New Timetable

I made timetable for the production and post-production stages of my project. I have allocated myself plenty of time for animating as that is the most important bit and left the last two Weeks blank, for when things go wrong. I have been experimenting with referencing scenes in Maya, which will allow me to add to edit a collection of scenes at the same time. My Referencing pipeline will be:Although I was not able to stick to the exact dates in my last timetable, everything that needed to be done has been achieved so I am very pleased with my progress to date.

Blockout

I created a blockout of my film in Maya using the Goat and Max for Maya rigs from http://www.highend3d.com/. As well as giving me a much better idea of pacing, I used it as a chance to test out animation by keyframing as many animation cycles as possible. To do this I spent a great deal of time filming and photographing myself acting out particular movements and poses, as well as analysing Internet footage and studying Muybridge image sequences. I created a bank of notes, thumbnails and arcs to help when I animate. Both the mound and tree models are still in production.

I think some of the animation sequences work really well particularly for the goat and I am glad I put so many hours into animating it. There are however a few actions that I do not think are clear; the second close up of the goat is supposed to show the goat pulling against the rope trying to escape from the boy. Also as the boy gingerly tries to climb down the rock he ends up falling instead. The main feedback points I received was to make the boys purpose clearer, reduce the shake of the tree and improve the camera angles.

A large problem I encountered was parenting. I needed to be able to turn on and off the parent attribute and move the child independently from its master. This can be achieved to some degree using multiple versions of the same object, but not to the extent that I needed. After much unsuccessful searching through the Maya help file and the Internet, I discovered a script that allowed me to do just that. However the script had many problems which I could not undo. Although it allowed me to do exactly what I wanted, I ended up spending days fixing problems it had caused and therefore I will need to find a more reliable method when I come to animating.