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Category: Professional Practice
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Reflection
Overall, I feel as though I learnt quite a bit from working within this team, and I feel as though I’ve experienced things that will help me better myself and continue to grow as an outcome throughout both the following modules as well as the rest of my life.
There were a lot of things that happened during this module that I feel as though I could have done differently after reflecting upon it. I wish I had attempted creating the beanbag more in Maya as I initially forgot about nurbs and curves, which might have made for a better solution to my initial problem rather than going into a different software. I wish that I took more picture of food and/or drinks so that we could have had more photos on the website, but although I took pictures of different food and drinks I didn’t feel as though it kept with the theme and standard that the pictures that Harry had taken did and henceforth didn’t end up using them. Finally, I wish I had done some more unique stuff on the social media side of things, such as poster and advertising, as well as looked more into other café’s social medias for better reference.
Overall, even though I wish I had changed some of the things that I did I’m still happy with not only how my work came out but how the entire teams work came out. The outcome that I received from both the 3D Models as well as the Website and Socials came out similar to how I was wanting them to and for that I’m happy.
To start off I created the kiosk. I initially started by looking up some references for it and finding one that looks good and would fit the vibe of the café itself, whilst also being a good price as if we were actually going to buy it for the café itself. After I found one that I liked I opened up Maya and started up.
I then started to create the next model, this one being a 3D printer. With this one I also looked not only at the price, but the size of it itself as well as the user accessibility for other people. I ended up finding a nice compact model that had a touch screen on it allowing much easier accessibility. I then once again booted up Maya and started making it again.
And then finally I decided to create the bean bag itself. This one was both easier and harder in different ways. It was easier as bean bags themselves are a lot cheaper and obtainable than kiosks and 3D printer, though it was harder as I originally tried to create it in Maya, which didn’t go great. I ran into a lot of issues with Maya as the software is a lot better for creating rigid and sharp edges and a bean bag is neither of them. So, after about 3 attempts failing, I decided to go to ZBrush instead managing to create a low poly version of a bean bag on the first attempt.
After I got all those done, I started work on the website, I used Wix to assist in the creation of it as it had a lot of things that assisted in the designing and layout of the website and made things flow a lot nicer overall. I was also able to keep the feel of the PowerPoint/the theme of it throughout the entire website.
We decided within the first couple weeks what it was exactly what we were going to do, and that to be precises would consist of designing a 3D Café that would not only serve food, but also allow people to create filament-based 3D models either by USB or Bluetooth. The café’s main selling point was the 3D printing, but although we wanted to sell it to people using that we still wanted to keep them coming back and bring in less tech savvy people by still having an enjoyable menu.
My strengths consisted of design, 3D modelling and website creation. So, after taking in consideration the skills of all of us Harry allotted us with specific jobs. I was given the jobs of assisting Nicole with the work load of 3D models that she needed to make, assisting Harry in the creation and Maintenace of the social media websites and finally the main part for me, which was the design and creation of the website and the meal/drink menu.
I personally felt happy with the work load I was given as I enjoyed creating 3D models and after the previous year/modules I had the skills required for both the creation of 3D models using both Maya and ZBrush. And I also had previous experience creating websites as well, from the use of both WordPress and Wix. This meant that I was quite confident within the creation of all the items, and my own skills.
The café’s layout was designed by mainly Harry and Nicole as it was formed within the first week whereas I didn’t end up joining the group until the second week of the module.
In our group we had three team members, Harry, Nicole and Me. Harry was in charge of the Branding, Social, Advertisement and Texturing. Nicole was in charge of the 3D modelling and Design. And I was in charge of some 3D models as well as some Social and the Website. Overall, I felt as though there was some good teamwork within our group. Bearing in mind that although we didn’t do weekly group calls, we were always keeping each other up to date on what we were doing task wise and were always willing to assist each other if the work load was becoming to overbearing or we got an error within a certain software. Harry was the team leader of our group and did his role really well, he assisted when needed to and made sure that both me and Nicole were keeping on track and knew exactly what we were doing, and when exactly we should be doing it. For example, during the first couple weeks we all sat down together to create a plan and come up with ideas for the café’s name itself.
We created a discord server to keep in touch even whilst not at the university, this is where we did our occasional group call and how we kept each other in the loop no matter what. By doing this I feel as though it allowed our teamwork and group overall to become stronger and flourish, presenting a better result at the end of it. Whilst creating the PowerPoint as well, we also managed to make it so that we could all work on it together at the same time which allowed us to give continuous feedback to one and other whilst we’re working.
Early on in the module our team came up with the plan we were hoping to follow and for the most part we did. There were a few points we divulged from the pre-arranged plan but it was mainly to make the work load more even across the group. I was set onto doing a few 3D models to assist Nicole as well as work on the website for the café. Later on, I was also given the task of working on two of the social media accounts, those being the TikTok as well as Instagram, to assist in the balancing of the work loads. The way we planned it was that we wanted to get a majority/all of the 3D models done before Easter holiday so we didn’t have to worry about the models and could instead work purely on the other tasks we were given. Luckily, we managed to do so and were definitely in a better situation due to it I was able to work on the website and social medias during and after the Easter holiday which helped as near the end of the holiday I got ill causing a loss of time for me. I was planning on making the models in Maya as it was one of the two modelling software’s I knew how to use, though for one of my models I did need to use Zbrush as I wasn’t able to make it using the rigid formatting of Maya. And for the website I was planning on using Wix as it had a very user-friendly interface and I had previous experience with it. Then finally I was planning on using the respected websites for each of the social medias.
