Cerulean Slog - A.J.'s Waterslide Project

[A.J.]

Okay, so, this could possibly be the biggest deal in the world to me.

 

When I was introduced to Maya in the beginning of this semester, I liked it - a lot. In fact, you could say that I was the only one in my class who wasn't frustrated by it in the beginning.

 

For the final project in my animation class, we were instructed to do some sort of time-based animation. I originally played around with a pinball machine, and a marble network, before I discovered how quickly and easily AutoCAD DWG files were imported into Maya. I brought an Inventor model of a water slide into Maya, and it worked flawlessly! From there, I did all sorts of crazy and somewhat complicated (if you don't know what you're doing) things to actually simulate it and build an environment around it.

 

One thing though - due to rendering and time constraints, I wasn't actually able to animate any water. Sorry about that!

 

I am so proud of this project and I want to share it everywhere!

 

Video -

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xNS9aEv2Ro

 

Stills -

 

 

Now, to answer a question -

Did you make the slide panels individually or is there a way to warp them to a specific size and shape?

Each slide panel was made individually in Inventor in full scale (54" chute diameter). You can warp them, but I wanted to construct the slide realistically (panel by panel).

Edited December 11, 2012 by A.J.

[paradisecoaster]

Great job! This looks fantastic. I know how hard it is to learn Maya and it's very time-consuming, also Inventor can get me really frustrated sometime. What do you studie when you learn maya btw? I'm guessing like graphics design or something? I've never heard of any education (although I live in sweden, which kinda explains itself) that teaches Maya. I "learnt" it on my own for my high school project.

[A.J.]

It's very unusual. Graphic Design is extremely intensive at Penn State - you have to be able to dedicate yourself to that specific major before you start. They only want people in the major who are essentially die-hards.

 

My major, known in the university as "Interdisciplinary Digital Studio" has a set sequence of courses that we must take but otherwise is very close to self-designed. There are certain courses that have controls that give priority to people in my major, and we are encouraged to take them. What's cool about those courses is because of the nature of the software and industry trends, we are allowed to take them two or three times for credit. The major itself is based around animation techniques and software pioneered by industry big-names such as DreamWorks and Pixar.

 

The course I am in right now, ART 297 (IDS Seminar) is one that I am required to take twice. Originally, ART 297 was designed to be taught in blocks with multiple instructors teaching multiple software applications. This semester, however, they decided to change it up and only use one instructor to teach us exclusively about Maya, because it's so complicated. But, even then, our learning was very much self-paced.

 

We had four projects this semester - terrain modeling, 3D scanning and importation, particle effects, and animation. We were given a brief introduction to the projects, and then we were essentially let go to learn as much or as little as we wanted with the instructor there to answer technical questions and give critical feedback.

 

So, I essentially learned it myself as well, but I had a knowledgeable individual that I could ask for help if needed.

Edited December 11, 2012 by A.J.

[paradisecoaster]

Ok, sounds cool. We don't have those big movie animation companies here and no big gamedesign company either, so it's very hard to find people who know of it here, my high school teachers hadn't heard about it before and not even the people in my class or the classes bellow. It is really rewarding when you know how to do though, especially when you learn "Mudbox" (wich is really simple to learn but hard to master) and can make characters to import.

 

Sorry for going off-topic. Anyway, can't wait 'till your next project (if there will be any that you will post here).