Animation stage finished..

So the animation side of it has final finished.. (no more Maya YAY) It really did take longer that I thought to bring the right character into the ball. A ball, I now realise, even though is extremely easy in the modeling is also extremely hard to convey emotion as what I have said before, he is just a ball. No arms, head anything. So when he sniffs, pushes etc I had to deform him into doing that. Sometimes he looked like he was kissing instead of pushing or laughing/excited instead of frustrated.. But after changing the speed and a lot in the graph editor, I think I have succeeded in most parts. Without sound I believe you can tell what is happening. That is something I really have been concentrating on, letting the audience know what is going on without the sound and then the sound will therefore just underscore and help boost it. The Squash deformer in my animation is always moving around doing all the work to deform the ball. It really is what I have been animating with over the last few weeks. And the graph editor! Last year it seemed a little daunting however now it's my best friend even though I believe I still probably don't know and understand it all.

So, the look of the animation. Well I tried some stuff with global illumination but didn't like it as I want more of a cartoony look. But I also don't like (or can't get right) toon shading so I went with a lambert shader and bright colours to the shapes with a slightly off-white background.