Individual Scheduling - Weekly Meetings etc

Myself and the group that I am working in created a group schedule on Google calendar. This allowed us to structure our project by giving us deadlines for our individual tasks. We have to ensure that we meet these deadlines set and stick to the calendar in order for our project to get completed.

The tasks coloured yellow on the schedules below are my individual tasks, the tasks coloured green are tasks for everyone in the group and in the final part of the schedule where I have no tasks I will generally be helping where I can to make sure our film gets finished.

Below is an image of the schedule for January.

Below is an image of the schedule for February.

Below is an image of the schedule for March.

Below is an image of the schedule for April.

Below is an image of the schedule for May.

As well as creating a schedule to stick to my group also have regular meetings every week to make sure the work set is being carried out and the deadlines are met. In these weekly meetings we also address any issues regarding the film such as camera angles, the film's story, the models, textures, rigs etc. On top of this we have a group for our project on Facebook. This allows us to continue discussing anything about the film around the clock. The images below show some of the posts on the Facebook group for our film.

    

We have also set up a Dropbox account. Dropbox allows us to all access each others work and has proved to be very beneficial to the pipeline of our project. For example I modelled and UV mapped the bathroom, I then put that work on Dropbox, Nat could then access my file from her computer and texture the models. The images below give you an idea of our Dropbox setup. 

I find that Dropbox is also a great way of seeing that people are meeting their deadlines and completing their tasks when they are suppose to. It also allows you to view parts of the project that your are not working on so you can get a real overview of how the film is coming along. 

A technique that we can then use to get everyones work from Dropbox and put it into the scene that we are animating without slowing down our computers is referencing in Maya. If we have all of our models, textures, rigs, lights etc loaded in Maya I don't think my computer would allow me to work on that scene as there is just too much for it too handle. So we incorporated a technique that we were show in a professional skills lecture. Which is referencing, this allows us to load the models, rigs, textures, lights from Dropbox into our scene and then we can simply with a click select what we want in our scene. For example now that I am animating I only need to work with the character and the rig and the models from one of the rooms in my scene so I simply tick those in my reference editor and the other models that I do not need to work with will not be loaded in my scene. Below is an image of my reference editor for the scene that I am currently working on.

I have found having Dropbox and using referencing in Maya has been a great way of being able to work with each others work without having to have a copy of all the files on your computer and without having to import and work with every element in your Maya scene.