WEEK 13: Opinions and Advice

15 July 2016

Time for another edition of feelings of the week!

Meme:

This week was quite unique, we had a viva and a reflection with our teacher.

Viva 3

 We were the first group to present to our lecturers Phil and Karen. I was hoping that this viva will be our turning point to break our streak on bad presentations. Sadly, I was wrong. My group-mates came late and we had to start the presentation without them, on top of that not all the work was with the people who came on time. You could clearly see annoyance on the teachers faces. Honestly I was a bit annoyed as well because I am not a tardy person and i wouldn't want my group to be view that way.

Finally when we were all here came the presentation went smoothly for awhile but because of the missing files our presentation flow was ruined and we were jumping back and forth between slides and animatics.

On the upside, we uplifted the teacher's mood with our live action. Even our classmates said it was hilarious because the special effects were so cheesy and obvious. You could see all the hooks and the strings.

Talk with Karen
The next day, Wednesday, Karen talked to each person individually on how they felt about their group-mates and about how we viewed our peers. I was pretty nervous before going in because I my english is terrible and i didn't want to say anything i didn't mean about someone.

The talked went well, she gave me advice on how to make our team dynamics better and how our group seems to be divided 2D and 3D. I also see this in my group. I was shock however that Roxann and Alvin doesn't know what Priyanka and I are doing. I thought I've updated them quite often. I guess it isn't often enough.

She also talked to me about readiness and we should rehearse before the week18 viva. Overall i found this talk really useful and there wasn't stressful and it allowed her to help us with our queries.

Self improvements and implementations:

From this i shall try to involve Roxann and Alvin more into the 3D process so that they can also monitor it themselves. I will be more open about my work as i think one of the main factors i am worried about is that they will judge my work though it isn't complete yet. As a person i think i shouldn't be so rigid and try to accept adapt to other people's way of doing work.  I WILL FOR ONE TRY TO FIX THE TARDINESS IN OUR GROUP. I find it super unprofessional and it will affect me in the future if i slowly pick up that behaviour.

SEE YALL NEXT WEEK 5 MORE WEEKS TO GO.

WEEK 12: one more week to viva

8 July 2016

Year 3 is really fast i feel like I'm mentally running a marathon and now I am super exhausted. I can't believe it's already week 12. This week we had Hari Raya so our viva got pushed back one week. We are really lucky to be given more time to finish up the packages.

Re-filming Live action
We refilmed our live action as last week Karen told us some of our camera directions were wrong also our first take was incomplete because we were uncertain of what we wanted.

This time was more efficient and fun compared to previous filming. It was really hilarious how we are coming up with creative, low budget ways trying, to make everything work. There was this one scene where it was Stanley's (me) POV, washing his hands and looking up into the the mirror. However the angle was too difficult that i had to be the camera man and Roxann had to go behind me and wash her hand. The position was so awkward and we could clearly tell it wasn't my(Stanley's) hands because our skin tones are like night and day. That shot too really long and because we kept on laughing.

 We showed Karen the viva and she told us it looks good and much more clearer. Our group really needed that assurance that we are on the right path :)

Modelling update
Priyanka and I are have started modelling the interior ourselves. We didn't see Borko this week so we couldn't ask for advice. I am doing the toilet and office interiors while she is doing home and lift.
I'm having slight trouble with the whole look of it, on one hand i want it to show its clearly 3D models, however on the other hand we must make the textures to looks 2D because we wouldn't want the characters to look out of place. This juggling act has be quite difficult to manage.

I don't feel the urgency of week 13 viva, I am really worried as i feel like I'm missing out something but i cant put my finger on it... :/

Here are 2 posters that i did :

Thoughts and feelings:

I'm going to do something different. I'm gonna analyse my work now compared to April me.
I know the modelling and planning process clearer now, compared to the first environment the 2nd one is modelled faster. Planning helps me be more efficient and organised. My film knowledge has widen, My friends and teachers recommended me a lot of film to watch and I have a wider perspective and a lot more ideas thanks to them.

What i should improve on: 
Be more helpful towards others. Don't be so afraid towards critiques.

WEEK 11: FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL!

2 JULY 2016

WELCOME BACK CHARMAINE!!

I GOT MY RESULTS BACK FOR DCG AND 3AP! It was average but not what I was aiming for, I guess I have to work harder for the assignment 2s.

This week wasn't that bad i have just finished my environment modelling assignment and I'm really please with the work I've done. Borko even praised me for my modelling. For this assignment Priyanka and i worked as a team to do the streets of our Short film.

Im really excited to show the work i have accomplished for this assignment:

layout followed

Layout of the streets.

 You may be thinking: "you are doing a 2D/3D film, will this match your 2D characters?" Priyanka has found this program called ToonShader which makes 3D objects have a 2D feel to it. We haven't applied it on our building, but we have tested it out and it works! Not to fear.

Feeling of this project
I felt really bad for rushing Priyanka all the time, and I know she already has a lot on her plate since she has 2 more modules than me. Still I really like this module, so I want to produce the best quality that i can. I didn't mind the fact that I was doing extra work or unnecessary stuff. Another reason was, I fought for the rights to do 3D modelling during the first few weeks of CPS so I can't produce lousy quality. My ears would be full of "i told you so" , "full 2D is way better".

CPD Class

During CPD Karen talked to us about knowing what we want for our projects. We were feeling very down that we were still haven't confirmed our story. She comforted us saying that its better to be a group open to changes than a group that is restricted with our ideas. Which i think she is right, now we have a vast variety of pieces, all we have to do is piece them together and we get a beautiful picture.

"It's always the small pieces that makes the bigger picture."

Thoughts and feelings
I am really worried that we might not finish everything in time before next weeks viva, so this coming week i will focus all my energy to finish up all the base modelling for the environments.

I think I shall be more encouraging to my group mates. Right now everyone is slowly falling sick and getting gloomy. Lets be a positive energy to everyone around us! :) 

bad video quality, so sorry.You can check my work out on my deviant account the link is on the left side of this blog. ( the Chinese house photo)

WEEK 10: LIVE ACTION FILMING AND ENVIRONMENT MODELLING

25 June 2016

Live action
Our live action film was completed in the span of 2 days, special thanks to Isabel's group and Celine for being our supporting monsters.  I played as Stan, Roxann as Ting Ting, Alvin as Jun and Priyanka is all the side characters.

Unlike other teams we didn't borrow the video camera from upstairs and used our phones instead. Probably because none of us knows how to operate a video camera and to be honest, the last time I've seen a video camera was in 2005. It's really amazing how technology has evolved and the old gadgets are so foreign to me.

Filming was pretty fun, as we filmed, we change some compositions as well. I didn't expect it to be so draining and it was pretty cute that our whole team would unanimously stone when we were tired.

Overall, I have no regrets joining this team and I am blessed to have such good friends. :)

Environment Modelling

This module has been stressing me out this whole entire holiday, and it was very hard distributing work and scheduling so that we can hand up on time. This assignment i felt very alone and had to be very independent.We only had 1 lesson before the break to show Borko our research. He suggested ways to do the environment modelling and off we go on our own. It was hard to consult Borko and I can't complain because this is probably what the working world is like.

Thanks all for this week! Next in 2 days schools starting, hope I don't burn out by then.

WEEK 10 : holidays are over?! Was it even here?

24 June 2016

HOW DID IT TURN OUT LIKE THIS? I've spent most of my holidays having meetings and doing homework. I guess this is the life of a third year student, applying all your knowledge onto your final year project. Sigh pies...

Redoing animatics:
From what we previously discussed last week, Roxann, the Notural Superwoman, did a new animatic for us in just 2 days. I was really amazed with her skills and motivation to do it.

We sent the New story to Karen via email, and had Phil and Jim look at both our animatics. Again all views were different, which was expected. They were all very constructive and I'm glad we asked them instead of just going with it.

Karen
She agreed that the new story follows the storyline and moral of our story. However she finds it seemed more bland and predictable, she gave us suggestions on how to improve if we are using the old story.

Phil
Liked both versions and also says the new version depicts our story clearer. He gave us suggestions on how to improve our compositions and showed us old films to inspire us, because we didn't have a fixed ending. I learned a lot more about John Carpenter , The master of horror, his films are ingenious. I've found appreciation for old films, the stories are more creative and special effects are more memorable then today's computerise effects.

Jim
Prefers the old animatic, says it has more of a story compared to the new one. He proved to us that we were overthinking everything and brought a year 2 student to view our animatic. I nervously watched her watch our creation. She said it was not bad, which was a relieve. Thank god!

Our resolution:
It became clear to us that: Yes, we did overthink. So we decided to make slight adjustments to our old animatic which i think was a great idea as i didn't like the fact that our story changed so much. After that we went on to filming the live action version.

Group dynamics: 

WEEK 9 : The holidays

20 June 2016

ITS FINALLY THE HOLIDAYS!!! not...
The 2 precious week of break is used to catch up on all the CPD work and to finish up my assignments for 3AP, 3EM and 3CR. Wonder why all the modules with a 3 in it is ruining my holidays. :(

I went overseas from Monday - Thursday, but i didn't feel relaxed at all, work was always on my mind, anticipating the huge workload waiting for me at home. I started modelling the environment as well as rendering of the sketches during my trip in Malaysia.

Here are the work that i did:

Group Meetings: 
On Friday, our group met up to discuss about the live action filming that we are suppose to complete over the holidays. But instead we talked about our animatic and story. We had people outside our group to comment on our animatics and most of them were very lost as we seems to have 3 agendas in this film; Love story, discrimination, Self acceptance. It was very confusing.

I showed my group mates the video that i found of Zootopia as i found it very inspirational. The initial story is a complete 360 from the story that they have now. From this our group decided to alter our story a little bit. Its a risky move but i think we might be able to do it.

Group Dynamics

On Saturday we had another meeting, we had a few disagreements, mainly because we didn't want to sway too far giving us too much work. i predict the second week of holidays will be more work intensive. FIGHTING! 

WEEK 8: Exams, to perservere

10 June 2016

ASSIGNMENT 1s HAVE FINALLY ENDED! *confetti*

A summary of what happen this week, we had common test for DCG and 3AP , while completing the other modules assignment 1. I prioritise my exams more than my CPD work. It was make it or break it.

Exams: 

i found the exams to be quite a challenge as in the course we hardly did examinations and i was afraid because of the lack of experience. The 2 papers were very different, the DCG paper was more theory based while 3AP was more application.

For DCG i studied for it so it wasn't that hard , though there were some tricky questions. Whereas 3AP, if you have a rough knowledge of the syllables and a lot of common sense you can ace it, sadly i didn't have that. I didn't even notice there was an error in that paper until my classmates told me about it after the exam, so my answer may be irrelevant.

Other subjects: 

During our modelling class, we are beginning to model our FYP environments and we must complete it by the end of our holidays. I really had to wreck my brain and go through all my old notes, we really went back to basics.

In CPD class, I've edited all the environments line art as we had to make all the environments more monster incooperated. I had lots of fun creating posters for our film, i left get to sneakily add stuff into our film; "make monster great again". We showed Karen our 2nd animatic before we move on to our live action filming and she said it was ok and we should suggested that we change several parts but overall the comments were helpful and good.

Here are some sketches that I did:

Research for new building design inspiration