Critique
The aim of task three was to produce an advanced piece of work, which demonstrates both technical and creative skills in the field of animation and motion. In order to do this, I used Autodesk's 3ds Max. The animation was key framed and used a selection of tools and menus. These include the following:
- Motion: Trajectory view (A great tool, which draws a line in between key frames for clear visual reference as to where elements in the scene are set to move)
- Link tool (To link the gun/s to the rigged characters in the scene, plus a one occasion a camera to a circle in order to get a smoother shot)
- Curve editor (A form of polishing and smoothing out targeted key frames, using a graph style user interface)
- Key frame duplication (Although a simple procedure, extensive re-positioning of certain key frames, once established in the scene proved to be a bit of a challenge)
Positives
The outcome of this task has several, observable good points. I feel that the animation has a simple, but reasonably clear narrative (standard beginning, middle and end with an outcome) and each character's introduction to the scene worked in establishing essentially who to side with (robot = bad). Also, the sequence includes a range of varying animations, namely full figure, gesture, facial, emotion and weight. The actions within the scene use the allotted time well and is spread over the whole scene. It also demonstrates a good understanding of timing and a considerable amount of attention to the use of cameras (both position and movement).
Negatives
As with all products and work, there will be flaws. In my opinion some of the animation, specifically in some running sequences isn't quite right. I feel that over time this will improve, but limits in my own experience has resulted in some of these weaknesses showing through into this task. In addition, as with the run cycles, some motions are a little rigid and lack some secondary motion. As much detail was made to subtle motions, but unfortunately, some actions had proven beyond my current capabilities. Although this is an animated short, I do believe that it is at times a little bland. Ii sense of bleakness was what I was aiming for, but the adverse effect is that other than the character's interaction, very little else happens. Had the scene been longer, I feel that more content would had to of been included.
Regrets
Similarly to that of the previous section, I have several regrets. The main one is that although I created the final landscape, all of the components were sourced and not made by myself. It is my ultimate goal to be able to make these elements in the future.
Originally, the story was going to be longer and have an additional character, plus a low flying craft. At the point just before the robot fires, he was originally going to be intersected by a second human character with a sniper rifle. It was going to be this second human character that was going to be killed ad this would of been done by another robot rig. Also, a ship was originally intended to be seen to release the projectile (or bomb), allowing for a much larger scope for camera angles and plot. a point of view camera was going to be used for the low flying craft. This extended storyline would of created a much more interesting scene and would of demonstrated an even more extensive range of skills. However, it was decided that this may of made the animation too long, so going with a policy of quality over quantity and so simplified. This sequence was originally inspired by the Halo Reach game trailer, mentioned in an earlier post. The original intended extended plot and character sequences would of fallen into this category, but due to the reduction of content, regrettably this seemed to take a step back from this.
Future improvements
There are several improvements that I feel would of been very interesting to explore, should I of had more time on this task. Firstly, at one point I looked into the idea of putting some music onto the animation, but unfortunately, being unable to choose a suitable track plus time restraints, I was unable to do this. Similarly to the regrets section, I would also of added the originally intended four characters, rather than two.
Summary
To sum up, I feel that I have created a good piece of work using a substantial amount research into the theory behind motion, as well as building on my recently acquired technical skills. I put some hard work into this task, which I fell had paid off. On top of this, I have also developed my objective methodology when discussing my own work, and using this in a constructive manner in order to improve.
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