SWOT Analysis

Strengths:

In this module I have found one of my most notable strengths is patience and the willingness to spend time experimenting with different features of the program such as using cameras, Biped mechanisms and weighting models for animation.

I feel I have gained a good understanding of how Bipeds and skinning is used to animate models as well as how different lighting can be used to influence the mood and appearance of a scene.

Weaknesses:

One of the biggest weaknesses that have shown up while undertaking this work is the relationship between complexity and available time for development. I take pride in designing higher quality models and have such suffered on animation time due to the amount of work put into the models being used in the animation.

I have learnt that very careful planning can determine whether the initial idea can be made to standard within the given time limit, I will in future be taking the development time period into account when it comes to designing any piece of animation work, so as to avoid this issue.

Opportunites:

Last year I touched on Bipeds and lighting techniques briefly, along with the use of cameras. These have played a major part in the animating side of 3DS Max and have proven to be some of the most useful tools to be used.

I have been able to practice weighting techniques considerably during this course and can safely say that I am comfortable using this feature on any future work.

Finally, having the chance to use Bipeds properly has given me a good insight into Animation within 3D Max. I have learnt more about how skeletons work and what types of movement affect different areas of the body.

Threats:

The biggest issue I have experienced during this course is to do with the biped and skin link on my models. I found that when a skin is applied to a biped that has already been animated it tends to lose its 'connection' when the file is saved and reopened. This unfortunetly caused me to waste time trying to recover from pieces of work that were lost when the skin / biped link was removed.

Better devtime management is still an important area that needs to be taken into consideration when any future work is undertaken.