Some Assembly Required

Please feel free to comment this animation. My name is Joseph Wakerley and I have just turned 17 years old, I created this during the months of May/June over a 4 week period with approximately 5 weeks prior to this for research.

This animated short was created using Maya, Shake, Final Cut Express and Photoshop as well as other various applications. This includes Garageband, used to create all of the music for this animation.

This animation is a visual interpretation of my lack of understanding for the internal combustion engine. The animation's purpose was to fulfill a brief from a college project entitled "All About Me" in which the artist had to envelope on a personal emotion/area of interest. The animation itself is comprised of 3 separate parts, each of which is a metaphorical interpretation for 3 separate areas of interest that I have in engines (that I don't actually understand):

1./ The parts coming together are a representation for how I would put an engine together.
2./ The puzzlement that is portrayed by the characters body language, is a metaphor for my general lack of knowledge for engines (hence the confused/puzzled look).
3./ The falling apart of the character is representative of how an engine that I could build would not work and eventually break down/fall apart.

I hope you enjoy this and please feel free to post any comments or suggestions.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• animation
• animated
• anime
• some
• assembly
• required
• robot
• shiny
• metal
• representational

[74Charm]

Wd i can`t believe you are only 17 and have made this! I like the metaphoric parts of the story, i think we all feel this way standing in front of new things in life. At a certain point in life the roles will change and you will be the one with all the knowledge teaching it to others, so life isn`t over when you learn new things, its in progress with one step at the time.

[joewakerley]

@74Charm -Thank you, I'm 20 now, this feels like such a long time ago. Your comments are very insightful, I hope to make another short animated film next year for my final year of university, but at least 3-5 minutes long. I haven't been able to do much Maya in the past few years, although I did recently do a mock MTV2 ad as part of a university project in Maya (its on my channel).

[karnivor66]

How do you get the shinny finish (Chrome look) in Maya?

i,ve been trying but I can´t get it like this.

5/5 stars!

[joewakerley]

Either the Phong material (Maya Software) or the DGS material (Mental Ray). Obviously you need to fiddle with the settings (reflectivity, colour etc.). But the chrome looks like chrome because of what it is reflecting. If you set up reflector boards (like in a photographic studio) that are placed around the object then you will get those nice black and white reflections in the metal. The colour of the reflectors will determine the colour in the chrome. This also applies to glass, diamond etc.

[joewakerley]

Lighting is always imporant too when it comes to getting materials to look right.

Be sure to set up your Render Globals accordingly, I don't know how much you know about Maya but I recommend that you try to steer away from using the Maya Software renderer and start using Mental Ray (or Pixar's Renderman if you can afford it). It's more complicated but you get better control over your scene, you can have anything from photorealistic renders to cartoons.

Hope I helped you :)

[JRGA1989]

Of course... Macintosh is the best in the world. Dude... how u do that? This video is seem so real.

[joewakerley]

Thank you :) I just tried not to get too caught up in creating some super fantastic backgrounds and just creating something simple. I have done some space-scapes before and they where quite nice, but I wanted to do a short animation that was quick to produce, so I cut down on the complex scenery and came up with this. I've been doing illustrations, paintings and sculptures since, but I hope to perhaps do another animation soon. If I can think of any ideas

[45ACP1911]

Cool video! Macs rock.

[10speedrockingbike]

★★★★★(5 star)

[hallanos]

While I agree with your viewpoint on the combustion engine, I think I may have liked the video better if the parts had slowly come together, but the viewer still had no idea what it was, until it became abundantly obvious. Maybe also the same kind of approach for the fall-apart sequence. Don't hesitate to nix the idea, if it messes with the symbolism at all.

[jamalrauf]

awesome

[Frasimation]

BRILLIANT!

[karnivor66]

Yes man !"  Mental ray rules !" thumb up for you.

[TheGrilluz]

Excellent