Evaluation and Reflection

Over the course of this semester I created my character and animation. The idea was to create a character to portray emotion whether in body language, facial expressions or both. Furthermore the character had to develop a personality that suited his visual presence. To create realistic emotive expressions and body language, research had to be conducted into how real people move and emote.

Generally the modeling stage went without much trouble. It was time consuming and took a while to become adjusted to modeling an organic character with clothes. The model of the head was recycled from an earlier project which helped significantly.

The most trouble during the project I found was during the bone structure and bi-ped stages. I used bones within the hands of the character but came into a lot of trouble with getting the points to respond properly, however these problems were fixed and the characters hands worked very well.

The rest of the body was a bi-ped system which saved time and enabled me to think about how to animate the character.

Once the modeling stage was finished I created storyboard images of what I wanted the character to do in the animation and noted what type of environment I wanted and the sound effects I’d need to create the full effect.

When creating the environment the use of lights within the environment was something I was happy with. The omni lights used created a gritty atmosphere and enhanced the aesthetic of the textures. Using omni lights was important in making a more realistic glow for the characters light sabers as well. The glow of the lights moving with the light saber and casting the character in its coloured glow was something I was pleased with.

I was happy with the characters movements during the animation. The cut throat expression and the light saber throw movements I was particularly pleased with as I thought initially it would be hard to pull of realistically.

Also the characters facial expressions I was quite happy with, although I would of liked to create some more diverse facial expressions.

The part of the animation that I am least happy with was in the way the character walks with the bi-ped system. While there are a lot of different parameters the user can change to adjust and tailor the characters walk to a more desired result. However after a lot of experiments the result was the best I could come up with. As the character walking is only used to introduce the character to the scene and at the end of the animation I thought it was not a top priority to have the character walking totally perfect.

Further improvements that I would implement would be to improve the environment and more diverse facial expressions.

Overall the project was very beneficial to me and was something I found interesting. Reflecting back on previous projects I believe that I have improved my work and have developed techniques that will have a positive effect on my 3D work.

The time spent trying to get the right facial expression and body movement was worth the effort when the final result was just how I wanted it to be and although there were aspects of the animation and modeling that were difficult it is very satisfying to have the whole animation come together as planned. I hope to be able to work on another project similar in the near future to further improve my character modeling and animation skills.