Reflective Statement: Minor Project

This has been a challenging hand in indeed. At the very beginning of this minor project, I feel like I have come leaps and bounds with my work physically and mentally. This project has changed a huge amount over the last several months, some for the right reasons, some not so much. At the very start, I had planned to use a completely different style that I was very focused on trying to use. it also included a voice over where my Grandad talked about his work and his rocking horses. This had to shift dramatically first of all my Grandad has never been one to speak a lot and has always been a quiet man. I struggled trying to get a voice over that worked with him and it didn't give me a lot to work on animation wise. sadly due to my Grandads failing health I was never able to finish getting the recordings from him. I changed my plan and created a voiceover from what my Grandad means to me instead. I was doing well, however, I needed to escape the style I was in so I was encouraged to go all out and really think outside the box, finally, I had something to match my feelings. Over Christmas my Grandads failing health worsened hugely and working on my project only reminded me of that pain. I visited him and my Grandma who has been separated from him numerous times in the hospital and decided that this project was going to be completely dedicated to him whom I love so much. This project has been very hard for me and I still have got to finish modelling my Grandad, which at the time I really struggled to even look at. I shall continue putting my best foot forward for this project and my determination will try to keep me on track.   

Collaboration; Reflective Statement

At the very beginning of this project, I was very excited, but a little nervous to be working with Polly and Paris, as I knew they have done good, professional work in previous projects, and I didn't want to let them down. I feel like I have come on leaps and bounds with lighting, shadows and render quality this year especially with the help of Polly, our team leader who helped me stay on track as I can struggle with time management. If I could improve anything throughout this project I think I'd have started the sound earlier, as there were a couple of issues with it. I also think that I should have more confidence asking Alan about problems in Maya sooner so I can get issues resolved faster, this project was definately a good challenge, but I think I set my expectations for myself too high with the time allocated and should be more aware of this in the next project.

I have learned a great deal from the rest of my group and really enjoyed working on this project. Although there were some slight hiccups along the route I really enjoyed collaborating and would love to do it again in the future. I also think that being in a group I worked harder than I have done in previous projects as not to disappoint and to prove my worth. I also felt a huge sense of pride being able to show my work to the group and them being pleased with what I have created for them. 

Overall I really enjoyed collaborating on this project and created animations that I am very proud of. I am thrilled with the amount that I have learned from my group about lighting, shadows, and rendering. I also learned about image bit sizes, banding in images and opacity using Arnold through-out the project, which I will try to take over into our upcoming project. It was a good experience learning how collaboration works and having to compromise with issues when tasks go wrong or there are problems, these are key transferable skills that I can take into the workplace for when I need to collaborate next.

Fantastic Voyage - Reflective statement

At the beginning of this project, I was fairly nervous, due to my lack of knowledge in my briefs subject. I had always found science really hard and hugely confusing, because of this I knew I needed to get myself going from the very beginning with thumbnails and a lot of research for this project. I felt as if I had a fairly good idea of what I wanted my animation to be like fairly early on which I found comforting due to the difficulties with the last project. Also because I had talked to Jordan fairly early on he was able to push me towards an art style that was ideal for my project. 

I was hugely proud of myself for going out of my comfort zone when it came to contacting a voice actor as I get nervous working on something completely new for the first time as I didn't know what to expect. I feel that I have learnt a huge amount from the experience itself. It also helped to pay for the voice actor as it gave my animation some "value" so it pushed me to work even harder on the project. 

Towards the end of the project I did feel as if I struggled with it, I didn't know what to have as a background which threw me for quite a while, and also I wanted to really keep to my original animatic meaning I struggled trying to use N Particles in Maya, and due to me spending so long on that part I didn't have time to theme it more like UPA Animation and in the end it did look odd in my final piece (I will be going back to my animation during the holidays and sorting out parts, as I feel as if it's close to being finished, but I know I can make it better.) I will also be looking into the hand and making it more UPA styled. 

Even though I had these problems I was really pleased with my final piece, it was pretty much exactly how I wanted it to look in the end and I was thrilled with my voice actor as I felt it really helped. I also was happy that I had tried out some new techniques for the first time and created an animation that I could say I was really proud of. 

Soundscapes - Reflective Statement

I've had a really good time creating the soundscapes, it was a completely new experience using all of my own sounds and I was pleased with my overall results. I have now created a Sound Library and inside there is around 115 sounds, several of these sounds have been used for this project, but I am holding onto all of them and intend to grow my Sound Library throughout the course, so I have a good range of sounds. 

I found getting used to Audition harder than I was expecting, especially on the mac's, however, I seem to now be getting the hang of it more with time and practice, and creating the final three soundscapes really helped with this! 

Reflective Statement

For this unit I found it great fun to do, from the very beginning I did struggle with time due to my story needing to be edited multiple times until correct. However, when I got going it was much more rewarding and exciting to finally move my concept forwards. I really enjoyed creating my characters and developing them into finalised pieces, however, do think that I should have moved onto the Maya Pre - Viz animation slightly sooner as I felt as if I was rushing towards the end. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this project and if I was able to continue and complete my story into a final animation I wouldn't hesitate to carry on where I left off.

Reflective Statement - What if? Metropolis

This unit I have struggled much more compared to the last one. I was feeling much less driven for this task and I struggled on Maya, this is due to lack of understanding about details and how much detail and work I should put into an object that's in shot, for example, I added a huge amount of small detailing into the clocks, but actually in my final shots these weren't a main focal point and they made Maya increasingly laggy and crashing my system over and over deleting work so I either had to do it again or details got missed, meaning I got less enthusiastic and driven about the pieces. I had also created a palace, sitting upon the main centre clock dome and this sadly can only just be seen in the final images. What I have learnt is I need to be very careful on what I create in Maya and why I create it, is it going to be a focal point? or is it going to be a speck in the distance? I feel as if I have learnt the hard way, but now I know I won't be doing this same avoidable problem again. 

I have also been rushed off my feet due to my job, and with Christmas coming they are hugely understaffed meaning I've been doing about 18 hours a week instead of the 11 in my contract, I will be leaving them in Jan so I can focus entirely on my studies.

What I did enjoy about my project was being to model what I wanted on my own, I discovered the more fun side of Maya(when it worked) and I proved to myself multiple times that I could model quite complicated objects, I also found the lighting a tricky thing to get the hand on, but I feel like I have really improved with my lighting knowledge and am eager to learn more.

I can't wait to start the new year and have a fresh start! :) 

Reflective Statement

For the last 5 weeks I have been doing my first university assignment for my course in Art & Animation. I was required to create 100 thumbnails for 19 cities that I had never heard of before and develop a single city into three complex and detailed shots. I have learnt a great deal over these weeks about colour, composition, organisation and most importantly imagination.

To be honest I was terrified about starting this project, for the mere fact that I thought I could't draw buildings, let a lone cities. I could never get happy with my landscape drawings either. However over the last 5 weeks I feel that I have really turned the tables over my own thoughts ad opinions about my landscape and city drawings. I am so proud of myself for persevering and going all the way to completing my final three images. I know how to use Photoshop as I've had it for several years now and am completely self taught, but the program cant make a work of art for you so actually thinking of how I wanted to portray my city of Ersilia and give it the qualities that I wanted it to have took a lot of sitting down and mulling it over in my mind and is what I found took the longest amount of time during the project. 

I think for the future I would like to do a little bit more research when it came to creating my final images as I think this would have added even more interest to my drawings and make them that slight bit more realistic and believable, however overall I wouldn't have changed anything else whilst doing the project and I cant wait to get stuck into my next project brief.