The time has come to finally put an end to this year.
This module was about creating a 30-60 second short film with the theme journey were the models cannot have legs. I found it hard to come up with an idea but my group liked the idea about a wooden duck wanting a charcoal finish. we made a lot of changes to the idea and after the presentation before easter we came close to scrapping the entire idea all together and starting new cause of the feedback we got. The new suggested idea was to keep the setting and the main character of the duck and the one of the swan but to change the other 2 characters to a dragon and a wooden toy with metal parts. I got excited with the idea especially when I heard dragon, I love dragons, and started to sketch some ideas for it mainly for the dragon but I’m glad we did not do that cause I would have probably died of stress. The final idea was a wooden duck longing to be up on the shelf with the cool eagle cult. The blowtorch offers his help to get to the eagle do the damaged swans warning. When the duck reachs the eagles they push him off the shelf and into the furnace below killing to duck. It is a tragic tale about not trusting strangers. In all the ideratings of the story it always ending with the duck dying in a fire and we were not ever going to change that. I found designing characters easier in this module probably because the characters were not human and I like birds.
I was subconsciously drawn to the swan and was focusing my time on sketching the swan. You see the swan got burnt by the blowtorch half way through its carving and I like to think that the swan was being craved by the owner of the workshop and his daughter/granddaughter so when the swan got burnt he did not have the heart to throw it away. I found a lot of pretty swan sculptures and wooden carvings I liked them so much that I wanted to get into wood carving but I’m too poor to buy any of the tools required for it. I probably would have experimented more with what part of the swans body was unfinished but In my head it makes the most sense for them to start with the head and move down. When modelling the swan I would ask my friend how it looked and she kept saying it looked like a roast chicken. My first attempt at the swan had the mouth closed which was a big mistake cause I didn’t know how I would open it up. So I redid the head and neck to open the mouth up and also to get eyes in the model because I forgot them the first time. The wings were tricky because I didn’t know how to make them look like carved wings without it just looking like a weird looking slab of wood but I think the final look is pretty good. I would say that I could have experimented with using curves to make it look like feathers in a similar way I used curves to make the hair of the wooden horse. I think the texturing of the swan was pretty good I did have to change it slightly because of some feedback I got that one of the eyes was too hard to make out so I changed it so that both of the eyes were not burnt.
I was pretty attached to the idea of the environment being an old man’s personal workshop cause I found the inspo pics to be pretty and that an environment only lit by a fire could look cool so when Alec suggested it to be a factory I was very much against that and so was others in my team so we kept the workshop. I mainly started to create the environment myself cause I was scared I wasn’t contributing much to the group. I looked at a lot of different types of furnaces some the are more open some that are closed some that are round and some that need to be up against a wall. The first one I created was a round stand alone one that would’ve been in the centre on the workshop but then that evolved into being up against the wall in a smaller space with the mouth being out more so the duck can just fall into the fire. I liked how the final furnace came out but if I were to do it again I would’ve put more time into finding better textures and adding little details. I should’ve made a list of assets for the environment and sent it to my group in discord then I could’ve had more assets to make the workshop fuller and more like a workshop with tools, gadgets and completed/ uncompleted projects also I would of had more details about the possible owner of the workshop. I had Mike sneak up behind me whilst I was on facebook and pointed out that my environment needed skirting boards and I think it really tied the room together. I definitely should have labeled my materials when modelling cause when I had to find missing files the wrong material was appearing on the assets. Other things I could have added to the environment are stuff like photos tools such as chisels, saws, clamps, hammers and nails, puppets, logs and metal stuff like a soldering iron. I looked at inspiration on the internet and also at my grandads place since he also had a little workshop in his house (which was mostly just a shed in his garden) and focused at what they all have in common and focused on those first before creating the other stuff.
When appending the models to the environment I had to change the size of a lot of things so next time I would properly make a scale sheet or something so the size of things are consistent and there would not be any need to resize any of the assets. Also when appending assets I think it may have broken my shape keys on the swan model and I tried to fix it but they just were not working so I carried on without them as it was taking up my animating time.
With all the furnaces I tested the amount of fire light that would expel from the furnace and with the final furnace I tested to see the strength and colour would be best for the environment. If I could have done more for the environment I would have added other little light like fairy lights or toys that have light elements to it. One of the models I was working on that didn’t get finished was a little grim reaper sculpture that had a little lantern on the scythe and it would have been like a little omen to the ending of the animation. I could have figured out how to add beams of moonlight coming through the window to add some effect and it could have been pretty. I tried using fill lights and background lights (I think that is what they are called) to light the scenes and it took some trial and error to get the correct power and colour of light so it wasn’t so harsh and out of place. I could have possibly spent more time on the lighting but I thought it was good and that’s enough for me.
I found animating in 3D was easier than in 2D as I didn’t have to draw out many frames and editing the timing was much easier. The undo button has been my best friend with the amount of mistakes I have made but sometime my mistake was too far back and the only thing you can do is delete the whole thing. I could make changes to one element and I didn’t have to do it for other frames.
When rendering the animation I was terrified for my computer as it sounded like a fighter jet taking off similar to how it sounds when I start playing the sims with mods and the room gets a little bit hotter. I’m glad the rendering time was only a few minutes since we were using eevee and it could have taken half an hour or more.
When I saw the groups for this module I was a bit more relieved since I was in a group previously with Niamh for the animation studio module and briefly with Rebecca in the earlier stages of said module and they were pleasant to work with. I haven’t been in a group with Nathan before so I was a bit nervous working with him but I found him to be a hardworking individual who you would want to be in a group with. There was some time I wish the communication was better and I’m also at fault with not replying to my teammates but I think the communication got better over time. I would work with these people again. I think I became more comfortable working in a group and I enjoyed working in this group.
Doing presentations was probably the hardest part of this module because I can’t talk about what I’m doing for some reason. The amount of time I just wanted to say “this is a swan have a good day” and just leave. I prefer to let my work speak for itself, mostly I’m better written down with multiple drafts to actually think about what I’m saying
I would have to say that this module was probably my second favourite out of this year. I really enjoyed 3D modelling and dusting off my animating skills in Blender which still could use some work that I’m excited to do. My favourite part was modelling assets and creating the environment. I think I need to work on constraints and creating shape keys which was new to me this module. I feel like I was better at time management on this module since I wasn’t animating up to the last second and I had time to make changes to my animations if there was any problems with them but there wasn’t. YAY!
I would rate this module a 8.5/10 It could improve by letting people choose their groups and having less presentations as well as reducing the amount of words I have to write. I’m not good a writing why do I have to do it in an animation course. I enjoyed this module none the less and I’m excited to evolve my skills learnt in this module.
I found some show that I used to watch that were animated in korea like kung fu dino posse and the simpsons.
