Final Evaluation

Having completed the animation, I have decided to do a conclusive final evaluation of the finished result:

Challenge


The biggest challenge was achieving the walk cycle for the ATAT. Despite the flexibility of the manual approach, this was time consuming and required the lining up of the keyframes of the legs. Different scenes also required different speeds or particular parts to move in a certain way. Though simplistic in itself, clever use of camera angles shows the movement as it should look and hides the simplistic overall look.


Look and feel

As stated in the initial design, I feel the scene successfully represents the underdog beating the odds in harsh conditions. The consistency of the scenes was mostly thanks to the snowy texture that was able to be imported to each scene and used in the hangar and terrain alike. This really helped portray the setting. The use of a similar noise map on some of the diffuse channels added to this consistency as the models looked 'in place' with the environment. The big explosion at the end is satisfying to the audience and acts as the pay off for the tension before


What I've learned
The most substantial technique I feel I have taken away from this process is the path deform for 'growing' the tow cable. This has not been covered in the practicals and required my own research to find the quickest solution. I value this because it is likely I would have attempted a worse way of achieving a similar effect simply using scaling and keyframes. This has instead taught me an efficient solution that looks impressive.

Success
I feel the texturing was one of the most successful parts of this process. I am particularly pleased with the snowy effect on the snowspeeder body and the reflective metal on the grills. Achieving the growing tow cable also turned out very well considering I had never done it before. The use of ambient occlusion in all of the shots was time consuming but resulted in a far better looking animation then without in terms of shadows and lighting.

Strongest shot

I feel my strongest shot is the first. Though just a fairly simple tilt up looking at the ATAT moving, it turned out as intended visually and works well the dialogue clip. I also feel it matches the actual shot in the film well thanks to the binocular overlay.

Weakest shot
I feel my weakest shot is the one where R2D2 repairs the the snowspeeder gun. I intended to do more with the scene and have a mini explosion and send him flying back however it turned out more practical to keep the scene as it is. The movement is all quite rigid would benefit from more of a curve like in the second shot.

Improvements

Here are some improvements about different parts of the whole thing:

• Physics simulation on falling snow
• Two separate splines for growing tow cable and ship path constraint effectively lined up 
• Less rigid movement of R2D2