Next week we begin our 6th project: Commission, which seems to be the largest project so far. We only have five weeks to complete it, which is less time than our previous (which flew by) so it seems that time-management will be the biggest challenge. I have no distractions this project, meaning I'm going to put a lot of hours into my final animation.

Over the last few weeks I've been practicing with Maya, both with Alan's tutorials and a few online resources and I think I'm getting a bit more of a hold on the software and I am also sure I'll learn a lot more before the next crit. Below are the final requirements for the unit, a bit of a daunting list.

1) Final animation
2) Concept art
3) Storyboards
4) Animatic
5) CG Pre-Vis
6) Research (including market research)
7) Your brand development and visual identity
8) Your ‘Making of’ pages (see below)
9) Life-Drawing
10) All exercises as specified in your ‘After Effects’ workshops
11) All Maya exercises as specified in technical classes

I'm looking forward to getting a grasp with After Effects, as it seems to really improve the way 3D turns out. I'm going to start a bit of research this weekend, doing what I can before we get our detailed brief.


As the next project seems to be the start of 'visual identity' I'm working on making my blog a bit more unique and better laid out. I'm still fiddling with it, hopefully I'll be happy with it soon.

This was a tough week, but everything is finally done. I completed my animation earlier today but needed to finish up a few things before tommorow. I'm not ecstatic with my final animation, but considering it was my first go, I'm quite happy. It could definitely be improved, especially the chair movements. I'll have the final uploaded to youtube tommorow.

I wanted to produce a good animation timeline as I really enjoyed seeing the history of Visual Effects throughout this unit. I have some bits and pieces spread back over my blog so I decided instead of spammming more posts showing animator's work I would compile it all into a video. I started working on this at about five in the evening and have only just finished, but I'm incredibly happy with it. I think it shows the progress from early visual effects to today's cutting edge quite well. It lasts about 9 minutes and contains quite a bit of footage from a variety of films, plus what I consider to be a tasty soundtrack. I will also post this up tommorow.

I've been working on my animation for a while now, and it is going OK, but I'm still a bit worried about how it will all look when put together. The animatic is below, it is a bit rushed, and the story may not be too clear, but my animation is a lot more readable so far. I've only got about 15 seconds animated as of now, so I need to keep going and make sure it's together for the crit.

Here is my my final Storyboard and a bit of concept. I have two versions, the rough one, which is one image and a set of them that I used to create my animatic, which are clearer and generally better. I will post up the animatic when it finished uploading.

I haven't made a blog-post in over two weeks, and considering it is almost the deadline, I feel like a bit of a twat. I've returned from holidaying for  down in the South-West (Which was great) back into the world of the washed. I spent all of the last two weeks with everything but Animation on my mind, which was both terrible timing and a terrible decision. I'm going to be honest and say I do not even have one frame of animation drawn as of yet, leaving me with about 4 days (3 of those drawing) until deadline.

My animation and final mark this unit is going to suffer incredibly and I admit I've only had myself to blame. I am going to submit on Friday though, which is doable, I have all of my requirements done (Essay, Maya etc) apart from the main animation. I know it isn't what Phil wants to hear, but I'd be happy with just passing this unit.

Cracking on, I'm going to post up my animation and storyboarding tonight, and begin animating tommorow after the Maya class, if my body can handle the caffeine, I'll make it by Friday.

...

Yes I'm buggered.