Fairytale Ending - Reflective Statement

 

Reflecting back over this last project I am both proud and disappointed in myself. I am disappointed because I feel like I fell at the final point as I got almost everything done but not early enough so that I could completely focus on the last step, which in this case was animation. (Which is a shame since I was looking forward to completing an entire scene and trying out new techniques from James’ animation class.)
This last project has once again fallen completely outside of my comfort zone in terms of what elements I'm confident in with the pipeline. Each step had its own unique set of problems, each time you succeed a problem would later arrive with that, proving to really test my determination in completing the final parts of my character. But it was these mini successes that meant the most. Adding the eyeball texture to my model and seeing her blink for the first time (with her eyelashes following with the mesh) kept me motivated to continue on.
After finishing what felt like the hardest part for me, (modelling) rigging and skinning proved to be just that little bit harder. But like most of this project instead of worrying about whether I could do it and putting it off, I instead tried to jump in at the deep end and get on with it. Luckily with some help and advice through tutors and peers I was able to achieve what I once would have thought never really possible for me. My first-year self would not believe what I have achieved, from having made fairly simple models in first year, to now creating a walking talking model, is a personal achievement in itself.
Unlike other projects, this project also introduced me to new software with a brand new, yet slightly familiar interface, Substance Painter. As I was running a little bit behind on my model and struggling with a few problems with Dorothea’s rig at the time, I had to miss out on the Substance Painter live tutorials. But I did not let this stop me. After going through some of the basics with others, I was able to gather what little knowledge I had and apply it to my model. This was where I really fell into my element. Before finding out about Substance Painter, I enjoyed creating textures and brining colour to my models but always hated having to trial and error each texture to check if the seams were too obvious. But being able to paint straight onto the model was possibly the highlight of this project.
After completing my model I then went onto creating the different assets such as the book and environment, which felt like a breath of fresh air after working on my character model for so long. This was also one of my first times creating a 3D environment, in previous projects I had just created 2D set pieces with basic texturing, so creating an underwater environment was a challenge. However, it was quite fun to do some organic modelling that was not character based, and really allowed me to experiment and see what worked.
If I could go back and do things differently I would have probably changed my project to be a much smaller scale, maybe a short skit rather than full length musical number. As I think I bit off a lot more than I could chew. I also think that if I put possibly less detail into my environment I may have had more time to complete more animation than I did.
Overall, although I did not complete what I had originally intended, I am proud of how far I have come and how much I have completed. Looking back now I see where things could have gone better, especially in terms of starting animation. But I feel I have definitely grown in my confidence of what I can do in Autodesk Maya.