My first 3D Layout Design

The following is the first basic layout to my animation using some of the basic ideas that I originally set out to do. Out of all of the music availible I felt this one (Organic3000) was the best to use.

I first created the letters in 3D using a very interesting method that was suggested by a friend of mine (Greg Martin). He suggested that the best way to get a 3D object out of the logo given was to open the file in Adobe Illustrator- manipulate it the to attain the curves that map out the letters completely, import those Illustrator curves in their vector format in to Maya. We then get Nurbs curves in Maya that accurately map out the letters "ARTS". Using this as a basis, we can use simple operations in Maya such as lofting surfaces and planar to create all sides of the letters. Although from here one can easily covert these into polygons, it seemed that the renders of grouped surfaces worked perfectly well in my tests.

I simply blocked out the modeling to give myself the basic idea of scale- in this case it was simple a cubic room that used a scaled polyCube.

I then experimented with the default dynamics inbuilt to Maya to create the swirling particles that come from behind the camera then under the logo. This was easily achieved by using a curve to map out the exact path that i wanted the particles to take, and then using effects to create a curve flow along the given path. This would later be used as the basis of instancing where by all of the particles could have been replaced by a piece of geometry or sprites that would have the required musical notes.

I then created the final particle effect by using two emitters synchronized with animation to create what would later be some type of confetti.

The camera animation was dynamic and was used to make the viewer observe specific parts at given times. I wanted it to be slightly obscure that the letters were only slightly visible against the white back ground. the first thing to view is the music notes flying past. the camera follows their motion until we reach the next effect i.e the confetti makers. The confetti makers would then lead on to the letters above that would have the fluid effects splashing paint against the logo above, finally that is the main focus of our piece.

Here is the basic layout.