I wanted to create an educational animation showing how a Stirling Engine works. I thought it would be an excellent challenge to create a mechanical rig and a great addition to my portfolio. 

https://youtu.be/fTm6ZmVb4XM

The project quickly came to be my senior project, below a full documentation of how the project went. 

At the start of my project, I had narrowed down 3 separate ideas on what I could make and what felt viable as project. These were a 3D animated commercial short, an educational animation and lastly a 3D interior exported into VR space. Each of these ideas could solve different problems in their respective genres.
The 3D animated commercial short would solve general advertising problems, maintain customer base, and expand growth in new customers as well as brand appeal. Solutions utilizing the commercial short would develop entertaining animation bringing interest and making a memorable impression to help the chosen brand. My thoughts were that an advertisement is a good way to showcase a full 3D generalist workflow covering modeling, texturing, rigging, animating, etc. as well as showcasing storytelling and brand marketing. Considering most 3D work is for the purpose of storytelling and entertainment I think an advertisement fits into this category well and gives flexibility in the length and content of the animation, while still allowing me to create something impressive and impressionable. I did not choose this project because I wanted to create something that held more substance than just commercial appeal.
The educational animation would introduce a more engaging medium for education knowledge by focusing on higher quality asset creation and details that are normally seen in educational 3d animations. Educational video content fills the gap between visual and auditory learners while holding attention longer than static visual or auditory information by itself. The solution I would create that fits an educational animation would be something informative, visually detailed showcasing an accurate representation of how an object or device operates and functions. My idea aligns well with my goals of creating a strong portfolio piece but holds value to a greater market of industries such as education, manufacturing, and prototyping. It is still a form of entertainment but is not focused on the entertainment industries of video games, movies, or advertising. This was the idea that I chose to move forward with.
Lastly, the 3D interior exported into VR space would solve problems in general entertainment while showcasing the use of new technologies in XR. My solution for this idea would be to Create a screen recording of a VR walkthrough. Showcasing the space, details, and possibly some interactions to showcase asset
creation and immersive storytelling. The thoughts I had in deciding whether this idea was viable were that It’s a project that highlights use of new technologies integrating traditional 3D production skills with emerging technologies. Being able to show this extra step will not only make me stand out to current jobs in entertainment and media production, but also expand to other non-entertainment industries as well such as architecture, engineering, and others that can benefit from AR/VR visualization. In the end I decided not to chose this project as I felt there were too many variables involved in how to deliver the project and create the interactions within the game engine that I was unfamiliar with.
Reflection: Looking back, would you have chosen another idea why/why not?
I am happy that I chose the educational animation as a project. In time I will complete each idea, but for the purpose of a senior project and something to showcase the knowledge I have learned, the educational animation I believe holds the most merit and appeals to the widest audience.

In this phase I decided the educational animation that I was going to create would be a simple animation showing how a Stirling engine operates. It is something I am confident in being able to accomplish fully and would hold my interest throughout the scope of the project. I felt it holds both educational and instructional value into understanding the process of how the engine creates work and motion. The animation could be appealing to engineering and physics students and teachers, STEM programs, and educational companies who create content focused in those areas.
Reflection: How has your solution changed over the course of the project? In what ways?
My solution hasn’t changed much over the course of creating the project. I still am keeping priorities of creating higher quality mesh and textures to accurately as possible show how the machine works. I am still focused on keeping the project appealing to an educational audience and learning experience.

Project Plan: Create a simple 3D animation showing how a Stirling engine operates that holds educational and instructional value into understanding the process of how the engine creates work and motion.
Project Milestones and Timeline: 

Jan 22- Project documents and storyboard draft
Jan 29- Parts modeling and texturing, storyboard revision 

-Milestone 1: All documents completed, can still be updated, and revised as needed, but nothing unaccounted for.
Feb 07- Rigging 

-Milestone 2: All parts to the engine and set should be modeled before rigging starts. Textures can be revised as needed throughout the project. Sketches/Storyboards are finalized.
Feb 12- Animating
-Milestone 3: Everything should be rigged before animation starts. Textures should be finalized for the most part.
Feb 19- Polishing and rendering. 

-Milestone 4: Design Process Documentation Draft.
Feb 26- Clean up, finalization of post-production AE work and project documentation. -Milestone 5: All work in 3D software should be completed and ready for post-production.
Feb 28- Final project submission

 -Milestone 6: All work in 3D software should be completed and ready for post-production. Design Documentation Submitted.
Points of Inspiration:
I was able to gather sources of inspiration from various educational diagrams showing how engines work and how force is harnessed. The images below provide a small insight as to the types of inspiration collected.

Reflection: How closely did you follow the project brief; how closely did you follow the timeline?
So far, I’ve remained true to the project brief and spot on to my timeline. I’m actually surprised that I’ve been able to follow my preproduction plans as closely and accurately as I have. 

What went well with the plan?
So far everything has been going well with the plan. I made a point to thoroughly plot out about how long each stage should take me and develop the purpose of the animation and who it was intended for.
Did you run into any obstacles that you didn’t plan for in the project brief, if so what were they?
I have yet to run into any obstacles with the project brief so far, my sources of inspiration have been great reference material to work from. The audience and solutions have remained unchanged.

The ideate phase led me to generate different ideas for how the animation would be laid out and come together. I decided to take a more common approach to framing the Stirling engine and developing the visual narrative I was creating. This meant starting with a large centrally framed shot that would zoom in and give a full rotation to the device. This would serve the purpose of an ‘introduction’ before transitioning to showing how the device moved and then its composition and functioned.
Developing the storyboard itself was very straightforward as it would be a continuous shot scene, meaning there would be no quick camera movements, transition shots, or dramatic angles. The primary focus was to create a sense of timing that could be later used to incorporate narration from an instructor. There were some unexpected challenges in drawing the actual machine within the storyboard as it was all finite shapes and sizes in perspectives. This made it hard for me to develop a sense of depth or minor shading, but in the end, I feel the sketches were good enough for me to understand the storyboard and pacing of the animation. Below are my storyboards.

Reflection: Did you have more than one set of sketches/storyboards?
I only created one set of storyboards. The general idea and feel of my animation didn’t warrant a multiple approach situation. I followed the general style and format of other educational animations, which as a very solid straightforward way of storytelling. How closely did you follow your chosen sketches/boards?
I’ve kept to my storyboard very accurately in a visual sense. I’ve had to adjust the timing notes that I had set out for myself, but the project at large is progressing the same as each frame in the board. Did you make any changes based on peer feedback?
I have yet to make any changes based on peer feedback. The feedback I received was less about the animation and more about adding a voice over narration to the animation. That’s not entirely my focus as I’m a 3D artist and not a voice over artist. The project itself is meant to serve as more of a blank slate for an instructor to speak over, or educational solution company to incorporate into a greater series or course. As the project continues I may find myself ahead of schedule with time to incorporate narration and some background music, but for now my priority is the quality and development of the animation and assets.

Development for the production work of the project would follow a semi-linear path starting with a model and set block out, high poly asset creation, UV unwrapping, export for/and texturing, importing textures, rigging, animating, rendering, post-production and editing.
The low poly assets are created before high poly assets to correctly set, stage, and establish relative sizes for models. Then high poly modeling takes place replacing each block out until the full scene and model had all high-quality assets and parts that looked smoothed and subdivided correctly without artifacts. Next, each asset was UV unwrapped and a full model UV map was created and exported along with a fully combined mesh as a .fbx file for texturing in Substance Painter.
Once textured, revised and adjusted in Maya and previewed with the Arnold renderer I started the rigging process. After the rigging process is finished and working correctly, I started animating based off my storyboard while taking
numerous revisions to adjust timing and accuracy of the model’s movements. When the animation looked good it was set to a 50% resolution test render for the testing stage.
Reflection: How did you progress through each stage?
Did you run into any obstacles? How did you overcome them?
Progressing through each stage went well, there had been some minor technical obstacles that popped up. Nothing too severe. When modeling the flywheel for the engine, there was a 5-pole intersection in the model created at each point where the supporting curves reached the outer flywheel. It took a little bit of time to adjust the topology and move these points to another area so the model could subdivide correctly and look smooth. There were other smaller issues when texturing the model. The model was fully combined into one mesh object and one UV. This involved re-separating out each piece later to animate it. It could have been easier to unwrap each pieces UV and combine the layout, or duplicate existing parts and create a full mesh from the copies. Either way a minor issue.
The last obstacle was having to change from a bone and skin type of rigging setup to a series of constraints to get the mechanical movements I needed. This made some problems for the breakdown/exploded view as I was unsure of how to animate turning the constraints on and off. Quick reference search did not give the answer I was looking for but led me to look in a different attributes panel and I was able to find and animate a switch created with the constraints, rather than figuring out how to create them manually. Did your chosen development process work for the project. If so how, if not what would have been better?
My chosen development process worked well, there are some changes that could have been made, but nothing that would have made the project better or worse. For example, after staging and high poly asset creation UV/texturing can occur at any time and is not as reliant on other steps and exist as a separate file that is ‘attached’ to the modeling/animating software. In some cases, with larger scenes, it’s better to wait until after animation keys have been set and tuned to import textures as the texture maps can add a higher demand on resources and increase the size of save files. In this case the animation was not that complex, and I connected textures before rigging and animating and I was able to use this to make more on-the-fly adjustments to lighting and transitions while animating that would have been made after the test render.

During the Testing phase I presented a test render of about 80% of the completed animation at 50% resolution to my peers.
Reflection: What feedback did you get from peers? 

The general reception and feedback I received was very positive. Unfortunately, as I was previewing the test render I noticed artifacting that I thought was a result of the software previewing window and would disappear when exported from individual .exr files to an .mp4. This was not the case and was noted by myself and my peers as a problem. Overall reception was very positive and reinforced the quality of the work I was creating.

After receiving peer feedback I found solutions to issues with translucent artifacts in models appearing in scene. I also started out a timing chart based on the test render as a foundation to write a narrative voice over script for.
Reflection: What changes did you make based on classmate feedback?
Almost all the feedback I received was in positive light apart from the artifacting issue. I was able to solve this issue by animating when the assets were visible/rendered. Meaning that although the assets like the motor and at times table were completely transparent, they had issues with light being refracted off the inside of the model so to remove the model from being rendered eliminated this problem. There was another part of feedback requesting audio accompanying the animation, I did my best to incorporate it with some creative commons background music. Again, the focus of this animation was accurately showcasing the visual aspects of the engine through high poly professional modeling, conservative animation, camera shots and PBR textures. By no means do I have a set up for professional audio recording or am a professional voice actor.

What stage was project at the deadline?
Project was completed on February 26th, two days before the project deadline. To be completely honest I tried to consider Sunday the 26th as the project deadline in case of unforeseen circumstances that way I would have a 48 hour buffer.
Reflection: Overall how did the project turn out? 

What went well? What didn’t go well?
The project turned out great in my opinion. I produced a high-quality render of the animation. Each part of the engine looked accurate to my references in shapes and textures. I was able to create a constraint system that accurately mimicked how pistons move in relation to a crank shaft. I was even able to create anisotropic effects that looked the same way metal parts would be machined in manufacturing. I was able to fix issues with artifacts occurring and I think I made the best audio I possibly could have. The entire process of writing a script and recording a voice over was not something that I enjoyed doing or had really intended the project to incorporate, but I did my best and it certainly could have been worse. 

What did you learn about yourself as a designer?
I learned that I can create professional looking assets and animations for machines. I can create animations that have a varied focus from simply entertainment production to something with educational value. 

What did you learn about yourself as a project manager?
I learned that I am good at managing myself as a project manager. If I take the time to create a realistic and detailed plan of my goals and when they need to be accomplished it’s fairly easy to stay on track and produce something I am proud of.