WEEK STARTING - 11th of March, 2019
WEEK ENDING - 17th of March, 2019
MONDAY - Mystery Box workshop
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/mystery-box-maya-session-4.html
TUESDAY - Media Roles introduction
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/media-roles-introduction.html
"Overall, I'm a little bit more enthusiastic about this research task than the other two, mostly because I hated doing the essays. This allows for a bit more creativity, even if it is just in a powerpoint form. But I'm not so sure about the group angle. I've known for a while I need to improve on working in a group, and I feel like I've achieved that for the most part in other animation tasks. But this group in particular has me a bit concerned. There doesn't seem to be anyone desperate to jump straight into the project, and it feels like we still need time to get to know each other. But only time will tell."
[NOTE: Weekly summaries aren't needed for this project.]
THURSDAY - Mystery Box workshop
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/mystery-box-maya-session-5.html
"By the end of this session, I got my main blocking all done! Max now has all his basic movements down, and with a couple more tweaks, he should be ready for splining! Those tweaks, along with things I fixed today, were done with the animation timeline editor. It's a really useful tool, and I'm glad we managed to learn how to use it to our advantage!"
SUMMARY
The Mystery Box project this week didn't have anything major happen; I started again from scratch, but that's about it. I think that Jon's tip to do this was the best course of action; if the way I was doing it would only end up causing me more issues than anything else. I managed to translate the same blocking from my previous version over to the new file, but making the necessary changes I needed to make sure I didn't end up recreating the mistakes that got me here. But this week has proved one thing to me, and it's 3D animation is more tricky than my first experiences lead me to believe it is.
Showing posts with label Week 12. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Week 12. Show all posts
Sunday, March 17, 2019
Thursday, March 14, 2019
MYSTERY BOX - SESSION #5
This post is looking at another Mystery Box CG session.
Before we got on with our work, we were shown how the animation timeline works more thoroughly. The timeline in animation mode, when selecting a certain element that's able to be animated, will show a series of strings and lines that represent different aspects of how that part is moving. For example, a line going up when looking at the "TranslateY" attribute signifies the object is moving upwards.
There's processes to change the line type of your animation too, being able to switch from stepped to splined, among other combinations. These are going to be necessary later on, since Max needs to move smoothly and without just teleporting to places.
By the end of this session, I got my main blocking all done! Max now has all his basic movements down, and with a couple more tweaks, he should be ready for splining! Those tweaks, along with things I fixed today, were done with the animation timeline editor. It's a really useful tool, and I'm glad we managed to learn how to use it to our advantage!
Before we got on with our work, we were shown how the animation timeline works more thoroughly. The timeline in animation mode, when selecting a certain element that's able to be animated, will show a series of strings and lines that represent different aspects of how that part is moving. For example, a line going up when looking at the "TranslateY" attribute signifies the object is moving upwards.
There's processes to change the line type of your animation too, being able to switch from stepped to splined, among other combinations. These are going to be necessary later on, since Max needs to move smoothly and without just teleporting to places.
By the end of this session, I got my main blocking all done! Max now has all his basic movements down, and with a couple more tweaks, he should be ready for splining! Those tweaks, along with things I fixed today, were done with the animation timeline editor. It's a really useful tool, and I'm glad we managed to learn how to use it to our advantage!
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
MEDIA ROLES - INTRODUCTION
In this session, we were introduced to our new research project, about media roles. This research task is a different to the last two, in that the deliverable this time around is a group presentation, not an essay.
This is a 6 week project, in which we research into media roles & practices. This can involve looking at certain studios, productions, practitioners and/or techniques. Our blogwork for this will be solo (we'll all be marked for our individual work). This project involves attempting contact with a practitioner in the industry, and in the end showing our group's findings.
The deliverables include:
The presentations have to be visually appealing; make them look pretty! They should be no more than 20 slides, containing an intro, quotes from practitioners, a conclusion and a bibliography. Spelling and grammar are also important to consider.
So what's the aim of this project? It's mostly to familiarise us with the roles that are out there, and to make us think more about our own employability. We should be considering what we want to go into after graduation, and researching the roles out there is a good way of learning the intricacies of potential jobs.
We got put into our groups after this presentation; I'm with 4 people I don't know at all; Jacob, Tom, Tanje and Gareth. The set date for the presentations is the 30th of April, so that's just about 5 or 6 weeks away.
We got another presentation after learning who we were with, this time looking at the different animation disciplines and production types we can look at.
It started with "traditional" animation productions, that being animated films and television shows. There are three types of these features; 3D animated (e.g. Toy Story 3, Star Wars: The Clone Wars), 2D animated (e.g. Aladdin, Gravity Falls) and stop motion (e.g. Wallace and Gromit, Robot Chicken). We then looked further into that looking at the different age groups that watch specific productions.
We finally looked at VFX, where animated characters and effects are applied on top of live action footage.
We then split off into our groups, and decided what we'd look at for our presentations. To put it bluntly, our group's chemistry is non-existent at this point. None of us knew each other, so we didn't have any kind of reference point to go by in terms of what we know already. Eventually we settled on character design after deciding we all liked, and I quote, "character stuff".
We wrote down a list of potential subtopics from the character design angle we could look further into, as well as characters we'd want to look at.
Overall, I'm a little bit more enthusiastic about this research task than the other two, mostly because I hated doing the essays. This allows for a bit more creativity, even if it is just in a powerpoint form. But I'm not so sure about the group angle. I've known for a while I need to improve on working in a group, and I feel like I've achieved that for the most part in other animation tasks. But this group in particular has me a bit concerned. There doesn't seem to be anyone desperate to jump straight into the project, and it feels like we still need time to get to know each other. But only time will tell.
This is a 6 week project, in which we research into media roles & practices. This can involve looking at certain studios, productions, practitioners and/or techniques. Our blogwork for this will be solo (we'll all be marked for our individual work). This project involves attempting contact with a practitioner in the industry, and in the end showing our group's findings.
The deliverables include:
- A 10-minute presentation showing our group's findings
- Includes visual aid (images / videos) and vocal aid (actual speaking)
- Research portfolio
- Contains information on what types of roles we'd be interested in when studying or as a career
- 500 word summary
The presentations have to be visually appealing; make them look pretty! They should be no more than 20 slides, containing an intro, quotes from practitioners, a conclusion and a bibliography. Spelling and grammar are also important to consider.
So what's the aim of this project? It's mostly to familiarise us with the roles that are out there, and to make us think more about our own employability. We should be considering what we want to go into after graduation, and researching the roles out there is a good way of learning the intricacies of potential jobs.
We got put into our groups after this presentation; I'm with 4 people I don't know at all; Jacob, Tom, Tanje and Gareth. The set date for the presentations is the 30th of April, so that's just about 5 or 6 weeks away.
We got another presentation after learning who we were with, this time looking at the different animation disciplines and production types we can look at.
It started with "traditional" animation productions, that being animated films and television shows. There are three types of these features; 3D animated (e.g. Toy Story 3, Star Wars: The Clone Wars), 2D animated (e.g. Aladdin, Gravity Falls) and stop motion (e.g. Wallace and Gromit, Robot Chicken). We then looked further into that looking at the different age groups that watch specific productions.
(The trailer for Pixar's Toy Story 3 - credit: Pixar Animation Studios)
Then we delved into more specific animation types and productions, including TV idents and adverts.
(Channel 4's 2018 idents, involving a giant made up of the blocks from the channel's logo - credit: Channel 4)
There was also a brief look at Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality, and how animated stories can be told with the viewer able to fully explore the world it's happening in. Related to this is video game animation, specifically in cutscenes.
(Cutscenes from Valve's Portal 2, pertaining to space - credit: Valve)
We finally looked at VFX, where animated characters and effects are applied on top of live action footage.
(Framestore's VFX reel for their work on Avengers: Infinity War - credit: Framestore, Marvel Studios)
For the final part of the presentation, we learnt more about the animation industry in the UK. The facts and figures are a lot more surprising than I expected; there are 10,000 people in the UK working in animation, with a 60:40 male to female ratio. 50% of animators are freelance, meaning they get a lot more freedom and choice in their work. But the most surprising thing to me was learning there's a skill shortage. Animators, storyboarders and production staff / management are in desperate need; shocking to me because I expected there to not be enough jobs.We then split off into our groups, and decided what we'd look at for our presentations. To put it bluntly, our group's chemistry is non-existent at this point. None of us knew each other, so we didn't have any kind of reference point to go by in terms of what we know already. Eventually we settled on character design after deciding we all liked, and I quote, "character stuff".
We wrote down a list of potential subtopics from the character design angle we could look further into, as well as characters we'd want to look at.
Overall, I'm a little bit more enthusiastic about this research task than the other two, mostly because I hated doing the essays. This allows for a bit more creativity, even if it is just in a powerpoint form. But I'm not so sure about the group angle. I've known for a while I need to improve on working in a group, and I feel like I've achieved that for the most part in other animation tasks. But this group in particular has me a bit concerned. There doesn't seem to be anyone desperate to jump straight into the project, and it feels like we still need time to get to know each other. But only time will tell.
Monday, March 11, 2019
MYSTERY BOX - MAYA SESSION #4
Further development on Mystery Box animation in this session.
There wasn't anything huge in terms of the session itself, but I got some good feedback from Jon. He had a look at my blocked-out animation, and while it was alright, he pointed out how difficult it's going to be to work on later down the line. He said that making a walk cycle between two blocked-out poses would be difficult, especially matching the end of the walk to the final pose it needs to get to.
The easiest option? Start from scratch. I was fine to do this; while it was a little bit irritating, I'd rather have an animation that's both easier to work on and looks good over one that's tricky to work on and would look so-so.
So that's what today was, just working on the animation again from the start. It's good that I learnt certain workarounds and shortcuts for setup. The camera is all set up the same, the box is still there, I just need to clean up the animation of the previous version in this new version!
Apart from that, I didn't have much going on in this session.
There wasn't anything huge in terms of the session itself, but I got some good feedback from Jon. He had a look at my blocked-out animation, and while it was alright, he pointed out how difficult it's going to be to work on later down the line. He said that making a walk cycle between two blocked-out poses would be difficult, especially matching the end of the walk to the final pose it needs to get to.
The easiest option? Start from scratch. I was fine to do this; while it was a little bit irritating, I'd rather have an animation that's both easier to work on and looks good over one that's tricky to work on and would look so-so.
So that's what today was, just working on the animation again from the start. It's good that I learnt certain workarounds and shortcuts for setup. The camera is all set up the same, the box is still there, I just need to clean up the animation of the previous version in this new version!
Apart from that, I didn't have much going on in this session.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)