Semester 2 Blog Post 3 - Coming Up on the Second Production Pass

Alrighty, we're already to the midway point of our production passes. Holy crap. Time has been going by a lot faster than I thought it was, to be honest. I'm a bit shocked. I know it isn't technically the middle of the semester quite yet, but we're on week six of 16. So only two weeks until the literal half way point. Time has been flying by. I feel like every time I look at the schedule I've been building I need to add a whole other month of planning to it. That being said, for how fast things feel like they're moving, our team is doing really well. We're on track, on schedule, and doing great when it comes to things we need to prepare for and get done. I like how we're starting animation.

I am a little worried about the state and organization of some of our assets, because Isabel told us all not to touch assets that get referenced, and that she'd fill in any updates to said references. But I haven't seen many of those changes, so I'm a little worried. I think I'll bring it up to her next week or in Discord this week, so that we can make sure there are no issues regarding file type and file completion. Mostly I just don't want rigs to be made over UVs that aren't done. That UV story still lives rent free in my head, Jeremy. Thanks for the warning.

I am working on animating now!! Which is pretty fun!! I am a bit mad at some aspects of the rigs, because it's causing things like the elbows and ankles to pop and jump in place when I move them certain ways. But that's mostly just me animating and getting frustrated at the fact that I can't seem to fix it. It's something Rianne has to adjust in the rig itself. Seeing as they're still technically temp rigs though, it's not too worrying. Just annoying for me. Other than those issues though, the rigs are working really well and I'm having fun messing with them and getting things moving and figured out. Some of our character versions still don't have rigs yet, but getting the ones already done on the main yarn balls to a decent place first is more important. They can be transferred over to the other versions some other time.

I feel like I brag/talk too much about my documents and schedules and stuff. I am always so immensely proud of these things and I really want to show them off, but at the same time, I worry I nag my teammates or even just my friends or other cohort members about them and how proud I am of them and how good I am at production coordination. Do others think the same?? Should I tone it down?? I've been trying to for a while now. I feel like Jeremy is sick of hearing me talk about my schedules. I don't mean to go overboard and infodump but I feel like I do and I feel bad, because I'm not doing it on purpose, you know?? I think conversations should be just that, conversations. Not just me talking at someone for an hour or two. That's not fair to them. I can never tell if I'm annoying someone or not. How do you tell if you should stop talking, honestly?? I can't ever seem to figure it out. I don't want to drive a rift between myself and my teammates by nagging or talking too much about my own things and not enough about theirs, or letting them talk about their own stuff. I just. . . worry about my social skills sometimes. And it seems now is one of those times.

Regardless, our group is well on its way to having lots of things done. This includes animated shots, UVs, and textures. Ash has been an absolute god send when it comes to UVs and textures. I stand by what I've said to them many times before. Ash is the best texture artist we have in our cohort, I've worked with them on every group project from production practices to now, and they have not once let me down or produced work that was lackluster. Having them on our team is a huge relief for my heart, and makes things a lot less stressful because I know I can trust them to get things done. (What are Ash's pronouns anyways?? I feel like I've asked before but can't remember. So they/them it is for now.) Ash has done pretty much half of the UVs for ALL of our assets. And I mean that. ALL OF THEM. It's impressive. Everyone else is doing wonderful as well, but I felt like Ash needed a little shout out when it came to this this blog post.

Rianne needs one too. She's been doing rigging pretty much all on her own. Lucy dd some rigging but I think Rianne ended up taking it over after a bit due to some issues Lucy was having with the rigs. She's rigged all our yarn balls so far, pretty much, she's going to rig Bartholemew, who is a cat, and is going to attempt to rig all of our extra characters and props that need rigs added. And she's trying to do this all before the end of the semester. I'm utterly amazed by her work ethic and progress. As someone who uses the rigs to animate, I'd say they're wonderful so far. Some tweaks are needed, of course, but she's doing an impressive job.

I'm sure I'll give everyone else in our group a shoutout of their own at some point in the next semester or two, but for now I felt the need to expressly bring attention to the efforts of Ash and Rianne. The whole group is doing a wonderful job and I can't wait to see how much further we get before the next production pass.