The Minor project has probably been the most difficult one I have experienced so far, while also being the most exciting due to the freedom around making my own animation. After Premise, I didn't really know where to start. I just knew that there was a lot that needed to be done, and not really that much time to do it all. I started with some attempts at making the lab over summer, and I started over numerous times as modelling isn't one of my strong sides. It took a lot longer than I thought to model the sets and props, but I am glad I did do them as it now means for my major project there won't be a huge amount of modelling that I need to do.
When I started modelling my first character, (the alien) I remember starting to feel completely useless, and that in general I'm not capable of making the characters well, or even the final film. That's another reason why this project has been extremely challenging, because it has really made me question my capabilities and limits numerous times. For the majority of the project, I felt as if making this film is too far beyond my skill set and level of knowledge. While I was thinking like that, I realise now that it wasn't such a negative thing, and that I had to leave my comfort zone if I wanted to overcome challenges and learn.
I remember at the earlier parts of this project, where my worries would be about things that were at stages much further ahead than I was. I was at the modelling stage, worrying about how I might attach something to a rigged character for example, when I wasn't even at that stage yet. I soon learned later to just concern myself with what current issues I had, and figure out the later parts when I got to those stages. Also, it turned out that problems would arise at times where I wasn't expecting. One of these times was during skinning, where I was creating pose space deformers. The problem really set me back, as I had to manually move distorted vertices back into their original places one by one, after each pose I made. I did get past this problem, but I learned here to always be prepared for setbacks and sudden challenges, and to allow yourself as much time as possible in case some obstacles put you behind schedule.
When I started modelling my first character, (the alien) I remember starting to feel completely useless, and that in general I'm not capable of making the characters well, or even the final film. That's another reason why this project has been extremely challenging, because it has really made me question my capabilities and limits numerous times. For the majority of the project, I felt as if making this film is too far beyond my skill set and level of knowledge. While I was thinking like that, I realise now that it wasn't such a negative thing, and that I had to leave my comfort zone if I wanted to overcome challenges and learn.
I remember at the earlier parts of this project, where my worries would be about things that were at stages much further ahead than I was. I was at the modelling stage, worrying about how I might attach something to a rigged character for example, when I wasn't even at that stage yet. I soon learned later to just concern myself with what current issues I had, and figure out the later parts when I got to those stages. Also, it turned out that problems would arise at times where I wasn't expecting. One of these times was during skinning, where I was creating pose space deformers. The problem really set me back, as I had to manually move distorted vertices back into their original places one by one, after each pose I made. I did get past this problem, but I learned here to always be prepared for setbacks and sudden challenges, and to allow yourself as much time as possible in case some obstacles put you behind schedule.
Although issues played a big part in my project and I had to restart at times, I have learned a lot from it. I don't say this because the project is now over, I say it because now that I've fully completed one character and overcome all of its challenges, I know so much more than I did at the start of this project, and I do not have any worries about making my next characters at all. In fact, I feel I will be able to work much more quickly on them now. Earlier in the project, my plan was to make the characters together, so for example, model the alien, young alien and scientist, then move onto skinning them, then rigging them all together, and not moving onto the next stage for a character until the others were at the same point. I am so glad I did not do it this way, and I really have no idea what point I would be at if I did do it like that. Instead, I continued with the older alien and fully rigged him, before taking the other characters further. Saying this, I didn't fully model my scientist in the end, but that was because I decided to complete my main character before completing the scientist model, as I knew I could model the scientist without problems that would put me behind significantly, whereas rigging and skinning was a more unknown territory to me and I needed to take the time to get through it. Overall here, I really would have liked to finish my scientist model to accompany the other characters, but I am very happy that I have a finished character, as I am now looking forward to getting the young alien and scientist to that stage, knowing that I am capable of it.
At the end of this project I am incredibly proud of what I have achieved, especially considering how strongly I was doubting myself during the earlier parts of the project. On a slightly more negative note though, I am a bit disappointed with my making of, because I didn't put enough of my time into it to include and show the process of creating my alien's body rig, facial rig and all of its capabilities. While the majority of this is on my blog anyway, I wanted to present it in a way that built up to its final stage, that shows everything I put into that character. Instead, I found myself only able to show the characters in their completed/most recent position. If I had made my making of earlier in the project, as I was reaching certain checkpoints and completing parts, then I wouldn't have found myself unable to include everything in detail in it.
Ultimately, this project has been a journey and extremely challenging at times, but I am so happy I managed to complete my alien, and now have an animation-ready character for my film. I feel head strong about bringing my other characters to life now, and I am not worrying that I won't be able to do certain parts. For me, I think this is where the positive, personal reflection of this project comes from. Not just from the amount of work I completed and what I had to show for it by the end, but from my outlook and mentality towards all of the challenges. Comparing how I felt before Minor and after Minor, there is a huge difference and it has taught me that just doing something, making mistakes and starting over with those mistakes in mind in order to get it right, is a good way to learn, and that it isn't something you just forget or don't take in. Because of the volume of Maya work completed over this entire project, I have become much more instinctive and familiar with Maya, and whether small or large, I now know many new things that will allow me to work more quickly and broadly in general. I am ready to move onto Major, and take everything I have learned from Minor project with me. I'm very excited to make my film.
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