Monday 21 February 2011

Animation Evaluation.

For my first project of 2011 I started with animation. The brief was to create a haunted house with 3 scare scenes. We were told to think of a theme for the haunted house, I had the inital idea of either a halloween theme aimed at young children or a death/murder theme aimed towards an older audience - such as young adults. I decided on the halloween theme as scare scenes were easy to relate to this theme - pumpkins, witches, ghosts and skeletons. It could also be quite a fun / amusing ride as the audience was younger. There was the normal convention of the ride entrance having the sign entering the haunted house will say "Enter If You Dare.."

My main ideas and intentions that I was trying to express in the project were that the theme came across well, the name of "Trick Or Treat" related to the halloween theme. The scares such as the pumpkin tunnel, witches and skeletons in graveyard created the mood for a haunted house which also fit well into my theme, scary yet an amusing ride for young children.

The methods I used to develop my ideas can all me seen on my blog posts over the duration of the project. I created a 3d model with wire on a theatre plan of the waverley building to give me an insight of ideas for a track. I made a few moodboards of theme ideas which helped me decide which theme idea to have for my final idea. I created drawings of the cart, ride entrance and scare scenes. I made a storyboard for the ride - including entrance, scare scenes and exit. To develop my ideas I also looked on sites such as youtube at other ride animations & looked at previous haunted house rides (such as the Pasaje Del Terror in Blackpool) to help with ideas.

I took a risk by trying something new, most people in the group were doing quite a deathly theme and had more of an older audience. I thought the theme and audience was different to everyone else & although it may not seem as "scary" as some of my peers work, the young audience should be taken into consideration.

Some of the unexpected problems I had to solve while working were that I really found the software 3d max hard, some ideas I had - such as a sweet cart to go with the trick or treat title couldn't be done as I was unable to make the cart so had a basic square cart which looks no where need as good. The scare scenes were't as good as I had hoped, although I did really try to make them as effective as I could.

The decisions and choices I made to help solve these problems were that although sometimes I did feel like giving up as mine looked pretty poor compared to my peers, it wouldn't get me anywhere. When I had done the basics such as making the track and plan for the ride I went onto youtube to look at online tutorials. Some of them weren't the best but I did find a few good ones which can be seen on my blog which helped me to produce scenes such as my pumpkin.

The things I have learnt from this particular project were that research is important to produce a good product. Last term i also struggled with animation but throughly reasearched into female idents such as living tv so I had a good idea of what to produce - even if the end product wasn't brilliant the idea was there. I researched everything for this product from the cart to the music. Producing moodboards and storyboards helped me with specific ideas for my theme.

Areas for improvement , If I were to do this project again I would change or do differently would be to have a cart that fits my theme I would also really have liked my track to be more interesting / thrilling for the user. I am hoping to add music by the end of the term.

A new project that might grow out of my experience maybe not so much to do with 3d animationn but maybe whiteboard animation which we did in induction week of a haunted house or ride.

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