Week 3: Project Plans and Procrastination

I'm going to be oh-so honest here, this week was the culmination of my "slackery". I hadn't come to the Friday session the week before (week 2) due to migraines that had me showering in the dark and I was only just made aware that I had a ball to attend on the Friday of week 3, then more unexpected events showed up and things got out of hand - so my hours this week hadn't been fantastic. I tried to fill in my hours, most of them spent looking through GDC talks and reading through articles about games animation as well as a few miscellaneous showreels. I also had a read through of the article we were sent on Slack about motivation which was a bit of an eye opener about stuff we all already know about but tend to forget about or just throw onto the back burner of our brains. As I couldn't get any work done at home on 3DsMax or Unreal, I tried to at least keep up with doing some drawings and such (below) - three of which were for 404 Team Not Found's project pitch presentation: The dwarves and the various little bottles of strangely (but aptly) named fantasy drinks.

Our team also had to have the project plan ready which I honestly did not take part in as much as I really should have, but after having a read through of what the team put together it's a pretty realistic and apt approach to our project. We also made a start on putting a Gantt Chart together as well as an Asset list for the project.

Resourceshttps://www.polygon-academy.com/tips-for-artists-struggling-with-motivation/ - "8 Tips for Artists Struggling with Motivation"

Oh man, this was a bit of a kick in the ass, especially for the lazy week that I've had. I found out that I've become a blend of the daydreamer and the procrastinator. I totally 100% agree with just about everything in this article. It's quite true "An amateur waits for inspiration to strike, a professional just gets to work". I'm quite weak when it comes to pushing through that mental block of "not feeling it" and then I use the excuse of "I'm in an art slump" when really I should just be practice practice practicing. Recently I have tried keeping amore regular work schedule rather than just burning out after long full days of just working non-stop. Something that helps me with this is a Pomodoro timer which is 25 minutes work and 5 minutes off, when I use it I tend to be a far more efficient. Anyway, in a nutshell, this article is something that I really needed to read this week and I'm keeping it book marked to share.

https://80.lv/articles/defining-environment-language-for-video-games/ - Defining Environment Language for Video Games

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMYsmq73-vI - "Learn More About Game Animation - New Frame Plus"

Sent to us on Slack ( I think) and was really great in helping me find animators that I like and some fantastic resources.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Dga-UqdBR8 - "How Overwatch Conveys Character in First Person - New Frame Plus"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EJSAm6OFOs - "Trace & Pose Design 101 - The Animation of Overwatch - New Frame Plus"

https://www.twitch.tv/labzero/videos/all - Lab Zero Twitch Videos

I had a look at several of Lab Zero's streams with Kinuko who happens to be one of my favourite artists/animators - who I discovered through playing Skullgirls a while back and kind of forgot about until I watched one of the New Frame Plus videos on Youtube about learning more about game animation.

https://vimeo.com/davidanthonygibson - David Gibson's Vimeo

What I Learned and What I've Planned

To be brief, most of my learning this was around "I need to get my shit together and get shit done". Though I did read and watch a bunch of resources (which I didn't get all the links of because I watched on someone else's computer), I really slacked off this week and didn't get much prac and 3D modelling done, and I'm ready to put my nose back to the grind to do some practical learning

Cheers,

Grassland