Sunday 20 July 2014

3D Digital Character Designs

This task was designed for my year 8 computer Graphics Class. It was the second major project that we completed in the semester.

Students already had quite a strong grasp of the program Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop based on their work earlier in the term, so this was designed to be a fun and engaging task that would allow students to demonstrate their skills.

Students initially had to complete research and then sketch out their ideas on a template. This design was then developed and produced on the computer using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Illustrator was used for the main design elements, while Photoshop was used to add in the image texture elements of the design.

The final designs were printed on the school's A3 colour printer, then students cut, scored and folded their nets, sticking together their final 3D character designs. Here are some of their final pieces.








3D Letters with Year 7


As the final task for my Year 7 class in semester 1, I taught the class about 1 point perspective.

We began the unit by learning the key vocabulary related to the topic such as Horizon line, Vanishing point and Perspective lines.

Students then learned how to draw a simple cube as a 3D form. They drew cubes on, above and below the horizon line so they could compare their appearances.



Help instructions were also provided to students who were struggling to understand or remember the necessary steps.


Once students had mastered their cube drawings, the moved onto angular letters such as ‘A’, ‘E’ and ‘H’. These were taught and practiced as a whole class, with students volunteering to draw on the board. Following the whole class demonstrations, each student completed some practice letters on their own.

Another help sheet example:



Once students were confident in their understanding of perspective drawing they chose the word that they would produce. They traced their chosen letters from a printed template using a ruler and pencil. The 2D letter shapes were then transformed into 3D forms. This drawing was then scanned into their computers. 



Using Adobe Illustrator, students then traced the outlines of their letters. They then used Adobe Photoshop to fill in their 3D letters with different colours. Filters were then applied to the different layers providing interesting effects.



The Year 7 students really enjoyed this task. While a lot of them struggled to maser the perspective drawing, they were generally really happy with the outcomes. This is definitely a task that I will repeat, especially as this semester’s cohort have seen and requested to do the task.










Monday 16 June 2014

Voki Animated character

I recently received an email about a website that allows its users to create an animated 'Voki'. I logged onto the website and created this great tool. I'm going to try using it with my Year 7 Computer Graphics class later this week.

Copy and paste the following link into a new window:
http://www.voki.com/pickup.php?scid=10013140&height=400&width=300

Still haven't worked out how to make the Voki appear on a webpage, but I'll keep trying.