PRODUCTION AND POST-PRODUCTION
Forward planning was a recurring theme in the development
of this project, I decided to set up detailed provisional render
settings before I started official animation, this included
render layers, render passes and lighting. This allowed me to
produce and semi finalised renders that I could use to get
feedback on my visual style early.
HANDLING PROBLEMS (THE 1 MONTH DELAY)
To an extent I was irritated by my need to fix a problem as
soon as it arrived, especially if it did not directly affect the
animation at the time. My first rendering problem was that
every time I switched to one of the render layers besides the
master layer Maya would crash. I could have quite easily
kept animating in this file to keep me on track and just sort
out the problem when I came to rendering. I contemplated
doing this multiple times, but my theory was that if I were to
let my problems pile up too far, my project could become
unsalvageable. This proved to be the prudent method when it
came to keeping my workflow clean, I felt that it would be
better to have a clean scene that is able to render with half
the animation done rather than a finished animation in a
corrupted file that may or may not be able to render or even
be recovered.
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This is exactly what happened with the second half of my project, I became a problem solver; a
trouble shooter. As expected this hindered my animation greatly, however, if I didn't sort out
the issues I had with my computer and Maya which were mostly out of my control, my delays
could have been substantially longer. As an animator, I knew that my role was near the end of a
long pipeline and thus could easily be vulnerable to delays. Though as a Director, Producer and
also an animation student that has been taught and maintained skills in multiple sections of
the animation pipeline, I wanted to experience working through an entire production timeline
before I go into a professional environment.