Animation - End of Year Reflection

This year was an interesting one, that's for sure. This year in the e-communication, I took two classes: Exploring Animation and Exploring Graphic design. In Exploring Animation, I learned a few things, and it'd be impolite of me not to teach the rest of you what I learned.

 COLLABORATION

This semester, I learned how to work with a less-than-ideal group. I was placed with people I didn't like, and some of them did nothing for the project. You can catch the video here (catch like how you catch a cold, obviously). It's important to learn how to deal with difficult people, as it's a completely different process from dealing with regular groups. I wish I'd learned a bit better, to be honest. The whole thing was a challenge; half the group screwed around for most of the time. I am good at leading groups, most of the time, but I'm a bit of a control freak. For example, with the special effects animation, I had some trouble getting some of the team to work.

TECHNOLOGY

I learned a TON about the software used for animation this year in animation. Last year, we used basic animation techniques- mainly Google sketchup and photoshop. This year, we learned to use AutoCAD Maya and Adobe Aftereffects. By the half-way mark we'd already moved on to 3D animation, and by spring break I knew how to do special effects on live-action (albeit not that well).  These techniques are important because as I continue along in Animation, I'll need to utilize all of these. I'm much better at 3D animation now than I was, and I know a lot more about 2D animation. I still need to work on taking my time. Animation takes a really long time, which sucks, because I have a bad attention span, but I need to keep with it. I'm passable at aftereffects, but I'm not good at maya- the interface is a pain in the side to work with and it runs slow on everything from my computer at home to the macs provided explicitly for the purpose of running maya. This video is good proof of this concept.

COMMUNICATION

You can't spell e-communications without communications, can you? I did a whole lot better first semester with this as I swapped hours and left behind a whole bunch of people I liked. I had issues adapting, and I didn't like the spot I sat in, kinda petty, I know. But it ruined my experience nonetheless, and I didn't end up communicating much in this class. Not much more to say here, but I do need to work on this. Animation takes a while, so usually people ARE in groups. I could have communicated better on the special effects project, but whatever, it worked.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

I think I did fine! Not much more to say about this one. I learned how to meet deadlines even when I didn't think I could. For example, this final project taught me that. My lack of self-control really blocked me here, but I think I did OK overall. For example, during my story animation, I had to work hard near the end. It took a while, and I got done with the project at the latest possible moment.

As soon as I end up bothering with reinstalling all this software (I recently reformatted my computer) I'm gonna keep messing with this stuff. I'd like to improve before next year. If I could change anything, I'd put much more effort into this. In conclusion, while I didn't put in 100% effort, I put in a lot of effort, in my opinion.