Animating with Photoshop CS5
I didn't even realise that you could animate in Photoshop until I started the project. I was pleasantly surprised to see how easy and intuitive it is to work with. Just by dragging an audio clip into a video layer, I could start my animation. Using grid lines to define areas in which to work in helped greatly, as did the use of Onion Skins and its invaluable assistance with reference.
Animating the bouncing ball was great fun. Carefully integrating certain principles of animation such as 'slow-in-and-out' came naturally after a while, as did my creativity.
Maya
My first opinion of Maya was: overcomplicated. Each tab and option didn't come with 'hover help text' which made learning all the functions very hard. Creating the 3D bouncing ball animation was an interesting introduction. Using the graph editor and axis was a great way to create shortcuts between key frames, and felt quite satisfying.
Creating a character animation was a whole new matter. I didn't feel confident enough to create a fluid and entertaining animation so I chose 2D instead.
Mudbox
I felt much more comfortable using this program, as it was more relative to real life physics. The digital pen felt like a chisel as I slowly crafted Elbert's head. The functions did exactly as I expected, enabling me to work with relative ease. Using his head as a reference made the process smooth, but at times the front and side views did not match his physiology. After applying a stencil of Elbert's face, I painted his projection over the mould, but this made him look very unusual so I had to remove the layer.
I admit at times I worked blindly, but I believe I managed to portray a relatively good representation of my model.
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