Evaluating

From looking at the initial brief and then at my final animation, I am confident that I have produced a high quality piece of work and that I have learned a great deal about Character Animation from doing so.

I was a bit of a learning curve for me at first because I had never really modelled people before. I made sure that I did this first as a practice so that my final models would look realistic and in proportion. The man that I made at the beginning of the semester was made from a box. I found that this method of modelling suited me well and I continued to use it for most other models. I really enjoy modelling heads now. I find that getting the character of the person in to the face to very challenging but also very enjoyable. I am particularly pleased with 'Brenda's' face. The expressions that I achieved using the 'Morpher' look realistic and effective. I deliberately exaggerated the expressions for a more comical effect. This can be noted when 'Brenda' becomes very angry with the Rocker towards the end of the sequence.

Animating using boning and skinning was also very new to me. I have experimented with it before but could never get to grips with it. In this module I had to work hard at it to get it right. I found the boning relatively simple. The use of the IK Limb solver did make animating the arms of the characters much easier. I did however have a number of problems with the envelopes. I found this to be quite tedious and time consuming. It was more of a problem with Brenda because she has a fat body. Her upper arms are quite close to her upper body and this meant that the bone in her arm was affecting the arm and also her body. Eventually I got round the problem and Brenda's body movement is probably the most realistic in the whole animation.

I have picked up a number of useful skills when it comes to rendering and putting sequences together. I found out how to properly compress the renders to achieve a higher quality and I furthered my experience with Adobe Premier to produce a sequence which flows correctly.

I do feel that I have put a great deal of character in the models that I have produced for this module. I also think that good research into the characters has helped me to properly convey their traites and personalities. One concern is that I was unable to model hair for the Rocker. I originally wanted to have the Rocker as an older man with long grey hair. I was going to use the 'Hair and Fur' tools in 3D Studio Max but this was proving to be a huge problem when it came to rendering, as it was taking far to long. Instead I decided to go for the punk style hair. This certainly negated the rendering problem, but it does make the Rocker look considerably younger than was initially intended.

If I had more time, or If I was to do this animation again, I would make a few changes. Now that I have more experience with modelling I would make more realistic hands for the characters. People show a lot of emotion through their hands and this emotion would be great to inject in to the characters. I also need to learn more about lighting. I have used really quite simple lighting effects in the animation and this is something that can make animations look highly realistic if done properly. Although I do think that having music alone in the animation is quite effective, I would like to try adding dialogue. This would also give me an opportunity to experiment with lip syncing techniques.