So a new learing curve - and more experience with Maya and Mudbox and Zbrush!
And file imports, send to's and polycounts!
Here's a little Trolls journey from the Ebay post box to virtual reality
Photogrammetry - still shot
An .obj file 'captured' on 123D Autodesk capture - imported into Maya - hundreds of thousands of Triangles!!!
Retopologized in Mudbox - and the triangles turned into quads
I tried to 'send to Maya' but there was some glitch with the polygons - so I imported it as an .obj file and this is how it looks!
A virtual Troll and a good base to clean up and model from - now over to Aimi and Sheila to tidy up and create good topology for lip sync - this innocent looking Ebay Troll has got to be able to shout and holler at the top of it's lungs!
This had some of the best film editing I have ever seen. It reminded me of some of our storytelling lectures, where we were encouraged to look at how 'film' storytelling can time jump.
Unlike in a theatrical play, a character climbing stairs, doesn't need to step on every single tread. We can cut from a character climbing a couple of stairs and then cut immediately to them arriving at the top - and the viewer still knows and believes that they have ascended the entire flight of stairs..
Well the lead protagonist in this film manages to get to and from Europe and do business deals in 10 seconds....
Brilliant acting - in fact I googled whether or not the actors were really HIV positive - they were so convincing...
Wow!
Well I'm set to rock and roll - fun Friday night planned, getting to grips with new software (free trial) of ZBrush - very excited about this!
I'll update my progress, with how I am getting along, modeling a Troll Doll!
As a group today, we made the most of the 3D Make lab, and Rob gave us a group tutorial on Photogrammetry and how to photograph our model, ready for upload onto Autodesk 123D capture....
Ebay No 1 Dad Troll Doll!
Troll Doll on the potters wheel. The black and white pattern that the troll is stood on, is irregular, so when viewed from any angle it will look different. This avoids confusion for the software that knits all the images together,
The process being explained...He_Man looking a tad uncomfortable in the background.
Now to see if our uploaded photos will create a good working .obj file.....
For the critical review element of reflective practice, I've begun to research other animations that deal with the subject of loss and transformation...to gain a deeper understanding of what I am trying to achieve with my final project for Masters.
This animation is for the British Heart Foundation...
Whilst it's fairly striking in it's visual simplicity, I found the duration of 8m.29s too long. I would argue that the narration was overpowering and there wasn't much time (surprisingly given the length) for any silent reflection.
The simplicity of the actual artwork, I found to be repetitive and not very engaging after a very short while.
I appreciate the sentiment within the idea, and that this is directed specifically at children.
It's been good to review it, as it's firmed up form me, that I am aiming at a wider audience, and also to take a poetic look at loss, rather than specifically bereavement....
I suppose in summary, that this was the opposite to the very open ended 'Drawn into Tomorrow' digital animations that I saw recently at the DCA; where the viewer was given ample time to reflect and review their own subjective journey...
Other films seem to focus on a 'call to action' helpline, dealing with suicide, death and bereavement.
This has been a good starting point for research - in that I have been able to realise what I don't want to do - which in turn forces me to examine what it is that I do want to do!
So this week we are researching good examples of Previs (a rough shot set up, using 3D models and preliminary camera sets ups) as inspiration for our own Previs for our Going Live project.
The aim of the Previs is to begin to really get some shape into the tempo of our animatic and to see how our camera angles work. This is going to be a great fast tool, especially with shot set ups.
This will be the first time I have utilised 3D 'virtual' models to establish shot set ups - but I can see that my film set training of using technical drawings and foam board to create model sets! (as below) is the precursor to this method...
At Film School we were trained to make models using our technical drawings of the set - any walls in the life size set that were to 'float' (be removed so that the actual camera could be situated) were pinned in place and removed, so that we could run through the camera positions with the Director...
Previs examples
1/4 scale (Imperial measurements for Film and TV in the UK) 1/4" = 1 Foot
Foam and card models, showing floating walls, windows and ceilings. This model was for a hallway, that matched an actual location exterior.
My first ever concept visual at film school - using Quink Ink and Bleach - a staircase in perspective! Wow - now that was tricky!
So we've begun the production modeling for the Going Live project and it's back into Maya for me!
This time round it's been much easier to get to grips with the 3D model - and, although, still slow, I am definitely getting faster with the modeling...
We had a great success yesterday with Photogrammetry in the 3D make lab.
This is my first encounter with Photogrammetry and I googled what exactly it is!
It's the science of making measurements from photographs - the output of which is typically a map, drawing or in our case a 3D model of He-Man's head!
One of our team, Aimi, is super fast in modelling and has already created the model head for our He-Man toy.
However, using a real He-Man toy and Photogrammetry provides us with is a great tool, to ensure that we create a toy which is as close to the real thing as possible...
My ebay Trolls are on their way, so we can use this Photogrammetry method to capture the Troll head information, which is proving to be very challenging already!
He-Man head, captured by Photogrammetry.
My Ebay Trolls have been dispatched - so we'll try scanning the Trolls and seeing
So date night this week was spent at the cinema - watching The Revenant...
There was one particular shot that was incredible - starting with the lead character on the ground, moving through a forest and then jumping onto a horse...the camera tracked alongside the whole way - including galloping across a field
I think the horse was an articulated - one shot showed a close up of the horse, as Leonardo DiCaprio put a saddle on it. There was fighting and yelling everywhere - the horse didn't move a hair or even twitch...
Amazing cinematography - glad we got to see it on the big screen
"Image-based lighting (IBL) is the process of
illuminating scenes and objects (real or synthetic)
with images of light from the real world" Paul Debevec, USC Institute for Creative Technologies
Today we refreshed our memories, about how to light a scene in Maya. First off, we used IBL lighting. Here's a sphere with an .hdr (high bit depth image) that contains colour and brightness information across a very wide dynamic range.
We'll be using lighting techniques in our Going Live Jeremy Kyle toys animation - so today we used the room created by Sang and set up IBL, point lights, area lights and directional lights.
IBL lighting and room set
IBL lighting sphere
Lighting build ups - starting with shadow lighting. The green tinge is taken from the grass, which is 'outside' on an image back plate.
Build up using point light
Adjusting levels
Without the green shadows
Introducing area light outside the window
and a directional light for the sun
Red outline shows which selection of the image I want to render
Wire frame model, when using an IBR render view setting
So here's my quick test trial in photoshop that I created last year. This is literally a red elipse in Photoshop, animated through a series of key frames. I drew the bounce path on a separate layer and once finished, turned that layer off and exported it as a gif file.
And here's my bouncing ball created in 3D in Maya!
We used the graph editor to smooth out the path of the bounce - when I could 'see' the arches that the Y axis coordinates created, I realised that it was the computer equivalent of the hand drawn bounce path that I created last year in photoshop layer that I'd turned off. Wow! The graph editor suddenly made sense.....until... that is.... it came to adjusting the graph for timing!! That made no sense! Practice, practice, practice!
Graph editor showing the Y axis (green) bounce path
Earlier today I stood in a dark gallery space and became mesmerised by these very detailed and slow moving digital art pieces. I particularly love the huge scale of these images. The tempo of the animation is incredibly slow and the movement of flags, waves, leaves, fireflies are accurately observed....
The projected images were so large (almost cinema screen size) I could almost believe that I was stood inside the scene....fascinating to be stood in a monochrome landscape!
The image with the colonnade and the white awnings reminded me of a part of Edinburgh at the end of Princes street....particularly during the festival...
Enjoyed the exercise yesterday...
We worked in pairs and the objective was to tell the other person about our research project....they then presented our research summary and ideas to the group.
Good lesson in communication!
I omitted to ask or mention my methodology (despite having it written in an abstract!!) so another good reminder of providing ALL the information succinctly.
I was asked a direct question about my final project during this communication and reflective exercise.
Why ice?
Interesting that this process forces me to bring my unconscious influences and ideas to the conscious awareness....
Why ice?
It's a great physical metaphor to represent the emotional journey of the project - a solid frozen state, which can melt and transform into something that brings growth and opportunity...
Working as a group on our rough Animatic for Axis. Here's some rough storyboard images that, as a group, we agreed on and I drew up....great fun drawing at high speed. The graphics tablet really came into it's own....plus the Photoshop tutorials that I did over the Christmas holidays really paid off...
Really enjoyed this!
We sat as a group, with Brendan Body, and roughed out staging and shot set ups.
Great feedback session and we did a further rough edit after our skype call, and have got a much tighter, punchier storyline...
Very slow and not much assassination - however, it was stunning and the theme of self restraint and an emotional journey of change was cleverly done.
I particularly enjoyed the sequence, that this still shot comes from.
The Assassin is watching her target from behind gauze curtains. We see her prey from her point of view and they are on screen for about 3 - 5 mins sometimes clearly on view and sometimes very obscured by the gauze. After some time i thought that the gauze curtains were a good metaphor for the Assassin's internal thoughts....
When her victims were clearly on view, the Assassin felt confident - and when they were obscured she was doubtful about her role of killer.
Stunning use of reds, golds, blues and greens too.
Whoop! My first ever lip sync. What a great lesson and I managed to keep up!!
A bit like driving a car, I'm finding that some of commands I am making in Maya are becoming more 'automatic', which is allowing more brain space to actually create...
We created the phonemes shapes AI, O, E, U, L, WQ, MBP, FV, REST AND etc
The audio is taken from a clip from the Matrix...
Productive brainstorming day today, running through our shot set up and storyboards for Axis Going Live project. Our group is working well together, with everyone contributing.
When we got confused with our storyboard and shot list we set out an improvised layout of the set, grabbing whatever was to hand...folders, toys, gloves, paper etc - so we could clearly see what our shots were, whether or not we were in danger of crossing the line and how to be effective and avoid any unnecessary modelling.
So the robot is the lie detector??? Sonic is He-Man and Gonzo is a Sylvanian Family Rabbit??!!
Rough fag-packet sketch of the set.
Rough storyboards
The glove is a piggy bank, stuck in a dolls house.
Are we crossing the line?
Yes. Back to the storyboard.
Mr Motivator becomes a troll doll. Gonzo and his chocolate rabbit siblings defend their innocence. He-Man (Sonic) is not impressed. The Robot delivers 'the truth!'
Reflective practice and conscious observation.... and another tidbit of inspiration, that has caught my attention today....
I was an avid follower of Col. Chris Hadfield, when he commanded the International Space Station. He made space very accessible for me....
He provided brilliant descriptions of being on a space walk. To the left the blackest black. To his right a fast moving kaleidoscope of colour.....it caught his attention as it swept past. It was Africa.
Here's his quote on facebook today. He's inspirational. As is his mother.
So as part of engaging in the new idea of reflective practice, I am going to make a conscious effort to include the references that catch my eye, make me ponder, and provoke day dreams, ideas and inspiration.
Thanks to Stathis on the course, we've all discovered this VFX footage. Totally bemused as to how it was created. Maybe a greenscreen suit?
Well the 'making of' has also been released. Brilliant use of software, motion capture and VFX. Inspiring.
Love the simplicity of the environment - no frills, which is a pefect backdrop for simple movement, allowing the real VFX feature to stand out.
