Algorithmic Surface Modelling and Animation

This assignment was quite an interesting experience. 

The project itself wasn't too difficult, I did encounter a really odd error but overall I think it came out great. 

I spent probably too much time on making the object for the surface mesh, making the background in Render view, and the GIF. 

▌│█║▌║▌║Shapes for the Mesh║▌║▌║█│▌

So the first thing I did was making the shapes that would wrap around the surface.

I first made some circular shapes but when I put them on the surface object it didn't look very good as the shapes looked very stretched.

So I made some new shapes that were more square and it looked much better. 

Circular Shape Mesh

The shapes I made for the mesh

▌│█║▌║▌║Surface Mesh║▌║▌║█│▌

When it came to putting the shape onto the surface, this is when I ran into that odd error that I mentioned above.

I was putting the circular shape onto a cylinder, the mesh did surround the cylinder however some of the mesh went off of the cylinder. Just like the picture below.

I was able to fix this with a session with Jessica, Initially, we thought the issue was with the components in Grasshopper. 

But actually, the problem was with the top and bottom of the cylinder. 

So the fix to this issue was to explode the cylinder and then delete the top and bottom. 

And the surface mesh worked after that.

It was quite an interesting situation as Jessica and I thought the problem was more complicated but it was quite a simple fix.

▌│█║▌║▌║Animations║▌║▌║█│▌

I made 3 different animations and the main issue I ran into while making them was that the GIFs weren't very smooth and had quite a lot of stutter. 

But I was able to make it move smoother by increasing the speed of the GIF and the amount of frames. 

This one is a bit low effort compared to the other ones it was more of an experimentation.

This one has quite a bit of stutter and the shape for the mesh is just a simple "X".

This one I put more effort into than the previous one.

I used a bunch of different materials like wood, stucco, and terracotta. 

I also used some spotlight to give the shape some shadows.

I think the movement of the mesh is too fast and the way it just disappears kind of bugs me. 

Compared to the previous one I think the mesh movement is good.

The mesh stays on the sphere which is an improvement from the last one.

If I were to change something I would probably make the shape that the surface mesh is on a more different unique shape.

But I think this GIF came out great. 

I really like how the lighting and the materials came out.