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Week 8 - ooOoh where did it all go?

  • Writer: Leighanne Fernandes
    Leighanne Fernandes
  • Aug 7, 2020
  • 5 min read

Updated: Aug 12, 2020

Haha you must be wondering "What's up with this title"? Same. I was too.

This week had unexpectedly taken a major toll on me. I was burnt out. Things were getting a strong hold of me and I broke down a million times during the course of the week. Here's why.


Monday Advisory Meeting

From last week's progress, I mentioned how I was supposed to be done with the clothing according to the gantt chart but couldn't because the retopology took forever. I was also a bit exhausted from my body trying to adapt with traveling to work and managing my tasks, council work and some personal projects I am working on the side.


On Monday, it was my first day at work. I was super excited and the work I did was gracefully appreciated - which is something new to me. I am not always told of how my work is either good/bad or whether it's ever acknowledged for the time and effort I put into anything. I got accustomed to this. But it was fairly new and overwhelming (in a good sense) that my work was celebrated in front of me. Anyways, I worked until 1PM and headed home for the advisory meeting.


On the way back all I could think of was how I didn't meet my deadline because I thought I was slacking off and how I should have pushed through the weekend to finish up my tasks. I wasn't really planning on lying but to tell Bing the truth that I couldn't work on the clothing yet.


Turns out, Bing was pretty understanding of the time and effort it takes into working on retopology. Also because my character has all the features such as a face and requires most optimum loops for animations, I needed to spend more time on that. He was happy with my progress.


However, Amos was wayyy behind. His file had crashed and the only last save he had was of a few loops on the arms. He was given a warning and told that if he didn't work every single day for at least 6 hours, he will be off the team. This terrified not just him but myself as well. I was very overwhelmed by the whole meeting and situation because according to the gantt chart he should have already been off the team. This means I'd have to do the full project on my own. Knowing that Natasha left the team as well and we only got two more collaborators who will be working on the side characters, I couldn't possibly be managing them AND my tasks (which would be doubled) and my other units as well. This was probably the start of the anxiety attacks this week.


By that evening, I wasn't feeling too good. Josh - our team lead - was brought into this and he had a long call with Amos. He resolved things and made sure Amos knew he had to be working every single day if he wanted to stay on board. I know I should've just focussed on my tasks and not worried about whatever was to come but I couldn't help myself but think about every worst case scenario possible. That night, I tried to make the clothes in 3Ds max as I had planned to, but the outcome was disastrous. That got me feeling more overwhelmed.


Tuesday - My birthday

The next day was my birthday - 4th August 2020. Unlike any normal human who would've taken the day off, I didn't. I went to work for half a day and spent the evening with a couple of friends. However, the thought of not being able to work that day messed me up even more. I felt guilty for not being able to work on my project, and that affected me mentally the next day as well.


Wednesday

On Wednesday, I made a plan on how to work to get my tasks done on time. But the motivation just died that day. My body was pretty stressed with adjusting to a new work environment, traveling in the heat, with the thought of skipping work on my birthday and seeing the work I put in look disastrous. With all these thoughts crumpling my mind, I thought I was going to mentally break that day. So I took a day off.


Thursday

Thursday was yet another hectic day. I worked in the office from 9 AM to 3 PM, had class from 5 PM to 8 PM, and then completed some editing from 8 PM until midnight. Again, I had no time to work on the project. My brain felt I was procrastinating way too much and all that I was doing other than my tasks was just an excuse - which is not true.


Friday

Hence, Friday morning I woke up planning my time and how to finish a week's worth of pending work in 3 days. I knew I physically couldn't do it. So I asked for help and requested some time off to be able to get back on track. I had over 5 mental breakdowns that day just contemplating on how my progress would screw us up. The talk Bing had with Amos would probably be my turn now. But I was physically incapable of doing anything that day or over the weekend.


Saturday

I tried reviving myself on Saturday, although my body had grown physically weak with migraines and a painful eyebrow twitch. I used this time to research on how to use Marvelous Designer to create clothing. Since it is a completely new software to me, I needed to familiarize myself with it. Although the tutorials seemed straightforward, I knew it would take me a while to adapt to it. Accordingly will I have to space out my time evenly. Below are some tutorials I watched to learn the interface and specifically how to go about the kind of clothing I would need to create: shirt, pants and a hooded Jacket.


Self directed learning - Marvelous designer for clothing


Introduction to Marvelous Designer for 3D Artists (FlippedNormals, 2019)


Marvelous Designer Pants - Base Pants (Marvelous Designer, 2020)


Better Jeans Part 1 - Marvelous Designer (Daniel, 2020)


Marvelous Designer Tutorial | How to use the layer clone function (3D Gladiator, 2018)


Marvelous Designer Tutorial | How to add cords to a hoody (3D Gladiator, 2018)


Ladies Hoodie - Marvelous Designer (Daniel, 2020)


Marvelous Designer Tutorial Jacket (3D modeling Tutorial, 2019)


[Link to online documentation]


I also like planning ahead of things, so I researched on how to retopologize in Marvelous Designer through the videos below.


(Marvelous Designer, 2019)


(WisEngineering, 2020)


I'm just hoping I can get back on track asap because I can't keep dragging the team down because of my mental instability. Hoping things get better soon.


References

3D Gladiator (n.d.). How To Bridge The Gap Between Marvelous Designer and ZBrush

[documentation tutorial]. Retrieved from


3D Gladiator (2018, August 25). Marvelous Designer Tutorial | How to add cords to a hoody


3D Gladiator (2018, August 30). Marvelous Designer Tutorial | How to use the layer clone

function [video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?


3D modeling Tutorial (2019, Apr 9). Marvelous designer tutorial jacket [video]. Retrieved from


Daniel (2020, Jan 25). Ladies Hoodie - Marvelous Designer/Clo3d Tutorial [video]. Retrieved


Daniel (2020, May 20). Better Jeans Part 1 - Marvelous Designer [video]. Retrieved from


FlippedNormals (2019, May 20). Introduction to Marvelous Designer for 3D Artists [video].


Marvelous Designer (2019, Oct 11). Retopology [video]. Retrieved from


Marvelous Designer (2020, May 12). Marvelous Designer Pants - Base Pants [video]. Retrieved


WisEngineering (2020, Jan 14). Marvelous Designer Retopology Tutorial [video]. Retrieved






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