Showing posts with label Year 1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Year 1. Show all posts
Wednesday, 24 May 2017
Fantastic Voyage Mitosis Revisited
During my crit, it was pointed out a couple science errors I made and some improvements that could be made so I've gone back and changed it. The black chromosome fits more in the world looking more foamy and less like an untextured CG model, I also have the right amount of chromosomes during Telophase and Cytokinesis in addition to the chromosomes now being separated, (showing the effects of anaphase).
Monday, 15 May 2017
CG Artist's Toolkit - Autodesk Maya Final Submission
Reflective Statement:
Maya even though very technical I have enjoyed learning to use, I find it amazing all the things you can create with it and what you can do with it. I will be practicing the new skills learned over the holidays.
Intro to Maya 2016:
Modelling 1: Digital Sets
Modelling 2: HS & Organic
Lighting and Rendering 1:
Visual Effects 2: Deformers
Texturing 1:
Rigging and Skinning 1:
Skinning Method 1: Interactive Weighting, Component Editor and Paint Weights
Skinning Method 2: Post Weights and Interactive Binding
Rigging Part 1: Legs and Feet
Rigging Part 2: Spine
Rigging Part 3: Arms
Rigging Part 4: Head, Neck and Final Grouping
Skinning Method 2: Post Weights and Interactive Binding
Rigging Part 1: Legs and Feet
Rigging Part 2: Spine
Rigging Part 3: Arms
Rigging Part 4: Head, Neck and Final Grouping
3D Animation 1:
Pre-Visualisation 1: (Camera Shots)
Skinning Method 2: Post Weights and Interactive Binding
Post weights method was successful
Interactive binding worked on all except the knee...
Sunday, 14 May 2017
CG Artist's Toolkit - Animation and Character Final Submission
Reflective Statement: Animation and character has provided me with the fundamentals of animation researching and putting into practice the 12 principals of animation and studying walk cycles of both people and a four legged creature in addition to a run cycle. I have enjoyed the results of some of my animations despite Flash being a struggle.
CG Artist's Toolkit - Life Drawing Final Submission
Life drawing has been a great challenge for me, but it's been beneficial and I can see I've improved since September. These sessions have provided me with opportunities to try out different materials and improve my skills and techniques for using them as well as my understanding of recording an image via a drawing/painting.
Saturday, 13 May 2017
Tileable Textures
When you find a texture you want to make tilable and seamless, you crop it to a good quality value - in this tutorial was 1024 x 1024, using the patch tool and clone tool to mend it you go to filter > other > offset and put in half of the original size values - 512. It takes the middle of your image where it's all seamless and puts that around the edge of your image leaving it seamless, however it leaves seams in the centre like in the screenshot below which we fix/paint away.
Substance Materials
In this tutorial substance materials are explained and how you adapt them for maya software and mental ray. To make it suitable for mental ray you need to export the network where it will make several maps in your source images folder.
Friday, 12 May 2017
Fantastic Voyage - Reflective Statement
For this project I listened to past me's advice after struggling with Script to Screen: don't rush and don't panic, plan and prepare - do my research, do thumbnails, explore ideas and styles, be certain of an idea before jumping in otherwise it would all go down hill as I experienced. As long as I listen to advice given and keep doing well in lessons there is no reason for it to go wrong. This project has given me a confidence boost in my abilities and has made me eager to go on to do bigger and better.
The Good:
I'm pleased the three scientists were impressed by my animation, they liked my poem and that it rhymed and all of it was accurate. They loved how it was presented and looked, my art direction which as clients they don't need to worry about just be intrigued by, which Dr Seuss helped me succeeded in. My lecturers have seen an improvement in my work this project and said it was done with professionalism and determination. My art direction is consistent throughout except for the chromosomes. I have a good habit of sharing my progress and acting upon feedback, even though I can't wait to get to the finish piece I know it will take many learning curves and errors which I prefer to embrace as experience no matter how stressful it gets, I always expect feedback because I tend to struggle with noticing some of my mistakes but I believe that's down to inexperience, with each project I learn more about myself as an artist and my work; I'm finding my faults with the lecturers' help and growing as an artist.
The Bad:
Mistakes are inevitable and this time round it was my amount of chromosomes when the cell splits, the cell splits and in my mind that's divide so I did 4 divide by 2 but cells divide in order to multiply which I knew but I got a bit confused with, it should be 4 in each cell just like in the beginning, but now it's been pointed out I will fix it once toolkit is completed, I've come this far and want it to be as close to perfect as possible. Also I will be changing the textures of my chromosomes so it doesn't look like an abandoned, out-of-universe, plain CG chromosome, in addition to adding a squash and stretch to it to make it like a squishy haribo sweet. Another possible bad thing is the lack of maya used - I didn't vary my textures it was lambert throughout with a paper texture attached to the colour node, I didn't design any characters that needed rigging but that was down to the art direction I chose which I have no regrets about - the cells are recognisable as cells and the layout was clear and well spaced.
Next steps + Lesson learned:
From this project I have learned about Z-Depth, maya deformers, the importance of transitions. I have practiced good project and time management alongside practicing maya skills learned in the first term of year 1. In year 2 I'm going to keep making art direction number 1 priority, as art direction was the solution to all my problems - decision making is what I usually find difficult and lack confidence in which wastes time, which makes me panic and then makes me rush. I think for every project the brief will give me some sort of indication to what art direction I should go with depending on the task.
The Good:
I'm pleased the three scientists were impressed by my animation, they liked my poem and that it rhymed and all of it was accurate. They loved how it was presented and looked, my art direction which as clients they don't need to worry about just be intrigued by, which Dr Seuss helped me succeeded in. My lecturers have seen an improvement in my work this project and said it was done with professionalism and determination. My art direction is consistent throughout except for the chromosomes. I have a good habit of sharing my progress and acting upon feedback, even though I can't wait to get to the finish piece I know it will take many learning curves and errors which I prefer to embrace as experience no matter how stressful it gets, I always expect feedback because I tend to struggle with noticing some of my mistakes but I believe that's down to inexperience, with each project I learn more about myself as an artist and my work; I'm finding my faults with the lecturers' help and growing as an artist.
The Bad:
Mistakes are inevitable and this time round it was my amount of chromosomes when the cell splits, the cell splits and in my mind that's divide so I did 4 divide by 2 but cells divide in order to multiply which I knew but I got a bit confused with, it should be 4 in each cell just like in the beginning, but now it's been pointed out I will fix it once toolkit is completed, I've come this far and want it to be as close to perfect as possible. Also I will be changing the textures of my chromosomes so it doesn't look like an abandoned, out-of-universe, plain CG chromosome, in addition to adding a squash and stretch to it to make it like a squishy haribo sweet. Another possible bad thing is the lack of maya used - I didn't vary my textures it was lambert throughout with a paper texture attached to the colour node, I didn't design any characters that needed rigging but that was down to the art direction I chose which I have no regrets about - the cells are recognisable as cells and the layout was clear and well spaced.
Next steps + Lesson learned:
From this project I have learned about Z-Depth, maya deformers, the importance of transitions. I have practiced good project and time management alongside practicing maya skills learned in the first term of year 1. In year 2 I'm going to keep making art direction number 1 priority, as art direction was the solution to all my problems - decision making is what I usually find difficult and lack confidence in which wastes time, which makes me panic and then makes me rush. I think for every project the brief will give me some sort of indication to what art direction I should go with depending on the task.
Thursday, 11 May 2017
Fantastic Voyage - CG Pipelines
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| Prophase: Left to right: Wireframe, Untextured Model, UV Mapped, Textured Model. |
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| Pro-metaphase: Left to right: Wireframe, Untextured Model, UV Mapped, Textured Model. |
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| Metaphase: Left to right: Wireframe, Untextured Model, UV Mapped, Textured Model. |
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| Telophase: Left to right: Wireframe, Untextured Model, UV Mapped, Textured Model. |
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| End Frame: Left to right: Wireframe, Untextured Model, UV Mapped, Textured Model and Camera Depth Render pass. |
The Blair Witch Project 1999
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| Fig 1. Movie Poster. |
Eduardo Sánchez's and Daniel Myrick's 1999 horror The Blair Witch Project follows three young film makers who visit the town of Burkittsville, (formerly knowns as Blairsville) for their project to find the truth behind the urban legend of the Blair Witch, we hear of children who have been killed and bodies have disappeared - many strange events that occur in the woods. "Horror films that tap into our hard-wired instinctive fears probe a deeper place than movies with more sophisticated threats" (Ebert, 1990). The film making behind this film is brilliant and successful especially since it was a low budget film, from the very first shot we are presented with a mystery - "three student film makers went into the woods" immediately an audience would think bad idea thanks to our survival instincts, then we read that they disappeared we now think danger but we are not frightened yet, this is only to get our attention. Underneath an extension appears - a year later their footage was found, the audience are now intrigued and are going to find out what happened first hand from what is presented to be a trust worthy and factual documentary. (See fig 2).
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| Fig 2. Opening Shot. |
The structure is well put together from the first shot, the first part of the footage is creating context and introducing us to the world this is set in, Burkittsville, Marlyland in America. The students chat to locals who tell the urban legend of the Blair Witch that these film makers are investigating, one local is holding a child and when she goes to talk the child covers her mouth this suggests the idea that the witch is too dangerous to even speak of and right from the get go our instincts tell the characters don't go especially now we know they never come back (see fig 3). They see it as context for their film we see it as a warning which is ignored and as they enter the woods find some fisherman who again warn them of fateful events that have happened but again they're ignored. This sets up the rest of the plot and now everyone has the idea in mind that is being challenged and we want the answers too - what happened to the students? Is the Blair Witch real?
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| Fig 3 Missing Poster |
The directors chose to keep what is happening to the characters ambiguous throughout which maintains our interest and adds to the realism of it all, we are not an all knowing audience, we're in the dark just as much as they are. The ending is the most ambiguous of all, no questions were answered it is up to us to guess what happened, convincing us it all is real is one trick then never telling us what happens is another. The characters and audience experience this together, when the camera stares off into the woods so do we, when they be quiet to hear something we listen too, we're immersed in their world of desolation, fear and despair. When we see the sticks (see fig 4) ordinarily we would not be frightened - they're harmless but we freak out almost as much as they do - same with the pile of rocks. "Here, the characters and audience feed off each other and experience things together. This is the ultimate goal of filmmaking, and it is achieved here so simply but at the same time so brilliantly." Larma, 2011).
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| Fig 4. Sticks. |
Another realism technique used to film is there was no planning, the actors went off on their own accord using the map and the crew would be the cause of events that occurred and the reactions were genuine they had no idea what would happen. Hardly anything is fake, (even the full names of characters and actors were the same) and thanks to the context and world created the audience are convinced it could be real. The characters' personalities are very much real too and the longer they're in the woods the more true colours become visible, for example when Heather refuses to put her camera away, that camera is her control device, she needs that to keep the feeling of vulnerability and danger away, she went in to create a project and thats all it will be nothing more or less, we see her moment of defeat when she's accepted her fate crying into the camera apologising to everyone - she has been unraveled and as an audience we have connected and feel sympathy. One of the strongest parts of the film for creating reality is the sound effects, (no music scores are used or necessary), it's the sounds in the dark that appeal to our senses and scare us, the sound is scarier than whatever makes the sound, it's the vulnerability you're exposed to by not being able to see and it sets the imagination wild. "The Blair Witch Project" is a reminder that what really scares us is the stuff we can't see. The noise in the dark is almost always scarier than what makes the noise in the dark. (Ebert, 1990).
Bibliography
Ebert, Roger. "The Blair Witch Project Movie Review (1999) | Roger Ebert". Rogerebert.com. N.p., 1999. Web. 11 May 2017.
"The Blair Witch Project (1999) -- First Review". Larma7-filmsandstuff.blogspot.co.uk. N.p., 2011. Web. 11 May 2017.
Illustration List:
Figure 1. Movie Poster. (1999) At: http://www.impawards.com/1999/blair_witch_project_ver3.html (Accessed on: 11 May 2017)
Figure 2. Opening Shot. (1999) At: http://www.thereelbits.com/2016/09/13/90s-bits-the-blair-witch-project/ (Accessed on: 11 May 2017)
Figure 3. Missing Poster. (1999) At: http://iris.theaureview.com/how-the-blair-witch-project-convinced-a-generation-that-the-found-footage-horror-film-was-real/ (Accessed on: 11 May 2017)
Figure 4. Sticks. (1999) At: https://www.blogdecine.com/reflexiones-de-cine/las-secuelas-de-la-bruja-de-blair-que-nunca-llegamos-a-ver (Accessed on: 11 May 2017)
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