Week 11

 Not much work for me this week

My groupmates were jokingly saying I've done a lot of work by now, time to have some rest. So I didn't contribute much to the animation project this week. Only refining the skin weight around Mrs. Wrinkles' neck so that the don't fold in a sharp angle.

Weekly Report

How is the workload distributed among your team members? What do you think you could do to improve collaboration?

I was contributing a significant amount of work to this project. Not that I'm feeling stressed about the workload—I actually had a lot of fun and we haven't missed any "weekly goals." However, when I did a quick summary of the work distribution, it became clear that I was in fact doing the majority of the work.

Looking back at our group chats, I noticed a pattern that kinda explains why I've ended up doing so much work.

Initially, since I was sculpting with the skeletal structures, I let the others work on blocking the body mesh for better reference. However, I've only seen a really rough version from Alyssa.

Before starting the retopology, I recommended that Sala and Levena practice rigging with a quadruped model I found online, as they weren't very familiar with the tools. Unfortunately, I never saw any practice rigs from them, and I ended up having to redo the rig within 15 hours before the formative deadline.

I planned to do the animation blocking, and Alyssa volunteered to help with part of it. However, I didn't hear any progress throughout the week, so I ended up doing the whole blocking on Sunday and Monday night. Alyssa later informed me that she didn't get far because Maya kept crashing for her.

For the Linear pass, I shared the scene file with the group and asked if anyone wanted to attempt it, but I never received a confirmation. So, I ended up doing it myself.

I think I understand why things ended up this way. I didn't want to be the mean and annoying guy who forces progress out of my teammates, but I'm not sure if this method really works. Last year, I offered weekly tutoring sessions to my teammates on the droid project, but he flew straight to Canada without notifying me before the second semester started :))... All jokes aside, I realize that I need to be more strict and proactive when checking on progress.

Moving forward, I'll try to be a better team leader by guiding my group more effectively. Try to implement more regular check-ins and ensure everyone stays on track with their tasks. Encourage others to contribute to the work and provide any support required.

Character Sheet: Sala Deng, Levena Hu
Environment setup: Alyssa Boyce
Modelling: Keon Chan
Retopology: Keon Chan
UV unwrap: Sala Deng, Levena Hu
Rigging: Sala Deng, Levena Hu, Keon Chan
Blendshapes: Keon Chan
Skin Weight Painting: Keon Chan
Creature Texturing: Sala Deng
Environment Texturing: Alyssa Boyce
Animation_Blocking: Keon Chan
Animation_Linear: Keon Chan