Alright, the big update... Week 16!
It's been a long time coming, but we finally made it to the end of the semester!
Thankfully, we only have a week left until the end, but don't worry-- I've been hard at work making animations and learning new things about Python and other fun things!
So, what have I been up to for this week's VR installment?
Well, mostly a lot of backend stuff, actually.
Bailee, Zach, and I were troubleshooting the issues with the State Machine and Blueprints, so that the character would animate in engine. Although I wasn't able to get the character fully moving when our tentacle monster entered his collision space, the State Machine does work and it cycles through the animations correctly depending on the variables.
This is tremendous progress since last week and I can only thank Bailee, Lisa, and Amritha for all of their wonderful help! I'm so thankful for all the people that help me wrap my mind around the wacky world of Unreal Engine blueprints!\
There was also another issue this week, namely Perforce. Last update, I detailed a Perforce issue that I was having, which was preventing me from saving my work. I was getting several Compile Errors, which I attempted to fix by uploading new animations.
Unfortunately, my Anim BP was not saving because it was allegedly "unresolved" in Perforce. So, I continued to try to upload, but to no avail. While I don't know exactly what I did to cause this problem, I know I did something because I definitely broke something in Perforce. I tried to check the file out and check it back in, but I could not do anything after checking it out. So, I had an unresolved, checked-out file cramping my style.
So, I worked with Bailee and my teachers to clean up Perforce. Bailee and I worked around the Perforce resolve issue and just did some general maintenance. We deleted MA, MB, and FBX files, only keeping the .uassets, as they were all that we needed in the project. We deleted old proxy folders, too, which had been duplicated when I was having my issues with Perforce.
We went from 43 error files to 1, which is awesome. We are still receiving some errors when the project starts up, but the main thing is that it works. I'm thankful that all of my teammates work really hard to make this project come to life. Without them, I don't know where I would be!
Oh, I have one more thing to get back to... Perforce! After working with the teachers, I discovered that I simply needed to resolve and move that file, so it could go to a "Graveyard" folder. It was checked back in, resolved, and is all out of the way now. Thankfully, I have access to awesome help here at FIEA, so the scary Perforce issue was less scary.
So, things I've learned from this project.
A lot.
This project has been really difficult for me, as I have really had to confront my lack of knowledge of 3D animation. I'm still learning and struggling, but I'm happy that I've been able to at least meet deadlines and make things move. Sure, I haven't been able to make them move all too well, but I'm at least thankful for the learning process.
I definitely need to use reference moving forward. I'm not going to lie, I'm not used to it. After coming from deviantART, where people cancel you for referencing or call you out in the comments, I'm a bit hesitant. But I think it's what I need to make my animations look better. I just need to get over the past and embrace the future... which I guess means better animations.
Perforce. It's scary. But you know what's scarier? Letting problems fester. I need to approach my team much more quickly in the future, so we can delegate solutions to tech problems. I shouldn't be intimidated by the technology, I should be approaching it.
So, am I entirely proud of what I've made for this round? No. But will I take the steps to keep pushing myself and trying to do more? Yes. I have come a long way from when I started, yes, but I want to keep pushing further. I want to stop being the "beginning animator who's at the back of the pack" and start being "Mackenzie, the animator who loves tech art." I don't want to let my past mistakes define me. I want to grow from them.
Sorry to get philosophical, but I just wanted to use this blog to reflect on my shortcomings and what I want to see myself doing for future projects. Whether it's VR or something else, I want to try to learn something new each project. And I want to surprise myself and others at what I can achieve.
But that's all for this post. It's been a long one. Thank you for sticking around and listening to me yammer on about nonsense.
Have a good night and take care of yourself!
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