Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats

Overall my Models and Animation have been a great learning experience, I had no previous experience in 3DS Max but had heard and seen a lot of work from it.
I have Both enjoyed and hated the program at times but understand it is a very in depth modelling and animation program and wish to use it in the future, There is a lot I still don't know about it and believe there is a lot more it is capable of.

Strengths - 

• modelling advanced shapes and models, using flat diagrams and pictures.
• Creating Models using Components not one large model, this is mainly through understanding the model itself, and the components before the modelling even begins.
• Texturing components and having a good understanding of what to model, and what to leave to the texture. 
• Importing and exporting textures was simple, and had some very good outcomes.  e.g. the sky texture doesn't have a line down the middle at the beginning and end of the texture.
• Animating the models, I feel the animation side was great, and I got to grips with a lot of camera angles and techniques. I am probably most happy with the path constraints, and also the idea that one of the ships engines are attached by lines which actually bend and move using bones. It also allowed me to move parts of the ship slightly before others to give that sense its going to move. 
• Details on the ships have been both been one of my strengths and one of my weaknesses, the picture below shows some great detail on one of the models.  

• Polygon count, I feel the polygon count was acceptable for the project, as I had to have a large landscape as I wanted the ships to move with speed the terrain itself used a fair few, as I wanted an uneven realistic surface. As the landscape was quite big, it also made the sky dome quite large, which added to the count, but overall I don't feel it was too many, and I also would have cut it down further using textures for more aspects of the models then I currently have, but that does all come down to how close the camera gets to each model, and if it was to be used for other purposes... 
• Animating moving parts the model was easy, using the graph editor to make the engines continuously spin was simple and very effective. 

Weaknesses -

• Texturing my models proved harder then I expected, mainly due to the lack of skills in 'GIMP' or Photoshop. I am happy with the end results, but feel I could have spent more time on this side of my models to create a more realistic, and better models, they look to 'clean' for models which should spend there 'lives' racing around a desert.
•  Bones were a problem to begin with, spending a large amount of time getting them to work, in the end it being a simple case of re modelling the object they were attached too as it was a line and not a cylinder. 
• Finishing touches, I believe the models all though good, are not excellent, I would have wanted to add a lot more detail and possibly interior to each model, to ensure they looked correct from every single angle, there are times where you may see inside one of the engines and see something you don't wish too. The picture below shows three errors, all can be easily corrected, but the issue I had was noticing these in the first place, having rendered the scene it was only then I realized the issue, and at that stage felt it was unproductive to go back and change it and wait for the rendering again. it is also not so noticeable in the final animation. 

• Lighting I found to be an issue mainly due to editing models after I had excluded them from a light, therefore changing there grouping etc... making them included again. This created a very light looking render at one point with no realistic shadow. 
• within the animation there are stages where I feel it could have been improved, at times I lost track of seconds per frame, and this has resulted in the ships travelling at different speeds at times, It would have been better to measure a distance per second(or frame) to ensure they traveled at relatively the same speed throughout. Also during animating there are times where the ships may pass through the desert floor, this is because it is an uneven terrain, and as it does the animating for you, at times it is easy to miss the models doing this. 

Opportunities - 

• 3DS Max is a very good program to use for modelling, and animation, I feel I have not fully discovered its capabilities and want too look into the program further, but it is obvious it can be used to create very realistic still images or models, and animations. 
• Creating textures for the models could really make or break a model, Too have an artists help would be extremely beneficial to the models, someone who knew how to create anything within Photoshop would allow you to create very beautiful looking models. I wanted to make each ship look very sand dusted, but this proved too hard for me, but I believe a visual artist would be able to achieve this well, it would then be up to 3DS max to create the sand blowing across the desert, possibly with a particle system. 
• I would have liked to have used the reaction manager, so that when I turned the ships, there fins etc would have moved to create the idea they are helping the ship turn, but I spent a long time trying to make the bones system work, which meant I ran out of time to try it, Looking back this would have been a clear opportunity to improve my animation, using the reaction manager on each ship to make them move more realistic and not be so rigid. It could also be possible to slow down the engines as they slowed down etc... 
• The environment itself could have been better, I ideally wanted to create an arena they race through similar to the movie, but felt It was a bit too much work, as I wanted the animation to mainly focus on the three models designed. 

Threats -

• 3DS Max often crashed, losing work was an issue whilst modelling and animating.
• Importing and Exporting models into other files created an issue with textures, as They had the same name, renaming these textures from the start would have been the best method.
• Bones are good to use, but can bend the wrong way, in the final shot in my scene I can see one of the ropes attaching the engine to the ship bend up not down, I found it very hard to try and change and in the end gave up, the issue was that it was working the other way in previous shots and couldn't work out what had changed... 
• I feel my original storyboards were far too ambitious for my final product, Not realizing how hard it was going to be to animate and create a good finished product. In future I will continue to aim high in my work, but ensure it is achievable with hard work, As the storyboards were so ambitious I couldn't use them how I wanted too, using them more for camera angles etc... rather then following it exactly from scene to scene. 
• The Models themselves were harder to make then some, having chosen to do a pod race, I found there to be less material available online to work from to create realistic looking ships as to those in the movie, where as if I had picked some of the better known space ships from star wars, there was a large number of plans and drawings available.