Evaluation

Research: To gather primary sources, I first visited to the Science Museum to take pictures and sketch of the things that some ideas of what I will do for my FMP. The sketches and pictures I've taken was mostly planes, parts of the planes and the history of the plane. For my inspiration I ventured on further to the RAF Museum at Hendon to expand my horizons. The flight exhibit at the Science Museum and RAF Hendon Museum had a big influence for my final major project. Using my memory, and primary and secondary sources I was able to create various plane designs that inspired the final outcome. Some of the aircrafts designs required further research, for example, there are multiple nations of different aircrafts during world war 2 such as the iconic British spitfire, the Japanese zero and the German Messerschmitt 109. I explored websites such as luft 46 for German planes, Imperial war museum for the history of the aircrafts and archives of footage during combat. The history channel also helped to gain more information on who were piloting the planes and taking down other planes during combat. Furthermore on this research I discovered that there were aces during world war 2. Which was mostly German aces such as Erich Hartmann and Hugo Broch who is still alive today. This was discovered from Mark Felton Production's channel on YouTube. Planning and Time Management:

I planned out on my phone on how long my work would take and how many hours I would require each week. I set an alarm to alert my self that one section of this part was over so I could make sure that I can move on to the next task. The modelling took longer than how I expected to to be finished, however, I was able to manage to get it done and finish with the animation. The animation also took longer than I expected as well as the my time management was kind of mediocre which meaning that my dead line was over and took some extensions.

Developing and Modifying Work:

For my planes, I kept on experimenting them on different type of styles that I liked. If it was low poly style, indie style or realistic style. I chose the indie style because it was simple and easy to produce the work and also less time consuming for the realistic style, which meant that I had to find the accurate textures and redo it on photoshop. Which would be a pain to do. For the colouring of the planes I've separated them to different parts and put them back together after when I finished using the colours. For the tutorials I've used were from YouTube. I think I've produced a high quality indie style plane that would match my theme for the dog fighting animation. I've also researched the history of the pilot aces who flew during the Battle of Britain as well as the history behind the spitfire and the Messerschmitt 109. This information was gathered from Imperial War Museum at RAF Hendon. For the animation, I made a rough for my spitfire plane just to warm my self for my final animation. I was thinking of adding an environment in though the rendering process would take longer than usual, so I removed the environment and replaced it with water and a sky instead. For the animation however I used the path tool for my planes to follow the path so it will be easier than doing manually. I spent many hours researching my ideas developing it and experimenting it. For the storyboard however it was all done by hand traditional. If I had more time would've re-drawn it digitally.

Materials, Techniques and Processes: I primarily used blender to model the planes and animate them as well as the scenery. For my storyboards and sketches I used them to do all traditional way for my plane animation. Using the animation asset was like keyframes in Maya though I did had a go on blender. Reason why I used blender than Maya cause there more tutorials that what I wanted for on blender than Maya. The most annoying thing was the animation because I wanted to make it as realistic as possible, as I wanted the animation to look smooth. I was reliant on mostly on blender because, without the software, the huge community of the people would provide the tutorials I would need wouldn't be possible. For sketching I just used pencils. Next time I would've need to prepare for the animation on blender and practice it more.

The Final Outcome: I provided digital evidence of my work such as the development, research, final outcome , experimentation, animation and the final render by uploading it to my blog. I added a bit of annotations on how I did the process etc and also high definition picture files. For the exhibition I printed them out via photoshop from the renders from blender that I've done with the help from the assistant. Since he knows a bit on blender which was helpful. Doug helped me with the spray mount and the printing for my blender renders. Most of my work was printed via a premium thick special A3 paper so it would professional for the exhibition for the boards. I followed the brief and made sure to triple check if I required to finish the tasks it was given us to research and develop our ideas as well as presenting our final outcomes. I think I've managed to produce an ok ish work and research that meets the project brief. Although my weeks of effort did manage to finish via the deadline. The animation turned out to be ok and I think I kind of like it.

Strengths and Weaknesses:

My strengths would be problem solving, hard working, development being independent and researching. Though my week point would be procrastinating I guess. What worked well were the rendering of the planes fighting each other which was nice as well as the environment too. Though for the animation, I think It could've been improved on for the fluidness of the planes flying. The environment took a lot of time for my modelling which was to say it annoyed me a bit. I should've just went for an airfield raid or something which would've been easier and less time consuming. If I could've received more time, I would've switched to 2D animation since animating the background is an easier task than modelling it.

Conclusions:

If I ever were to do this project again I think I would do it via 2D animation since it is much easier and less time consuming than spending my time wasting on modelling the airplanes and the environment. I would also not be distracted and procrastinating while wasting my time at home doing nothing when there's something I should've done. I could've stayed during independent study at college doing the work as well as asking what was the FMP project was so I could gain more information and stay 1 step ahead. What I have learnt that from this project was too ambitious to make since I am not at Uni level yet. I could've done a simple animation task like a plane taking off or doing a victory lap etc or just show casing the renders of the planes via photoshop and put music over it. Either way I think it was a very fun project and I did enjoy it from having more freedom to do whatever we want unless it was met with the client and be independent. I believe from this project it gave me a little purpose for what I was supposed to do and what I understand that I need to do or otherwise I won't know what to do and feel like If I was stuck. Overall I am proud of my self that I got through with it and I am pleased with my work.