Week 10

 I reused my Kirby and star model from last week to make Kirby fly on a motion path.  I used the tutorials on the Autodesk Maya website to help me out with the motion path.  I linked Kirby and his star to the motion path.  I wanted to have Kirby fly over water so I used the ocean shader on a plane I had set up below Kirby.  I then set up some lighting.  I used two spotlights both pointing at the scene from opposite sides.  I had them give off more of a blue color.  I also used one point light which I made slightly yellow.  After this I animated the camera.  I animated the camera by looking through the camera's view while making key frames to make sure the camera was following Kirby.  I rendered the animation and put it together in Windows Movie Maker.  I also went online and downloaded the sound effect for Kirby's star from the games.  I added this into Movie Maker as well to give the animation some sound.  I also looked at the Bird and Cage Thaumatrope (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46Mlr4hvW-E).  I recognized what a Thaumatrope was as I've seen one before.  You have a picture on both sides and then spin it around so it looks like one picture.  It's a basic but interesting animation technique that helped us get to were we are today.  I read about Joseph Plateau and his invention the Phenakistoscope (https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/10/the-first-animated-gifs/).  This was one of the first inventions to produce animation.  You would spin it and look at the moving images.  It's very interesting to see that this was one of the first things to produce animation.  It may be a bit dated but it's incredibly impressive for it's time and is still a fun tool to play around with.  Finally I read about flipbooks (https://www.princeton.edu/~graphicarts/2010/02/kineographs.html).  I've heard of these before but never knew they were originally called Kineographs.  Flipbooks, while being an early technique for animation, are still fun to make or experiment with today.  I imagine many people still play around with flipbooks to this day.  I remember back in high school I made a flipbook for one of my class assignments and while it takes a while to make there is also something simple about them.  I'm not entirely sure what my final animation project will be but I think I want to use my Kirby models.  I might have Kirby jump on his star and fly somewhere.  Then I'd have him have to do something else but not sure what yet.  This is just an idea as I'm not certain yet on what I want to make for my final animation project

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