For this week, our team was back from GDC and we tried to make the latest renders of many shots and get them into editing software to replace the previous animatics we got from Half Week. Based on our instructors’ feedback, we did not have much working time left and we need a clear pipeline for rending things out and getting feedback for future changes now. They needed us to start utilizing ShotGrid more by updating the animatics so that we could get feedback directly from their comments on the post. We planned to update at least two renders for a week from now on (normally on Wednesday and Friday).
As we put together the latest version of animatics, our artists were continuously making progress on animations and art assets.
We also worked on textures for the screen displays in the lab. Our artist recreated the RGB pixel color display to mimic the look of typical computer screens. We might need more textures for screens in order to add varieties in the future.
We also had some animations finished and added to our current shots. This shot was still subject to change, and we will need to get input from instructors to decide.
Now, all the voiceovers had been added to the previous animatics so we could have a clear sense of the length of those shots that had voices. The length of some voice lines needed to be adjusted to match the flow of the shots. Also, since there were parts that need the voice actors to shout, some of the voiceovers had the problem of clipping. So, necessary audio effects should be added in the future to dampen the obvious distortion and create correct spacing.
We had playtest day on April 8th and we got chance to open our project for feedbacks from outside guests who did not have any previous experience with our project . We have guests from a wide range of ages and backgrounds. They had different focus point about what we were working on and they gave us feedbacks on the clarity of story and opinions about the plot. We also give introductions to many of our guests who were interested in our working pipeline and tools we used. It was good to see that guests can generally get the story without knowing a lot about the animation.
We must make an updated version of animatics that combines all of our latest progresses. Our artists will spend extra work time and try to put together the latest render by this weekend. We will edit and add sounds to it once we have the latest render, and we will upload it to ShotGrid.
GDC and Spring break had caused more impact on our working progress than we anticipated, and we needed to make our updates as soon as possible. We believe that once we have cross over this challenging time, the whole piece will start to come together.