This is a reflective statement for my 3rd year of 3D computer Animation Arts.
I shall outline what it was that I achieved this year, I made a full 3D set consisting of 5 rooms, living room, bathroom, bedroom, hallway and landing. In total I made over 100 3D objects, all Uv'd and textured, the bathroom was cut from the final animation but the assets are available to view in the Art of and in my blog. I modelled 2 characters four times for the main character and six for the secondary character with complete texturing and rigging, facial pose library, and even rigging for interacting with furniture in the set. I was able to finalize the script and choreograph the voice acting and sound design which I gave to a professional to complete for me. I animated approximately 60 scenes and reanimated approximately 15 of them later when I improved. I fully rendered the entire animation without any need for lighting or rendering examples or shots of unfinished work, I have produced 2 demo reels for my characters turnarounds and finally, I produced a 114 page Art of document to demonstrate my journey.
During the year I found that at the beginning I got heavily interested in modelling my set and I spent a long time, just everyday producing models, I took a long time looking at antiques and old places especially victorian houses for certain aspects to model. I found this practice to be extremely beneficial for me because it made me think in a technical way about modelling and eventually my knowledge for problem-solving improved when it came to modelling my characters I could see each attempt which I undertook periodically whilst modeling the set began improving each time. I found my skills of animation were relatively basic when I began, I found it very difficult with timing and had to resort to acting out the scenes on video and then timing it that way. Near the end of animating I found that I was capable of timing movement much better and this meant I needed to go back and improve past scenes, the majority of which I then had to re-render. Looking back I can see a clear line of improvement of all my general 3D skills.
Rigging characters was certainly the most disliked part of this process but I look back on it bittersweetly now as a time which was very satisfying... once it was over and I could see the results. I found a problem with my main character rig was that I made his hips too short and it made his walking a little strange also his spine too long which meant bending in the middle was very awkward for him I have learned a lot about anatomy through the process and will be much more confident in the future at getting it perfect.
The Covid-19 epidemic has meant it was necessary to stay away from university, as I heard talks about the University closing I make an effort to go in every day and make sure I had scenes I could render on the campus computers, by the time the lockdown was implemented I already had half of my shots rendered and ready for the final cut. Looking back I think it was a good move to knuckle down during this time as it gave me plenty of time especially with the deadline pushed back to fine-tune and relax about my work. I have always found this to be a double-edged sword because on one hand I can become blinkered and am unable to see the wider scope and often forget or miss things, but on the other hand I am an extremely driven person who works fast and learns quickly, this occasionally does however mean I celebrate before I reach the finish line, I think this is going to be my biggest personal problem to overcome, I noticed this because I tend to put my head down and work, the year went very quickly and I had realized in terms of engaging with my classmates and staff, and posting regular updates on my blog, I had done very little of updating or checking in, i feel regretful because it was not that I didn't want to, it was a mixture of two things, firstly I felt i never had anything really to update on, it was simply a process of modelling, rigging, animating and rendering, secondly it sounds silly writing it down but my perception of peoples moods in the class was that spirits were low and i think subconiously, if I began posting my progress each day with new models and sequences and things it might end up bring the mood down further if people felt they were falling behind. Thinking about it with the glory of hindsight I realised that it's likely that this wasn't the case, I was overthinking things, and secondly, even if it was a thing, it is my own degree that is being affected. It has taught me a lesson which I will work on not to be afraid of backlash and to act as if something new and exciting is happening with my work as regularly as possible.
Overall, during the course, I feel a mixture of pride for how far I've come, the things I have learned despite the problems that have occurred during my time of studentship. Being a mature student with a mortgage and family to maintain has given me no margin for failure and that has always been my driving force when it comes to work and education. I feel I could go into a 3D team and be ready for the industry. I have a level of anxiety that now I'm a little fish in a big pond and now I am creating content no longer as a student but as a professional. this makes me excited equally for the challenge of improving and also to work with other creatives outside of my own mind.
I am confident in my abilities now that I have completed my 3rd year and feel capable of going out into the world and making a name for myself despite all that has happened this year I can thankfully say it affected me little and I wont allow it to affect me in the future either.
