Week 6: Reboot

With things really holding us back, I made the decision this week to confront our situation with our lecturer! Our team work ethics had been diminishing and although I tried my best as a team member to resolve them nicely, it didn't work out! This had delayed our production for weeks and has left us back to square one. We still don’t have an approved mock.

But here’s how I can fix it:

After the meeting, I took up the leadership role and started planning from scratch. With the available resources, I revamped the situation and planned the future tasks accordingly. Luckily, due to the coronavirus break, this has to come us as a 'blessing in disguise'. We have been given 4 weeks to recover from this loss of time and I will ensure I can get the team back on track.

Firstly, I started with identifying all the issues we faced. The biggest issue was team miscommunication and some egoistical issues. I addressed them head on and suggested how we can go about this. Another issue was self-confidence. Because my teammate seemed to lack the self-confidence and didn’t know how to go about the work, she didn't tackle them and we were left behind. The mock was still not approved and wasn't anywhere close to getting approvals because the CGI looked bad. Even though I passed my feedback on them, they weren’t being taken. She took whatever was mentioned by my lecturer as a complete order more than a suggestion. For example, when I drew the storyboards, she freaked out that there are too many shots and demanded that I reduce them. After we received feedback that we need to add more shots, she added them only because she was told to and not because some of the shots needed to be there. There were three extras that didn't contribute to the impact and were unnecessary. When I addressed this, she realized that it was true.

After a good enough discussion, we came to terms with what needs to be done and I set new deadlines, added more tasks to make the vision of the next few weeks more clear and sent the new production sheet deadlines through email. I also addressed all of the issues we need to fix in our mock and gave a day to collect as much reference material.

Production Progress

Apart from this, I finally started on modeling. I managed to get the spinner and turret modeled. I received feedback from the previous version (posted below) where I need to chamfer and work on panel lining. After this I will start on the texturing process.

I tried a new tool called the Pro Boolean tool in 3Ds max to try out a deformation in the shape of the spinner. I used it for the winged area of the spinner blades. With the robot, I am hoping to learn more efficient techniques and explore more into 3D modeling to advance my skill on it.

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Moreover, some more issues we have faced with this uncertainty is that we cannot shoot without the equipment (as we cannot avail it anymore for the next 4 weeks). We contacted Meraas to ask if we could reapply for a new permit, but are still awaiting a reply. Due to our mock still not being approved, we cannot even shoot or prepare for a shoot. All we can do is finish modeling, texturing, possibly rigging and get ready with our new mock shoot to film when things start getting better. We are hoping to get approvals for our work along the way.

Therefore, this week has brought in nothing but uncertainty and all we can do is wait for things to get better. However, in our situation, it is helping us lay things out more clearly since we had a massive turnaround of events within our team. It is not easy to take on a leadership role where the messiness of the group tasks have been hurled at me in the middle of the trimester. But since this is the second time things are unraveling the same way, I am well prepared with what I need to do to make this project work.