The Zenith project is called Zenith because the project is a way for Freestyle students to show our best skills in a way we can enjoy while showing that we are ready for working on projects without intense interference from any authoritative figures.
Adam G and I are collaborating on a project together. We are animating a 2D character over a 3D animation that we are also making. The final production will be entirely 2D, but we decided to rotoscope over 3D as a way to keep anatomy consistent and more fluid motions. I wasn’t in the animation class last year, and so I missed out on the 2D animations that were done that year. This year, we have mainly done 3D animations, and so, I wished to do a 2D animation of some kind. Becue of my lack of animating experience, this project will prove to be difficult in both skills, and in time management skills.
Adam will be mainly working on the 3D animation, while I will be doing mainly the 2D animation. Both of us have each other’s contact on many different programs that we both use for entertainment as well as the good-old-fashioned, phone texting. I learned how to animate in photoshop during this year in animation class, and I intend to use it well. Adam will be animating in 3D using Autodesk Maya.
Finished Product:
Reflection:
For my Zenith project I wanted to make some kind of 2d animation, but I couldn’t pin down one idea of what I wanted to do. Eventually a classmate of mine approached me with an idea for a project. To rotoscope over a 3d animation with 2d. The idea was to animate a character’s conflict with a monster on the surface, but leaving more to be interpreted. It was looked into how we would show the character going through the story as well as how a psychological monster would look like. Before this project I had not done any major animating, only simple 1 second things. Through this project I learned amateur animation in photoshop. Since I am only new, I am still quite slow in my animating. I’ve learned I don’t enjoy most of the process in animating. However, I did learn that rotoscoping is quite relaxing, if the idea is enjoyable or is your own. While I didn’t do any 3d animating this project, I do know from previous projects that I don’t enjoy 3d animating either. The process of this project started out slow, with me doing next to nothing, as my partner, Adam Galles, was getting the first scene of 3d animation done. There was 5 seconds of animation I worked on during the beginning that required no rotoscoping. After getting that done, he was also done with the first scene, so I started working on that. I started working and during that, I realized I would be going too slow to finish on time. I then restarted with a faster animation style. However, this was at the cost of quality. Even with this faster method, I was unable to finish all that needed to be done. But even so, I am proud of what I did get done. As stated before, me and Adam worked collaborated on this project. In hindsight, I feel he pushed much of the work on me at the beginning. Thankfully, once he saw I would not be able to finish, he started to help with the 2d animation. Sadly, even with his help on the 2d section, we were unable to finish. If I were to attempt this project again, I would ask for a more balanced workload, try to shorten the end product, use the new way I found out how to animate, and put aside more time for this project. While it’s good to be ambitious, it’s only good in situations where it’s possible to finish the product in the time allotted. During this project I feel I worked most of self-direction. I have a nasty habit of procrastination. Only recently have I been truly understanding just how tarnishing it is to be so. I knew that it was bad, but didn’t feel bad about it until recently. For a secondary 21st century skill, my technological literacy improved vastly. My skills in photoshop had improved, allowing me to become more comfortable with shortcuts, and knowing how to accomplish specific goals in the program. I feel that the skill show the least of was creativity, as most of the work I did was creativity. I feel this way because a great amount of the product had already been thought up by the time Adam approached me. In early May, I presented this project. While presenting, I was nervous because of the unfinished product. Because of my nervousness and the fact that most of the idea was Adam’s, I feel the presentation suffered on my end. During the presentation, I listened to how those in the classroom talked about it, and I am glad that people understood that the story was meant to have meaning behind what was clearly shown. I wasn’t picked to show it off later to others. However, Adam was, so I’m happy for that. One thought I would like to leave with is to work without procrastination and to work with a purpose.