Review of Semester

I feel the Semester hadn’t quite gone according to my pipeline plan, with allot of problems and time restrictions slowly chipping away at the quality of my minor piece. Very envious of the 2d students who could simply start animating as soon as they wished, while the 3d students production was broken into many different and time consuming fields, all of which we needed to accomplish before we could start animating. Modelling and texturing was perhaps the easiest and quickest, taking only two weeks to build all props and scenes. I made the mistake of building the entire 3d world, as if I was preparing myself to film on a fictional location. Jack urges us to build each individual scene, and cater it to the specific needs of the scene. For example, my exterior shot of the shack reveals the shacks size within the world. I felt that my interior shot of the shack needed to be true to this size ratio, however this is not the case as there is room for movement and adjustments. Apart from this, no other problems where faced within modelling and texturing. Subtly using bump maps were an issue, but I feel happy with the overall aesthetics and look of my 3d world.

Rigging was the hardest facet of the production, and I am still running about 6 weeks over and have still not completed rigs to a satisfactory level. It amazes me the amount of work found within rigging, where in we have to not only get our heads around the mechanics of Maya, but also have to memorise countless steps. If one step out of 20 is forgotten, or skipped, or done incorrectly, the entire rig is forfeit and must be redone. It amazes me that we weren’t given classes on rigging, I feel as if we needed at least 4 hours per week, but we have only done 3 lessons with Pat, and 4 with Jack, and both teachers have a different approach to rigging. Pat sped through a foot roll and a ribbon spine, but one lesson on both isn’t enough to memorize both.

Due to problems with freelance animation teachers finding better jobs, we were left in the dark with rigging and forced to learn from tutorials, which isn’t as beneficial as a teacher, as everyone’s rig, depending on their animation was different. Also my common sense seemed to be absent, as I was striving to build a fully operational rig, where in I only needed simpler rigs for characters. Alot of time was eaten up learning compositing programs such as fusion. Probably something thats more beneficial to us in post production, not in the middle of production. Also lost our Fusion teacher, who was replaced with another composition artist who was only familiar with Shake, so more time was eaten up waiting for the teacher to get up to speed. Of course I sympathise with the demand on a teacher who has one days notice to take off from where another teacher left, but is it so much to ask for a course that isn’t filled with Teachers that disappear .

Even rigging with Jack now is difficult, because a rigging teacher can’t stand up and lecture the entire class, but rather must deal with students one on one. So you only get 15 to 30 minutes of contact time per class.

Overall the semester has been a great exercise in self discipline, having to due a large bulk of the production without proper guidance, forcing me to be self taught in the field of rigging, but saying that, rigging is a very temperamental and anally retentive process best suited to those with adequate teachers and resources.

I Feel i know what squash and stretch, timing, and arcs look like, but whether or not I have the skills to demonstrate them is another story, and is in fact the most important part. If I don’t have something worthy of a demo reel I feel the Semester would be a failure.

week 8

Week 8:

Rigging information still coming in drips. Having trouble getting blend shapes to stay attached to the head when animating. Now I’ve cut my characters into smaller groups, so I can animate and rig each part separately. Need help on my Back and Hip controls, as with all character movement the centre of the character is the source of movement and energy, where the line of action is drawn. It’s a big step and I’m struggling to pull it off just based on the tutorials. freaking out.

Week 6

continued working on those blend shapes. Watched a fantastic demo reel on facial blend shapes by some dude rumored to be now working at dream works according to his Youtube comments. What credibility they hold is beyond me.
Can't get the IK spline to work correctly, it's just mental. Had a look back over my storyboards, and now im not sure if it's nesseasy to have one. I was just enthusased about master rigging, but even learning basic rigs seems to be near impossible.

Week 5

Written work is consuming some time. i've managed to get Ik handels and pole vectors working in the legs and arms, but Pat has told me that my Mesh wont work. Didn't tell me why, but I assume it's because the mesh isn't even enough, and i'd be likey to get deformation and have alot of problems skinning, and with blend shapes. Specifically for the monster character, so we've (I) remodeled key characters. Speaking of blend shapes, I also got them working too. All on my own, since we don't have a teacher that knows rigging at the moment. Been urgeing the others to get into it aswell, since any tricks they learn I can harvest.

Week 4

The Battle continues. I've been adding in unnecessary objects into my scenes, just to add a little more life, But i shouldn't be wasting time on things that don't contribute all that much towards the functionality of the animation. I'm wasting time on aesthetics.
Can't get joints to rotate or orient properly, then I find out the by hitting f8 in Maya you can go into component mode. Such a simple step, so simple that digital tutors seemed to skim over it and assume i already had that 'common knowledge.' Man elitist geeks, who ever would have seen the day. Surely they could have made rigging a bit more user friendly, but then i guess everyone would be able to animate. A world full of animators isn't something auto desk wants.

week 3

OK, been procrastinating rigging. The tutorials are fucking complicated, I've sat threw them all, killed like 8 hours this week on tutorials, but just watching them isn't giving me the skills I desperately need. None of the classmates are up to rigging yet, which makes me feel a bit better.
I shouldn't have been lazy, should have been keeping notes. I'm finding doing 1 or 2 steps at a time, pausing the tutorial, then practicing the technique on Maya is better suited for my learning.

Production week 2

Things are going well on the modeling front, and I feel my skills are progressing nicely. Just time consuming which is always going to be an issue for both a freelance animator and a loathsome student. All characters are textured save for the Sheppard, as I may save the way he looks last, as he has the most complicated rig and depending on how his mesh deforms will take preference on his look. For example if his skirt or gown deforms I may give it a cotton weave texture, but id it's static and doesnt change much, I may feel like a raincoat plastic will be better suited.

Production week 1

Production begins. Used my holiday time, perhaps not as wisely as I should have, to get most of my modeling and texturing done. Hopefully this will put me ahead on my pipeline schedule. Things are looking good, will update as time goes by. Having trouble with lighting. Went to borders to find a good book, but photography seems to have a monopoly on lighting techniques, and I don't want to sift through irrelevant information of shutter speeds ect. Must find a book on 3d lighting, or a good teacher.