Reflection

I have learnt more than going through this project than any other. I have had a lot of problems with the group project and then in the end, decided it would be better to focus on my own work than try to piece together something that I would not be happy with.

Part of that learning curve was to always have a contingency plan as if things do not work out, like I found, they are there to fall back on. I also leant not to be afraid to call people up on not pulling their weight within the group. At times it felt like I had to nag people to do things for me and I wasn't even the director. I think another part of the problem with our original film was that none of us wanted to quit. In hindsight we should have probably cut the film a long time ago to concentrate on a personal work because it was clear just after christmas that it was a slowly sinking ship. I think persevering was the right thing to do but I think we all persevered for a little too long and should have said that it was becoming too troublesome.

My skills at a technical level have improved the most. This year I was able to learn MEL scripting as well as try other things like nCloth, fur and RealFlow. This is what I have enjoyed the most - learning and developing. Most of the group project was troubleshooting with all the issues we ran into. At times it felt as though we were going two steps forward and one step back because as soon as something went well, we would face another problem. It helped me get a better understanding of Maya and ho to troubleshoot though. I was mainly supporting the team when they found issues and i would be the "go to" person to fix it. I have also learnt that I am not a very good animator and it is probably my weakest area. I can move a camera around okay but animating Melvin the cat and making it look good was probably one of my biggest personal achievements this year.

My other personal achievements were learning to use RealFlow (even though it was only the basics I still learnt it) and MEL scripting. I was surprised at how much satisfaction I got from creating a whole script for set driven keys without any reference or guide and from just using Maya.

Before this year I wasn't really sure what my specialism was. I had skills in most areas like modelling, rigging and animation but this year has given me a clear direction into where I want to be in the future and that is in the technical area of animation and visual effects. I will still keep those skills I had previously but I think I thrive with a challenge and I find the technical stuff more challenging.

I will continue to develop my skills going forward and also my showreel and even though this year has been extremely stressful, I glad I went through it because I feel like I know where I am heading in the future.