Week 7
2023 14 Feb
Animation
This week, I worked on animating flowers from another group member’s model. But there was a problem: all the parts were stuck together, making it hard to animate freely. So, I asked her to separate them or send me the model without combining them.


Before using smooth preview in Maya, we had to set keyframes on the mesh frame by frame because the effects in Maya couldn’t be exported to Unity. This was the most challenging part of animating realistic objects like jellyfish. It required a lot of precision and attention to detail to ensure smooth and natural-looking animations.
By the way, because the VR students’ model was all merged and had too many meshes, I remade the jellyfish head myself before animating it. But first, I asked the original designer for permission, and she said yes. It’s important to respect others’ work, right….!



Here is the result of the flower animation:






In Maya, I tried to create natural effects like bubbles and jellyfish swimming realistically, but we faced limitations. We couldn’t use effects in Unity, and setting keys on group objects wasn’t possible for Unity.
This meant that if we wanted to animate the leaves on one flower, we had to set keys on each leaf separately!
It was time-consuming and required a lot of patience………
Step by step


Animating everything at once was tricky, so I started with the main flowers. Then, I moved on to the other plants around them, making sure their movements matched the main flowers for a natural look.
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MR testing
Trying out MR for the first time was awesome! It’s so cool to play with our virtual flowers in real life and in real-time.
It’s super cool to see our own models and animations right in front of us. It feels like our creations are coming alive.
The textures on the flowers are really neat and feel great to touch!
I’m loving it! It’s amazing to see virtual stuff mix with reality.
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Wrap up all animation
I was in charge of 4 flowers. And another member is also in charge of 4 flowers
