Evaluation

Evaluation of Animation

Discussion

Overall, the animation did fit to the target brief (which is as follows):

"Taking the plans for the redevelopment of the Guildhall, produce an animation to show how the new building works will look when finished, incorporating an architectural walk through of the renovation work, and show how different groups in the community will utilise the restructured hall."

The Slice tool was used to show the transition between the old and the new building. Cameras were positioned carefully around the entirety of the model and 3d models and animations were included to show how the community would use the Guildhall how it will be after the renovations have been complete. Seasons were added to provide more reason to display our skills and to allow more techniques to be used, such as the Snow tool and modifiers for creating grass/snow environments, different lighting conditions and also the smoke and fire particle effects for the fireplaces during the Winter. Research was conducted into how the Guildhall will be used, allowing us to discover enough information to create and incorperate a voice over which support the modelling and animation work that has taken place.

Strengths of our animation

• Many different techniques have been used to show case our knowledge base in 3D Studio Max and other related programs.

• It conveys the message in both a visual and audio form which makes it easier to take the information in.

Weaknesses of our animation

• May be too long for a short clip, however it does convey a lot of information which could be too much to take in on one sitting.

• Different renovation plans obtained at the halfway stage meant that many adaptations had to be made, meaning that time was cut and smaller models could not be given as much detailed as we would have liked.

Future Work/Improvements

• Reduce the amount of information and condense it so that only the vital facts are conveyed over the voice over.

• Ensure that all research has been completed before the development of a project proceeds, avoiding having to restart the project and delaying other pieces of work.

• Ensure that extra time has been allocated in the Gantt chart in case any issues should arise which could take longer to rectify.

Evaluation of Group Work

Discussion

During this module, it has been based mostly on group work and how well you can work in a group and complete the tasks set. You have to ensure that you can keep on schedule and manage your time correctly or otherwise you will not meet the deadline.On the whole, I believe that we kept to the deadline fairly well, considering there were issues for the whole group on the other 40% of the module which meant that we could apply for an extension. However, the time gained has been utilised properly and we did not have any major issues regarding how well we worked as a team.

Strengths in Group Work

• All group members communicated between each other outside lessons, whether it be via blog, email or mobile telephone.

• All individuals participated an equal amount of their time and effort into creating the final animation.

• All individuals have their own strengths within a group and when combined, we managed our work load much better. The Gantt chart was followed right up to the deadline date which meant that the work was handed in on time and quality of work standards were high.

Weaknesses in Group Work

• Not all group meetings were attended to on time due to member illness or other commitments. This meant that time was wasted on a couple of occasions when other work could have been completed instead.

• Work was carried out in all different versions of the main Guildhall file, which confused some group members and meant it was more time consuming to merge and import individual pieces of work.

Teamworking Skills Used and Improved

• Communication skills - by helping each other and by form of presentation to an audience.

• Listening skills - by listening to each other to learn and improve our individual work.

• Confidence levels in our own work and each others work.

Future Improvements

• Ensure that if some group members cannot attend group meetings, they should let the group leader know as soon as possible so that alternative arrangements can be arranged so valuable time is not lost.

• Ensure that all group members work using the same base file to make it easier and less time consuming to compensate for mistakes.

Evaluation of My Own Work

Discussion

As team leader, I was responsible for completing the majority of the paperwork, time management of the group, organising group meetings and writing up the minutes of meeting. However, I was also told by my tutor that I should demonstrate my skills and helo out more in the production of the final animation. Taking this into consideration, I made the majority of the interior models. I learnt new skills in the form of Raytrace materials for the windows, lightbulbs and , the use of Particles for the fire, and the Snow and Blizzard Tools in order to make the snow for the Winter scene in the animation. As well as documenting this, I also created bipeds (with meshes to begin with although that plan did not work out as expected) which were positioned around the Guildhall and animated to show how the Guildhall works.

This semester, I ensured that I had 100% attendance and that I also came into university on other days as well to hold group meetings and do additional work. This definitely helped because it meant that I was present in every stage of production and could help guide my group to produce a successful animation.

My Individual Strengths

• 100% attendence meant that I did not miss any group meetings and could ensure that the work was completed on time and to a high standard.

• I took control of the group's time management and therefore got us to complete the project comfortably.

• I communicated with all group members effectively, even when they did not attend lessons to ensure that we were still on target.

• All work completed was to the best of my ability.

My Individual Weaknesses

• Limited knowledge of 3D Studio Max when I first started out because I missed the majority of my animation work last semester due to illness. 

• Home computer did not match up to the specifications required to render so many polygons in 3D Studio Max so another group member had to render my scenes for me. 

My Improvements For The Future

• Take some time before the project begins to research any tools or software which I am not very familiar with as this will save time in the project for either asking other people for help or researching partway through the project.

• Know the capabilities of the hardware and software that I am using in order to prevent software incompatibility issues in the future.

Finished Result

The screen shots below show the finished version of our Guildhall clip in various stages:

This is the front view of the Guildhall in "Summer" view:

There is a transition as the Guildhall is changing from the old building to the new building, the weather changes to Winter. The sky changes colour and a snow effect has been implemented. The ground also changes colour to reflect snow on the ground.

This is the disabled toilet which is easily accessible to the public. The door swings open as an animation and a camera traverses the inside.



The camera meets up with another camera inside the shop. Although I wanted to animate the bipeds in here for the final project however it was taking too long to render because we have the snow animation still running outside.

This is a biped showing how the touchscreens are used in the museum and the room joining the shop and the museum area:

This is the museum area, with bipeds looking at all of the artifacts on show. A child biped walks from one side of the room to the other.

Two friendly bipeds and a biped sitting near the fire, enjoying the atmosphere:

Walkway between buildings:

Biped using the computer and the fast broadband access. Can also see the double fireplace:

This is the library:

Another view of the library, you can see a biped looking at the books available to the public:

This is an image of the landing, just above the staircase:

Public toilets. There is also running water coming from the tap:

This is another view of the top of the landing:

This is the main Guildhall area. The way that the Guildhall designs were interpreted, beams came right down to the floor of the building:

This is the kitchen area where food is prepared for the visitors of the Guildhall:

The video finishes with the camera looking out of the window, so you can see the snow falling and the church in the background:

Creating the Animation in Premier Pro

I was originally going to create the final video for the animation in Premier Pro, however the renders were far too large to transfer over from Adam's rendering computer, therefore he did it instead.

Voice Over

We felt that creating a voice over for the Guildhall animation was vital because it would help the audience understand what is going on and would feed more information about the Guildhall, seeing as not much information can be portrayed in a short clip. As team leader, I also thought this would be a great opportunity to unify us as a group and display all members working towards the final project.

In order to create the voice over for the Guildhall animation, we all took seperate recordings of our voices reading out individual parts of the script. These were then send to me and I edited them in Audacity. This was by no means an easy task because there were many pauses and quite a few retakes were made in order to create the final piece. Although the majority of imperfections have been removed, there are a few incidences of the person reading intaking breath as they start a new sentence. I believe this is a good thing because otherwise it would be too "perfect" and come across robotic, which may slightly alienate the audience.

The image below shows the final script in Audacity: 

I had to make the best with Adam's voice clip because there was a lot of interference in the background and when I used the Noise Reduction tool, it altered the volume of his voice in certain areas. However, you can still understand what he is saying. If I had more time, I would have asked all members of the group to come into university and record it on equipment there, where there will be less noise interference. However, due to other commitments, it was simply not possible under the time constraints.

The next step will be to adjust the cameras created by another group member in the Guildhall so that they follow the script. This file will then be imported, along with the final render of the Guildhall into either Windows Movie Maker or Adobe Premier Pro, where the final adjustments will be made (for example, adding a title screen and credits).

My Animations

Snow Effect:

The reason why we decided it would be a good idea to incorporate snow effects into our animation is because:

1. It shows varying uses of different tools and techniques. 
2. We have incorporated smoke and fire effects into the building which realistically, would only be in effect during the Winter. To make the animation more realistic, we felt it would be appropriate to work changing seasons, with Winter being signified as snow. 

There are two main ways that snow can be created in 3D Studio Max. By using the snow tool or by using the blizzard tool. I experimented with both and the videos below demonstrate the differences within a 10 second render:

Blizzard Tool

Snow Tool

The Blizzard tool is more appropriate for scenes which have fewer polygons on the rest of the animation because many polygons need to be created in order to make it look realistic. The main issue I discovered is that it did not seem to fall as realistically as normal snow because snow seems to be moving faster towards the front of the scene and slower towards the back. 

The Snow tool looked more realstic, however in the video above, I did not include enough polygons to fall. 

The video below is a 30 second render of the snow with more polygons and reflects similarly to what will be appearing in our final render: 

Importing into main .max file

The image below shows the snow imported into the main .max file:

As you can see, the amount of snow produced is ideal, however due to the external lighting, some snowflakes appear to be black. This can easily be corrected by modifying the environment lighting to make it more suitable.

The video below shows my snow incorporated into one of the camera scenes from our actual finished result. It has been combined with another group members use of deflectors to make the snow stay on the roof:

Biped moving:

Although it was a setback that my original biped with the mesh attached could not be used, by not redoing them and opting to just use a simple biped instead. Although all bipeds were initially animated, due to the length of time it took to render my scenes, I had to regretfully remove the animations on the following bipeds: 

The first biped positioned was the cashier in the Guildhall shop:

The second biped created was the customer and in the image below, you can see the customer buying merchandise and handing it over to the cashier so it can be scanned and paid for.This is to demonstrate how people can use the Guildhall shop.

The third biped shows how the touch screens in the museum work.

The fourth and fifth biped show a friendly couple looking at the artifacts to demonstrate that the Guildhall is appropriate for everyone to enjoy.

The sixth biped has been placed in the library, looking at all the books they have displayed. This is to emphasise that there are lots of books for everyone to enjoy and read.

The seventh biped is seated near the fire, relaxing and enjoying the quiet atmosphere.

The eighth biped is seated in front of one of the computers to show how they are used.

I created a smaller child biped which I animated in order to keep the render length as low as possible, as proof that I know how to animate bipeds successfully.

The bipeds have been concentrated on the lower part of the building. This is because the lower part of the building will be utilised the most and the majority of our animation will be centered around the library, the museum and the Guildhall shop.

Fire Effect:

For some reason, the video will not upload onto the blog so here is a screen shot: