything else we have been learning. 3DS Max also takes up so much space on my computer, which is definitely not meant to handle software like that. I have had to delete so much stuff this year. Luckily I got an external hard drive now so I have more storage, but the software is still extremely slow. I actually had to uninstall Photoshop a long time ago because my computer is always running out of space and it ran extremely slow on my computer, so I have been using Photopea instead for a while. In fact, I discovered Photopea before we were told to use it in this class and I think it is one of the best Photoshop alternatives out there and I quite enjoy using it. I just need to get my work done well for fourth quarter, then I will be okay. I hope I do better this next quarter than I have so far this year.
0 Comments
It is February, we are well into quarter 3. I have still been struggling a lot with school, but I am trying hard to get my work done and my grades up. I am really not enjoying 3D modeling and as much as it is great to try new things, I honestly never want to do it again. I am glad I at least tried it though, because at least now I know it is something I do not enjoy doing. When it comes to digital art, I much prefer digital painting, drawing, and editing in programs like photoshop. 3ds max takes up a lot of disk space on my computer, and I am running very low so when the year is over it is getting uninstalled. I don't even know how interested in animation I am anymore. I am going to stay in this class though, because I enjoy doing some form of digital art. My favorite 3d model I have made so far is probably the six-sided dice, I think they turned out pretty cool looking and they were relatively straightforward to make. The dodecahedron also looks pretty nice I think, though its far from perfect. The neighborhood took a while, but I think that one turned out pretty decent too. Overall, I am working hard and I am going to work harder to get through the years.
We are at the end of the first semester. I am getting better with 3d modeling I think, but I still do not enjoy it all that much. Class is pretty hard especially online, and I have a lot of technical difficulties like my 3ds max locking me out of my account and my computer being slow. I hope as the year progresses the assignments will get easier and i will get a better grasp on 3d modeling, so by advanced game design the 3d modeling process will go much smoother and simpler for me. I have been catching up on my work and grades and just generally doing a lot better I think. The quizzes and matching assignments tend to be pretty hard for me, and the 3d modeling assignments take me a while to do, so I think I am doing pretty alright right now, Hopefully in third quarter and second semester I will do better in terms of grades and actual learning and completing assignments and projects.
We are now about halfway through the second quarter. I feel like time is movie so weirdly. It feels like its been so long but at the same time its crazy that we are already this far in. As awful as it sounds, I'm really just trying to get this year over. School has been really difficult for me this year and I'm trying my best but I'm still not doing great.
I am excited for next year because I want to work in Photoshop again. I'm insanely sick of 3d modeling and really don't enjoy it and don't understand how to do it at all. Next year we don't have to do any, thankfully. 3DS max also takes up SO much room on my computer and I am excited to uninstall it whenever I can. Our current project is the be my neighbor one and I have no idea whatsoever how I am going to do it. This year is so difficult. At least I've figured out that 3D modeling is NOT something I enjoy doing. I liked making the six sided dice. Those were kinda fun. The other dice were not though. I've found so far this year that, like traditional physical art, I much prefer 2D media over 3D media when it comes to digital art. I miss working in Photoshop as that was so much easier and better for me personally as opposed to software like 3DS Max. I've gotten the hang of 3D modeling a little bit better, I think im slightly more proficient in the software, but I am not very good at all yet. 3DS Max definitely is not my favorite. It is frustrating to use and frustrating to navigate and an overall frustrating software.
I am proud of how some of my projects have turned out. Others, not so much. For example, my western scene model was not very great, and i am honestly really surprised i got such a decent grade on it. I expected to do awfully. My dice project, while I didn't do everything correctly, turned out pretty well though in my opinion! The eight and twelve sided dice were really hard and frustrating to make and I really hated the experience of working on them, but I think the six sided dice look really good! They were a bit frustrating to make as well, but when I finished them I was pretty proud of the way they looked. I am honestly quite nervous for the rest of this year. I really don't enjoy 3D modeling at all, but I'm going to power through. I believe in myself and i think I can do this. By now we are a little ways into the school year. At first, I was trying to work in cclara.io but found it a little too difficult, so I got 3DS max installed. It took forever to get installed and I had to delete a whole bunch of stuff off my computer to have space for it. I was having a ton of trouble trying to use it until I was informed I am supposed to use a mouse rather than my trackpad. Using a mouse made it so much easier to work in. I still don't quite know what I am doing. I don't understand how to use the software very well yet but I am trying my best. I think as I use it more and more it will start to get easier. The second assignment was somewhat easier than the first for me as there was actually a tutorial to follow along with, which made it a bit more straightforward. I still struggled though. I honestly don't think 3D modeling is really for me, and I much prefer 2D forms of digital art. I am going to keep working hard and trying to learn the program and the techniques better. I've managed to get my grades up and I am doing a lot better than I was closer to the start of the year. This year will not be at all easy but I am going to make it through.
We have been back in school for a little while now. It has been pretty hard for me. Online school is a hard adjustment especially as this is the first time the whole world is having to do something like this. I much prefer in person school I would say. It is more organized and less confusing for me at least. With online school it is hard to keep all my assignments organized and to remember what is due when and to figure out what assignments I even have to do. I am trying hard and hopefully I will get more used to and adjusted to online school.
In terms of Digital Design and Animation II, we are only starting to get into the actual 3D modeling part of the class. I haven't installed the software yet but I am working on getting it downloaded. I have been working on digital art of my own outside of school which has been going pretty well. I am working on getting my grades up in school, and while it is not easy at all, I am trying my best. I hope I enjoy 3D modeling because I am not sure how I feel about it yet. It is not something that is especially interesting to me but I like this class so maybe I will enjoy it. This summer I think I really improved at art a lot. I've worked on my digital art skills a lot this summer, and I think I am much better at painting digitally now, as well as other digital art forms. I have also practiced a lot with traditional art. I've primarily been using watercolors as I got myself some nicer paints and brushes and they are my favorite medium to use. I think I have improved with using them as well over the summer. This year in class I'm not sure how I feel because it is all 3D modeling which I have never really done before, and I don't know how I feel about it. This class really is quite hard and I am pretty nervous about it but I am also excited to learn new digital art skills and software. I think completely being online this year will definitely make the class a lot harder, but hopefully by second semester we will be back to in person school. Over all I am nervous but I think it will be alright.
In class, we have been working on many different animation projects using different types and styles of animation, as well as many different programs, such as Adobe Photoshop, After Effects, Animate, and even Illustrator. First, we had the frame by frame traditional animation of the bouncing ball. That one took a while and was extremely tedious, and in the end, it didn't even look very good, I don't think. Second, we made motion graphics in Adobe After Effects. These included our Illustrator self portraits we did previously in another project. Third, we made animated GIFs in Photoshop. This one was my favorite of all of them so far. For the first GIF, we drew over pictures, and the second we had to do ourselves without an image to trace. Finally, we made an animation of an apple skateboarding using Adobe Animate. It was frustrating that most people in class including myself could not get part of the animation to save in the final version. I think animation can be a very tedious process, depending mostly on the type of animation. Overall, i'm kinda neutral on it.
In our most recent project, we made frame by frame traditional animations. This was my first time making a complete animation, and I don't think it turned out the best, but I still think it's pretty good. In this project, we animated a ball bouncing. I started by making a hand-drawn story board, showing the ball bouncing down a staircase. The individual images were made in Adobe Illustrator. Saving all 120 images was extremely tedious, but nothing really went wrong during that. Where I did start running into much more problems was when I started putting the frames together in Adobe After Effects. The program would not play back my video. The next day, it did play back the video, but I had several other issues, although a lot of them were due to my own stupidity. When I finished putting the frames together, I had trouble saving the animation. It would only save and export a single frame. Later, I did sort through the issues and why they were happening. The finished animation was pretty good for my first time making one, and I am proud of it.
|
AuthorHey, welcome to my blog. This is where I will be updating you on my digital art journey. Archives
March 2021
Categories
All
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent those of Durham School of the Arts or Durham Public Schools.
|