Evaluation of Climb Teddy Bear Climb

My final product:

Starting this module, I was highly invested. I was very excited to start making things and this project gave me a great opportunity to make something that I wanted to. However, this was also slightly daunting.

There are a lot of things that I could have made as my model and when I eventually settled on making a teddy bear, I did worry that maybe I was playing it safe. However, I decided that as I had never even looked at Maya before starting this course, I was better off not trying to overshoot my shot.

Despite initially feeling that I had given myself something easy to model, I found myself struggling along the way, which isn’t to be completely unexpected. In the hopes of making sure I would have a better understanding of the module, I made sure to follow along during lectures (even though I didn’t always bring this to my blog) so that I would have the best chance at successfully creating something.

To begin with, I found all of the elements of creating a model to be difficult, the modelling, rigging, and texturing all gave me troubles a long the way, however I was able to overcome them.

I personally feel that the most time consuming part of this process was the rigging. It made sense to me logically and creating the joints were simple enough, but the IK handles did give me some trouble. However, now having the knowledge of how to create IK handles and use them in an effective manner I don't believe they will cause me any issues in the future.

The most enjoyable process for me was the animating. I enjoy bringing models to life through movement and have in the past downloaded rigs just to animate them. There is a chance that it's because of my past experience with animating that this step just flowed for me and is one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much.

It was nice being able to see something that I had spent so much time and effort working on, finally coming to life through the animation I made for it. It's a completely different experience than using someone else's model and, yes, it takes a lot more work, but in the end the result of making something completely from scratch is so incredibly satisfying.

Looking at my final product I can safely say that I am extremely pleased with the way it turned out. The animation is fluid and looks organic. The model itself is of a good quality and the texturing fits the style of it.

However, if I were to revisit this model, I would add a bump map to it so that the knit texture would appear to be 3D as it does in real life, giving it more of a realistic look.

In addition, I would soften the model more to remove some of the hardness that that still exists around areas like the feet of the teddy bear. Again, helping it to appear more life like.

Also, I would remove the eleventh shot from the video as watching it back it feels unnecessary as you could blink and miss it. The shot is just too quick and unneeded, it doesn't add or take away from the the effect of the video.

I think for my first ever model I couldn't be happier with the outcome. I've learnt a lot of new skills and now have a good understanding of how to use Maya, meaning I'm more likely to come back to the program just for fun.