Since we just finished our AV unit, and are now moving into a 3D unit - and just because I really like animation - I wanted to do some research on the actual process that goes into making a 3D animation and how it differs from normal film production. According to this article and this article, both types of film can still easily be split into pre-production, production, and post-production and be fairly similar to each other.
Pre-Production: Both films require planning and storyboarding at this stage. With animation, it also requires character sketches, but that isn't too different from sketches of the sets and costumes that need to be done in live-action film at this stage. Production: 3D animation requires modeling, rigging, and texturing at this point. You get to control how you character moves and control their every movement, which is very different from normal film. However, in live-action film there are people who have to design and paint sets, create costumes, and control the lighting, so those aspects aren't so different from setting up a movie set. Another difference is rendering. In 3D animation, you have to make sure everything, every movement and texture, is perfect before rendering it to be an actual video clip. Film sort of has this when actors rehearse to make sure that their performance will be good, but there is a little more flexibility there since it takes only a few minutes to shoot a shot five times, but can take an hour to render one scene (depending on computer speed of course). Post-Production: Here there are virtually no differences. Both films require editing clips together to form a coherent story, checking audio timing and quality, and adding any effects as needed. I like that there are a lot of parallels between these two things, but we're in a game design class, so how does animation in games compare? This article points out that, aside from cutscenes, when you do 3D animation in a game, it has to look good from all angles. This makes sense since the player is in control of the camera and which way they are facing. It also mentioned how you need more cyclical character animations than you do in film because of the nature of games. When the code calls up that animation, it better look nice and fluid for as long as it goes on. It seems like there is a lot of pressure on game animators to get things done in time, keep them looking nice, but not have graphics that are too challenging for the system and not spend too much time on one movement. I think generally I would like working on animated film or cutscenes more than gameplay animations, but I think it will be interesting to try out soon.
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Since we are working with film, something that in the game design world is mostly used for in game cutscenes and game trailers, I wanted to make a blog post about marketing.
Obviously, marketing is incredibly necessary for any game, because you have to get an audience. However, with the rise of social media as a platform for marketing, it seems like a lot of times people get bogged down in how many people like their media. Of course it's nice to get a lot of attention, and important to know which marketing techniques are most effective for you, but feeling down about an ad or other piece of media not being so well recieved is not going to fix the problem. As much as people are passionate about their own work, in marketing you need to take a step back and remember you are just trying to sell something. You can use your passion to help do this, but you also have to have thick enough skin to accept the failures, get back up, and try another tactic. That being said, some social medias, like Instagram have some very cool features to help people market whatever is on their page. It has a "business insights" tool, which allows you to pay for promotions, but also just get data on your audience's ages and genders, as well as which posts reached more people. You can't get that kind of data from putting up a flyer, so I think it's very cool. I don't think using social media as a way to advertise will go away, nor do I think it needs to. I think professionalism and persistence need to be employed though, but I think it would be awesome to see more Instagram accounts for indie game developers who show progress as they develop their game and advertise. This is a blog post about blog posts (super meta right?) So, why am I talking about this? Well, recently I've come to resent doing blog posts, despite the fact that I love writing and haven't minded writing them in the past. I'm sure the past few posts I've made have been incredibly boring to read: they've been uninspired and feel more like a boring task than a learning opportunity. My blogging lately has sucked.
So what am I going to do to improve? I think the general writing style that I have is fine, but there is one major change I want to make: shorter blog posts. I recently saw another blog that inspired me because of how short he was able to make his posts and still get the point across. I need to work on being more concise in my ideas. This doesn't mean putting in any less effort, because now I'll have to focus more on summarizing, which also means focusing on stronger comprehension since in order to adequately summarize, I have to fully understand what we're learning about, as well as understand the external sources I find thoroughly. Though it seems like a very small thing, I think overall it will help me actually learn from blog posts, keep me more interested in blogging since I am changing up the style a bit, and make my blog posts a little more approachable. |
AuthorHi, I'm Abi, a DSA student who likes games, drawing, writing, and acting. Archives
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