BA3 - Self-Evaluation and Final Thoughts

I can't believe this project is over already! The time just seemed to fly by! I feel like this project has been my greatest struggle yet at the same time, the one I've been most proud of in the end. I've learnt so much about Maya that I seemed to forget from the two weeks we had before Christmas, and it's a skill I've wanted to achieve since I started this course. I always thought that I would never get the grips of the program or creating assets in general, yet now I can confidently say I would happily do the project all over again!

One of the biggest improvements from my last projects have been time management; for the first time I've been blogging constantly unlike BA1 and BA2. Blogging so much throughout the project has greatly improved how I've structured my workflow, especially with tackling the last week before the deadline. I haven't been stressed about finishing my work, which is a huge change and weight that has been lifted. I also feel that my positive attitude and open mindedness to the world of 3D modelling has allowed me to challenge myself, and adapt to the unit with a good transition from our previous projects.

Another strength I feel that I have developed throughout this project is my hand painted texturing skills, cartoon-like and with realism. My favourite part of creating a model is the texturing, and I really wanted to put a lot of time and energy into doing that. So as a result, I feel that I have improved my overall drawing and observational skills. This is especially true when paying attention to detail when we had to create our 3D studies. I would love to push this strength more in the future and continue to improve upon it.

Within the contextual studies brief, I feel that my stengths lie within my presentational skills and communication with my parter (Johan). We're constantly together, so collaboration was no issue there! I've also had a lot of on-stage experience prior to university, so talking in front of people seems completely natural to me. What has been difficult however, has definitely been the iteration progression. Because Johan is uncomfortable with doing 2D and would rather do 3D, it's very daunting to see other people presenting with a lot of cross-collaboration and painting over each others work. Of course we have done so, it was just a lot harder to structure within the earlier stages of the project, as 2D drawings are a lot quicker to complete than 3D models.

Regarding studio work, in the begining stages of learning Maya I ran into many problems and turned to others for help. Often so, that I felt like I relied too much on it. In hindsight, I suppose it's a good thing because I found solutions for a lot of problems, but I did feel like I wasn't learning as much as I should've. I turned this around a lot when completing my studies though, as I barely needed any addition help for my last two (Coslany road and the Georgian window); as well as my final folly (except for creating additional maps).

Overall, this project has been a great learning curve and I look forward to what we learn next!

#ba3