“Those who fail to plan, plan to fail”
We’re getting ready to start off the BIG project, and this week we are doing perhaps the most important thing which is planning. There are 3 things we need to produce this first week:
- A flow chart
- A time estimate
- A self-reflective text
- Clarity of plans
There’s a whole range of things to take into concideration here. We are now acting as our own producer for our own animated film. Ordering myself around, will be a challenge indeed.
What should I take into concideration while making a flowchart and time estimate? There’s always the “what if” scenario, or anything that can go wrong will. How will I keep the project going with minor setbacks if something didn’t go as planned?
Here are some positive facts before starting this project
- I have two computers(3 including a laptop)
- The new computer is a monster: Hexacore processor(6 cores!), 1,5GB graphics card, 4 GB RAM, 1 TB storage(1000 GB)
- I use a Wacom Intuos 4 Drawing Tablet for image editing in Photoshop.
- Sony Vegas is a great alternative to Adobe Premiere(saving time editing)
These things will be a great advantage advantage for me during this project. I have two computers so in case one goes down, I have a backup computer to work on, or maybe even work on at the same time as the other(work on one, while the other is rendering, maybe try connecting them to make a “render farm” if possible).
And the new computer, the beast that she is, will save several hours of rendering time and I have plenty of storage to save files on. I just about learned everything there is about Sony Vegas myself, and I find it much more easy to use than the Adobe Series, but of course I will use that too if it’s required. Greenscreen is also good to know, if I want to make a change in a scene with a high-detailed background, because then I can just render it first, and change the forground as I wish, not having to render the whole scene with the background every time. The Intuos 4 is great for changing textures, backgrounds and such on the fly.
And the negative:
- The new computer’s hypnotizing effect when it comes to gaming is very tempting(MUST RESIST!)
- My friends on Skype are ruthless(I’ll explain)
- I’m kind of lazy
- I’m not very skilled in the rigging department(always room for improvment
Well I am an avid gamer, I must admit. Some times, if not often, I have put gaming in front of more important work. But this is my last project, and it will represent everything I’ve learned these last three years(skipped one for the army). I must sacrifice my gaming time to make this work. Also I’m pretty much always on Skype with my friends who are studying other places, and they are REALLY CONVINCING, when they try to get me to game a few rounds, which suddenly turns into hours into the night and then I’m too tired to work. I basicly just have to stop logging on if not un-install it if I can’t constrain myself. And facebook during work hours is now officially FACE/OFF.
That I’m lazy has much to do with that I’m bored most of the time. I think I need to listen to some music so I won’t “shut down”. Spotify playlist in the works! I should actually be excited about this. My own film, who hopefully many people will see, and it will probably be a great plus in a portfolio/reel.
HELL YEAH I’M SO EXCITED!!! MY OWN 3D FILM! WHO CAN DO THAT? I CAN! YOU DA MAAAN PATTY! YOU DA MAAAN!….Yeah that works ^^
One thing I always had a hard time with is rigging characters. Now I don’t know if I will feature characters at all, having not decided what the film will be at this point, but I think I should since it seems it would be positive, since we did have a lot about character animation this year. I’ll have to check out some rigging tutorials.
So I was thinking about if I will lower the visual quality(rendering hours) apposed to animation, but concidering that I do have a pretty powerful computer, I really want to go all out with smoke, cloth maybe even hair! reactor FTW!
Now that it seems I have most of it covered, I’m making a flow chart making it easier to keep track of what I’m doing and in what order.
Now I have created the flow-chart, and so on to the time-estimate. Since this is a 5 day task I haven’t really had much time to think about what my film will be, and how many characters, or how detailed it is.
What I do know is that I like to figure those things out “on the run”, as I’m working. I don’t even have a story yet, so how to estimate time for each task without being specific about content.
Well I know that modelling, rigging and animating can take most of the time of a project, as well as rendering. So lets say from reaching 100% of all tasks,being done finito, a larger percent would
be spent on the main parts of pre-production and the rendering. As this project has given us a timeline of about 19 weeks, these tasks must take up at least 60% of the time combined.
So will I spend 50/50 on each of them or 60/40?
I’m going to trust my gut feeling and of course experience with other projects and say that modelling, rigging and animating will take most of the time.
So there we go: 60% of the time on pre-production and 40% on the rendering, that together makes up 60% of total work time of the entire work time of the project(not counting weekends of course.)
Now there’s 40% left for all the other tasks. They include creating the story, Concept drawings, along with a storyboard and then a 2D Previz(to begin with)
How much time can I spend on these tasks efficiently?(what? 110% ALLWAYS!).
So according to how I feel right now, I can use one week on coming up with a story/idea, concept and begin on a storyboard. Another week for creating a 2D Previz and one more for the 3d animatic.
So 3 weeks: creating story, concept, storyboard, 2d previz, 3d animatic. And out of the 95 days we have(not counting weekends, 5 days per week)this takes up about 14% of the entire work time.
So now we have set up 74% of the tasks. 14 out of 19 weeks. Only 26 % to go, and what is left now?
(Cinematography(setting up cameras, scenes), Music/Sound FX, Editing, Final Render with Titles and Credits.)
And fittingly these are towards the end of the work project.
Setting up cameras is a part of the animation stage so this is already taken care of at this point. Finding music and sound effects should be easy, as well as writing titles and credits.
So it’s the video editing that will grab the larger bite of what’s left. As there’s 5 weeks left, lets say finding music/sound gets 2 weeks and final editing gets the last 3 weeks.
Now if you are confused let me explain how I figured this out 
We have 19 weeks on the Final Animation Film Project. In 19 weeks, there are 133 days, not counting weekends there are 95 days(5 day weeks). 1 week is then about 5% out of 100%(19 weeks)
So from the top:
Creating the story
Concept
Storyboard
2D previz
3D Animatic
3 weeks = about 14%
Modelling
Texturing
Rigging
Animating
Rendering
11 weeks = about 60%
Music
Sound
Editing
Final render
5 weeks= 28%
3 + 11 + 5 = 19 weeks
14 + 60 + 28 = 100 percent.
So how will my days look like?
As this time estimate is not very specific about every task since I have no detailed information about its content yet, lets put it this way.
On every one of these 95 days, I will work 6 hours or more, no less. So I will have up to at least 570 hours. But of course, how can I guarantee this limit is upheld?
I can be more active on my blog, posting every-time I’ve produced something, no matter how much I think it’s not worthy of blogging(as I usually think).
And I can change my daily rutines, which usually consists of me staying up until I see the sun hit my monitor
