Ice Cream YUM! (Animation)

Ice Cream Creation!

          This project made me a hungry animator. Our goal for this project was to make a simple ice cream scene with all the components of ice cream. For this project we used the application Maya and the simple polygons but we got to use some new tools in Maya as well, including bump mapping, and a new way of adding textures.

Process of making Ice Cream:

    
     I was given directions to create this lovely scene. This creation was pretty simple but required focus. First, I placed down two planes, one to act as the wall and the other to act as the floor. I then used simple shapes such as rectangular prisms and cubes to create the table where the ice cream sits. I then gathered 5 spheres and added a ice cream color to each of them (Strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla) then used bump mapping to create a bumpy texture on the spheres. I then created a bowl by using a cylinder and creating a smaller cylinder to difference them so it created a opening in the cylinder to make it a bowl of some sort. I fit 3 spheres in that one bowl. I then created a cone with the cone shape. With two round circular rings and 3 cylinders, I was able to create a stand for the ice cream cone. I fit two spheres on top of each other into the waffle cone. I added a cherry on top for extra decoration. The scooper was made by differencing 2 spheres and combining a cylinder to the end of the scoop. At the end of the handle, you add a sphere to finish it off.


     Those weren't the last steps of the creation though. I then had to add the textures to make the ice cream and accessories pop. You can simply do this by right clicking the object and selecting a favorite material. Those choices are lambert which gives off no shine or reflection, blinn which gives off some reflection and shine and then phong which gives off tons of shine and reflection, mainly used for metals. With the ice cream I used blinn and for the waffle cone I used lambert, and lastly for the metals I used phong. After adding the material, you can add a texture so that it shines as well. To finish the shapes off, I added a nice carpet to put in more detail.


     The last step of the project was to add directional light to make the shadows reveal themselves and add lighting to make the objects less dull. The types of directional light used was key light, and back lighting.

What I Learned:

    
     The overall project went well and was a success for me. It taught me a lot more about Maya, as any other project would usually do. This showed me how to add bump mapping to textures and better lighting.

More shots of ice cream: