Final 493 Project Blog

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From August to December of 2021, I tackled multiple animations to better my portfolio-building skills. Here, I will discuss my worth ethic with each project I tackled, including how my process went, and touch a general work flow process and what I could've done to fix them. 

Project 1: You Owe Me a New TV

This was my first project; I wanted to get used to dialogue animation because it is something I want to pursue in my career. I selected the audio from a video game I was extremely passionate about to motivate me more, as well as some models I'm fond of (Bonnie rig from Gumroad and Grey Matter Gary from Clown Guy Rigs). 

There were no mechanical issues but I struggled with the project because of poor planning and lack of references. I had to use my imagination to envision how the models would move, making the animation really janky. 
In the end, I decided to step down from it. If I were to dabble on it again, I would redo the animation sequences. 

Project 2: Trip and Fall 

This was my second project; I wanted to tackle on more action-oriented animation to help myself during my hiatus. I used the same Grey Matter Gary rig because I appreciated his cartoony appearance: I wanted to exaggerate the bounce and liveliness in the trip and fall cycle, and I could incorporate that easily with his cartoony features. 

The biggest issues with animation are with how laggy Maya was. The playtest would skip frames, thus confusing me about what keyframes goes where. I used the COG rig to make the model walk instead of using his motion trail, hence making his walk very janky. 

Project 3: Dance in Motion Capture 

This was my third project: because I'm taking motion capture, I decided to tackle this project to master my skills with Autodesk Motion Builder and Motive. 

Big issues that I came across was defining the rig I wanted to use. I used a MayDay rig from the video game No Straight Roads; I was able to obtain a Blender file that I had multiple issues when exporting to Mixamo to rig her. I decided to export her file as .obj instead of .fbx, and that worked perfectly! 

The characters imported with large rings into Motion Builder. I decided the only way to fix this was to upload the models alone into Mixamo.

Another issue came across: there was marker occlusion that I didn't clean right away in Motive, making her leg clip in the middle of the animation. I plan to get rid of the leg clip and animate the hands, perhaps later on during Winter Break 

What were my goals this semester?

My goal for this semester was to tackle at least 5 different animation sequences. Accordingly so, I have heard that there are three qualifications that animators need to fit under: 

• Are they friendly? 
• Are they fast? 
• And are they good? 

And to complete these three categories will improve your chances of working in the workforce. Meanwhile I was able to dabble on multiple animations, I did not fully complete them, which is something I expected to see in my progress. 

Were you able to achieve your goals?

To be blunt, I did not achieve my goals. Even though I worked on different animation projects, they are half finished due to burnout. I feel into a vicious cycle of picking animations that would take a lot of time to complete, and involving my lack of proper time-management skills and other school assignments got in the way. 

What worked and what didn't?

What really helped me was that I was able to choose my own rigs and pick out my own preferred animation sequences. Those two really acted as a good motivator to keep me going, and this is something I plan to continue doing in my future animation works. I found a massive selection of neat rigs and sets that I plan to use: even with the rigs that require payment, I believe that using my favorites will further motivate me. 

Despite my knack for planning, I confess that I overstepped my abilities and refrained from creating an in-depth schedule of how my work progress should go. Because I didn't create a schedule on what parts of the animation I should work on and what days I should do them, I was poor with making my work progress faster. 

What would you do differently in your portfolio? 

There are a number of things that I could've done differently for my portfolio. One of the most pivotal aspects that will help me next time is to record and gather plenty of references. I did not gather enough references (one video at the most), and due to that, I had to use my imagination to complete my works which never ended well. 
For next time, I will do a good job building my animation schedule. I plan to categorize my work into chunks, starting with filming references for the first week and building keyframes for the second and third weeks, and so on. I have done that a couple of times, but I didn't actively work on it with all of my animations, so that is a habit I will try my very best to keep. 

I want to explore different types of animation and improve my speed, so I want to focus on more action-oriented animation (walk/run cycles, idle moves, attacks) with one dialogue piece or a quad animation being my "big" project.