Week 2 – Uh Oh!

We were totally bamboozled this week with whatever came at us! Here’s why:

Our Project:

Turns out that we needed to give three story ideas to our lecturer to get one approved and then carry on with the animatic and necessary requirements. We were not aware of this at all. So, a day before the presentation, we described our idea and was given feedback on making a few changes, which we did by the next day. While presenting in front of our seniors, we received quite harsh feedback on a lot of things. A few concerned with how the logic of the story doesn’t work, and the others had to do with the technical stuff we did such as the animatic and concept designs.

An outline of our story, set in a world of robots.

Although harsh, the feedback did make a lot of sense. Considering how none of us are animators, this animation-heavy story wouldn’t work for us. It would seem a whole lot better if we just scratched it out and start all over with a new idea. We did not take into account the time it would take for the disassembling animations, the rendering time that would go into the environment shots, and the time frame for the robot designs each of us worked on. The mood board designs didn’t match as well, and we are in a lot of trouble at the moment.

Clearly the time frame of all these designs do not match, and it was foolish of us to not have decided on that at the start. All these designs done by me.

It’s already the end of week 2 and we are back to the drawing board. We also need to tighten our communications with our lecturer and each other in order to refine our work and stay on track.

As a class, we came to a critical conclusion that it would be beneficial to all of us if we could make a still life reel instead of an animated short film. Focusing on the modelling and doing a lot of research into cinematography to narrate a story would help us a lot, especially at this point in time. So, once we got the approval to carry on with this idea, our team thoroughly worked through a couple of ideas, made a basic presentation for all three ideas with mood boards and a basic outline of the stories and emailed it to Amit. Two days later, the second story (which was thought by me), was approved and required a bit more refining.

MONDAY & TUESDAY CLASSES:

On Monday, we were tested with a speed modelling task to model the object on screen within 1, 2 and 3 minutes. This was a test just to check on our precision, accuracy, proportions and overall speed of modelling.

Later, we learnt more about hard surface modelling by doing some research and experimentation in class. We were given some challenges to think of ways on creating that particular shape shown on screen using the knowledge we were taught on the spot. It was a pretty insightful class overall. See image 2 for a screenshot of what we experimented with.

Image 1: Some research into how to model hard surfaces.

On Tuesday, we learnt about using 2D shapes to help us model complicated details on our 3D models. Things such as modelling a circle on a model, or creating an arc structure seemed very interesting. I honestly never knew these tools could help in such creative ways, and would’ve never done these in the same way if I hadn’t known. I’m glad we are learning quite a lot in such a short span of time! It makes me enjoy 3D modelling more.

Image 2: Screenshot of the hard surface models we experimented with in class.

ANIMATION CLASS with RASHED:

Once again, we started the class with a few warm up poses. This time I could see a clear improvement in my work in terms of speed and accuracy in the poses. I received good feedback on these poses which boosted my self-esteem a bit more that day!

We then went into learning how to animate a run cycle using the curve editor and a motion path/trajectory. Key framing is KEY to nailing the poses of a run cycle, which is much longer than a walk cycle and slightly more complicated. By the end of the class, we had a basic run cycle done.

COLLABORATION:

I also received a collaboration to model two low poly Mexican themed characters for the games studio group. I drew up a few sketches to brainstorm and asked for feedback on which ones to carry on with. Two out of four ideas were approved and so I began modelling this week.

Overall, this week was a roller coaster of a ride. I believe one of the reasons why we were caught off guard was because none of us were fully aware of what was needed. The lack of communication between our team and that we had no team lead before this week, got us all confused for a good amount of time. Things, at this point, don’t seem too promising but I should be keeping a positive attitude. We are hoping to get things approved and cleared by next week as we have a major project ahead of us.