This Week, We mainly continued to compose our robot before we begin our animation, hopefully next week! This was probably the most stressful week in total so far, I had to restart my composition and creation, like 4 times in three hours! And I was pretty Much tearing my hair out by 9:00 but I’m getting there, really enjoying still! I think it’s going to look awesome when we add the binds and begin to animate the robot.
The legs were probably the most challenging part, with all the extruding and mesh loops etc, but I think it’s looking pretty good so far!
As I mentioned in my notes on Amanda’s lecture, I decided to re-route my compsition but stay with my original idea! I still intend to use two friends acting a mime, where as they take more and more sips of alcohol, they’re character slowly deteriorates! Before anyone interprets having a few sips of alcohol as me showing my friends as complete lightweights when it comes to drinking, you’re wrong! the slow sips of alcohol are to represent how you loose track of what you’ve had to drink and how it affets you’re character. Before as it was just going to be one sequence and one still iamge, I would like to combine the two or combine similar aspects together to portray my representation of a night out!
This is where Alex Pardee’s influence comes into this project…as well! ok, yeah there are other artists that influence me, and other similar artists to Pardee, such as Augor and Micheal Seiben but I love the different perspectives and areas you can explore with Pardee’s style which is why I intend to use his influence more than once in my first projects. The still image would be similar to the one below. An ink drawing with a single, yet effective burst of colour, highlighting the emotion behind the piece. oh, and it would include two characters, instead of one, one to represent sober and aware, the other to represent drunk and disorderly! And yes, I would still keep in the ‘screwed’ up imagery, such as the mouths spirting from the blood, but i’ll re-think the composition to fit it Pardee and his influence, such as devils or monsters coming out of a patch of spilt drink!
I know how his work can come across to some people, but in my opinion, if I want to push my view of a nightout into an effective and emotive peice, then this style is ideal, and that includes keeping in the tormental and horrific monsters and imagery! If I wanted to ‘push the boat out’ then i’d keep imagery, such as a slit throat or wrist and roting eyes and discarded pieces over the picture (drawn, not real) to act as a metaphor that you can and are slowly killing yourself with some forms of alcohol abuse.
My next debate is how to portray the still image. I have the factors of my motion piece sorted, just need to arrange the composition and a finalised storyline but other than that, the idea is pretty much set! As for the still image, i’m confused I’ve seen countless installations with projections where the still image was either too small, too large, to powerful (in terms of colour against the projection) because there was too much going on! I like how Pardee can create an effective compostion and on the first video, I like the light shining onto the image and that’s roughly the effect i’d like to create within my peice, but then that begs the question, do I add more colour, but dilute it, so to speak? or do I keep my black and white compostion and add a large burst of colour? and material? large paper or board or canvas? I don’t know…. yet!
The thing that I’ve learnt whilst be a fan of Pardee is how he constantly draws, plans, fails and draws again until he gets it right! Yeah that’s a standard approach but it’s way of work and his routine that gets me going! I feel a comic strip / storybaord coming into motion throughout this planning and then I think it’d be best to decide on a final image and composition!
Literally the most knowledgable three hour session after 5:00 i’ve ever had!
Wednesday 14th October - Having had a day of Maya the previous Friday, it was helpful to have multiple commands put into simple mode! From that three hours alone, i’m starting to find getting around Maya easier than i previously had on Friday! Mauricio’s examples of work were incredible, doing a large amount of screenplay and animation for films, such as Harry Potter and 10,000 B.C! This lead onto our ‘brief’ description…. a 3D animation sequence with a card robot we create in reality, then i’m assuming we put the robot into our own created animated sequence within Maya…. looking forward to next week! Having seen some of the work Mauricio has done in the past, it’s hard to imagine what exactly he wants us to include in our own animation but i’m looking forward to experimenting and seeing what we end up doing!
Below are some of the shortcuts we learnt within Maya:
Alt+left mouse key = rotate
Alt+ right mouse key = zoom
Alt+middle mouse button = Pan
select shape + ‘w’ = ‘move and enhance’ arrows
‘+’ or ‘-’ = change size of handles
‘e’ = rotation –> colour coded to _axis
‘r’ = scale
’4′ = wideframe
’5′ = shaded
’6′ = lights (if installed)
’7′ = textures of object, when projected
Top right icons –> channels for editing, side, axis for precision purposes.
bottom right –> layers –> empty layer –> name –> colour–> hold right click –> add or remove object
I found the talk by storyboard artist, Tony Chance not only interesting but very inspiring! His wide knowledge of art contributes to some high quality and very effective work! From Art and Photography, I was more than aware of the Rule Of Thirds, and although he may not use it as much as I originally thought he did, the 180 Degree line rule was very interested and I can fit it into so many films I’ve watched without noticing it before! Hopefully, I’ll be able to create further my technique and ability whilst filming my projects and in general work.
Not only was his talk on his work and life as a Storyboard artist interesting, giving us an insight of the industry and how it works, I was inspired by the nature of his work, his planning and his all-round technique. Just the talk has given me more confidence within my work and given me a new range of ideas in my production and presentation of my work.
DHTML is a dynamic HTML (hyper text mark-up language). This is a collection of technologies, such as DOM, Javascript and CSS, used together to create interactive and animated websites. This allows users to change certain ‘variables’, such as languages and toher statics functions of HTML page content. These ‘variables’ of a DHTML are often used to make rollover buttons and drop-down menus on (interactive) web pages and browser based action games. The pictures above are examples of the drop down menus and dynamic ‘variables’ available through DHTML.
“For example, the same URL could result in a different page depending on any number of parameters, such as geographic location of the reader, time of day, previous pages viewed by the reader, profile of the reader.”
I’ve seen countless installations with projections where the still image was either too small, too large, to powerful (in terms of colour against the projection) because there was too much going on! I like how Pardee can create an effective compostion and on the first video, I like the light shining onto the image and that’s roughly the effect i’d like to create within my peice, but then that begs the question, do I add more colour, but dilute it, so to speak? or do I keep my black and white compostion and add a large burst of colour? and material? large paper or board or canvas? I don’t know…. yet!
