Evaluation

Positives:

• Experimented with modelling, especially creating a human face
• Blend shape animation for my own character
• Using personalities to objects rather than characters with eyes and obvious features
• Able to add the chess pieces using layers and compositing in After Effects

Negatives:

• Using the Luma Key made the chess pieces seem blurred which I did not like, yet when I tried just merging the layers or adding the blending style they just looked in Xray mode
• SHADOWS!!!! I tried helplessly for hours to create shadows, even creating the planes angled like the stairs and walkways for them to be projected onto. However, when I tried rendering the shadow layers in the different scenes my laptop consisently crashed and I had to give up to focus on compositing.
• I could have possibly pushed the project a bit more and would have been better creating one character or even downloading a pre-rigged model so that I could concentrate on the animation alone, as this is the career path that I wish to take.

If I could do this project again...

I would watch a few more films to see if I could have found a better choice, and then looked at websites such as creative crash to find a suitable rig for me to use. I do prefer modelling them so I know the ins and outs of how they work, yet I could just make one object rather than the five or six pieces I created. This would allow me to use one more complex rig and push the possibilites of the animation with just one character. I am quite pleased with how the chess pieces move, yet think that the quality rather than quantity method pervails.

I would also allow more time at the end for rendering and find a way to get the shadows to work, as I feel this would make the pieces fit into the environment and seem part of it far more. This is my major critisism of my work and my major disappointment with it. I was also unsure of where to place lights, so a clearer scene perhaps in daylight with an area light would have been more advantageous to me.

I am quite proud of my achievement this term, I now want to take it to the next level and set clear parametres with time so that I get each section done effectively and also create a more indepth blog to coincide with everything that I am doing next term. I have learned the importance of this and not trying to fit everything in at the end of term.