Nexus - Week 5

Last Friday was the end of my work experience at Nexus - and while I'm sad to go, I've had a fantastic time that has been very inspiring.

While I was unable to get stuck in on a live project in production, I still managed to learn lots about working in a professional studio environment. From the many creative group meetings to the dynamic between directors and studio members, the collaborative nature of working to form the best creative solutions was very inspiring. The projects that I did work on were predominantly in the pre-production stages, creating various props and environments for a number of pitches. This allowed me to work within the practices of the Nexus pipeline, such as ensuring naming conventions and file locations were consistent and ready for use for other members.

Becoming familiar with 3D Studio Max has also opened my eyes to some new approaches and ideas when it comes to working in CG. From modelling, animating and to the advantages of working with Linear Workflow - a process of working with gamma correction to achieve the best lighting and colouring results. Both Max and Maya have their ups and downs, and while I'm not championing one or the other, there's certainly things I'm trying to bring into Maya from Max and vice versa.

With animation exercises, I learned a lot with the process of animating with the help from Michael and Mark whose feedback and words of animating wisdom have proved invaluable to me. From the importance of animation curves with trajectories, to the effective use of the graph editor, I've certainly learned a few new tricks that have given me confidence to animating.

Overall, I had a great time with the whole experience being very enlightening and inspiring to say the least. I want to thank everyone at Nexus for helping me out and making me feel welcome, and of course to Phil and Alan for making this possible.

While I won't be able to upload everything I've done, I will be able to post some stuff including one of the main animation exercises I've been working on - so look out for that!