Final Semester Blog Post 4 - Moving a Little Faster

This week is the week where it kind of slapped me in the face that the animation assigned to me really really should be getting done. Not that I'm not doing it of course, I've always been working on my scenes, but I just feel like I need to work on them more. More often at the very least. I need to spend a couple hours more in the lab, I think. It just seems like something I should do. Not only that, but I really want to as well. Despite only having two classes, it's been hard to figure out what the best times for working in the lab are. I have work more often this semester, because I have the time to work more, but this also means what would be a fairly simple "come for class, stay for an hour or two after", is no longer feasible. At least currently for myself. My work hours often sandwich all my classes. Which is kind of annoying actually, but hey, money is money. I think it would be a good idea to block out a time on my schedule to spend as Mack Studio Time so that I actually do find a way to work on my animations more often. I did this for job searching and networking time and it's worked pretty well so far. I treat it like an extra class. I'll do that for self imposed studio time as well.

I'm really happy with how well our short is coming along. The rig for Bartholemew isn't perfect, but it is SO much better than it was before, and can actually be moved around and animated in a lot of our scenes!! He needs a face rig, but Rianne is going to do that after she transfers Brocade's rig to his other versions. At least I think that's what she said, I need to message her and check in on that. I don't want to think she's in one place when she's actually in another.

Textures have also been implemented across the board, and many of them are either finished or being worked on as we speak!! We have a lot of people working on textures, and those who aren't are mostly doing animation, unless you are Sam or Rianne, who are working on lighting and rigging, respectively. So the whole team is chugging along. I really like all the textures we have, and some of the best ones have reminded me of the art style for a game called Cookie Run: Kingdom. Have you ever seen it?? If you haven't I recommend checking out the art. The game is pretty fun too.

One of the splash arts for Cookie Run: Kingdom. Very painterly with few or very thick lines.

The medal for General Berry that Cal was working on the other day especially reminds me of one of their little cookie runes you can use to power up your characters. And honestly, I am pretty sure we looked at some art of CRK when we were doing vis dev work. It's got that cutesy art style and warm, bright color look we've been striving towards. And honestly?? I'm quite happy with that. I've never been one to work on textures, I don't think I'll ever actually enjoy it, so I'm definitely okay with admiring the textures the others are making. It's truly wonderful, especially when in render!!

Isabel has been doing some render tests lately as well. She's been messing with the settings and recording the amount of time it takes each frame to render, and also is trying to fix any mistakes or errors she comes across. It's impressive, and I'm very glad she's doing that, because if she hadn't volunteered to do it, I probably would have done it. And personally I don't like troubleshooting renders all that much. I'm not saying that Isabel does, but she's more willing to do it than I am, and I am more than willing to provide her with all the support she needs while doing that difficult work.

I am a tiny bit worried that we're behind currently. The cat rig took a lot longer than I ever thought it would and it's not even done yet. Some of the animation isn't coming along as quickly as I would have liked, and we still need to test the cat's fur sim. But even though I'm worried, I'm sure we'll make it through this, and reach the other end of the tunnel!! Having a perfect film isn't what this is about at all. It's about making something and learning from it. Kind of. It would still be nice to have a perfect film, haha.

Despite all this, I am still tired and overwhelmed, and am doing my best to take the steps needed to mitigate that as much as possible. Thinking about multiple things and keeping track of multiple things at once is fun, but at the same time, it gets very overwhelming after a while. I just need to focus on one thing at a time for now, and I can still get all my work done like this!! I'll just be a bit slower and more focused on the present. And I don't think those are necessarily bad things.