Hello everyone, As we wrap up, we thought we would share some of the lessons we learned. Dedication: Our team was incredibly dedicated to the project. Animation is difficult and inevitably there will be crunch time. What got us through was the fact that everyone is incredibly passionate about making this project the best it could […]
We are officially at the half way point!
Half way is a complex thing for us, the reason being that although we have another 9 weeks before our finals presentation (which is technically week 16, with 15 weeks of development), we need our final animation to be complete by Soft Opening in week 14.
Normally by halves, the animation project would have one scene completely finished so that audiences can see the full narrative experience. Because our film is in 360, however, the whole thing is one big scene. What this means for us is that we have the scene constructed and the camera placed, but things like texture, lighting, and animation are still in the works. We are confident in meeting our deadline, but it is hard for others to share that confidence when compared to the timeline of traditional screen-based media. But this is the price we pay for being in a new design space.
We had a serious talk about deadlines, namely whether we could finish everything by week 13 – one week sooner than necessary – to allow time for technical issues. Everyone felt this was doable, and we broke down our plan:
- As of today, we have all our music recorded
- 3/28: All dances and motion captured
- 3/29: Lighting will be complete
- 3/31: Textures deployed into the scene
- 4/1: Playtest day
- 4/8: Animation and VFX done
- 4/9: Final rendering will begin
- 4/13: Compositing done
- 4/15: Sound integrated
We are also making some headway in our pre-production for next semester’s project, Agloe – but more on that another time.
This week, in addition to production, we are presenting our progress to the department. Wish us luck and, if you’re interested, you can view our presentation here.
