Evaluation

Development evaluation

My development stage was a little rocky I have had housing issues that left me spinning my head, scrambling for solutions and at some point, I thought I may have to leave the course till I got it all sorted which it's meant to be now. To make things more complicated, I was determined to craft a better story and have been adding in, taking out, and jumbling up scenes since the planning stages. This goes from adding a scene where the detective sees beads or coins around the body to insinuate a robbery gone south, to other scenes where he follows a ghost in the form of flashbacks or scenes where he acted wacky after he draws the face on the chalk outline and starts playing hopscotch. However these are examples of what I didn’t go with as I could never seem to fit them in. At the same time the character evolved from a low Polly character to a high Polly character and the environment changed from a bright colourful environment to a dark, dreary somewhat moody environment, where I decided to make things very dark in the animation rather than the post production stage which was less a time saver and more a hassle to fix. My biggest regret is that I didn’t have time for an ambient occlusion pass which would have made a number of scenes look much better than they did as swell as giving the character more realistic shadows.

I don’t like losing momentum so I tried to keep taking screenshots but I found that this broke my momentum completely making short tasks into longer tasks. I did try at times but I found myself getting lost when I did.

Character

The character is all right a little weird without his glasses but anyone without eyes is weird without glasses. I also had trouble pinning his jacket to his waist so he has a big hole in his back (he is like a hand puppet) but the camera will never be that low so it didn’t matter too much. The skin does what I intended it to; there is room for improvement but my method was one that I came up with so had nothing to go by for guidance, so that was an experience! The only thing I would really change if I had the time are his shoulders as when he was low Polly, big shoulders looked good but as his Polly count more than tripled they looked unappealing and disproportionate compared to the rest of him. The rig seams to do its job apart from the collar of his shirt and coat as if I pinned the collar to the neck, the coat would go through his neck and if I pinned it to his body, it wouldn’t move at all. There were no noticeable breaks in the character's movements, although the walk cycle is a little fast making him look like he’s walking on an escalator, which I slowed down buy adding a second walk cycle valued at 8%. The rest of the animation was keyed in every 5 frames type motion which at times made it look a little stiff and blocky, for instance in the scene where he lights his cigar. This scene is an illustrative example as I am a smoker and have performed that action daily and timed it to a video of myself but the animation seems to be missing something, maybe I can't see the forest for the trees but the scene bothers me.

My issue with the character is I think he’s lacking in personality, maybe he’s animated a little fast maybe if I had had him move slower, more personality would have shown through. I wanted his character to shine through and for the viewer to never see his face which may have made it hard to relate to him. Mixed with the lack of expressions, he comes across stiff and lifeless like a corpse. I think the goals I had were contradictory to each other, which resulted in a less relatable, realistic character.

The only problem I have with the final animated sequence is the last scene of an over the shoulder as the character’s shoulder breaks itself as pollys bend into each other but I had no time to correct the weights to make adjustments to the character’s skin.

Environment

The environment is less polished than I would have liked, and I chalk that up to time management as I spent too much time on some areas and neglected others. So instead of having a dirty old city with puddles, water stains, garbage bags and scattered litter, I have a nice clean ground with no graffiti on the walls and even the bins are spotless which I assume people will not notice but the environment could have been more interesting as a rundown, neglected back street rather than a nice and shiny neighbourhood. As for the cinematography I’d say I’m a little close to be subjective. I got most of the shots I planned for with a little tinkering at the end, the music blended well to what was happening on screen and you can always tell where the character is in the environment as I worked to make his location in the scene clear.

Objects

Modelling the objects and props in the scene was a good experience. I only used textures I made and I've made over fifty since I started the course, although some are of a higher quality than others. The only issue is sometimes things can look a bit repetitive using the same textures but it seems to be ok so far and gives the scene a little more cohesion and adds to the environment. The models I kept simple; some a little too simple, but I think most of it fits. I wanted hard angles on most objects but as my character changed so did the props’ quality and so the later objects are of more detail than the earlier ones.

Lighting

The lighting is one of the main reasons I wanted to do this animation as I wanted to improve in skills which I lacked. I intended to create a rich atmosphere of lights and shadows to show off my capabilities in a stylistic portrayal of a noire themed animation and perhaps it could have worked if I had stuck to my decisions early on. However, as ideas evolved so did the project and things changed over time. Towards the end I had major changes to the lighting system and had to re-render out each scene. The quality had improved and some scenes looked much better. I also used the time to add slight changes to certain animations, fixing one scene entirely as the character's leg had a vibration throughout the original scene.

The Story and Cinematography

I like the story, I believe there is potential both comedic and stylistic, but I don’t think I'm the one to tell it as my camerawork is a little forced and it's not one of my strong points. I thought this would be a perfect chance to improve and learn from experiences but I'm less than happy with my result and think the product could have been better. I’m not sure how to put my complaints about my camera work into words and that might be the problem. I hadn't settled on storyboards; I kept adding and replacing scenes adding a second character and a 3rd to show a mugging for flashbacks and trying to find excuses for different camera angles that I had wanted from the start, but ended up going for simpler shots I and positions I thought I could pull off better.

Overall Overall during the project I had other issues which sometimes had to take priority which kept me busy such as housing issues which ate up a lot of my time. I tried to keep busy and always improve upon the project but if I had nailed down a set idea early on I would have given myself more room to improve the quality of the product rather than settling for what I could achieve at the time. My time management was a problem but some issues were out of my control. My animating skills aren’t the only thing I’ve tried to improve upon as my writing skills have also improved throughout the project. I have focused on improving them and providing more detailed analysis of my work and improving the structure so it’s easier to read.

My problem is I see too many areas to improve on and that isn’t always a bad thing as I set high standards for myself because I know I can achieve them although in this case I didn’t quite meet my own standards but this may be because I’m a little too involved to be subjective, given that its my final project for HND.