Example Videos from a Previous Animation Class

Below are some examples of projects that we did in a class in September/October last year. The class project was to create a 3D animation video using 3D Studio Max and to then composite the animation with a video clip of a live actor who is interacting with it. The videos came out really well, and we had alot of fun making them.

Playing Kick-Ball

In this video, the student is kicking an array of colorful rubber balls. We created the ball animation using 3D Studio Max and Reactor. Reactor is a feature in 3D Studio Max that allows you to model the "physics" of how an object moves, so that your animation looks more like real life.

After creating the video of the balls in motion, shadows were added below each ball to match the subtle shadows of the indoor roomlight in the video of the live actor.

The video below shows the final result.

KICK BALL (FINAL)
(Sorry. For some reason, Google's video server is showing
black thumbnails on all uploaded videos today.)

Below is a solid black "matte" or "mask" video of the animation (the rubber balls). This video is used by the video editor to mask off any part of the shadows video that exists where a ball should be shown. Just like in real life, you can't see shadows that are hidden behind a solid object. So, masking those shadows off in the video editor prevents them from blending with the rubber balls in the video.

KICK BALL (MATTE ONLY)
(Sorry. For some reason, Google's video server is showing
black thumbnails on all uploaded videos today.)

Below is a video of just the room light shaddows under each of the rubber balls.
KICK BALL (SHADOWS ONLY)
(Sorry. For some reason, Google's video server is showing
black thumbnails on all uploaded videos today.)

Finally, the video below is a composit of the Matte-Mask video, the Shadows video and the rubber ball animation video.

KICK BALL (BALLS+SHADOWS ONLY)
(Sorry. For some reason, Google's video server is showing
black thumbnails on all uploaded videos today.)