I was already married when I started at Purdue, so I didn’t have Mommy and Daddy covering my expenses; I had to work my way through college. Luckily, I discovered Papa John’s Pizza on the very day I started at Purdue. Delivering pizzas was a good, low-stress job that allowed me to get away from my hectic university schedule (completing a four-year degree in just 2½ years), and while the tips were never quite as good as they probably should have been, they certainly made the pay better than flipping burgers!

How to Make a Pizza is an instructional animation I created for Papa John’s and my Multimedia Authoring class. It’s a demo, so not all of the navigational links actually work. In addition, it was originally designed for CD-ROM, and the custom cursor doesn’t seem to work with the current Shockwave plug-in. Still, it should give you an idea of what’s possible with Macromedia Director® and the right experience. (4.7MB DCR)

The folding box animation has become a staple of computer graphics at Purdue University. Not only does the student have to create a realistic model of a product package, s/he must also utilize some fairly complex kinematics to make the package transition from its pristine, “hot-off-the-presses” condition to the final, folded state we see on the store shelf. In true Jeffanna fashion, I decided that just folding the box wasn’t enough; I created a three-dimensional background around my product package and tweaked the lighting to add the illusion of a final, glowing state. (Can you tell I like this one?) (4.3MB AVI)

I grew up in New Jersey, so when I was asked to create an animated flag from scratch, I figured I might as well make it that of the Garden State. The thing I really like about this particular animation is that it loops smoothly, so the flag will flap forever. (Of course, if I’d had the time, I also would have made the clouds float by in the background. To quote Professor Pat Connolly, “No computer graphics project can ever be finished; you just run out of time and decide it’s good enough.”) (848KB AVI)

A Bug’s Eye View was another assignment from Introduction to Computer Animation. We were given a bunch of three-dimensional objects and were told to create a maze. Once that was done, we were to create an animation in which the camera was mounted on the head of a bug, running at top speed through said maze. Of course, since it was an introductory class, the animation was to be completed in about three seconds; the bug must have had a rocket pack strapped to his back, along with the camera. (Maybe it was an ant…. They can carry up to fifty times their own weight, right?) (1.2MB AVI)

Primitive Bowling is an extremely simple animation—the first I ever created in Discreet 3D Studio Max®. The bowling ball came out of an early assignment to create a character from at least three basic solids (I chose spheres, cylinders, and cones); the pins were just an afterthought, created from a simple spline rotated around the y-axis. (Don’t worry if you don’t understand that part; graphics geeks will love it.) The bottom line is that I got bored one day and decided to teach myself how to animate stuff before the professor ever got around to it. Given that context, I think it turned out pretty well! (428KB AVI)

Let’s finish up with The Sandwich. In all honesty, this one’s mostly here for a laugh. It’s a project from my Freshman year at Purdue, from one of those classes that’s designed to weed out the weak. The project consisted of the following criteria: create an animation of a sandwich being put together. Use any ingredients you want, but each one must be sketched by hand and scanned into the computer. Composite the items any way you like and compile the frames into an animated GIF. Don’t know how to do all that? Tough. You’ve got 46½ hours to figure it out. Like Primitive Bowling, I’d say this one’s not too shabby, considering. (1.0MB GIF)