Major Project - Reflective Statement

 

I think this is one of the toughest projects I have ever undertaken in my time in education. I have felt both scared and stressed out believing I will fail this whole course if I even remotely submitted anything subpar and thus fail at having a career in animation. Not helping was the Covid pandemic which has greatly affected the university, my mental health, my course, my family, among much more. While I think I am likely to pass the course now that I have submitted all the necessary components for my major project, needless to say there is quite a bit I wish I could have done better. The reason I believe for a lot of this was simply time. Some was out of my control other times I feel I could have done something to help myself give a better outcome of the project. I cannot help but feel that while it could've gone a lot worse my project could've been a lot better if I had a bit more time such as having better time management and stopping myself from procrastinating as often. Some of the animations in my post-vis look janky and post-visualization of the film doesn't look as clean and crisp as it could be. I also think I focused too much on creating unnecessary prop models for my project which further ate up my time. I wanted to make the world my characters flourished in seem tangible in spite of its cartoony nature. I also wish I included music in my demo reel shots and my post-vis final animation as well as some much-needed sound effects.

Something that I encountered late in my project unfortunately, was some technical faults with my computer and with some of the software. Perhaps I simply pushed it too hard, but from time to time it would crash on me spurring some growing anger and frustration inside and set me back with much needed time lost. I also spent a lot of time trying to perfect the textures on models as I wanted to give them a pseudo-realistic look as if these stop motion animations that made with real materials and not the digital ones of Autodesk Maya. My Making Of could of have been better as well as I simply spent way too much on creating unneeded props and not demonstrating the ones I was going to use in my final film. My film was originally 4-5 minutes in length, but this was cut down to 1-2 to make things easier. I do feel rather unsatisfied that I couldn't achieve that.

What I am happy with is the character rigs and models I did create as they show I can create almost Disney/Pixar level productions as well as present demo reel shots of them. I'm proud of myself for the different ways I created the textures such as using programs like Autodesk Mudbox, Photoshop and Substance Painter. I wanted to demonstrate that I am capable of employing my developed technical skills at a professional level with professional software. The character rigs and the process themselves while challenging at the same time made me appreciate the amount of work I put and proved to me that I was entirely capable of creating high-quality character rigs. The process of texturing and bringing these digital puppets to life also really inspired me to further explore the possibilities 3d software. What shaders and brilliant textures could I create with this software and how can I develop it for actual projects? I genuinely think that this is some of my best work in the time at UCA. I am very glad for the time I spent here at this university.

Even with the rather janky animation, I feel like it does demonstrate the improvements I've made since my first year in the course. From barely being able to animate a slug-like creature to creating rigs and animations for characters that seem life-like and tangible. I've also been able to better understand the software provided to me with creating very atmospheric sets with various lights in the Autodesk Maya and figuring out how to model complex objects and features such as the human face as my character was a 3D one.

I hope the examiners and tutors of my course find my work satisfactory and I hope also to pass it with a very good grade. I intend to continue experimenting with various pieces of industry and professional for as long as I have access to it. I want to continue experimenting and embolden my skills further so I can land a job in the industry especially as an animator. I have been looking towards finding a job out somewhere in the world. Whether that means moving into London or all the way to Australia. I hope that the work I have accomplished here proves I am very much able to produce creative works at a grand standard.

Overall, I feel like I handled this project decently. I may have some hiccups and faults in its production and even in the final product, but I am very much happy for the stuff I've learned over the months in accumulating the knowledge and developed during the process in spite of the grave stress and frustration at some of the stuff I feel is unfinished. Even though I have not seen much of them in the time since I started the third and last term, I am very proud of the people I've met along this course and my time at UCA. I think all of them deserve to find careers out in the wider world to fulfil a grand life. In spite of much of the chaos, stress and frustration throughout this course I am happy to have met the people at the university for they have gotten me through these trying times.