Snowflakes Animation

The first designs of the six snowflakes:

During this project, we advanced the use of our skills that we learned from other projects from this semester. We used the create polygon tool which was similar to the NURBS curve tool  to create the individual snowflakes. The extrude tool was used to make the window frame and make the snowflakes three-dimensional.  Bump mapping was used to make the wall and snowflakes look realistic as well. Finally, we used our knowledge of making keyframes in Maya to animate the snowflakes falling past the window. The create polygons tool was new but very similar to other tools we have used. To create a snowflake, we took one arm and created it point by point, very much like the NURBS curve tool except to make a rounded edge we had to make several points and manipulate them to roundness. We designed one arm of a snowflake and then duplicated it six times around a 380° point. After combining all six of the duplicated arms into one shape, we extruded and added color/bump mapping. We made six original snowflakes and then copied/resized them to make the rest of the snow. I really enjoyed the project although I did get a little behind in the animating stage. It took everything we have learned to a new and more complicated level and I hope we will continue to develop intricate skills such as the ones we used in this project.