The Chess Player

I've got to say, i have learnt so much in these past few weeks. I've learnt how to animate characters using IK chains, Reaction Manager and Morph Targets. I have also learnt which are the most appropriate for the kind of movement. I've learnt a few different types of constraints, and when to use them. Overall, I've learnt how to animate much better. Personally i feel that my animating skills and enthusiasm has grown a lot.
This project follows my original ideas in a vague way. I wanted originally to have a revolving robot arm playing a full game of chess. That plan grew into two different arms (in looks and personality) playing a game of chess. Unfortunately, my designs of the Old Arm were not made to measure, and he ended up way too big. Also my plot included a full game of chess, which would have lasted well over two-three minutes. Therefore changes needed to be made.
I decided to change the story.The story shortened into the Old Arm knocking some of his pieces over, due to being unable to play the game successfully. Nothing was re sized.

It was only after that i had rendered all my video, that i wanted better textures. I started rendering The Chess Player in these new textures, however it is still rendering as i type this now. I think, that combined with the new layout, lighting and textures, the video would have been more impacting. However the new lighting removed my idea of a dark deep place, that the robots were constrained to. This is what i mainly like about the video. The dark nothingness that surrounds them, making the viewer focus entirely on the game (lit area).
Overall my animating of the robot arms gets better towards the end of the video. My sense of timing is much better now, and i feel i can show emotion/feelings successfully. However my attempted animation of the use of gravity needs a lot of work. imitating gravity is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Perhaps i will work on small videos depicting this. If my animating abilities do get better, i feel that i could work in the animating part of the 3d-pipeline.

I got all my sound clips from Sound Jay.