Presentation Evaluation

I believe that my group were quite successful in getting our idea across during the presentation.

A number of points were made (good & bad) based on our animation.

The combination of audio & visuals was a ood mixture. The feedback given was that the animation had a perfect balance and did not contain any irrelevant information.

One of the bad points was that during the audio I had abreviated the word Carburetor to Carb. This was out of habbit and as nobody (including me) noticed this wasnt changed earlier.

Another idea that was given to us was at the start of the animation, the audio started quite quickly. When the audio got edited for the final time, pieces of audio were edited out. Including the opening speech. If it is decided that the museum would like to use our animation then this can easily be edited.

I am proud of what was said about the groups animation. There were no major problems, and it seemed to be a mixed reception on whether the voice over had the correct pitch and speed.

Another point made to the entire class was the fact that they had little contact with any of the groups. This is definatly a major learning curve for the future. By working alongside the museum, it would have made the creation of the animation easier where we wouldnt have had to guess what they would have preffered content wise.
But this was probably the most vital piece of feedback we were given.

Evaluation

Group:

At the start of this project I will admit that I was worried with the group that I was set. This was due to no-one living local to the university so I wasn't sure how easy it would be to set group meetings.

As time went on though, I realised that I was within a highly motivated team. Everyone got stuck in, did what they were asked and showed alot of interest in the project. It helped that we all wanted the same from this project, to learn off of each other and produce the best we could.

I will admit there were arguments within the group. But we showed maturity in that it didn't effect our work. I

Shuo, Rob and Kiel all produced the best they could and I believe it shows with the work we have managed to produce.




My Work:

I was set a number of tasks that varied in what software I had to use. So this project has enabled me to learn a few new tricks.

With the modelling of the piston, the shapes looked correct. The problem came when importing them into a different version of 3DS, as you can see from the video, one of the cam shafts is very untidy, and it apparent in the video.
Due to time running out we decided to stick with what we had.

By overlooking what the others were modelling I did manage to learn more techniques. Rob showed how to position lights and setup realistic shadows; he also taught me an animation technique using wireframe and the slice modifier (shown on the sparkplug earlier in the blog)

Given more time then the only piece I would change on the animation is showing how the engine works within the lawnmower. Considering none of the group had any prior knowledge on the 2 stroke engine I am very pleased with the outcome.

Environment added

Kiels environment works really well alongside the rest of the animation. He has managed to produce a good environment which doesn't look out of place when the lawnmower was added.

There are a couple of faults with the final animation though. Due to different files being used for rendering, the cam on the piston changes colour.

Another problem is with when the lawnmower is within the environment, I was asked to stop the lawnmower, so that it allowed the viewer to take in what was being seen. I took this literally so just used a static shot. What I didn't realise was that Kiel meant stop the lawnmower but keep the camera moving. So this has to be rendered again.



The final problem is with the audio, from feedback it was said that the speech was too fast, and gave the viewer no time to take in the information.

I decided to record the audio again, but due to illness the sound quality was extremely poor.



Instead I have decided to cut the initial audio into more precise information to give a better impression to the viewer.



To get the final shot correct on the animation with the environment, i had to adjust the curve editor to stop the wheels spinning. I wasn't able to completely stop that from happening, all I could do was set a segment where they didn't move before it would loop back again.
This was due to the animation being setup by Rob, and as I was unsure of where to move pieces I had to improvise. This worked well and enabled me to complete the editing succesfully.

Editing

Once the animations had been rendered within 3DS, it was down to me to edit the video to coincide with the audio.

The idea was to slow down the specific sections within the video editor. I don't believe this is a good idea as it will gradually reduce the quality of the videos. This is due to the frame rate that we have used (30fps). I believe that the sections of video should have been edited within 3DS before rendering. Once I have shown the group the completed video I hope to bring up the problem of video quality at the next meeting.

I decided to use Sony Vegas Studio 9.0 to edit the video as this gave me the most control over editing the footage. The main control required was the slowing down and speeding up of the video.

At present this is the video that has been produced, the only thing missing is the environment at the end which Kiel is producing (Garden including trees, shed and grass)