#deb mga

[jasmeenhayer]

Shared with Dropbox

[jasmeenhayer]

Shared with Dropbox

[jasmeenhayer]

3 designs created for the End of year show and awards evening.

[jasmeenhayer]

Shared with Dropbox

[jasmeenhayer]

Final Major Project.

Unit 6; Application, Exploration and Realisation in Art and Design

(GC 1-6)

The aim and purpose for this particular project was to create a piece of work that reflects my personal style and interest in which a culmination of skills that I have gained over the two years are also reflected. The key was to aim to work on a project that was both challenging and achievable within my chosen specialist area in which my skill base was strongest upon.

To specifically identify my strongest area within ‘Motion Graphics and Animation’ I went through my previously marked units and extracted the positive and negative feedback left my both Mike and Deb. I then narrowed down all of the feedback into the most relevant areas that either were successfully completed or needed improvement.

Once doing so I identified that my strengths consisted of me being able to, develop my own style in graphics and animation projects, being able to work independently and communication my ideas through social media successfully as well as being time efficient. I am also good at producing clear and detailed research consisting of good use of subject terminology. However, I found that my weaknesses and improvements needed consisted of a lack of detailed proposals with detailed annotations and images, alongside the use of subject terminology on social media posts, whilst using a wide range of research sources. I also knew from my own experiences that I need to improve on my After Effects skills and above all try to stick to one main piece for the project, rather than producing many individual pieces of work as I had done in the past projects.

Therefore considering all of the above research I first decided to focus on my Motion Graphics whilst improving on my After Effects skills. Resulting in the original idea being to create a lyrical video; however I later decided that it would be wise to create a final piece using software I am more confident in using. So I decided to use mainly Maya as I am more confident using it than After Effects. The sole reason being that it would be much more time efficient and achievable to create.

Therefore my final idea was to create a model of a fashion runway on which the camera (perspective view) will ravel down, eventually placing on three different fashion objects. I came up with the idea when finishing my 3D Animation model for the branded watch on the previous unit.

I chose a fashion theme as I am attending a fashion university after college so I thought it was wise to include that area of interest into my current work, whilst still keeping to my ongoing colour theme of black, white, red and grey.

Research & Proposal;

I ensured that both the research and proposal were done at a professional standard, including all vital information associated with this project. I also insured that the timetable for the proposal was evenly and appropriately spread out, ensuring that I had the right amount of time needed to complete each task. When planning I left a time span of 7 weeks to complete the modelling of the scene itself and all the vital objects included, resulting in a time span of 3 weeks to texture, light and add and animate a camera, eventually resulting in the last week solely based on last minuet adjustments and after effects. I was successful in following this timetable throughout the project.

Whilst researching I used a variety of different sources, varying from YouTube, Twitter, Wikipedia to Vogue.com etc. I made sure that I used different types of research to insure that my information was correct, directing me towards the right direction for my overall concept of designs.

Planning & Production;

I started off with jumping straight Maya and planning the layout of the runway by creating and arranging several polygons on the scene. I then started to add in several other polygons to identify where about the lighting would be positioned, revealing the overall layout of the scene itself, giving me an idea of what I would be working on. I then added in a variety of different spot lights and area lights along with glows to the scene. Once I was happy with the layout I then decided to start modelling and texturing each fashion object in a separate file so that I had backups in case of any software crashes within Maya.

Audience response?

Responses received on my work throughout the process identify that my work is very professional looking and fashion forward, resulting in me meeting my overall goal for this project.

What worked well?

The modelling and texturing of the objects and runway scene overall went very successfully. I modelled and textured Shoe_1 with inspiration from Rick Owens 2014 shoe collection, as seen in my research. I decided to model the shoe with various grooves and dips to add to the design in a 3D manner adding character the shoe itself. The original idea was to have the shoes all in a neutral colours such as black, grey and white, however I later decided to add some colour considering that the runway consists of solely black, white and grey and therefore it would difficult for the shoe to stand out amongst the runway. When deciding on a colour for the shoe I decided to stick to my colour theme as this FMP was to add to my portfolio showing my character and personality within fashion and therefore the colour theme of my portfolio should be kept intact, resulting in the chosen colour being none other than red. I also decide to keep the shoe designs for both shoes fairly simple, yet eye catching and also unusual to some extent, portraying a ‘back to the future’ theme.

Modelling the shoe laces for Shoe_2 was mostly difficult and a time consuming aspect of the shoe design. I had to figure out how to position them appropriately and then decide which method was accurate to joining the laces to have the effect of them going through the shoe itself. Joining the laces was the most time consuming area of the laces as I had to extrude the edges and transform each one separately to ensure it looked accurate and realistic. Thankfully after some time the laces successfully looked realistic and were positioned right.

I then decided to create stands for the shoes and duplicated them whilst rotating them in different directions so that the whole design of the shoe could be visible from the front. I then also changed the layout of the watch, taking it out of its original box and instead duplicating it so that it was similar to the shoes, to ensure it fit in more within the overall layout of the scene. I then straightened out the watch in the middle stand; it was quite time consuming as I had to firstly add a circular NURBS tool sizing it specifically accurately to match the original model of the watch. Once it was the right size I then had to rearrange the links using the move tool. I then decided to delete some of the links that were curved and instead duplicated the straight links adding them to the watch to create a long open strap. I then decided to add a lock to the links, by using two cubes and using the extrude tool to separately extrude them in opposite directions.  Resulting in very nicely modelled watched at a professional standard, looking realistic to the eye.

Timing

I animated the camera to match the length of the song I had chosen, resulting in there being 5000+ frames, thankfully when rendering each frame only took 1 second.  This further resulted in me having to render each section by 1000 and finally piece it together in Adobe After Effects.

The final result of the timing resulted very well; it complements the music very well.

Quality

The quality of the whole project was very professional looking and HD showing every inch of the details added to the shoes and watch as well as the detail within the runway and lighting.

What didn’t work well?

The Maya software continuously crashed throughout this project causing me to lose little changes here and there that I would have to re-do later on. I had originally prepared for this by saving several backup files, as I had experienced the issue before in previous projects so thankfully not too much was lost in the process causing me a shortage of time. The first issue was when the Maya software crashed before I was able to save my work done on the lighting on the original runway scene and therefore I had to redo the whole lighting process for it. Although it was very frustrating, I was however able to create all the lighting very quick as I knew what to do from the original process. Redoing the whole process also resulted in me making the lighting stronger and adding more detailed spotlights, whilst lowering the glows to ensure clearer lighting. Throughout the lighting process I used a total of 6 glows, 4 spotlight and 5 area lights to create a successfully light and intense looking runway.

The main issue during the production of the project was once I finished modelling the whole scene; I rendered the view to see what everything looked like and discovered that there was an issue with the lighting. Something was blocking the lighting within the runway from within the objects file. I then decide to enter the shoes individually from their separate files so that I could identify which file had the shading issue. After numerous attempts and looking through each outliner I finally was able to fix the issue by deleting all by type whilst also optimising the scene size to ensure there were no extra, duplicate materials or lighting within the scene. I then combined all of the objects and exported the combined objects so that I could successfully import them separately into the runway file, without any extra shading being caused.

Overall what did you learn?

Overall I found my own unique style within Maya and identified how I personally like to work with the software as well as Adobe Photoshop and After Effects. During this project I also became much more confident in my Adobe After Effects skills which was one of the main aims of this projet itself directed from the ‘Strengths and Weaknesses’ task. Also as I had came across a few glitches within the Maya software, I have become much more aware of what to do when Maya fails as well as what alternative tools and software I can use to get the same result.

Overall throughout the past two years I have become very confident in using Autodesk Maya and Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects, resulting in me being able to produce work a professional standard.

[jasmeenhayer]

FMP

[jasmeenhayer]

For the motion graphics aspect of the FMP I will be adding the logo at the beginning of the sequence which will be accompanied by music, which will then when zooming into the fashion products merge into the runway scenery at the back to create the backdrop.

[jasmeenhayer]

Content page I created using InDesign today presenting some of my Photoshop work