The summer term has commenced and we have quite a selection of projects under way. A couple of things have carried across from last term, such as dissertation prep. and life drawing. I am feeling a good vibe about this term, so hopefully that will last over the next 6 or 7 weeks.
The Research and Methods unit has carried on from last term (we were asked to complete two essays over Easter), with just the proposal left now, before we tackle the dissertation itself. To be honest, I’m really interested in my subject material for it, so getting on with the written work has been reasonably enjoyable. Life drawing sessions will be slightly different this term, with control shifting between Kathy and Derek each week. Everything else is new, new, new…
[ P.S. - if you have not yet heard about it, you need to know about Dr. Sketchy's Falmouth ]
Outlines of new projects to be completed in the 6 weeks of this term:
Negotiated Brief / Pitch Project
We were asked to think about the Negotiated Brief over the Easter break. After being really disappointed with what I managed to achieve last term, I thought for this one I would hopefully be able redeem myself. I plan to produce concept design work for an action / adventure / fantasy (yeah, something like that) video game, but without any production pieces. This will give me a chance to concentrate on my digital painting skills, without worrying too much about the results.
I want to treat it in a similar way to the Conversation Sketchbook project which I did in the Winter. Basically to churn out as much as possible. Although what I planned for this term was originally intended for just the Negotiated Brief, I’ve decided to essentially merge it with the Pitch Project, using the video game as my pitch. I will create my environments for one project, and the characters / supporting concepts for the other.
Since these are supposed to be independent projects, I had to chat to the lecturers to make sure that this plan was OK with them. It should work out quite nicely, since the lecturers are specialists in the areas appropriate to what I have proposed to each of their briefs. The pitch will be to someone from industry (last year they got somebody from the BBC to come down).
Post Production Skills
I expect this will be a series of weekly exercises, involving basic sound, editing, etc. Pretty much all post production work has been optional up until now (with me opting out generally), so this will be the first bit of compulsory post-production techniques learning. Rumour has it that we will be editing together a short trailer of some sort towards the end.
Animation Technologies
Magic G has already taught us a few of these lessons, which so far have covered some great stuff. We’ve learnt about the history / possible future of computers, ripped one apart to look at all the pieces, found out how they process commands, etc. We will be writing an essay related to this stuff later on, but we haven’t been told much about that…
3rd Year Project
Embarrassingly I haven’t really done a great deal, and there was only a small amount asked of me. Jacob had given me a rigged model to test out before Easter, to see if there was any bugs or problems. I can’t find any issues aside from the peg leg being occasionally dodgy (and I’m not sure it is necessarily the rig, it may of be a fault of my own), which I haven’t found a work around (with animation) for. I think it may be to do with the knee, there is a rotation I can’t remove when the peg leg is brought forward in the walk cycle, which you can spot in the playblast.
A sequence of stills from my peg leg difficulty below.
The term should be quite intensive, so this blog could be fairly active over the next 6 weeks.
April 28th, 2010 | Tags: animation technologies, negotiated brief, new projects, pitching, post production, Summer | Category: Digital Animation, Miscellaneous | Comments (1)
.
