The opening scene – a wide angle shot of a kids room. A sense of whimsical play – the room has a feeling of youth – childhood at it’s best. The star of the scene is the room itself... it's personality, it's feeling, and the sense of play the room eminates;

The camera starts out steady taking a wide glimpse of the entire room.

The T.V. left on and a chair in the room is rocking. The continuous loop of the camera moves in to the scene as if it’s flying through the air, taking aerial shots of animated objects - moving from birds-eye the the dramatic wide angles of the entire scene.

The camera takes an abrupt turn and flys near a toy that had been left on – sitting atop the bed.

The camera turns back and returns to wide-angle mode capturing the rocking chair slowing down as the scene fades to black.

A child’s room – coming to a Quinnipiac Computer Lab Near You!

My last blogg discussed how modeling and lighting were very imperative to impact in the field of animation. Exploring textures, effects on lighting, and texturing will help bring realism to the field of animation.

In former presentations using the Maya software, animations like “Finding Nemo”, “Monster’s INC”, and others demonstrated the importance of making ‘life-like’ textures and paying close attention to detail in terms of lighting.

Using “Finding Nemo” as an example, one can see the importance of how lighting effects the end-user. The reflections of light manipulated by the ripples about the surface of the ocean brings about this realism and creates a fun and exciting experience for the end user while not taking away from the core plot.

Had these concepts of lighting and texturing been taken lightly, this fun animation would have had a more flattened and 2-D look and feel.

Mastering the effects of lighting and texturing, one can bring a sense of realism – event to a light-hearted, fun-filled animation like “Finding Nemo” and “Monsters INC”. An attempt to master these subtle-yet-important aspects of modeling and lighting will be made this semester.

Checkout "Finding Nemo" for yourself by clicking this link

Minor Project 2: Project Brief DUE 2/7


Based on the in class discussion revise and refine your ideas for a semester project as stated in your "Mission" statement. Post on your blog 1-2 paragraphs that explains the basic narrative structure describing a beginning, middle and end.

Revised Mission Statement


My first mission statement talked about rigging a skeleton to an object to assist in animation. After class discussion, it appeared that this topic may be a bit more intense to fully conquor in one class setting.

After giving further thought, I would like to create an animated kids room. A tour of this room would include a background of a typical tv showing a cartoon, a rocking hoarse moving as if the child just left the room, and an animated electronic stuff animal that had been left on.

Most of the animation in the room would be limited – as the focus would be on the tour itself - showing the lifestyle of the typical American child. This new focus will help me to understand more intuitively the techniques needed to master texturing, modeling, and lighting.