Week 3 Blog - Animation Studio 3

Week 3 Blog

This week definitely shook things up for the progress of this project. With the client popping in to look at Pitch A I have to admit I was quite nervous, even though I wasn't presenting. I must say you definitely feel the weight of pressure when you have a client to please, especially one that is very passionate about their project. His blunt feedback was very much a double edged sword to me. While it certainly help us to figure out what direction to go with the design of everything and to wipe the elements that he straight up rejected, it also generated alot of pressure as it also came with disappointment on the clients end. Hearing him describe the pitch as "3 presentations in 1" and how he went from being interested to losing it was rather cutting. I felt fluttered for the whole afternoon and thankful that I didn't have to show pitch B to him as I am certain he would have torn it to shreds (especially when he described the design of the teleporter pod and my design was nowhere near that).

I knew that pressure was going to be back for me in this unit but I suppose seeing that unfold it's something you cant really prepare yourself for. It certainly added more pressure not to fail him next week as I get the feeling that we could potentially lose him if we don't deliver the concept this time. It would be a really demotivating crisis if we were to lose the client and I'm crossing my fingers we can pull through this time. I did learn the importance though of how important it is to nail down a theme and trim off the fatty parts. To me it really emphasized how crucial it is to get the concept down and locked in early on to secure confidence for the client. I certainly need to keep a cooler head in these situations as I don't know how I would have gone if I had to follow up after Pitch A, but I imagine it would have been a disaster.

I think my emotional state after that session affected my progress for the rest of the week as Thursday felt like a slog to me. While Nuke at a first impression didn't seem to bad and I had no issues with the node structure, the math behind all the colour functions just made my brain hurt and the thought of having to remember all that to be a competent composition artist makes me not want to pursue that particular path. At least stuff like the shuffle mechanic seemed straight forward enough, going for a multiple grid match the X's setup. To describe it in a less dry way it's like matching chart data in an excel spreadsheet, spread out amongst multiple tabs of charts each affecting a particular setting. It's certainly powerful tech and I can only imagine how neat it would be in the right hands. But with how distracted I was it was a hard sell to me, and I don't know if I'll be keen for next week's session.

With that and the house searching cutting into my time it has been a jumbled week for myself. The ship design still seemed incomplete and I have to admit coming up with a ship design from scratch ain't the easiest task. Knowing when to stop adding more details or when to add more alterations is a tricky balancing game and at times I felt like I had to add bits here and there just for the sake of complexity. But I suppose this is the process of creating a design from scratch, nothing is absolute and it is good to get feedback from others to shape it up right.

Deciding to do the independent study over the interdisciplinary requirement was definitely the best choice for me as now that the workload for Studio 3 is getting heavier the last thing I need is another project to work on. This option also gives me the option to give a skill I tried learning in the past another shot, Drawing. In particular after talking with my lecturer I decided to hone in on character design in particular as that is a skill I did want to learn for professional and hobby use but due to steep learning curves and confusion to where to start kept me at bay. This is a great chance for me to take another stab at it and get my head around it proper.

For the journey to start however I need to get to the basics, the bread and butter of an artists techniques. While I have looked into this previously with drawing techniques such as drawing from the shoulder rather than the hand and exercises to do before drawing which ranges from basic line drawing repeatedly to box drawing, I imagine there is more to it that I missed first time around. By the first meeting I aim to have a log of my progress of learning the fundamentals of drawing for both traditional and digital.

I feel like it's gonna be a bumpy ride from here on out with the pressure on from our client and this will be a real test for me having been away for half a year. If I can pull through and pass this unit and make something good, I will be confident in the next stages to come. If not then I will have to reassess myself and get to the root of the problem.

Week 2 Blog - Animation Studio 3

Week 2 Blog

The second week was a step forward in the development phase for our planning. Now that we got the chance to meet the creator of the project and find out what he wants to see in this animatic, it has given us the direction we need to refining our original pitch and get across the ideal visuals.

With that said though I am still a little nervous about how to approach the pitch for next week. While I did get positive reception for my initial pitch, I still can't help but feel like it was a little under cooked and it's just something that's not my specialty. A feeling that continued when I got started with the 3D concept modelling as modelling a ship from scratch is not the easiest task. Having gone through my research I've decided to try making a few varied designs that we could focus on based on different aesthetics.

So far I've made 3 different designs we could hone in on, one inspired by traditional battleships (In particular looked at Space Battleship Yamato's designs), the second one going for a more boxy design (This one I might build upon as thinking about the scene I want the ship to be a big looming figure and this kind of shape seemed appropriate), and the third one being a more rounded shape, similar to something like a zeppelin. I'm also considering doing some concept ideas for the Munin logo that can be placed on the side of the ship in a design similar to WW2 planes. I will have to do some research on logo fonts and images based off of the origins of the term Munin.

Thursday's class was certainly a substance filled one with the Nuke program being the main focus this time. Having looked at a few tutorials beforehand it didn't look too intimidating with it's focus on visual node structures and straight forward button setups. It's certainly a powerful tool and messing around with the robot chase footage was neat, it's just a shame that we can't use it properly at home due to the commercial/non-commercial incompatibility.

Now that the project is kicking off I've got to get back into the productive mood and make sure to get some progress done each day. The required amount of hours to do a week seemed rather large and I have a feeling I'm not going to make that number in the early stages. Once the heavy stuff comes in no doubt more hours will come in but at this point I suspect it will be gradual. I am a bit anxious about how to approach the next pitch now that i have to narrow it down to a specific visual design, but hopefully with discussion with my teammates I can get the right direction for it.

Week 1 Blog - Animation Studio 3

Week 1 Blog

With the first week of Animation Studio 3 coming to a close, I've been absorbing everything that has been laid out in front of me of what's to come from this particular unit. Now that I have returned from a half a year break the time has come to get my mindset back into work mode. This no doubt will be a challenge and with the power of hindsight I will have to be careful not to fall into the pitfalls that caught me off guard last semester. 

First impressions of the class were good. I was quite surprised at how small the class was. After doing Studio 1 and 2 I expected another moderate sized class but this one was much more compact with only a handful of students all put together to work on a major project. I feel more comfortable with this situation as it will be less hectic and easier to communicate with the lecturer on any issues that may arise.

The main project being a short animatic got my attention as it is something I haven't done since my time studying animation at Deakin, where I made an animatic with 6 other students. My only concern will be with getting back into the flow of things due to my absence and the potential difficulties to come with this kind of project, especially with only 12 weeks to do it. Time management will be crucial this time as a lack of that last semester lead to my downfall in that unit and I will do whatever it takes not to let that happen again. Unfortunately with another unit once again acting as a distraction on the side I will have to deal with that unit alongside this one and I will have to make sure I don't let it distract me too much this time. I was hoping to jump onto that unit's assignments to knock them out of the way early but due to them being group and week oriented I am unable to do so. so that could be a potential problem.

Even though I have the above concerns I do feel a bit more optimistic about this unit. Compared to previous ones this one seems like more of what I was looking for and the smaller group focus is much cosier then previous setups. I also think we can make some cool stuff with the given script, with it's focus on sci-fi horror. I was having images of potential scenes flashing in my head as we read the script and I'm hoping to bring some of them to life in te upcoing weeks.

The element analysis on the other hand was rather overwhelming. It is certainly one of those things that looks simple on the outside but is actually quite complex once you start to look closer. Just thinking of the word 'Unity' now makes my head hurt as it's quite difficult to really analyse something in such depth in it's basics from line to form to texture. Hopefully as the weeks go on I'll have a better grasp of it because right now it's definitely something to work on.

But for now all my attention needs to go into research for this animatic and with the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo example to look at I'm going to have to really think hard about the approach to this project and to my particular pitch to the group. Honestly I'm happy with whatever we decide to go with style wise, as long as it's achievable within the time restrictions and our current skillsets.