LETS DO THIS THING!
i think its about time i came back to ye olde bloggy and hit it with a wall of text and take a trip down memory lane.
ok a long way back, the live at five group day. i never really got into this project much at all, mainly due to the fact i didnt have a clue how to use after affects really, but with some quick lessons i soon got to grasps with the software and got back in the game. mainly starting with simple things but slowly working my way up.
personly i feel the live at five days are complete shambles but also funny at the same time, not the best news programme ive seen in a long time. i was set the easy task of a sports table, simple text with presets animations..woo. i felt we worked well as a team as in the "animation" team, but the news broadcast students were a bit rubbish and made some silly mistakes.

onto more recent subjects...IDENTS aah!, ok well i really chucked myself into the deepend with this project and in hindsight i would have done things differently i think. the original concept took a few days to mould into shape, and once i had that idea, straight to pen n paper and taken into illustrator to get the cartoon storyboard look i was going for. i think my downfall straight away is that i had this idea and i'd got my designed dog the way i wanted it to look, but didnt have any other research or design work for it. i think it would have been much better to come up with lots and lots of designs and pick the best rather than just being stuborn and lazy and just choosing the first idea that i get.
my orignal idea was to only show the dogs head in the ident, but i steadily made things harder for myself and ended up making a whole dog, and seeing a major flaw in my plan that i didnt really know how to model things properly it was a very big leap. the road was a long and tiresome one where i made many many mistakes, but also learnt lots about modelling and rigging, these areas i found very interesting.
i think due to my lack of knowledge in modelling and rigging 95% of my time on this project was spent slaving infront of the computer hours on end. obviously with more time id love to go back and redo it alot faster and better with the knowledge i picked up. another point to mention is my lack of knowledge in UV texturing, this is an area with has gone in one ear and out the other and i couldnt remember a thing. luckily and cheekily in some respects my dog was grey in my concept work and didnt have much/if any fur. i think this also is an area in which i'd like to improve my skills to improve my work standard.

ok things i like about the ident:

the dog :P hehe erm well im proud of the whole model as its my first real model ive made

I like the way ive managed to get the ears to wiggle about when he shakes his head.

things to improve:

camera shots, i think snappier shots rather than long slow shots that show everything would have had a better impact.

the general movement of the dog swaying/shaking i fell if i'd studied this more i would have been able to get a more realist feel

possibly try to make the dog less real next time as it falls into that awefull crator of the uncanny valley

after doing this project i think ive found my calling and its 3d modelling, cant get enough of it. plus the regular complements from fellow students is always a nice bonus and moral boost