lets begin...

Its the return to Blogspot.com  and oooo haven't you all been waiting for the precious moments where I smash blindly at the keyboard hoping to create cognitive sentences. Alas...english was very much wasted upon me *crashes to the floor dramatically* 

Last term was major in terms of its learning curves and that...so I am already in the mind set to work individually for this project as I wanted to have the chance to animate again in order to prepare more material for my show-reel. However, it became a different story when we were given the brief as it stated a whirlwind of tasks to complete. I then thought...two...there needs to be two...two of us....yes. HOWEVER (o yes another change) these briefs are allowed to be interpreted and changed to best benefit us as long as we are not skipping on work or overloading our shoulders. 

There was a choice of three briefs which included:

• Games Design
• Animation
• Character Design

The games design brief doesn't appeal to me. I'm not interested in games, I play them, but I'm not really interested in a career in it though and I would like to do something different from modeling environments like last term. That project has increased my modeling skills no end so its time to tackle something different. I originally thought I'd take the animation brief, however to me it seemed more like a branding project to do with title sequences and thats not what i wish to be pursuing this term. Both of these briefs do allow the involvement of a character and character animation, but I want the opportunity to focus solely on character this term. 

I have chosen to fulfill the character design brief:

Brief C: Character Design

Source: Jon Beeston

Editor -- Axis Animation

http://www.axisanimation.com/

 

“We would like your students to design and animate some characters for us for a potential animated advertisement for London Zoo. We are thinking about using a visual style that reflects traditional “Claymation” techniques but will be generated using CG processes. The characters should be worked up from the following list:”

 

1. Willie Billiams – “A hyperactive nine year old on his first visit to London Zoo with an obsessive interest in creepy crawlies.”

2. Pocahontas Billiams – “Willie’s sister, she’s seven years old but much more relaxed and more knowing than her sibling. She wants to be a gorilla.”

3. Wilhemina Billiams – “Willie and Pocahontas’s grandmother, she thinks everything smells bad and is worried that a chimp or one of those nasty bonobos might escape and “Poo in her hat.””

4. Wee Eck McGlone – “London Zoo’s long suffering head keeper sixty, bald, curmudgeonly, Scottish, fiercely patriotic and obsessive about sweeping up dung.”

5. Cornelius – “A middle aged silver back gorilla, the most civilised and sensible occupant of the zoo by far.”

 

“Your students should consider the following points when working through their character designs:”

 

•  “If they work in 3D then they should concentrate on two characters from the list per animator.”
•  “If they work in 3D then they should be using one of the major 3D packages, i.e. Maya, Lightwave, or Max. The characters should be fully modelled to a maximum resolution of about 100,000 polygons, decent texturing is vital, we won’t accept a model alone at this stage. The model should be rigged”
• “We expect to see support work on paper, development drawings and character sheets that should include orthogonal views, i.e. front, back, top, and side, and a more expressive drawing of the character in a typical pose.”
• “We would like to see some expressive animation sequences that demonstrate the functionality of the rig and also character performance.”

As well as this I have some other points to take into consideration including:

·      Your chosen specialism

·      Your reasons for choosing that specialism

·      How the way that you are working reflects industrial practice

·      Your project brief

·      Your project’s objectives for success

·      Your success, or otherwise in meeting those objectives

·      If a group project, your individual contribution

·      Project scheduling

As you can see...lots of decisions to make. My responses will follow shortly...