Everything I Forgot to Post Earlier

Everything I Forgot to Post Earlier

Ok I've been going through all of the stuff that I've created so far so that I'm ready for my Presenatation today and I realised that I've managed to be stupid and forgot to post up some pretty major stuff ie. Gant Chart. Anyway I'm going to use my forgetfullness as an opportunity so I've had a chance to amend my Gant Chart slightly, I've still kept all of the timings the same but I now know what I'm going to do for my other two Elements.

Anyway just a quick note about it, please click on it to view it because it's really hard to see here. Also I am not entirely on target with it, this is mainly because of a few reasons. The first is my logo, what I thought would be a very simple thing has instead turned into a major part of my project. I also pretty much had to start again with it aswell after I realised that what I had created wasn't actually a logo (it's all on my blog) and had to take it back to the drawing board. So I've been working on that so I haven't had time to really get on with my Avatar as I had hoped.

The second reason I'm slightly behind is that I've kind of shot myself in the foot really by picking really difficult, hard things to do, but if something's worth doing you might as well do it right. But other than that I'm not doing too badly, I've got well past the ideas section for all of my projects and I'm almost on course with my Box and have started the final modelling. I'm going to post up another Gant chart as part of my Evaluation to show what actually happened and see how good my project planning was, luckily however I did leave the final week clear so that I would have a safety net incase of a few things going wrong so I'm not worried about finishing on time.

I also have a mind map that I never got around to posting, I think this is quite important as it kind of helped me determine what is most important to me and what I would most like to reflect in my work; the place I come from, my friends, football and music.

Box - My Room

Box - My Room

Just wanted to stick up a quite image of how my the modelling of my 3D box is going, anyway I only have the very basics at the minute but it's coming along nicely and I wanted to show that I have been working on it for tuesdays presentation.

Anyway as you can see I've got all of the major features in place, I then need to add a lot more detail and colour as it's not showing up very well on the render at the minute.

Box Designs

Box Designs

Ok I've been preparing for this presentation on Tuesday, and was flicking through my blog earlier to check that everything was in order and I realised that I'd forgotten to post up much about my Box designs. This all comes after in Tuesdays seminar we were told how important this is.

So here goes....

Basically it's going to be of my room, these are a couple of pictures of how it looks at the moment, it's normally not that clean but we've got room inspections coming up so you know. Anyway I feel that this is reflective of me because my room is like my own personal space, there's also a lot of opportunities to add lots of items that reflect my personality.

Anyway I knocked up this image a while back for a previous project (interactive narrative) but I had to stop using it and concentrate on something else instead due to time. However I can use it now as an example of how this might look, and use this image in my presentation. However I do plan to do this in 3D eventually.

How this is going to work is, the use will see the room and this will be the main interface, however my avatar will also be stood in the room and will interact with some of the objects around him. I think this will help bring some continuity between two of my projects, and also put my avatar into a set surrounding instead of a blank room. The user will then be able to click on the poster board on the left at which point the camera will zoom into a close up of the board. On it a selection on posters will advertise each of the elements of the project (ie. Audio Visual, Logo), and the viewer will be able to view these individually.

Well that's the plan of action, I have started modelling my room but at the minute it's nothing more that a few walls and a floor, but I'll post it up when I have something worth showing. But for the moment I'm focusing all my attention on getting through this presentation on Tuesday.

History of British Rock - A Problem

History of British Rock - A Problem

Ok so I've started doing some initial sketches and drafting some ideas for my final element, that I'm now calling the history of British Rock. and would you believe it I've run smack straight into a huge problem. Anyway watch the video that I made of it so far just so you know what I'm talking about.

Ok just to let you know I knocked that up in a few minutes just to illustate a point, I now it's not the best thing you'll ever see. The problem I have is perspective. If the camera is panning along as it is the view of the streets would change depending on what angles you look at it from. So as I planned to have a simple flat image and stick some animation on top, I now realise that the image will just look flat and rubbish so I need to find a way around this.

I've got a couple of ideas but unfortunately none are easy the, first is doing it with shapes in flash, the second is actualy building a model of the street and carefully moving across it with a camera and then using it as pixelation.

However I want to push the boat of as much as possible, so the path I'm going to choose it doing it in 3D. It's probably the hardest way to do it, but the animation will be much easier to do. I will have to model my characters (important musicians) but I'm going to make them look very simple to save time and not spend nearly as much time on them as with my avatar. Also I want to test myself as much as possible, there's no point playing in safe all the way, I want to focus on 3D work next year so I might as well use it now. Plus I also know that if it does turn out to be impossible I can knock up a really simple one in flash, but I don't think it will. So yeah, I'm not going to focus on this project for the minute though, because I'm going home for easter so I can knock up my comic book and my logo while I'm at home on Flash and then come back and focus fully on my 3D work.

Logo Even Further Development

Logo Even Further Development

Ok here I've made a few changes to my logo, the idea is still the same coming from 'my journey' but I've simplified it to make it a bit more aesthetically pleasing.

Basically it is still the same logo, I've just taken a few of the rings out to make it a lot more simple and added colour to help link it in with the animation that is going to come first. Well today I am going to try and develop it a tiny bit more and try adding text. I'll then animate this part of it to make it look like ripples and post it up hopefully. It'll be good if I can put this part of the project to bed really, I've realised that a couple of my other pieces are going to take a long time to finish so I've got to really get cracking on with them now.

Final Design Element - History of Rock

Final Design Element - History of Rock
Ok firstly I just want to say how my Comic Book strip is going, pretty well anyway, however I did have the idea of having the comic book on a 1st person view, with them a walking view as a tribute to one of the greatest videos ever.


The Verve's 'Bittersweet Symphony' my favourite song ever, and I thought that it would work well for every time the reader of the comic book to look up to turn the page that he's walked into somebody. Therefore having a very nice tribute in my work and kind of showing that the reader is so involved in the comic that they don't care what happens. I found however that this didn't really work so instead I've decided to just stick with a flat 2D comic, I know that you're probably wondering what this has to do with my final element of my work?

Well I liked the idea of using the Verve's video so much that I decided to do an entire piece on it, how this was going to work however I wasn't sure yet, until I was flicking through the TV the other day and found a repeat of a brilliant show 'The Seven Ages of Rock' a brilliant show watch it but it's basically about the evolution of music from blues, to rock and how it got to today. So my idea is to do a piece about the evolution of rock music through the ages and all of the key fugues in it.

No easy task, the street however will be the visual metaphor in this case for time and the viewer will gradually be walked along it. I also get to do a monster of a soundtrack, my mate has a very good mixing program so I was thinking that I can mix snippets of one song into another to give a very brief view of how music has developed chronologically. So yeah, I've decided to get rid of the first person view and instead opt for a panned view of a street just to make it a bit easier to animate. Another brave step I'm going to take is the look of it, I've been a bit worried lately that I'm using Jamie Hewlett too much so this time I'm going to use something very different........
Paddington Bear by Michael Bond.



Not only is it a quintessentially British thing I also love the look of it how everything is built up from separate layers giving it a 3D look, and how everything has been drawn onto card. It's a risk but one I want to take to diversify my work more. I'm going to use aspects of different Artist work too but this will be main focus, and I think it will work really well for a view of a street. Another thing I want to look at is the use of colour, I don't want it to be purely black and white, although it could be like that at the start to represent black and white televisions, because I need to get something across in my animation to show the movement of time other than the change in music.

Web Design

Web Design

Today in a seminar we were dabbling with a bit of web design. It wasn't too hard either, I've always wanted to have a go, I don't want to be a web designer but I've always wanted to know the basics. If anything it's a good platform to display my work with to a wider group of people.

But yeah we made a simple website using tables with a lot of images already created for us. It's interesting, but I don't think I'll go into the subject area Animation all the way. I do want to get some experience with it though, I'm not going to use it for the identities project but over the summer I might create a webpage to stick some of my work on display, I do have a friend back home who is good at this kind of thing so I might get him to help, anyway my first ever web page.

Practice 3D Modelling Conker

Practice 3D Modelling Conker

Ok today I decided to do a bit more practice at 3D modelling, I was then happy to find that my attempt at making conker hadn't been deleted.

So I thought I'd crack on with that, its looking okay, needs a lot more work but his main features are there, the tail was very easy to model but the face caused no end of trouble, but he has teeth and a mouth area, not bad for a first attempt. I might have a quick go at finishing him off with clothes and fur and all that jazz, even though I have no idea how to do clothes. But yeah I'm quite happy with it, obviously it doesn't look exactly like the character but its a good effort and I'm getting a lot more comfortable working with 3S Studio Max.

Anyway check out this video featuring the character I was modelling called Conker the Squirrel. Basically he's battling a massive piece of Pooh (obviously), anyway this isn't as obscene and gross as it may sound. The game was made by RARE (as most good games are) and it is hilarious funniest thing I've ever seen and somehow manages to use toilet humour in a stylish trendy way, how I don't know I guess you'll just have to play the game. What I like the most I guess is that RARE aern't afraid to push the boundaries, Conker was originally a cute character on a child friendly console the N64, and they make this. This is from Live and reloaded the remake of the original game 'Conkers Bad Fur Day' which was for the N64 (I know retro). But anyway enjoy.