Minor: Reflective statement

At the end of the premise project I knew in order to take this project further into the minor project I needed to redesign my animation following the feedback I was given during the premise crit. I used the summer break between year 2 and year 3 to redesign my animation. I reconsidered each metaphor, working out how I could improve the designs and what I could add to them to make the animation more interesting. I drew out new initial ideas for each metaphor and then developed these ideas into production art and concept art. I then created orthographs for every asset/ prop ready for the start of the minor project when I would begin modelling. Also during the summer break I started modelling for my characters. I chose to model one character and then duplicate it and alter the proportions for the second character as my characters are very similar. I managed to successfully model the characters head by the end of the summer break, which I was happy with and meant I had given myself I head start for the minor project. Also due to all the changes I had made to my animation this required me to create a new storyboard, update my script and create a new animatic. All these things helped me to develop my animation further and refine it more. At the start of the minor project I began by moving on to modelling the characters body and both of their hair. At the same time as this I was working on creating a pre viz of my animation. This first pre viz focused on the camera transitions between the metaphors. This process really helped me to work out the timing of my animation, as previously I think everything had been too slow in the animatic. I also started to model the assets for each for the metaphors. I really enjoy modelling so I chose to model the props along side doing everything else for the project, so throughout the whole of the minor project I was slowly completing the models for all of the assets. I was also still developing my animation further in terms of what each metaphor looks like and what happens during each metaphor. I introduced the colour theme throughout my animation of using purple and orange to make clear which part of each metaphor was referring to me and which part was referring to my brother. At this point in the project I had finished modelling the body for my characters and had also remodelled the hair as my first attempt wasn’t correct. After the modelling was complete I was then able to move onto laying out the UVs for my characters. This involved creating several UV maps for both characters ready to use when it came time for texturing. I was then able to move onto rigging and skinning my characters. First I created a skeleton for each character and then painted the weights for the skinning. I also used pose space deformers to fix any problems the skinning created. This process was the most difficult part for me as it takes a while to understand how to paint the weights effectively and also the pose space deformers presented some problems for me in terms of getting them to work correctly. At this time in the project I moved onto creating my final pre viz. I added more detail to the placeholder sets than was in my first pre viz and I also re did the camera animation using a camera rig as that made the camera movements a lot smoother. I also started working on the sound effects by finding suitable sounds from a variety of royalty free sites. Having uploaded a ‘work in progress’ of this pre viz and having received feedback I altered some of the camera transitions between planets and refined the animations further. I then was able to move onto texturing my characters which was a fairly quick process as my characters don’t have a complicated texture. I was also working on the characters facial rigs at the same time. For both characters I created an eye look rig, teeth and a rigged tongue, a blink rig, a brow movement rig and a mouth shapes rig. Coming to the end of the minor project I updated my script and storyboard with all the changes I had made throughout the project. I also created an art of document, which I know is long, but I wanted to document every stage of this project and all the changes it went through.

I think that I set out at the start of the minor project with a lot of work to do so I’m very pleased that I was able to get it all done. I really enjoyed the process of creating my two characters and I’m excited to use them in my final animation now they are fully usable. I also had the big task of modelling all of the assets for all of the metaphors- I think in total there are between 90-100 individual props that I have modelled so it was a big task which I slowly completed throughout the project but I do really enjoy modelling so it was fine for me to do and also I am glad that I have so many models to show any future employers. I also had the task for creating a pre viz which was first developed from my animatic and then refined throughout the project. I found this process quite hard as I found getting the timing right- fitting it with the voiceover and make sure the camera spends enough time focused on every metaphor was a challenge but I think I got there in the end.

Going into the major project my first focus will be to rig any of the assets which require a rig like the turtle and the peacock for example. I will then move onto laying out the UVs for the props and then texturing them. I plan to create fully rendered, final turnarounds for each metaphor once everything is fully textured also. There might also be a few tweaks to make to my characters as well, for example I’m not sure if the texture for the hair, especially the long hair, is working very well at the moment. After this is all complete I will then be able to start animating for my final animation. I think my pre viz will help me a lot when it comes to this as I can use it as a starting point and alter and refine it from there.

(Edit: since submission I realised my storyboard was messed up because a page was repeated and I forgot to change a bit of it, so I have updated the 'final storyboard' post https://emilyfriswell.blogspot.com/2020/01/minor-final-storyboard.html and left the storyboard thats in my art of for now as I can update this during the major project when I polish the storyboard)