In the beginning of our project. I didn’t
pick any manager due to the lack of experience and confidence. But I would love
to learn as much as possible. So I told teammates that I’d like to do anything
we need. We start the project with brainstorm. Everyone gave some ideas and we
decided which one we are going to pick. We used some toys to play different
role in the story. And set a scene to imitate the story. We all enjoyed it and
found it was really helpful for us to see the scene before it was built. After
the general structure was set, we started to model the characters and other
objects needed. My first task was furniture modeling. As we use a living room
to be the environment, I made different forms for each kind of furniture. I
think doing this will make the living room more like someone’s room. However,
we didn’t use them all but all of the furniture are picked from them. There was
nothing really hard during modeling time. I gained more experience of modeling
in Maya by these. We didn’t spend too much time on character modeling, some of
the characters are free references from web. We found some real troll dolls and
scanned them by scanner in order to build a model.
In next stage, we began to refine our story
board. We split the basic idea of whole story. Three of us took part in story
board drawing. After that we picked everything we feel good and put them
together. With tutor’s help, we finished the final story board and made a
preview to be the profile of the film.
In stage 3, I joined in the rigging group
to rig the troll which is not a very complicated model. With the experience in
our class and the help of other teammate, the rigging and skinning were going
well. As team needed, I also rebuilt a pair of shiny eye balls for the troll.
Internet tutorials are really helpful for us. We didn’t have enough time to
learn too much from the class after all. Blend shape is an interesting part in
this stage. I enjoyed the time of shaping the facial expression and lip
syncing. I got a better understanding of how it works in the animation film.
Abundant blend shape will make a character more vivid and funnier, so it is
good to do more tweak to make it better.
Animation stage is one of my favorite part
in the project. In this stage, I tried to do as much as I can for the
animation. It was a challenge to me because I found that it is a different feel
of making movements by yourself. We all watched some animation films before but
it is hard to do than I think. We need to consider combination of movements,
lip sync and time slider. We wanted to make it both realistic and funny. We
need highlight to make viewers laugh. In this period, we were working together
all the time. When a shot was done by someone, others will be told and they
will need to give their advice or idea. I truly understand that communication
is a key to make progress effective and improving through the work. Our good
ideas are always come from the discussion. What’s more, detail of movement can
really make it better and paying attention on details can really make
difference of whole film.
After we were happy with the basic
animation, we put the texture in and start the lighting. To make sure the light
is uniform. We had even more communication during working. Sometimes two or
three of us worked together in one. Some shots need dramatic light and it was
really nice to have suggestions when you are working. My personal experience of
lighting is just based on the class I had here. Lighting really needs patient
because we can’t see the effect instantly like animation. That is another thing
I got after the long and bored lighting time. But we were very happy about the
result we got. It looks very nice and I think it is worth to spend time on it.
I also took part in the compositing group.
I don’t have any experience of After Effect or Nuke. But the good thing is I
can always learn from other people. To make clear the basic principle of how
compositing work is a very important experience for me.
During the final editing time, we found
some problems left and got them fixed. I’m new in editing, too. And it is more
like a one man driving work. So we were sitting around the editor and giving
our idea and suggestion over the progress.
I’m glad that I joined most of the process
of making the film. I’ve learnt so many thing from tutor, teammates and
tutorials. The whole project is an amazing experience which gives me the idea
of how an animation film can be made. For me teamwork and communication are the
most important things in the project. I’m grateful for the people help me out
when I was facing difficulties and challenges. I really enjoy to work with my
team.
