Summary/ Evaluation

This year has been stressful, challenging and fun. The tasks that were the most fun for me were perhaps learning and developing my 3D lighting skills and also creating the deck of cards and cognac scene. This was the setup I was most satisfied with and I was proud to have achieved such a high quality render and composite. I believe I have pushed myself so that I am no longer in my comfort zone as I was associating myself with things that I had never attempted before, such as lighting, texturing and UV mapping, I even attempted rigging. I think the most problematic obstacle in our project was the character. To be fair we probably should have learnt more about rigging before the course had started.

So we may not have a finished narrative but I believe that this was a great opportunity to learn new skills and techniques. It has given me knowledge of the industry pipeline and the importance of teamwork, communication and hard work. The most important thing I think that I will take away from this final year is not just some good work on a showreel, but the good memories, contacts with my fellow third year students and above all, new knowledge and skills. This was one of the main reasons I came to Ravensbourne was to take advantage of new software that was industry standard. I felt that knowledge in a new program such as Maya would make me more flexibly and improve my employability. To begin with I despised Maya, but I have grown to embrace it as a useful tool to aid me when I work. I believe I have improved so much as a 3D artist, and I know I am only scratching the surface, but this knowledge, I believe will serve me well for when I leave college. It will provide me with a basic foundation which I can then improve upon when in the workplace in the film industry. I am confident that I now have the skills required in order to become a valued and reliable employee.

Critical Analysis

There is always more we could have learnt and achieved, but in my opinion we produced some great work that I didn't not think I would produce back at the beginning of the year. We have learnt so much on this project. I have developed my 3D skills ten fold in as far as modeling and lighting and I believe these were the areas that were my strengths, and certainly the areas I most enjoyed. My weaknesses were perhaps animating, UV Mapping and rigging. If I was to do this this course differently I would have perhaps tried to get a larger group or I would have learnt more about rigging earlier on.