3D300-1 - Xbox Logo Build Animation
Concept
For the 1st term of my final year of my 3D Animation class, I was tasked to create a logo build animation in Autodesk Maya. We were instructed to utilise the Mash system within Maya for our animations.
For my animation I decided to create an animation for Xbox as a startup video to play when booting up the new Xbox Series X. I took the many previous startup videos on previous consoles as inspiration.
Process
I used Mash heavily within this project to create the animation of blocks coming into the logo. I initially wanted the blocks to make up the logo but adapted into another direction. I wanted the animation to have glowing blocks that flew behind a dark logo illuminating it from behind. I kept this idea in my final result. I scanned SketchFab for the high quality models of the Xbox Series X and Master Chief.
I used varous MASH nodes in this project. These include the Colour to create colour variation in the cubes, Random to create variation in the animation, Distribute to create a voxel effect, Signal to create further variation in movement, Falloff to merge the squares into the Xbox logo and Curve to animate the network on a path. For lighting, I created a rim light to slowly reveal the logo. I also added glow to the Xbox logo on the console model as well as the blocks in the MASH network.
This was my original plan for the logo build. This storyboard shows some of my early ideas.
The initial playblast of the full animation.
Some screenshots of my finished project
Reflection
I really like the end product of this project however I regret not exploring more within the MASH system. I feel it has ended up making my project feel quite plain. If I could do it again I would go more extreme with the concept. I also wish that I had chosen a soundtrack to time the animation at the start of the animation. I feel that this would have helped the end product. MASH turned out to be a harder system than I expected and I didn't understand it very well at the start. If I were to redo this project with my current knowledge I think my final project would have turned out better. This project was a huge learning point for me in Maya and I think the things I learnt this term will help me greatly in future projects.
Credits
Special thanks to my Lecturer: Stanley Segal
Assets: SketchFabMusic: Xbox, Neko Coaster (Youtube)
