Louisa Garland
Final Learning Report
(and link to the blog)
https://sites.google.com/view/anim2005-louisagarland/character
From this project I have learnt many new things to go with two software’s that I didn’t have much confidence with.
ZBrush is a software that I had now for a few years that came with a drawing tablet I brought and that I tried to use it once but never got the hang of it, so I stopped using it. This project got me back into it and has made me have a greater understanding of how this software works. Going through with this project, I had more of an understanding on short cuts too; I didn’t realise there was so many hot keys on the keyboard that made it way quicker.
In Maya, I wasn’t so confident with it from last year as it took a while for me to get the hang of moving a rigged figure, so for the final piece I created a hand drawn piece as that was where I was most comfortable. This semester has helped a lot as I now feel more confident with Maya however, there is somethings that I need to have a go at more during the summer to improve them further than what I had achieved this semester. This being UV-ing.
I quite enjoyed the modelling of a character design as it was something I wanted to do for a very long time. I also enjoyed the character design at the beginning, it made me think to what truly goes into character design and to improve on what I learnt last semester.
One thing that I didn’t get on with was with UV-ing in Maya. This was because when I did everything the video did mine didn’t want to follow. Such as when flattening them then attaching them together (sewing) they didn’t go together like the video did. I believed this was mostly caused by my model as I seem to either lean or I somehow throw off the symmetry so when meshing them together it didn’t work out.
In the process I found that I seemed to not take information from the video quite well unless I re-watch it multiple times; with that I also have the tendency to leave the video running and so I didn’t catch the information after the part I was working on and so I must rewind it multiple times. I got around this by listing what step I was doing so when I. hear it I pause before the next part I haven’t got to yet.
One problem I had with the video lectures is I felt the processes felt a little rushed and compact. It took multiple times like I said before to get the information into my head. I would prefer to have it said slower and showed a little slower so I can get the information to my head much quicker with better understanding.
So, reviewing my own work, I can see where I need to improve. Such as taking the information in and working in both ZBrush and Maya to improve my quality and my understanding to getting over hurdles faster. So as a task for the summer I am going to spend some time making a model improving the overall quality for me to then move it into Maya and the work on UV-ing to get it working better with the symmetry. I also need to make sure on the control on how I create my model to prevent leaning and not being balanced.