Project 1: Planet Animation

The original animation that was create in Maya 2016 by following the tutorial in Chapter 2 of Derakhshani textbook.

An altered version of the original tutorial animation for the second part of the Project. Changes described more below.

Here is what the sun looked like in the original tutorial.

Simple sphere, no texture

For the 2nd animation, I grouped together two simple squares to create a shape that looked like an old computer monitor. I removed the sun from the origin and set this object in its place. I also gave it some color, since gray is boring.

All of the sides are just a color I got from the mixer in the default materials. The face, however, is a texture I made in MSPaint and imported onto the selected front-face under a Lambert surface. I had a rough time figuring out how to position it correctly, but it worked well in the end.

Mercury shown here, circled for clarity

I'm not sure what this is, I just wanted some new shapes and something that I could rotate in two opposite directions. I just spawned in two simple pyramids and flipped one 180 degrees on the x-axis. I spawned a Torus and fiddled with the sizing and radii until it fit well between the two pyramids.

I grouped the two pyramids together and set their axis to the center of itself so I could spin it counter-clockwise. I spun the torus clockwise. I grouped them together so they could rotate as a whole around the computer monitor.

At this point I also knew I wanted to try a little more animation. I placed the bobble above the face so that I could try and get it to follow it as it moved.

The original camera was just a sort of default perspective camera. It shows us all the planets and the rotation of all of them at all times.

I changed the camera view to be closer and angled slightly underneath the the computer head. You can't see all the orbits, all the time, but I liked the way the planets zip past the screen as they travel.

It also shows off the angles and shape of the computer head more, as it's face follows the bobble.