Final Decisions

        One of the pieces of advice that I was given during the final crit was that the pause between Moom spotting the arrow on the floor and stooping to pick it up (in the stepped tangent playblast) was particularly long. this was to be expected as the timings were based on my animatic, and at this point I had planned to include a point of view shot showing the arrow on the floor.

        This would be a fairly simple addition to the finished animation, as all that would be required would be to render a single frame of the arrow, and place it for the required length of time within the image sequence when I assemble it in After Effects. 

        However, when I attempted to render the point of view frame, I began to have second thoughts. The frame just didn't look right; from this angle and this close up, the floor looked blurry and the arrow out of place against it, not to mention the shadows.

        Fortunately, once the tangents were flattened, the pause was not so jarring or noticeable, so I felt that it would be best to abandon the POV shot entirely, and keep the animation to a single shot throughout. Moom's pause should be adequate to draw the viewer's attention to the arrow, if they haven't noticed it beforehand.

        And on that note, I have run out of time to make any further alterations to my animation, as I must leave time to render and assemble the image sequence. I am happy that I have got the movement to a passable level, which I am reasonably satisfied with given the setbacks I have faced along the way.

        Of course, given more time there are things I would change. Primarily, I would have liked to sharpen up the timing, making some motions snap to better illustrate Moom's shock and frustration. There are also small details that I would have added, like the rise and fall of Moom's chest to give the impression that he is breathing deeply in an attempt to calm down, or a string on the bow. 

        Although this has by no means been an enjoyable module for me, and I am disappointed my work did not live up to my expectations, without the setbacks and mistakes I experienced I would not have learned nearly so much about working with Maya. It is a difficult piece of software, but I can see its potential and would definitely consider working with it again. Just not necessarily the animation part; I might stick to modelling.