Critical Thinking

in reflection to coming up with more ideas for the story i don't think we are doing enough critical thinking upon each idea.

To many times in my life as an employee at work places i have had employer's come up with a new strategy to sell stuff or do things. i then ask "but what if this happens". there response is "trust me" and then i am left to deal with the exact problem i just predicted. 

its because there is not enough  Critical Thinking. 

from this day forward if a new idea comes up. i want to see solid critical thinking in the idea. Seeing as though we seem to be doing pre-production stuff in a production class, we should of had better critical thinking in our pre-production class so that we could have avoided the issue of having to make so many  changes. 

asking our self's the hard questions and having a solid understanding of the amount of time we have left in my opinion is a start. then tailoring the film to those restraints are ideal. 

sorry to the teachers who have to mark this but please watch this video then look at my pictures.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OLPL5p0fMg  

Week 5

Week 5 - Changes in the Story

In week 5, I have been modelling more assets to the boy Liam’s house. The project is moving forward, however, the deadline is moving closer. We need to be up to face rigging and animation blocking by next week. However, the group as a whole doesn’t seem to be able to agree on a solid story at this point and what I thought was an opportunity to reduce the scope of the film has, possibly, turned into making the story more complex. I need to get my point across that less is more. The length of the film in my opinion should be around 2:30 minutes and this will make the film more achievable. Unfortunately, I was sick on Friday and I obtained my current information through Facebook so communication issues may have occurred. Nevertheless, I am concerned that the scope of the film is too big to be more achievable and I feel I need to get the group to stay on track with what is really achievable in the time frame. This brings me to talk about compromising.

Compromises

           If you have an idea for a film and you want to pitch it to Hollywood or Fox.

They may like the film but you always have to make compromises. For example, “We can’t have that scene because our sponsors won’t like it” or “Your film can only be 1hour 30 min not 2 hours because we don’t have the budget”. The ability to compromise as an individual or artist is important in this industry especially in team projects.

At times, when working in a group, you have to make a compromise about what you are passionate about. I have to deal with the fact that the fight scene, which I feel proud of in the draft animatic is being taken out. The film needs to be more attainable and I’m good with this, but I think at this time the group needs to make more compromises which they may not like. In my opinion, the ability to make compromises makes you a better team player and we, as a group, have to make compromises for one another to make a viable film in the given timeframe.

What compromises you might ask? No Sacred Cows

The film needs to be shorter and achievable. Some people in the group are attached to certain scenes or ideas which may have to go. Hopefully as a group we can make compromises that we can all agree on but still be proud of the final result.

This concludes my thoughts in week 5.

Render Wrangling

Render Wrangling

In week 5, I managed to help Semester 6 students with their film by being their render wrangler. With my knowledge from having completed Cert IV Information Technology and Networking prior to my education at JMC, I knew how to set up servers and network computers. I was able to set up a render farm on Saturday with 2 rooms where all the computers were rendering scenes. Believe me, with about 30 computers to the render farm, the render times where fast. In this post, I am going to explain my process and I intend to use this rendering process to my production.

I will now explain my process in a brief tutorial. I do not want to turn this post into a lesson in networking and I.T.

The first step was to set up the manager computer so that the project files are shared over the network.  I moved everything to the projects folder.

To make the files sharable, right click on the project folder

Right click on projects folder àsharing àAdvanced Sharingàtick “share this folder”, à “permissions” tab àthen set everyone to full Control.

If you used a project file correctly all textures and references are now accessed over the network.

Step 2 Open manager, monitor and server on the central computer which manages the render farm.

Then use CMD, also referred to as “command prompt” and run the command ipconfig. The ipconfig command gives the user the ip address of their computer.

You can then set the manager monitor and server with the same ip address as the central computer which manages the render farm.

Then in Maya, you can set the project folder location to have the ip address in its directory pathway or any pathway that will work over the network.

On all the other computers, you need to run Server and set the ip address to find the manager computer.

Then when in Maya you can create the back burner jobs with the ip address added in the manager name field and set an appropriate task size and job name.

It all went well and the monitor showed that the computers were rendering.

Make sure that all referenced rigs, textures and files are in the Project folder and therefore can be found over a network. No texture should be on C: drive or any other local location or it will come up with error 211 because it cannot find the files.

When the rendering is finished, all the computers should be restarted so that the configurations are set back to normal.

Self-analysis

One of the semester 6 students said to me, “We would have not made the final film assessment deadline if it was not for you setting up the farm”. There are a number of procedures that can be done to improve the work flow but the important thing to me is it works. I am pleased that my production now has a render farm. As there are less students at JMC on Saturdays, this would be the best day to set it up as there are more computers available. 

Production schedule

Our group has reevaluated our production schedule.

I made the first gant chart and it needed quite a bit of work, our new one is something I am more proud of especially now that we have documented everyone based on what they want to do and there skill set. = )

Sun Tsu the art of war.  "If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles." our first gant chart did not reflect the knowledge of out self's. it was not tailored to utilize our team mates individual strengths. eg Ed is the best illustrator  give him the most time-in photo shop. josh is a talented environment artiest give him the time he needs for environment art and so on.  if you are wondering who our enemy is its the dead line for the project. 

Modelling the mother's body

Modelling the mother still draft stage

Over week 3 and 4 I had started the model for the mother’s.  So far things are ok. I decided to do the mother for the group because my girlfriend Amie Baldwin is quite skilled in the art of female anatomy and character modelling. To me she is an available resource for achieving quality in this character by providing feedback and identifying areas witch needed changing like the base mesh and good hand topology for a character with finger nails. 

So keeping in mind this mother is around the age of 40 ish her female anatomy is not what it used to be with a slightly hunched back, bit of a gut and not so perky breasts this character is not your conventional perfect anatomy female. She is aged. Her breasts and buttocks have been dropped to show ageing and if over analysed one could say to show her drop in youth. Stretch pants and slippers for the intention to show she is at home relaxing but well-kept finger nails to show she still care’s about her appearance.

Self-analysis  

When getting feedback from the group she may actually be a bit too old. If someone is to look at the side view some scaling needs to be done to the hands but the topology in the hands and finger nails I am quite happy with . More work still needs to be done.

Changing the fight scene week 3 and 4

During class in week 3 and 4 Ed and Steve have decided they would like to change a major section in the story. They would like to change the fight scene, a scene I made in the animatic to a scene which involves the family using the platform as a counter wait to defeat the transformed alien. This is a major change to hear from my group when we are in week 4 and they want to change about 30% of the film half way through the production.

I spent time working on the fight scene in the animatic and if they didn’t like it they could have told me (I am not upset) before waiting till this late for a change. Now something I have always believed in and am now quoting from the best animators of all time, Chuck jones, Richard Williams and so on. "Never get attached to your drawings".

Never get attached to your drawings.

What does "never get attached to your drawings" mean to me? It means that if I draw something and it looks bad I start over and stop wasting time polishing a turd.

 If I spend hours drawing a turd it’s still a turd. It also means that when I have an employer and I animate something and my employer doesn't like it, I don’t cause a fuss and don’t get all defensive. I just start again and make changes as requested. If you are sitting there saying ‘I disagree with Stuart's opinion about not getting attached to my work’, then watch the DVD with the Animators Survival Guide. If you still disagree, then you also disagree with people from Pixar and Disney who deal with change every day and this guy who probably has more experience than you, Rick O’Connor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3Phk-78SWo&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PL2AE100D729D4068E

I think my fight scene I made in the animatic looks great. Nevertheless, I am not getting attached to my work and am fine with  a major change to the film. There is only one thing that is not allowed by me. It is expanding the scope of the project/film. If they want a change that makes the film longer and give the film more work than I have to say NO, but if it makes the film shorter and easier and more achievable then that would be fine.

Some people would think negatively if their work is removed from a film. I am looking at this as an opportunity to make the scope smaller which is probably necessary. I am turning what people would see as a negative into an opportunity to improve the film. As long as they don’t expand the scope of the project/film.

PS. "Scope", yes, I said it. And I’ll keep saying it.