Okay, This Was Late Too, but We Have a Plan

 So these are due on Sundays, and it's (almost) every other Sunday, so they should really be easier to be on top of...

 Anyway, this week we had switched gears and started working on making everything 3-dimensional for the animatic. I finished up blocking for the two shots I was given, and started polishing them. The results is what follows.

 Then the next week (read: literally the next day) we switched up the animatic entirely, my shots were mostly cut, so I stopped working on them and have started my new shots by the time this posts. I went from a total of two shots to a total of nine shots (totaling 34 seconds (that's the first time I've done that math and ghuhh that's more than I want, but it's that time!)) and I need to hustle.

 So the plan is going in place. Part one: We're animating hard. This includes coming in after work on Tuesday and Thursday, and after classes on Wednesday to just... work... Part two: We may ignore homework for other courses (but to be real, I need to work on all that too, because it's my senior year, and gods I don't need to fail right now...). Part three: start working on the next post before it's due, that way it may actually be on time.

So This One Was Late

 So, I didn't think about this that much, but apparently this was due on Sunday. Which really shouldn't have surprised me, but it was due the same week as a Production Pass and that threw me off a bit. So here we go.

 I actually worked on stuff this week. However it wasn't a lot. I got half of a model mostly done (like 85%) and then had to work on other homework for courses that I also need to pass. And then on Friday I got orders to stand down on creating assets and start animating so we can get everything sort of to the same level of doneness (as it almost always should be). So it's Wednesday night, I'm sitting alone in the Icebox watching anime and getting a few shots worked on. My only problem is we reworked the scene that these shots were in, so I need to re-set the characters and cameras and (maybe) lighting.

 So... yeah... That's an update.

I Think I'm Having a Crisis (and Other Stories)

 So this was supposed to be posted on January 30th. I'm usually all for doing these, but honestly, this one kind of got away from me. So, the normal bit. What did I work on this week? We needed to get our animatic to a fairly standard place across the entirety of its runtime. And so we set out on a quest as a group. I had shots 73-76 (a total of about 340 frames. It wasn't hard, and it didn't take terribly long as I got around to us, but I felt like I had to shove aside other assignments in other classes in order to get this done.

 So, without further ado, here's my shots.

 So, anyway, that was what I was supposed to have done two weeks ago. And then I fell off of the world for a bit. I started feeling sick on February 1st, and it knocked me out for most of the week ending 2/5. My sickness took all of my energy that week and I got no work done. For this week (ending in 2/12) I did apparently (finally) contracted Covid, having a positive test on Monday. It's been a little sucky, but not nearly as  bad as being sick last week was. I wonder if last week was when I actually caught the virus and just happened to get the positive test Monday after one of my parents lost their sense of taste and we collectively went "well shit....."

 In addition to my health being awful, I've been having a lot of motivation issues exacerbated by mental health issues. On top of that, a close friend of mine has dropped off the map, and all the worst things that could possibly be are running through my brain. In order to help combat all of this in the future, I have made appointments with a psychiatrist. Hopefully with help I can curb my depression and anxiety so that this won't be an issue as we close out on the project. And to be 100% honest, I feel terrible about having not produced anything since my couple scenes. It's affected all of my classes, but this being a group project with people I actually know... Well it sucks. I've kept in contact with my group, so they understand what's up, but yeah, I'm going to need to make up for it when everything feels better

 So, yeah, going forward, I'm currently still working on scatter terrain for an environment. I'm already feeling a bit better health-wise, but now I just have to start working on that whole motivation and going to school thing...

This is the End of the Semester

 So, we're at the end of the semester and I'm struggling. This class has been fine, I don't have any complaints about it at all. The short is coming along great, but I've unfortunately been less productive in this class since my last post than I should have been. We've had 3 of these due since then, and I just didn't do them, but I have worked on a little.

 October 22nd was the due date for the animatic, and to be real that was the last thing I really worked on For this I honestly apologize to my team. I've been dealing with other classes that I slacked off in over the previous part of the semester. I am now dealing with that.

 But hey lets actually look at the animatic instead of talking about how I feel bad about stuff.

 We're about a month after this piece was due. We've animated, critiqued, and re-storyboarded and re-blocked this scene since it was due, and we're headed in a similar, but new, but mainly similar direction. 

 It doesn't really matter at the moment. The semester is almost done and we're taking a short break before getting back to work on the film. Kody and I will be finishing up the lab scene when we get back to work.

 I'm going to get back into the swing of this next semester.

Individual/Faculty Review Post

    This is a conglomeration post of all the past "What Have I Been Doing?" posts. This specifically is for the use of Brett and Howard, but I guess if you're reading this you can... also... read it...

    Yea...

    Starting from the beginning... like the very beginning. Not shown here are the four versions of the script that I drafted while the short film still had dialogue. Between Lianno, Sharah, and myself, we took the story and turned it into a manuscript, then polished it until we could bring it to a stage where we were comfortable with pumping out an animatic. Then we played with it while we worked on the animatic, and eventually we scrapped that script to go in another direction, which we're currently working on. 

    The following pictures are storyboards for the first scene that accompanied the original manuscript of the short film

This next picture (right) is an early envisioning of Xander and the time machine. Xander was still generic at the time, but the pose and positioning of the time machine really made me excited. Unfortunately anything remtely like this scene wouldn't quite fit in the new film

Based on a concept art that we saw online while we were looking for inspiration, the art to the left was a (not great) attempt at bringing Xander to life. (I'm currently in a life drawing class that I think is going to really help my character concept art).

    These pictures both above and to the right are concepts for different hairstyles, none of which we decided to go with, but were steps in the correct direction. This also will be affected by my Life Drawing class.

    Not shown are the Fall Guys version and the drill sergeant version of Xander

These next three pictures all have to do with the concept of the time machine. I had further ideas on how it should look. I'm currently in the process of figuring out how to model it, whether or not I should create the interior and exterior together, or separately. That, however, is a plan for after the meeting that goes along with this post.

Shown left is a short storyboard sequence that fits better in our current story. The idea was inspired by Brett. As Xander goes back in time, the picture of Xander and Emily that sits on his desk, along with the Metro ticket that was part of their first encounter. When he leaves, the picture changes to something else (no longer Xander and Emily, but something else) and the ticket fades away into nothing. Like back to the future, but different enough that it isn't direct plagiarism

    To the right is a reproduction of the Breakthrough Award, an award in physics and mathematics. We figured that Xander had a few science trophies awarded to him along his long journey to this point. This was created using the new tool in Maya (I believe its the helix tool?) a few times to make the interior and exterior spirals, and then duping the whole thing like 8 times, offsetting the orb to an angle, then putting it on a pedestal.

    Future planned awards for Xander are the Nobel Prize, in addition to a few other weird looking trophies. That ought to be fun

To the right (top) is a chair that Gabe made for another project. To the right (below) is a modified version of it that we'll be using in our production. I think it needs a little more tweaking, which we'll get done soon, but for now it's the referenced in model.

What am I Working on This Week? 09/17/21

    There's been a lot going on over the past two weeks, and this is the place I talk about it. Hooray, let's look at those things.

    I did a few things with pencil and paper. Let's look at those.

    Above is the concept art I made for an in-progress version of the time machine. I feel like it isn't necessarily something we'll have time for in the short, possibly an illustration, but probably not more than that. Brett had an idea of how I can jump off from here. Blueprints of the machine that we can have sitting somewhere, On his desk, on the wall, in the machine, somewhere. That's going to be something for future work.

    To the right is a short idea for storyboards. When Xander goes back in time, I had the idea that the picture that would have caused his flashback to how he and Emily met would be on the desk near the time machine. The camera watches the picture frame with the time machine disappearing in the background. when the machine disappears, the photo fades from being one of Xander and Emily, to one of... something else. Maybe Xander at a party... Maybe a puppy... Maybe Paul and his godsawful mullet? That would be... something... to say the least.

    Now lets look at the digital stuff I worked with. All items will be in the Laboratory scene (also can I complain again about the formatting on the insertion of pictures in Blogger? It kind of bothers me...)

    This is the Breakthrough Prize. It is a science award given for Fundamental Physics, Mathematics, and Life Sciences. It also has the WEIRDEST design to it and that took me, like, 9 hours to figure out. But eventually I did, with the new Sweep Mesh tool, which is SO COOL. It creates a nurb curve with a polygon attached, and when you stretch the curve it lengthens the poly to stay along the lines of the curve.

    This is a chair. This particular chair was made by Gabe for a short animation. Not sure which one, but this chair is rigged and pretty cool. But with the deep cushion and the arch support and the high headrest, the chair is very obviously a gamer's chair...

    Which isn't really Xander's style, so I gave Gabe's chair a once over. There's still a bit of cradling in the backrest, and I might have to deal with that in the future, but we're doing pretty good here. Little bit of work to do... But it is still rigged nicely. I'm about it.

    A computer monitor. It's simple. This was modeled by Gabe, and we're reallocating it for Xander's desk. I resized it a bit and zeroed its spacing to the zero point. May need to tweak in the future as needed, but we'll look at it on the desk in the lab to see.

    This is another Gabe model. I uh, haven't actually done anything with it besides set it to the zero coordinates. I do have plans to create a separate numpad based on the same design., but that is something I'll get to later this week

    Also, turns out me and Gabe have the same keyboard, but his does the RGB shifting thing, whereas mine stays red, which is annoying... I like the color shift. That's beside the point.

    Anyway, I am at a point right now where I need to figure out how to reallocate my time with being back in college. I'm starting to slip behind in almost all of my class work, not just this. and this still strikes me as more important than other classes, what with it being a direct line into future careers. 

    I also need to find time to work on my own projects. Work school life balance should be a thing, and I'm too much into the work and life portion right now. Need to reallocate.

What Did I Do?

 So... Summer was a thing that happened. And to be totally honest, it was not as eventful as it should have been, especially not on the production front (though I did take a nice General Astronomy course over the summer, that was pretty great). But now it's time to start buckling down and finishing this project. So first thing's first, a list of items I'm currently working on. We're plugging away:

1. Concept art for the time machine
2. Ideas for pictures to tell the flashback story
3. Miscellaneous items for various scenes (including but not limited to)
   
• The PPoS
• Science awards
• Breakthrough Prize
• National Medal of Science
• Milennium Technology Prize
• The Nobel Prize
• Other things probably

 This past week (how has it already been a week?) I started and scrapped the PPoS 3 different times. I don't know if I was being hypercritical of the work, or if it was actually bad, but I'm starting to find a school/production/work/life balance. Hopefully I'll be able to keep that shit up all semester.

 Anyway, in the first week we came up with a new direction for the short, that the whole team seems to be excited about (and we don't have to animate talking, thank the gods). With the Help of Brett and Howard, we decided to go a little more(?) emotional with the story, but that does mean that we need to start adding and removing content to make it different. We'll get there, and it'll be fine.

 Also, Tom hooked us into a thing called Monday and we're going to be using it for the time being to keep on track, and it's going to be great. Have I said that too much? Maybe I have.

This is not a 2 page .pdf