500 word rational

For my project I decided to base my animation on the matrix “dojo” scene. I thought this would be the best out of the three choices as it focused more on the characters and their movements than the scenery. I think I would like to do a career that is more involved with character animation rather than visualisation for example and choosing the scene from Frankenstein for example, felt to me that it focused more on how the scenery looked. I decided I wanted to create an animation that had similarities to the matrix dojo scene but I wanted to create characters and an environment that were from my imagination. I knew I wanted to have two characters, and have them both based upon cats. One was to be older and wiser and the other young and over weight, being taught how to fight by the older cat. After developing my ideas more and playing around with designs I decided the old and wise cat should be just a ‘cooler’ looking cat but keep to the same idea of him teaching the other cat. I then needed them to have a good environment to fight in that would fit with the characters so I started designing a jungle-based environment that was set at twilight. I used images from avatar as an influence with this and this led me on to wanting floating particles in my jungle setting. I began actually building the characters first and then rigging them as I thought this would be the hardest part and it gave me time to re do parts or fix parts that didn’t work. I found the rigging quite easy to do, but then I sometimes would miss out one step and the whole rig wouldn’t work. I think with more practice this would stop happening and I could be more adventurous. I enjoyed making my scene and to help me I used online tutorials to help make the grass and particles. I used the hair and fur modifier to make the grass, I was worried that this would increase rendering time but it didn’t when I tested it. I then followed a tutorial to make my particles glow and it only worked when you did something called a video post. This ended up in me waiting for over twenty hours of rendering before I realised that it was not actually making a video file. So I researched more in to after effects and found a way of creating particles in that, and so rendered my animation the normal way and then added the particles later. I then added voices and music in premiere as it was easier to cut up the video and sound and speed up and slow down different bits of the animation.

I think with this project I learned a lot and worked better with my time management so I could get everything done on time. I definitely learned new things which I can use in my third year for example the particle tool, skin modifier and after effects. I think I need to be more confident with the software and find it more fun than a chore as this would make me want to practice with it lots and my work would improve. I am pleased with what I produced and am and am looking forward to my next challenge