'The Progression of My Project'

‘WARNING’ huge (probably rambling) essay approaching =]

 

So... I have been very bad at keeping this blog up to date, I am no good at keeping a regular ‘diary’ type thing the thought of it stresses me out to no end, it’s just really not my thing! Instead I will reflect back on my time here to show my line of thought over the past few weeks.

I always knew I was much more into animation than games, and had it in mind as a possibility to create the penguin animation I scripted in the final semester of 3^rd year; I received an A20 for it so thought it seemed a decent starting point.

Although I had thought about what to do for my project a bit during the summer, I wasn’t completely sure what was being asked of us and where to begin coming up with a strong enough idea, and so waited to consult with people at Uni.

I'm never good with open briefs, and this 4^th year honours project...well it pretty much could not be more open! So for the first couple of weeks I think all I did was panic at coming up with an idea and didn’t end up getting anywhere to reassure myself. All advice told us to choose something we were interested in to make sure we get caught up in the project, enjoy it and at the end, are left with something of worth to us.

So I got to thinking...I really like doing all the 3D modelling/rigging/skinning stuff to do with animation, I still don’t feel completely confident in my abilities or amount of experience, however after 3^rd year I realised it’s what I really enjoy doing the most! I do like doing actual animation obviously...but I feel I’m too much of a perfectionist with the layout of key frames...precise values... among other things; and have ended up finding it very stressful so far! I definitely prefer the process leading up to it...and AFTER the original concept has been sorted out! I’m fine with chipping in after there’s a base idea but not so good with an empty page. I just think; there are so many people who are a lot better at drawing and coming up with characters and stories than me, I should leave it up to them for the most part.

Also many people say rigging is a good area to get into as there seems to be a shortage of people that are actually interested in doing it, most of my classmates find me slightly weird for actually enjoying it!

Next step- trying to think what I could do that focuses on these sorts of areas, here are some brain waves I had, not thinking about what was a good or not-

-Looking into the most efficient ways of rigging.

-Comparing the difference between the modelling/rigging process for animation and games.

-Why there’s been such a widespread shift to 3d animation, for instance- Disney almost stopping their making of traditional hand drawn 2d animations, why is it all about Pixar and 3d now? Is it just because of the technology now-a-days? Is it because it’s not as hard pressing on time and therefore money? It would be interesting to look into the benefits/downfalls of it all.

- Comparing 2D and 3D animation.

- Comparing Stop Motion and 3D animation.

Then talking to Lynn we were thinking about ‘visualisation processes,’ production processes and I remembered how I love watching all the DVD extras about how they made movies etc and that’s pretty much what got me into doing this course in the first place so then I started to think about...

-Investigating the history of production processes,
-Why they work,
-What other approaches there are,
-Compare contemporary and traditional techniques,
-Comparing 2D, Stop-motion and 3D methods,
-Exploring the benefits and problems with each.

This was too broad, but I didn’t really understand how to focus it, like I said earlier, I think my main problem is getting my head around what I'm actually supposed to be doing, and I found myself still struggling a lot. Looking back now I understand how this is much more ‘researching history’ and the project can’t just be a record of what’s happened in the past, it has to discuss something, teach you something new.

Advice in Pitch consisted of-

-‘communicating the morals of the story through the characters and environments.’
-‘what’s the best approach to and what’s interesting about rigging?’
-‘Looking into the future of rigging, motion capture and avatar type stuff.’
-‘Looking into the role of technical artists.’

But nothing was grabbing me.

It was around this point I realised there’s no point doing an animation just for the sake of it...thinking maybe there’s a way I can work my project so that I create a series of characters/environments/props or something, maybe exploring the different production techniques, also I want to learn more about lighting and rendering because it’s a big thing and interesting but I don’t know much about it yet.

I got stuck here for a long time, too long, but eventually sometime after a meeting with various people trying to get my head around this I started thinking along the lines of-

-How character rigging affects the final outcome of the animation- suspension of disbelief.

-Complex rigging, what are the best approaches?

-Is rigging in Stop motion related to rigging in 3D?

-The process of converting characters from 2D to 3D.

-Clay models are created to help better understand a character and making it work from all angles before 3D modelling, would creating animatronics benefit 3D rigging?

-Assessing the impact of rig quality on downstream animation.

-Consequences of when a rig is not prepared for what an animator needs.

-Comparing good and bad examples of rigs.

-Comparing two characters; one with animatronics created before working in 3D, one without, both with the same outcome for animation but not exactly the same so that I wouldn’t learn from the 1^st character making me more efficient when making the 2^nd.

-Looking into the difference between rigging for organic and mechanical characters.

-How when watching movies/characters I love/coming up with ideas...I always tend towards creatures, animals or inanimate objects animated, I find all this much more interesting than human characters.

It was then that I started towards looking at ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’ how they figure out the movements and behaviours of something they have never seen. Thinking about how to go about rigging non-humanoid characters, writing a process manual outlining this approach. Looking into evolution and how an animal’s environment affects its behaviour. The process of studying real animal movements and how this relates to creating a rig for animation.

From here I’m pretty much at my project, Looking back I’m feeling much more confident about it however I can’t stop thinking that I have wasted so much time being stuck on what to do and not enough time getting research and sketchbook work done, wishing I could start the semester again at the point I’m at now!! I’ve also lost a lot of my motivation from 3^rd year, I think my lack of understanding for what I’m doing has played the main part in this fact and I feel that once this semester is over, with the project all planned out I’m going to bounce back and start having fun again!

This has become a ridiculously HUGE post so I’m going to stop and move on now! I also feel this effort of a 1302 word piece should definitely have been invested into my Project Proposal and not this ramble of nonsense...oops! However apparently our blog is supposed to show our ‘Thought Process’ so here it is! Anyone who actually bothered to read all this is amazing! <3