Music Palette
Hand Model, Animation, and Music
As a final project in my 3d modeling class, I created an interactive art piece (not a game) within Unity Engine. For my project, I decided to base it on my admiration for 1970s R&B, Funk, and Jazz music. Each composition was inspired by psychedelic patterns and galactic landscapes, and by the tone of its corresponding song as well. The song selections include Blue Nile by Alice Coltrane, Wishing On A Star by Rose Royce, and I’d Rather Be With You by Bootsy Collins.
Tamagotchi Simulation
Character Designer and Animator
In a group project, the goal was to create a Tamagotchi simulation, including a character, environment, and UI design. As the animator in my group, I conceptualized, modeled, and animated the avatar. The inspiration for my design originated from a series of doodles I drew when I was in middle school. I kept the design simple and the color scheme high key since the design was intended to be cute and whimsical rather than realistic.
The model was created within Maya using cylinders (and a sphere for the tail) and then texturized (used the Lambert material in the colors White and light pink and then black in the Blinn material). To animate the avatar, I first had to build the rig (skeleton) of the model, bind it to the skin (the 3D model), and then adjust what the joints (from the skeleton/rig) could move by painting skin weights. The last step was a meticulous process, and at times I stumbled into an issue where making changes to the overall model could disrupt the progress made with painting the skin weights. As a result, I had to repaint the skin weights before creating the four animations for the avatar: Idle, Wave, Talk, and Eat.
I imported my model into Unity where the developer and environmentalist in my group put together the environment, the avatar, and the user interface (the menu) for the Tamagotchi simulation.
Clock
Modeling and C# Scripting
My 3D model
The original image that I based my 3D model on (Gary the Snail)
As a technical exercise for class, I had to create a clock and program the hour hands to move in real-time. Although the goal of the exercise was to learn how to use Unity and do some basic scripting, I didn’t want to create a simple black and white clock; as a result, I modeled the clock in Maya based on the Gary the snail clock from the cartoon Spongebob Squarepants.
I imported the 3D model into Unity and added materials (color) to match the vibrant color scheme of the original clock (including UV mapping the eyes). As for the C# scripting, I based my code on the tutorial “Game Objects and Scripts: Creating a Clock” by Catlike Coding. Additionally, I created a wall and floor as the environment and adjusted the directional lighting to complement the clock.
This was my first experience coding, and it was a learning curve. One thing I took away from it is how attentive one must be while scripting. Something as minor as an extra spacing or upper casing a letter can prevent the entire script from working.
Additional Work
