Summary of the Final production and Post-Production of My Animated Narratives group work assignment.
This post will act as a reflection for the post production of the Animated Narratives module and as an entire reflection of my first year of studying animation at Ulster University. For my Group’s Animated Narratives production project we needed to develop a shot animation based on the theme of “Escape”. When we where grouped up for the project, My group decided on creating our animation around a group of dust bunnies escaping from an evil fox roomba through a carpet forest. Over the course of two weeks, the idea took the form of a high-octane chase sequence that would result in the dust bunnies being victorious with two of the four dust bunnies being lost in the process.
While our group was developing our previs’ during the pre-production phase, we also made progress with our finalized character models for min it took 3 individual model attempts to get a character design and model that I was satisfied with. Along with character models, I also needed to develop some props for the set and I ended up making several props that would be used in the final animation including a lamp and a set of bookshelves and matching books.
When it came time to begin the final production process and develop the final animation, I used the set of shots I decided to go with based on the final previs and developed my final animated shots based on them. However, the majority of the process was revising the animation of the character models and constantly adding and removing keyframes until I rendered a sequence I was satisfied. I also took responsibility for the post production process and editing the entire animation together and work on the sound design during post production, this was by bar my favorite process in the entire production. Prior to this, I had never used Blender or any major video editing software before and although I initially found the task overwhelming, I found this process to be quite enjoyable and easy to perform and it was easily the most memorable part of the entire animation production process.
In retrospect, The most tedious and frustrating process of the entire production phase was the constant revisions of my shots In order to get a sequence that was as fluent as possible while keeping to the tight time limit as much as I could but it was a constant process of producing test renders and reworking the animation constantly to create fluent movement which was quite time consuming because this was before I was made aware of view-port rendering and so the rendering processes for the tests were quite time consuming.
Aside from this, the amount of communication I had with my group via Discord was immensely helpful for the entire group and we constantly had a clear idea of each of our objectives and I think my group and myself were able to develop and Im glad with the outcome of this production and as of currently this is the first fully completed production I have ever been involved with so I personally see the completion of this production as a massive milestone.
Summary of my First year in Ulster University’s animation course
When it comes to summarizing this year as a whole, when I first arrived to Ulster University at the start of the year I had never picked up any 3d animation and or modeling software prior and this course so far has helped me immensely at learning how to use the likes of Blender and Substance painter for making 3d models and animation thanks to the 3D Digital Literacy module during semester 1 as well as this module too for actually developing a full animated production. This course also allowing me to use my previous skills I had acquired in 2d animation during the Animation studio module during semester 1.
If I was to detail what my favorite part of my first year at university, is the social aspect of it. Prior to coming to Ulster, I didn’t know many like-minded individuals and my social skills were not good. However, upon coming to Ulster I have became much more sociable. Being surrounded by like-minded student whole also have a passion for creating animation and telling stories, I have been able to communicate better with my peers immensely and also use said skills for communication in working with said peers on assignments and coursework. During the first semester, I had a lot of enjoyment through the animation society and their events as well as the other society events that were held and I was able to connect with multiple other students who weren’t in the animation course too.
The only aspect that I felt could be improved with my first year experience is the large amount of group work especially during the second semester. Although I’m aware that working in groups is an essential skill in the animation industry and that it is to improve how I communicate my ideas within a group setting during the production of an animation production. But I feel that it then creates more pressure for the entire group as all members are not going to work at the same pace for reasons that are out of mine and their control. I felt like I would’ve been better for more modules that allowed for self growth and experience at key animating skills and techniques in both 2d and 3d and so it would leave me with an even larger intensive to continue to further my skills in both 2d and 3d so I would be able to work much more efficiently with group members during projects instead of trying to quickly teach myself how to use an aspect of Blender (for example) while trying to develop a production simultaneously and having to constantly refer to the in-class tutorials to refresh my mind on important tools and techniques made these processes slightly more stressful.
Overall though, I was immensely happy with my first year at Ulster University, it has been an amazing experience regardless and I do hope to work on and improve my skills as an animator and prosper more with the further progression of second year.