Minor Project- Reflective Statement

I fell that I have learned so much during my minor project, at first I wanted to make both my character and the world, but the process of making Arne took far longer than I expected. In the time creating her learned aspects of rigging and modelling that I neglected last year.

I am jubilant with the way Arne turned out, while modelling I felt as if I were fighting Maya while creating her. To finally find the character that I was looking for I had to take a step back, to actually look at my reference and make sure she read as the character I was trying to create. Although I was not able to create the environments and buildings that I would have liked to get done by the minor project. I feel confident that I can go into the major project knowing what my world is made of and how it will work.

While rigging the body, I found myself passively following tutorials, although it was helpful to get the kind of rig I wanted, I didn't feel like I was learning anything. Roughly half way through, the process clicked and just made sense. I feel that it was because at this point I had begun to troubleshoot and figure everything out for myself, reverse engineering my rig to understand how everything worked. When I moved to creating the facial rig, I felt confident in my ability to not need to have the tutorials hold my hand, knowing that I had learned from the process of making than deconstructing my rig.

I enjoyed the new blend-shape and expressions additives in Maya 2016 e2 as they help to bring a character alive, Arne began to feel as if she existed with more authentic movement and the ability to emote. Feeling less and less like a mannequin, the more minor or major details I added. The system also reminded me of things I need to take into account with human movement.

Overall I'm happy with what I've done in the minor project, I feel that I have improved from what I didn't in my 2nd-year Adaptation B project. I gained a better understanding of Maya as a software and pushed myself to learn other software like 3dcoat. I currently feel prepared to create a world and animation in my major project.