rapid production project: post mortem

Identify 3 positive events/issues

1. Lip sincing (when it worked)

Why did this happen: When it worked, it went well because I imported the audio into Maya, and by doing this it made it very easy to lipsinc as I could always hear how the audio was matching up.

How can I repeat this in the future: By ensuring all the blendshapes are working correctly and the audio is created before importing so that the audio does not change.

2. Rigging (when it worked)

Why did this happen: When it worked, it went well because I followed a tutorial, named everything in the scene to make a neat and tidy outliner, colourcoded the nurbs and bones and generally ensured that everything I made, made sense.

How can I repeat this in the future: By continuing to be organised and efficient in the outliner and not overcomplicating the rig.

3. Animating

Why did this happen: This went well because my rig was so well set up, and so animating was a breeze.

How can I repeat this in the future: By really paying attention to the rigging process.

Identify 3 negative events/issues

1. Blend Shapes

Why did this happen: I think it was originally because I froze the transforms, however I re-made SO MANY blend shapes and I still had the same problems (or different ones if Maya was feeling frisky).

How can I avoid this in the future: In the future I will avoid freezing the transforms and make sure the blend shapes are working earlier on in the production pipeline, rather than animating first up before making sure anything is actually working.

2. Reference

Why did this happen: I would have not had to use a reference if I had simply UV'd and textured before I animated, however although I dont think its the reference's fault as such, I still had problems with my scenes (my camera shot save files) where either the blend shapes or the nurbs werent working even though they were working in the original master file.

How can I avoid this in the future: UV and Texture FIRST, and if I do end up using a reference anyway, make sure this is done before animating.

3. Nurbs not working some of the time

Why did this happen: I think this happened because I deleted the history in one of my scenes, and so the bones and nurbs were no longer attatched to the mesh.

How can I avoid this in the future: Dont delete the history once I've binded the skin.

Hypothetically, if your project was a large scale production, what production roles do you think it would require?

A concept artist, a story board artist, a Director/oversee-er, a Modeller, a Blend shape artist, a UV and skinning person (I dont know what they are called), a Texture artist, a Animator, a render farm oversee-er, a Editor, and a promoter.

Out of the roles you have listed, what production role was the most challenging in this production, and why?

The animating was the hardest for me as I am not as comfortable with animating. If it were up to me this whole production would have ended with texturing the model, and simply rendering out a turntable or a still image.

Conclusion

For future animations, I now know how important it is to really stick to the order of the pipeline rather than skipping forward and having to deal with the consequences of earlier sections later (like unwrapping after animating and having to make a reference).

Otherwise, positively, I have also learned how to make blend shapes, how to create a rig and how to import audio into maya.