Premise - Reflective State

During this premise project I really enjoyed the design process. I found that I was able work on a story that I was really invested in, which in turn improved my work. 

When I first started the project I found the idea of coming up with a narrative entirely on my own a little daunting . I had lots of visual ideas, but no story to go with. In the end I knew that I wanted to look into character design as it is the area I not only enjoy the most, but I feel I have improved on the most recently. 

Once I came up with the idea surrounding anxiety, I think that my work ethic picked up as it is an area I am interested in. The subject matter feels topical for the current climate, as well as something that I can draw on personal experience from. After lots of refining and the added music, I feel that my characters and story are in a really strong place for 3rd year. Overall, I am really happy with how the project turned out. I know hat there is lots of work to be done yet but I think I produced some good outcomes, and I feel that my message came across well. 

To improve, the narrative needs some work still, as well as some minor changes to the animatic. I want to make sure that the story is as readable as possible for an audience. I did suffer from some burn put half way through the project and I think that was just down to the design process, being stuck with my ideas, so for year three I know what I need to do and what to focus on. Looking forward to year three I think that I am a little nervous about the modelling/ rigging faze as well as the animation. As I like the design process so much some of the maya work is somewhat daunting, but I am excited to see my characters in 3D. I plan to get lots of this done as soon as possible to leave time for errors and the general length of the process. 

I found the careers pack valuable, it was a good insight into the working world and the things I need to work on. It has given me a lot to think about in terms of asperations and goals. 

Premise - Submission Post

 

Premise - Update

 As I am towards the end of this premise project I am beginning to sort through work that I have in preparation for crit. Below are some extra drawing and developmental designs not included in my OGR. The environment needs to be developed further which I plan to have progressed through by the deadline as well as some minor orthographic drawings. I have also been testing some designs in maya to give an idea of what this world will look like in 3d. I am currently reworking my animatic, one of the major problems I am facing is making sure that the narrative is as readable as possible to an audience that knows nothing about the project, as there is an underlying message I don't want it to get lost and make no sense. I also have the first version of music which I plan to use for the crit, and after some feedback I will make some changes. I like the design work I have overall but it is really just a case of finalising everything and getting as much done as possible by the deadline as well as making sure it's of a high standard. 

Toolkit 2 - In Class (Expression Changes and Head Movements)

 This week we looked at adding expression changes and head movements. For the expressions, each change is based around a word that stands out in the speech so that there is a reason for the movement. The same with the head movement, leaning in and out for dramatic effect but not alternating so much that it looks too simulated. 

Toolkit 2 - In Class (Phoneme, Visemes and Tongue)

 This week we looked at developing the lip sync further by adding a stretch and pull motion as well as lip curl to create the right shapes for each sound. We started by looking as the muscle structure around the mouth and then moved onto how each letter and sound forms a generic mouth shape. I then added in the appropriate phoneme and visemes shapes to each major sound as well as tongue movement for the L sounds.