Final Thoughts of 12 Weeks

This task has been one of the most fun so far at University. The initial challenge was to produce 3 Star Wars models in 6 weeks then use those 3 models in an animation which tells some kind of story. Not only do I feel I achieved this to a fairly high level but also took advantage of the process to learn as many different tools inside 3DS Max. After the initial first 6 weeks I was feeling quite negative about my modelling abilities but my first grade resolved that issue as I did quite well which drove me to do even better! So I've have gone full out on the second half.
My animation went extremely well considering some of the hiccups I came across but even with the strict time constraint I think I did an awesome job of telling the story from my initial storyboard even if I did replace the Ebon Hawk with Darth Revans light sabres. I would still have liked to have made a space located scene to show off some more camera angels and I still can just won't be marked, plus I'll have to build an X-Wing and maybe even the Millennium Falcon I originally wanted to create when I first recieved this assignment.
Although it wasn't part of the criteria I really think adding the sounds really improved my skills using audacity as well as a basic editing tool!
I think I have also picked up an invaluable skill with blogging. Its something I had never done before and now I'm kind of kicking myself for it. I imagine blogging whatever project I work on is going to be beneficial as to be honest I get quite competitive, even with myself and increasing my views every day was one of the primary drivers to try and blog once a day. (I've managed to get to 2100+ views now which is over double what I was aiming for!)
At the end of my first 6 weeks I listed a fair amount of tools I had learnt in that period. Time to count up how many I have learnt since then. I have learnt unwrap, detach, shell, Msmooth, various forms of lights including directional and omni, autokeys, rendering, target camera's, free camera's, environmental backgrounds, height mapping, displacement, normal, 2D splines including connecting models to them, lens effects such as glow and ring, morph, noise, biped, rigging, skinning, ripple, tessellate, slice, bombs, atmospheric apparatus, text, relax and a large variety of material tools. On top of this a general improvement to all the skills I had already acquired! And the best bit is I have gained a new hobby as I don't think now my semester is finished that my modelling is also complete, I can't wait to see how this blog is looking in a years time from now!