Sam and I managed:
To create an interactive piece which engages the viewer directly making them choose what they want and when they want to do it.
To add in extra areas such as a 'map' and 'extra's' as our rendering wasn't time consuming at all.
Reference using layers correctly - we managed to get our head around 3 different layers in a blank masterfile (in which everything was a reference) and approximately we worked through around 150 Maya files in total throughout this project - 20 alone on the vehicle, around 40 on the character, and the rest were scenes and different renders - and we didn't lose our way in there.
We (moreso I) managed to get to grips with the 'button-side' of Flash and Dreamweaver.
We (moreso Sam) managed to learn pretty much from scratch texturing and get GOOD at it!! (well played Sam)
We also developed all our skills in general learning a little bit in each area - eg Pre-rendered backgrounds, Lighting, modeling and a whole host of things within maya, Exporting files, Basic Housekeeping of the files to keep it tidy, Scales, Cameras, Priorising and many many more.
We also managed to keep to the Poly Count as well which I'm very happy about.
We didn't however:
Have time to add more additions such as Body Work Options - animate the character as much as we would have liked - blend shapes etc on the mouth and eyebrows.
We didn't argue... a few ups and downs but we managed to overcome them with a simple discussion over the matter and crumpets... well not really crumpets... but a note for the future....mmmm crumpets :)
Need extra time and STUCK to the deadline and actually finished on Friday afternoon - just made a front cover etc on Friday afternoon.
My Evaluation:
I really think the project went well considering Sam and I had very VERY limited experience in Flash and Dreamweaver (coding) To be honest that was the hard part but as we left a week and a half to do this we managed to pull through. Mustn't go without saying Max Saunders gave us a quick into into Flash and Dreamweaver (2 hours we owe him) he was our on call help on evening after we'd been doing things one way... we called him and he went - your doing it the REALLY long way. Even now the entire html coding part is not correct with the Flash files slightly wrong. There's a few glitches in some transitions due to poor exporting by Sam and I however they are so unnoticeable I'm not going to let them get me down too much.
The Team:
Sam and I really did pull something out of the bag I feel. We were in when we needed to be to discuss matters and for me to teach him Maya (texturing and basic lighting eg prenumba angles and light fog etc) and for him to teach me more 2D and texturing techniques - being a wizz at photoshop and all. Sam's 2D concept work really set the standard for the entire piece and we attempted to create the feel to a certain extent within the Maya work during the modeling and texturing stages. As we were learning off of each other throughout the project I don't really know how it could have gone much more smoothly. I'd like to think it was because he and I were good mates and got along previously and respected one another, not only as people but also in each others knowledge in different areas. As we had these different areas of expertise I think we were a strong team from the word go.... At least I like to think so anyway. I'm not sure if he'd want to work with me again but I'd be happy to have him by my side once more working on a future project.
The Final Outcome:
As I've already mentioned there were a few glitches but a friend - Max Saunders (again) said he may be able to put it up on Rave On Air - if we can get the glitches out.... I'm considering building a website soon to be honest - possibly over the summer holidays and then hopefully have all my work up on there for the world to view (and criticsm and rip apart and ignore and hate and to just genearlly be disgusted at :p) so yeah.... maybe one day soon you'll be logging on to my site! Lets hope (previous attempts of people building me a site have failed however this has boosted my confidence somewhat). The final Site was fairly good however I'm a bit bummed out that we'd have to re-render for different Internet Browsers... kind of annoying but hey - different formats I suppose need different things involved. Our final site plays best on *confused face*... I think its the latest version of Internet Explorer - not the older one thats for sure and definately not Safari (Mac). I'll probably post up a video we made (as we can't upload the entire site up onto the blogger I don't think) sometime soon.
Things I'd Change:
Probably get the character slightly better and attempt to do different pieces of body work on the car WHILST modeling and that way its all easier and adjustable. I'd probably do a little more research as well. I dabbled from game to game however I look at SO many different pieces and games each day its hard to keep up with them - Sam and I pretty much everyday looked at a game but didn't blog it up which was a major bummer but.... hey.... we are learning so thats all that counts. Its what you know - not what you can prove you know by writing on a blog! haha.
And thats about it for this blog (other than the final film). I'm still slowly updating www.dwshufflebotham.blogspot.com so keep in check with that if your interested.
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