Adam NTU-Multimedia Blog

Possible Rebranding - Thunderchild

2011-02-27T15:45:00.001-08:00

Possible Rebranding - Thunderchild

It is funny how some images stick with you. For me that image has always been the lonely battleship defending the refugees from the onslaught of the Martians in Jeff Wayne's 'War of the Worlds'. That battleship of course being the immortal Thunderchild.

I am therefore considering to brand my work under this image. Hoping to create a brand image that is easily recognisable that will tie all of my work together as I look towards reaching my academic and professional goals.

The logo I have created however is merely an inital draft and I will be looking to create a more intuitive and inventive logo along the same lines. I will be looking to gather feedback on this brand over the coming weeks and then decide whether to use this idea or go with something more traditional.

It's been a while...

2011-02-08T15:16:00.000-08:00

It's been a while...
Hey guys sorry there have been absolutely zero posts up on here in.....well forever. This is not due to lack of work instead the complete opposite. Between constantly working on my Client Project and having to fire out an experimental artefact once every two weeks I've found spare time has been in short supply recently.

So it's time to make ammends I'm going to post up the working process for every artefact created to this point, the final artefact and a detailed evaluation for each. As well as this I'm going to constantly be updating and talking about the work I've done for my client project and generally discussing how it's going.

Oh and before I forget to mention, I'm starting a new blog completely unrelated to this that is going to be talking about geek culture and is going to be really cool so check it out at www.adam-letstalkgeek.blogspot.com

Digital Piracy Test Animation

2010-10-11T05:09:00.000-07:00

Digital Piracy Test Animation

This is a simple test animation to see how my idea for my digital piracy animation. It is basically a stage where different scenes and enviroments will slide in, so for this simple test I've chosen a plain hill landscape.

Lego vs World of Warcraft?

2010-10-06T16:53:00.000-07:00

Lego vs World of Warcraft?
While doing some mundane web browsing I came across this little article on the Escapist www. escapistmagazine.com, honestly check out this website it's pretty good for Games Design. Anyway on the Escapist I found this http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103848-Lego-Bricks-Require-More-Polygons-Than-World-of-Warcraft-Avatars, in which the creative director of the new Lego Universe game proudly announces that 'a two by eight lego brick, is about twice the polygons of say a World of Warcraft character'.

Now that to me shows a few things, one how incredibly anal Lego are about detail in their products, how technology has changed and advanced. But most importantly how stupid Lego are, one of the principal reasons for WoW success is how easy it is to run on even the most basic of computers and this is achieved by a simple design throughout the game. Who cares how simple the characters are they look great even though they are a little old, it's just clever game design. Now take Lego Universe for an example the only people with computers fast enough to run the game are going to be hardcore computer users, perhaps not the targetted audience for a Lego game??

Now I just want to leave this post by saying I don't play WoW, I did at one point and found it to be the most absorbing game I've ever played. However suddenly I realised one day that I had barely left my computer for the month since I'd bought the game. Still an amazing game though.

Tea

2010-03-15T08:36:00.000-07:00

Tea

This could be useful later on, well very useful. And particles are very useful too but very time consuming but yeah they look cool. I think this is the kind of thing that is going to require a lot of time and patience later on.

Landscape Finished

2010-02-22T17:19:00.000-08:00

Landscape Modelling Finished

Ok I've now finished Modelling my landscape for my animation project. My theme was ancient China and I think I've managed to construct an environment that resembles that.

What I think brings this together so well is sadly the simplest and quickest thing I did, the fog. It adds so well to the overall surroundings giving it a mythical feel.

I'm also happy with the temple that I built into the mountain. This was a funny thing to build, I wanted it to be very ornate with lots of stuff going on, however I was really worried about the amount of polygons this would require so I had to strike a balance.

And I think it looks pretty good but it needs textures. Which brings me nicely onto my next task I'm going to texture it to give it a much deeper sense of depth and bring out some of the details that I've planned such as the roof tiles. But so far I'm pretty happy with it, it's basic enough to allow the characters to become central to the piece of work but it's good enough to give the impression that they are in China.

Landscape Development

2010-02-16T16:31:00.000-08:00

Landscape Development

I've finally finished my steps up my great mountain, I had planned to make it a lot taller however I was concerned about space at the top and I was getting really fustrated about modelling these steps.

So too birds one stone and I built the pilnth where my temple is going to be into the mountain so I had a bit more space. And I've also got an entrance arch at the bottom of the stairs which I think looks pretty cool.

So far the only real problems I've had are scale, the arch was much bigger for a long time till I realised it was nearly as big as the top of the mountain, so I need to watch out for that. I think it's just a more professional way of working now that I need to be aiming for which should hopefully make everything a lot easier.

Landscape Plans

2010-02-10T22:25:00.000-08:00

Landscape Plans

After my last post I thought it'd be a good idea to give a quick explaination of what I'm actually going to do with my landscape. Click on the picture if you can't see it very clearly.

Anyway since I'm going along with the idea of having a Chinese, dojo/ tea house thing, I thought the most practical place for it would be upon a great mountain. Basically it is going to be set onto one of the ledges of the main mountain in the middle with a huge amount of stairs leading up to it. I'll probably work a bit more detail into the main mountain since it is going to be the main focus of everything, while everything else is simply going to be in the background.

A good point about that right now is that at the moment it is rendering quite well but we'll have to see as time goes on so I might have to just chop it all out and stick in a picture instead but hopefully it'll be ok.

I'll also probably stick a fog around the base of the landscape to make the area look a lot more interesting and mythical with the mountains just poking out of the top.

I know this idea has been done a million times before, but I like it, it ties in well with my project and once it's finished it'll look awesome.

Mountains

2010-02-10T22:18:00.000-08:00

Mountains
While I've been modelling a lot of assets recently I suddenly decided that it was time for a change and thought I'd get a big chunk of my landscape done.

Anyway I started off simple working with a plane and using a big brush in with the paint deformation tools I roughly knocked up a mountain region. Looking back it doesn't look very good at all at this point, I don't know why it's green and it's too smooth looks a lot like cloth.

So I started working in a lot more of the detail making the mountains look a lot sharper, it's still pretty shiny but that can be sorted out with a good bit of texturing.

Very Basic Airport

2010-02-09T08:03:00.000-08:00

Very Basic Airport
Possibly the worst thing I've ever modelled but it's good to get the very basics down for my Airport. This is basically just made from a few different shapes and none of it is going to be in my final piece, but it's how it's going to look.

Anyway really it's going to be as eco-friendly an airport as possible. No taking up huge amounts of land with runways, no levelling mountains to reclaim land from the sea. This is going to be made from metal and be located in the sea. With a dam to protect from waves and to also generate energy. Lets face it no airport is ever going to be eco-friendly however it doesn't hurt to try.

Time to get modelling this thing for real with a lor more detail this time.

Spear

2010-02-03T08:34:00.000-08:00

Spear

Just finished what will be the most complicated asset in my animation, a spear. I'm a bit reluctant to say what I'm going to do with it but depending on time this will either be in the background looking cool or will be a major part of my animation. Just going to have to wait and see.

I'm also modelling a lot of assets at the moment so I'll post up a few of them when I get them done while I'm working on my main scenery and characters.

Paint Deformation Tools

2010-01-26T07:11:00.000-08:00

Paint Deformation Tools

Today I have discovered something that is going to make my life a million times easier, the paint deformation tools. They have to be the best things ever. Let me explain, I've been trying to model my scenery for my animation for a while now without must success.

But with these tools I did this mountain scene in about two minutes. It's not perfect but it's a very good start and I'll hopefully have the finished scenery ready very soon for both of my projects so I can start adding my assetts and making them look awesome.

Assets - Bustersword

2010-01-26T01:40:00.000-08:00

Assets - Bustersword

I've now started thinking about how to make my animmation a lot more interesting, I don't want just a blank empty space this time.

So I'm going to model a lot of quick and simple assets that I can stick in the background and look really cool. Well since I'm doing ancient China weapons are pretty important and I wanted to stick Cloud from Final Fantasy VII's Bustersword in there. It's just a cheeky reference really I'm hoping some people will notice it, most probably won't even know what it is but it's there.

I did want to use Squall's Gunblade but the idea of a Gun in ancient China is probably pushing it a bit too far.

A Simple Man

2010-01-25T08:19:00.001-08:00

A Simple Man

I've noticed that I've not posted anything up lately, basically I'm buried in design work so I don't have much computer work to show off at the moment. So I tho0ught I'd post up what I've been getting up to in my seminars.

So anyway this is a really simple guy that should be easy and fun to mess around with. The only problem that I have at the minute is eyes, I want them in my work but their difficult so we'll see.

Animation - To China

2010-01-19T18:37:00.000-08:00

Animation - To China

Right I came up with this idea or the 'cup of tea' project a while ago now, around Christmas in fact and I was ready to come back to uni and get cracking with it, however I then found out quite a few people had a similar idea so I was a bit put off. My idea was basically to have it set in a Chinese dojo and look at ways o getting some martial arts into it. I quickly realised that it's going to be a pretty huge project to do so if I'm going to do it I need to start soon.

So anyway I've decided to go with it it might not be the most original idea anyone has ever seen but as long as I do it really well, all will be good. Well visually I'm going to draw off influences from 'Kung Fu Panda', not with the animals but the scenery that is really well modelled and makes you feel like your in China.

Also jamie Hewletts 'Monkey' project is a great place to start, I really loved the animation he did for the Beijing Olympics, it had a very distinct Jamie Hewlett style and yet you believed the characters are in China. That's the kind of thing I'm going to be looking to get across with my animation, I want the scenery to be believable and look awesome while the character(s) that interact upon it have a style that I like.

And since this is animation I want my characters to be easy to animate, very cartoonish and most importantly to move well. The one thing that I am most interested in getting into my animation is part of my scenery to break, or smash. I don't want my character to look as though he's just acting on top of some scenery, I want him to look as though he's acting in a scene. I that makes sense, it does to me anyway.

To Build an Airport

2010-01-15T04:15:00.000-08:00

To Build an Airport
Ok this is my new project for visualisation, and I really like it. The good part for me is that I used to study architecture at college so I should be ok, and I've got two terms to do this in so if this project doesn't look like the most amazing thing ever there's something wrong here.

Anyway I'm just trying to come up with a few ideas and piecing together some influences, however there is one thing that I don't want to do which is build a conventional airport. Architecture I think should not only make things look nice but should also solve problems, so as most people know airports take up far too much space, so I'm going to look at finding a way of reducing the amount of space that airports take up while also still having easy access, plenty of parking and all that jazz so yeah going to be quite a hard task.

However there is a silver lining this is an airport of the future so I'm not tied down as much as a real architect so I have a bit of leway, and I've got two terms to get it done in. So time to get started.

Of Bots and Bananas Final

2009-12-14T14:18:00.000-08:00

Of Bots and Bananas Final

Ok this is my final version of my Robot Animation. On the whole I am really happy with it, all things considered this is the first piece of animation I've ever attempted and everything moves well and looks natural. The main problem though is my choice of background, I had a black horizon but I don't think this works at all because it means that you can't see a lot of the robots. I'll hopefully change this at some point in the future.

The biggest problems with it come from my over ambition really, I tried a lot of different camera angles and pans thinking that this would link in with my flying robot however it doesn't really work. Another part is when the robot actually trips, I wanted a really epic slow motion scene where the robot helper only just escapes however something doesn't quite work and the camera angle restricts what you can see a lot, so by trying something new it actually misses out some of the best bits of animation.

However I am really proud of how it looks and is modelled really well, its a miracle that I managed to get the rig to work because it was that complicated and the fact that I've got anything even half functional is amazing. So yeah I'm very happy with it, if I get time I might go back and iron out a few of the mistakes but on the whole it's a good effort and I'm proud of it.

Roller Coaster Ready to Render

2009-12-13T11:28:00.000-08:00

Roller Coaster Ready to Render

Finally got my Rollercoaster ready to render, I'm pretty happy with it I've gone for a basic idea basing my idea around a childs mobile with everything hanging down from the sky. What this allows me to do is have very basic but effective textures so rendering isn't as bad as I thought it would be so I've got enough time to render out a few different shots and get the finished piece looking good.

Card Designs Updated

2009-12-12T11:38:00.001-08:00

Card Designs Updated

Ok I've now gone back and updated my card designs, I really wasn't happy with the block colours of the last ones so I've changed that. I've kept the first one exactly the same and I like how its a different colour because this is going to be my magic card designs, so its good to seperate the two different types. I've also split mages and warrior cards into two different colours to make it easier for the player.

Final 'Of Bot's and Bananas' - Part 1

2009-12-11T07:05:00.000-08:00

Final 'Of Bot's and Bananas' - Part 1

Just finished rendering the first part of my robot animation, this is where the robot helper first discovers the banana and then goes running off to find the main robot, it's more of a prequel of whats to come than anything else but I'm happy with it just going to plow on with this rendering now and get it all done.

Scanline or Mental Ray?

2009-12-10T20:14:00.000-08:00

Scanline or Mental Ray?
I'm at a very annoying point with my rollercoaster, I'm just starting to put it all together and add the final few textures but I really don't know which renderer to use, they both have major flaws for this project. Scanline renders really quickly and does everything that I want it to but doesn't have the same amount of textures as Mental Ray. However Mental Ray, takes forever to render and doesn't pick up all the finer details that I have on my rollercoaster, for example it's missing parts of the string, while Scanline does this perfectly.

It's a tough choice, I think that I'll have to stick with Scanline at the moment and see how I get on with texturing, I can also use the rendering effects in Scanline. It's just annoying though.

A Working Planet

2009-12-10T19:41:00.000-08:00

A Working Planet

This is again another render for another piece of the background for my Rollercoaster, again I like the way that it pivots making it look as though it is hanging on a piece of string. I also added some rotation to the rings around it and added an asteroid that follows a path constaint around the planet. Trying to follow the theme of something that has been made I also added a line around the planet to make it appear as though it has been joined together from two different parts.

The only problem I am having at the moment is texturing, I'm close to finishing this project at the minuite but textures seem to kill my laptop and slow down rendering time in a big way so I need to try and find a way around this without jeprodising how it looks, this is Visualisation after all.

Stars

2009-12-10T16:14:00.000-08:00

Stars

This whole idea mainly came from the artwork from The Cure's Greatest Hits, I love how the stars hang down from the ceiling and thought that the idea would work really well with my rollercoaster. But yeah I'm really happy with how it looks and moves around quite naturally.

I've finally managed to get the lens effects to work on 3D S Max so without any further adue here is just one of the stars that I'm going to stick around my rollercoaster. The reason for this is that instead of just sticking on a background picture of stars I would create a simple one myself in 3D S Max that suits my theme much more so I'm hoping that this is the final missing link that my rollercoaster needs. I'll now start putting all of this together and keep posting up when something major gets added.

Ready to Animate

2009-12-10T12:19:00.001-08:00

Ready to Animate

Ok it has taken forever but I am finally ready to get animating everything is rigged up and ready to go at last. Which I will do tommorow and the get rendering.

I'm going to use very basic textures so that I can actually render it in less then a year. The only thing that I'm not completely happy with is that my main robot doesn't move as smoothly as I'd hoped, I can get around this with some clever camera work but this does mean that I won't get every shot that I'd hoped for. So what I'm going to do IF I have time is do another one over the weekend using the robot I built in Andy's seminars to show how I wanted it to look, if it doesn't turn out well.

Robot Model Finished

2009-12-09T12:01:00.001-08:00

Robot Model Finished

Finally! I have finished my robot and I am so proud of how it looks, it has taken forever but now that it's done I can just sit back and enjoy my hard work.

I've gone for a very Transformers/Gundam look and I deffinately think that it looks badass which is what I set out to create.

I'm really happy with the layered look that I've given it, I might have to change some parts though so that

the different pieces don't colide.

I also textured it however this takes forever to render, this one image took 3 minuites, so as much as I'd like to have an epic animation with beautiful textures and everything.

However in the interests of logic and time I'll apply a basic texture instead which should keep the rendering time down to a minimal. So I'll finish rigging the hands tommorow and then get cracking with this animation.

Robot Head

2009-12-09T08:14:00.000-08:00

Robot Head

The head for my robot is now finished, I'm happy with it I might make a few minor changes if I get time but I'm a lot more interested in getting this finished at the moment but it looks good.

I'll attach this to the rest of my robot and quickly rig it up and I'm done and ready to go. Should have the finished render of my robot up by the end of the day.

Robot Chest

2009-12-09T04:31:00.001-08:00

Robot Chest

I've now finished the chest and back of my robot and just thought that I'd post it up so anyone that wants to can have a look. I am very happy with how this is turning out so far, I set out to create a bad ass robot and that's what I'm doing. The only thing I'm slightly not happy with is that I had to move a few of the pieces so that they wouldn't colide during animation, however that now means that you can see some of the joints. It's not really a problem, but if I've got time I'd like to fix it somehow.

I've also rigged up the frame underneath and it's all working fine now, so all that's left is the arms and head, which should be a pretty quick job and I'll post the results up once it's done.

Roller Coaster Modelled

2009-12-08T23:22:00.000-08:00

Roller Coaster Modelled

I've now pretty much finished my model for my rollercoaster and I'm very happy with it. I've tried to get it to look like a mining cart track, so really rough and ready but it works. I've not added any textures yet because I want 3D s Max to work right for the moment while I add all of the planets, stars, moons and asteroids that I modelled earlier but I'll keep posting up as I'm going. The only problem I'm having is getting my things to stay on the track when I use a path constraint, but I might use this to my advantage and have my cart look as though it's bouncing around almost falling off the track.

Movement test

2009-12-08T19:40:00.000-08:00

Movement test

Just thought that I'd stick this on aswell before I start modelling the rest of it properly, I've had a bit of a play with the follow path thing used with splines. It looks pretty good so far I need to think of a way of making sure the rollercoaster stays on the track without going through it or floating on top of it. But it works on the whole and that's the main thing. I also tried using the curve editor to slow it down in splace it works to some extent but I'll properly perfect it for my final piece.

Roller Coaster Spline

2009-12-08T19:06:00.000-08:00

Roller Coaster Spline

Well I've finall finished the splne of my roller coaster and thought I'd post it up. I know that I should have done this weeks ago but I have been working on my rollercoaster but I've been doing the other pieces that are going to go around it. Basically I don't really like working with splines unless it's on a flat plane they are very hard to get right but it's done now.

I'm going to be working on it all night so I'll post the results up once it's done.

Robot Legs

2009-12-08T01:46:00.000-08:00

Robot Legs

Here's a quick render of my robot so far so you can hopefully get the just of how it's going to look. I'm very happy with how it's turned out so far and I'll very hopefully get the rest of it finished by the end of the day and have it posted up. I'll then rig it tonight ready to have a bit of a play with the animation for tommorow.

That's the plan anyway.

Card Designs

2009-12-07T23:54:00.001-08:00

Card Designs

Ok here's my designs for my cards. I've got three types, magic, mages and warriors and I thought it better to divide them into colours to make everything a lot simpler for the player. I'm really happy with them actually 'all' I have to do now is add images and types up each card, and then print them off, cut them out and I'm done. Yeah it's going to be a long weekend, but I really want to get the presentation right on this and make everything look good.

Robot Helper Finshed

2009-12-07T10:53:00.000-08:00

Robot Helper Finshed

Ok I've now finshed my Helper Robot and I'm very happy with how it looks, just how I planned anyway. It's all rigged and ready to go once I finish my main robot. I should have my main robot finshed and rigged by the end of tommorow with any luck and then it's just a case of animating and rendering for the deadline but I know exactly what I'm going to do so it's all gravy.

Anyway here's a short clip of my robot in action.

Robot - Armour Plating

2009-12-04T03:50:00.000-08:00

Robot - Armour Plating

Ok here's my mission for today, I'm going to completely cover my robot frame in plates so that it looks totally amazing and everything, I'll hopefully have it finished by the end of the day and ill post up the results.

Playing with Cameras

2009-11-30T08:06:00.000-08:00

Playing with Cameras

Today I've had a go at rendering the practice robot and putting the animating together in a more organised dramatic way. Anyway one thing I've found is that I am a very harsh cutter and I shoot from shot to shot too quickly, but this is why we practice, so I won't do it when it counts. However I did come up with this shot that I am quite proud of, I like the way the camera moves and the manhole cover slowly comes into shot letting the audience in on the joke while the robot thinks he's safe.

Robot Final Frame

2009-11-27T08:59:00.000-08:00

Robot Final - Frame

This is the Frame for my final Robot for the animation project, I'll rig this as soon as I get a chance and I'll then be in a position to do my final animation. But to make my robot look all fancy and everything I'll attach a load of plates and wires to this frame and group them to the right pieces.

So basically if this works I'll have a robot that is build from a lot of different pieces and looks really cool but works in exactly the same way as the robot we built in the seminars and will be very easy to rig. Hopefully it'll all work.

A Robots Assistant

2009-11-27T06:27:00.000-08:00

A Robots Assistant

I've decided that I want a really small and simple robot that will accompany my main robot during the animation.

How I'm hoping that this works is that my main big robot is the brawn while this little guy that flys around is the brains, and my entire animation is going to be about how these two interact. And I think that it will work well to show how these will react when a foreign object (the banana) appears.

I'm hoping for something simple anyway a very basic flying spherical object such as Guilty Spark from Halo, or this scout droid from Star Wars. I'll have a couple of animation constraints in there for a few moving parts and an eye constraint but nothing nearly as complicated as my main robot.

What I'm hoping to do with my animation is have it so that together my two robots are pretty unstoppable however they are completely stumped by this strange object and then ultimately destroyed.

Robot

2009-11-25T08:11:00.000-08:00

Robot

Just thought I'd post this up, this is the robot that I modelled originally for the animation project however eventually I decided that I wanted to do something different.

However this is the key part I don't dislike it and I am very happy with it so I'm going to rig it and use it as the passenger in my Rollercoaster animation. The reason behind this is that I don't want an empty cart just flying through space and I find robots like this easy to get a lot of funny expressive animation out of, which I hope will help with my Visualisation project.

I might, hopefully, if I have time do a banana trip animation with this guy aswell but I really want to focus on my main projects and get them done. And on that note I should hopefully have atleast the frame of my final robot posted on here by the end of tommorow and maybe his little helper robot aswell who knows.

Banana Slip Practice

2009-11-23T08:10:00.000-08:00

Banana Slip Practice
Here's a short video I made in my seminar today of the robot slipping and falling over epically on a banana skin. I'm pretty happy with it, and there we're suprisingly few hic-ups. The only thing wrong with it is that I linked the banana skin to the wrong thing so instead of landing on his face it floated around a bit, so I decided to have it land behind him nice and simply.
I know I keep promising this but I should have some of my own stuff building towards the final piece very, very soon.

Gantt Chart

2009-11-19T21:43:00.001-08:00

Gantt Chart

Here is my Gantt Chart planning all the work that I've got to do over the next few weeks. I'm glad I spotted how much work I have to do now, atleast I've got time to do something about it, I've been keeping up to date with everything lately anyway but it's good to see how everythings progressing.

Card Game

2009-11-19T14:10:00.000-08:00

Card Game
Ok it's taken a while but I've finally got a pretty good idea for my card game. I've just noticed anyway that I've not posted anything up on my blog about it so I just thought I'd let the world know how it's going.
So I've got to design my own card game with a maximum of 60 cards, it has to be totally unique but at the same time not overly complicated. To be honest I've had a lot of trouble with this project, it's not that I've not wanted to get on with it but it's hard to come up with a totally new idea. My first thoughts was to have like a medieval battle game, players could arange cards in different formations and move them about, but after a while I realised that the only way to do this would be with a board or a grid and we're not allowed, also it'd be too hard to make the game without it being too over complicated.
So I decided against that idea, I might keep it in mind though for next term and the board game. I then came up with the idea of a Final Fantasy style battle system and I've gone with that idea and I really think that it works.

Whats unique about my game though is the way in which players play, each card has a value, stronger cards are worth 3, 4 or even 5 while weaker cards are worth less. The cards chosen by the player must add up to a value of 20. So depending on the player and how they want to play you will always be playing against a different style of play, the two extreme examples are one player chooses 20 weak cards with a value of 1 each while another chooses only a few extremely powerful cards but sacrifices a lot in terms of numbers. It's a very interesting system and I'm very happy with it. I've gone through two prototypes already and I'm pretty sure that the game works now, at the moment I'm going through the stages of balancing the cards out not making any too powerful or weak and so on. I want to get to the stage where there is a way to beat any hand, in other words there is no perfect way to play. I'll explain a lot more about my game later I just don't want to explain everything in text it's kind of hard to understand, I'll get some images up too hopefully and stick my rules up soon.

Playing with Lighting

2009-11-17T07:37:00.001-08:00

Playing with Lighting

Today in our visualisation seminar I had a go at lighting a room, here are two of the set ups thats I liked, the first is a simple daylight system with the light shining in through the window, the second had no exterior lighting however i added lights to the lighting on the ceiling which work really well.

A Bit More Movement

2009-11-16T08:28:00.000-08:00

A Bit More Movement

Just a final thought on my still walk before I leave it forever, there was a banana on the scene so I thought I'd stick on a bit of old school animation like scooby doo. Moving the banana on its own and nothing else to give the illusion that the robot is moving.

Robot Animation Test

2009-11-16T07:52:00.000-08:00

Robot Animation Test

Today in our seminar I made a short piece of animation and here it is a avery simple walk, it's best watched on repeat anyway, but it works and I'm pretty happy with it. Next I'm going to do a silly walk, I've actually built a robot of my own that I've decided not to use for my final piece so I'll use it as a tester instead, once it's all rigged and everything, should be done soon though. I'll explain why I decided not to use it once it's up.

Rollercoaster - The Moon

2009-11-10T06:10:00.000-08:00

Rollercoaster - The Moon

This is the early stages of my modelling for the moon which will be a part of my rollercoaster. I'll add a few more quick renders as I go along but I'm happy with it for the minuite and I'll add a few more details later on just to make it slightly more interesting.

Space the Final Frontier...

2009-11-08T20:16:00.000-08:00

Space the Final Frontier...

I've been flicking through my online journal recently and I noticed that I've not really explained much about my plans for the rollercoaster design. So here I go, I've chosen space as my starting point, this is because I like the freedom that this allows, basically I really want to test out modelling a lot of different enviroments and this would be more easily achieved using space as a starting point than underwater.

However although space is infinate apparently, in my designs it doesn't have to be so I'm going to model an orrery that is upside down, basically all the planets are going to be hung in the air and the rollercoaster will interloop between this. Also every planet will have a very different look to it, this will allow me to model a variety of different enviroments for example, the planet closest to the sun will be almost like a desert and the one furthest away will be ice.

As for how I want it to look, I'm going for a very cartoon, very blocky approach to designing it, the problem with sci-fi for me is that everything looks too sleak and shiny. So I think it'd be a different approach to have something that looks very poorly constructed, maybe even made of scrap metal.

I've been playing a lot of Banjo-Kazooie Nut's and Bolt lately and I really like how some of the vehicles look, they're not sleak or well built but they work. I'm going to go for something very similar for my rollercoaster, it's going to look rough and poorly built (in it's appearance, my modelling will be top notch, hopefully) but it works, however it wouldn't pass a safety inspection. To get this across in my animation I'll have a lot of jumps and tight twists with the cart often quite close to falling of the tracks.

The Problem with Robots and How to Use this to My Advantage

2009-11-05T13:02:00.000-08:00

The Problem with Robots and How to Use this to My Advantage

Ok I've been designing my robot and it's going quite well, I've pretty much got the basics of what I'm looking for sketched out but I've hit a bit of a brick wall.

What I've found while designing my robot and doing a bit of research is a problem with how mine looks. With all the cool looking robots anyway you can always see parts of the insides

giving you a glimpse of how they work, and it looks awesome. I want to get this into my designs somehow.

The main reason for this is that character design is a real interest of mine and this is the closest I'm going to get to doing it this term, so I want to design the biggest baddest looking robot I possible can. So what I've decided to do it model parts of the insides aswell as the main panels on the outside. This sounds like creating a lot more work than needs to be done, however I can use this to my advantage to make the whole animation process a lot easier and simpler, and I'll also get a much cooler looking robot out of it that not only fits the brief but that I can be proud of.

So what I'm going to do it model it from the inside out starting with a simple frame not 2 different to the simple robot I made in the seminars but with a different shape. I can then rig this quite easily and that's the hard part done. From there I can build around the fram that I've created adding panels and maybe some fancy stuff to make it look cool. So anyway my designs are progressing quite nicely, but I'm now going to continue with this in mind and hopefully finish soon so I can get on with modelling it.

Robot Animation Test

2009-11-02T10:10:00.000-08:00

Robot Animation Test
Here is a short clip of a robot I built in Seminars to test out modelling, it's a bit shorter than I intended but it took so long to render that I'm not going to bother adding anything to it. This is just a trial to show how all the controls work. I now need to apply the same principles and animation mechanics to my own designs. Anyway enjoy.

Modelling - Splines

2009-10-27T08:56:00.000-07:00

Modelling - Splines

Today we had a go at moelling using Splines, I think there a very useful little tool to use and will make the whole Rollercoaster a lot easier to model.

First we made a room. which was really simple to get the basics done and then add things later. It brought back memorys of trying to do this last year for my narratives project but doing it a really long way. That's what I've found so far this year everything I thought that I knew about studio max is rubbish and there's always a much shorter easier way to do everything. Which is good but annoying at the same time.

I also made a simple chair, this was really easy to achieve again

using

the spline tool to get the metal base and then adding a few shapes on top just to make ti look nice. I think that using splines could be the way forward for working to get a quick and simple effect that I can add stuff to.

Roller Coaster Design

2009-10-21T11:59:00.000-07:00

Roller Coaster Design
I think that it's time I started thinking about designing a weird and wonderful rollercoaster, the trouble is all I can think about is this...

All I can say is that cadburys make good adverts and that this reminds me of when my mum used to make me watch coronation street, bad times. It's a cool advert though and I like the look of it a lot. I think that I want to mix things up a bit though with this project, I seem to be going for a very serious look with my Robot project so I think I'm going to go for a more cartoon looking idea with this. And give it a very interesting style, so influences....Banjo-Kazooie has always has a really cool look I think and with Nuts and Bolts on Xbox 360 they've used the next gen graphics amazingly, while everyone else seems to be trying to get everything to look as realistic as possible Rare seem happy doing what they're doing. What I love about the look of this is how everythings stitched or stuck together, it's hard to explain but it makes everything look a lot more detailed than just flat surfaces.

Futurama's a pretty good place to start aswell, I think I'm going to go with space as the theme for my rollercoaster because of the things that I can do with it, a vast expanse that I can stick anything into. Got so much work to do....

Animation Research

2009-10-19T05:00:00.001-07:00

Animation Research
Like an idiot I managed to go to a lecture that didn't exist today, but it's ok I spent my time in the library instead and found some really useful books that I think will definately come in handy with this animation project.

First I found a book called 'Computer Animation' that was written by a number of different authors and editted by John Halas it's good but focused mainly on how 3D software works and wasn't that useful. I also found 'Animation Design' which was a compilation of lots of different artist work.

The best books I found though were 'Timing for Animation' written by Harold Whitaker & John Halas, but also featured a foreward by John Lasseter. It's a very specific book that looks at how the timing for animation works and how to do it right. The best book by far though was 'The Animation Survival Kit' by Richard Williams, this is a really good book focused mainly on 2D work but the ideas will still work for 3D. I've borrowed it out anyway, what I like most about it though is that it looks at how to give life to your characters, using subtle techniques to bring them to life, really really good. I'm glad I got up this morning.

Why Can't I Render!

2009-10-19T04:55:00.000-07:00

Why Can't I Render!

It's annoying when you do some work but you can never actually show it, Anyway I've finished my Orrery but for some reason I can't render it as a movie. I don't know I'll work it out later hopefully so heres a few picks just to show that I actually did it.

I bet this comes back to haunt me around deadline time.

Robot Moodboard

2009-10-14T07:07:00.001-07:00

Robot Moodboard

A quick moodboard for my robot, not the greatest piece of work I've ever done but it's good to get an idea of what I'm looking for with the design of my robot. I've focused more on characters that inspire fear than classic robots, so I've got big bad characters like Sauron and Darth Vader.

I'm going to look at how the directors identify these as the bad guys straight away within minuites of seeing them. I've also thought about armour as an interesting way of approacing designing a robot. I think that the gundam series does this best basing their designs on samurai armour. I think this is a good way to approach designing a robot instead of only looking at robots. So I'm going to do some designs and get this project done because I've got a lot of work to do this term.

Work and Organisation

2009-10-14T05:44:00.000-07:00

Work and Organisation
Well now that I've had all of my work for my seminars for this year shown to me I know that I'm going to have to work hard, very hard to stay on top. On the plus side though I'm very happy with all the work thats been set, it looks fun and interesting. My tutor for games design work on diddy kong racing though how cool is that the first game I ever had, but yeah lot of work to do should be cool though.

One thing I can do though to make things much easier for everyone is keep my blog organised, its all well and good posting stuff up all the time but not so good if nobody can find it. So to sort this out I'm going to tag every post I do. Also I'll use some colour coding my usual blue for Andy's animation work, green for Simon Wallet's presentation work and yellow for Brad Warrens games design seminars. Oh I'll also do Jool's Successful Principles and Practices lectures in red.

Train - 3D Studio Max Modelling

2009-10-13T08:48:00.000-07:00

Train - 3D Studio Max Modelling

Just finished a small bit of modelling in my seminar of a toy train. It's pretty cool and good practice, I've also had a bit of a play with the lighting trying to make it look moody and atmospheric, I think I'm going to have to keep trying with the lighting systems because there is so many of them. So heres the model I made below, the first image is without lighting the second is with.

I also animated it moving but for some reason it won't render properly so I'll stick this up if I get chance. So yeah I'll hopefully post up some more random modelling projects soon, and I'll hopefully have some robot designs to post up aswell.

Of Bots and Bananas

2009-10-13T01:37:00.000-07:00

Of Bots and Bananas
New brief, 'Design, build and animate a model of a complex Bipedal Robot that can walk slip trip and fall.' I think it's pretty cool and I can hopefully use this task to build up my modelling and animation skills. The only problem is making it funny!

For me the slipping on a banana routine is probably overdone and represents an old type of comedy, so the problem remains how to make this funny? The idea that I have at the minute is to build up an aura around a character, almost like the first scenes of Star Wars.

From the first scene Darth Vader appears in you know automatically that he is important and a bad ass. What I would like to do is create a character or a robot in this case and make him look cool and scary maybe even using music to add to the aura. As we know though 'pride comes before a fall' and I think it would be more comic to build up a character before knocking them down to earth. It's just an idea anyway but I quite like it and I think its a more interesting way to use the tired old banana gag. It would be interesting to see how the animation of this works mainly having a very serious tone then imediately switching to a very silly and stupid. Anyway I've got 10 pages of designs to get on with so we'll see how it goes.

Greatest Animation I've Seen

2009-10-12T09:13:00.000-07:00

Greatest Animation I've Seen
Ok This is hard because I'm a huge fan of Pixar and everything they've ever done however the best piece of animation I have ever seen has to be the epic Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children, the movie sequel to the best selling playstation game.

This is for two reasons; 1. I am a huge Final Fantasy fan and even though FF8 is my favourite I've always had a special place in my heart for FF7, basically this film is purely for the fans satisfaction it answers none of the questions you may have with the story from the game, its a standalone story that to be honest is very heavy going and hard to understand.
So what makes this so great?

The animation is superb, from the second you see it your literally blown away, no 3D animation I have ever seen looks so realistic, pixar may be the kings of 3D animation but they always use a very cartoon like style that is great for their target audience, however Square Enix use realistic looking characters. The same amount of care has been put into this game as Square Enix put into any of their games, it looks superb and sounds great, the music in particular is epic in everyway. But what makes this film truly great is the way they use animation, because the characters look so realistic it is possible to wonder why not just make a live action film? It's in the fight scenes that the reasons behind the animation truly shows.

Everything is so over the top characters jump miles (literally) into the air swinging huge weapons with all the grace of a ballet dancer. It's hard to explain but take for instance 'Flying Tiger Hidden Dragon', although a great film you always notice the fact that the charcters are on wires, however Advent Children through the use of animation makes you believe that the charcters are capable of such gravity defying acts.

What makes this film a great piece of animation is not only that it has amazingly detailed characters and enviroments but also that it uses this animation to do things that wouldn't be possible in any live action film. Anyway I can talk forever about Final Fantasy so I think It'd just be better to watch a clip.

Character Design - Greatest Heroes

2009-09-19T10:21:00.000-07:00

Character Design - Greatest Heroes
As I said in a post earlier I've been looking a lot at character design lately and been designing my own, I've got about 4 done at the minuite I just need some a scanner and a bit of time on photoshop and I'll post them up here.

However I stumbled upon this the other day and thought it was quite relevant, http://uk.gamespot.com/greatest-video-game-hero/standings/index.html. This is a vote online that is currently going on the website www.gamespot.com , I found it quite interesting to see how all the gaming heroes compare in the eyes of the public. Anyway check it out one thing I would say though is that the list tends to be comprised very much of nintendo characters that are very franchisable (mario, yoshi, etc). Amazing characters none the less but they don't really have the depth of character that some of the others have that haven't done that well on the list. Don't get me wrong pac-man was an amazing game for its time but can anybody really say that he has the same amount of depth in character as Cloud (Final Fantasy VII) or Master Chief (Halo). But it's still a good list.

Like I said I'll have some cool pics up here soon, hopefully before term starts and then I'll try and work on turning them 3D over the year but I want to focus a lot more on my work this year.

Very Cool Video

2009-09-17T01:25:00.000-07:00

Very Cool Video
Check this out, I just clicked onto youtube today and checked out this amazing video on the featured videos section. This is awesome, sometimes you just have to take your hat off and say wow, I can't even begin to think how much work went into this. Amazing....

Character Design - Mirror Opposites

2009-06-23T19:24:00.000-07:00

Character Design - Mirror Opposites

Ok I've been thinking about the kind of characters that I want to create and model over the summer and I've decided upon the classic hero and villain. So what makes a hero? and what makes a villain? Well since I'm only designing a the look of the characters I can't really rely on having an epic back story to tell their stories so I have to do this through how they look, and make these two characters look different.

What I can think of is my vast knowledge of final fantasy. When designing their characters they often use mirror opposites on their main characters often the main antagonist and protagonist. For instance on the left is an image of the promotional artwork for the Final Fantasy 7 film 'Advent Children'. The character 'Cloud' (left) is meant to directly contrast the character Sephiroth (right), his blonde spiky hair the exact opposite to Sephiroths long silver hair. What is interesting is that the conventional use of colour to define good and evil isn't used here, typically the good guy will be dressed in bright vibrant colours while the bad guy will wear dark moody colours, here more subtle methods are used to determine good and evil.

Again this presents a problem as I am only designing my characters not telling their story while in final fantasy the characters develop into their roles of good and bad, Sephiroth for instance started out a great hero and only turned bad after he found out he was created from some alien but that is another very long and confusing story for another time.

A better example of mirrored characters comes from Final Fantasy 8. The characters are exact opposites and rivals in everything, this is shown best in their character design. Squall (right) the main character has brown hair and a short jacket while his rival Seifer (left) has blonde hair and a long jacket. This use of mirror opposites is best shown in the scars they have on their faces. Given to each other in the epic opening movie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q09quI356sQ (watch it is awesome) they both go across their forehead and down under their eye in opposite directions.

This is more of the idea I want to use two characters that are opposites in most ways, and it is easy to see that they contast each other in some way. It's going to be quite hard but fun at the same time and something that I really want to look into. If nothing else it will be good practice for my third year when I have to actually do this for a project.

Another Perfect World?

2009-06-23T18:08:00.000-07:00

Another Perfect World?

Wow! I've just watched a programme on the TV channel More 4 called 'Another Perfect World?' basically it is about online gaming, and I really wish that it came out a few months ago when I was studying this kind of thing. But I'm posting now out of genuine amazement in the program and seeing just how deep, confusing and big these 'worlds' that are created online are.

I think its right to use to word 'world' when talking about MMOs, people actually live in these places spending more time there than in the real world, they have their own currencies and economy's, one in particular 'EVE Online' has its own countries. There's even a hypothetical Decleration of Rights for Avatars which can be found at; http://www.raphkoster.com/gaming/playerrights.shtml. I'm amazed and quite embarassed when I was looking at all of this stuff I commented on the graphics and how big the games where (this can all be found on my blog... if your interested) but I totally missed all of these aspects of the games, I realise now that these aern't games that you play they're worlds that you live in. I still think that the whole idea of living in an online world is flawed but its an interesting phonomenon non the less, having played a few of the games mentioned in the program I understand what they are talking about.

It's hard to explain but the power especially in MMOs is with the stronger players, just because they are the biggest or the strongest it doesn't make them the best people to lead a country, you wouldn't make Ricky Hatton prime minister (even though he's an absolute legend) just because he can throw a hard punch. So what you end up with is nothing more than a tribal society where the strongest man is king. But what a found most amazing is how the program showed a revolt on a game called 'Lineage' where all of the weaker players revolted together against the bigger players who ruled the world. This just shows however that these aern't games they're places where people live out lives different to their own, maybe it's possible to create a society online that is perfect and we can all live in it like the Matrix. Who knows personally I can't think of anything worse but it could happen, I enjoy gaming and like the idea of MMOs creating a character that represents me and roaming around with a cool sword doing quests, things that I can't do in the real world but not totally living in the world.

For me its a game not a world but things are very different for other people, but if thats what they want to do. Very interesting and brilliant show though.

Update - Past Project and Future Plans

2009-06-23T16:57:00.000-07:00

Update - Past Project and Future Plans

Ok its been quite a while since I posted anything on here, This is mainly because I put so much effort into finishing my final project that I didn't even want to see a computer again! the mear sight of photoshop or flash makes me cringe. But ahh well worse things have happened, I got my project in on time (just).

I've got mixed feelings about it really it got to the point that there shouldn't have been enough hours to get it done, but I managed to finish it however the quality wasn't as I'd planned it to be. I found a few mistakes with the coding, simple stuff really but I didn't have the time to check it through, but at the same time I'm happy I got it in on time. I'm hoping that it does alright (atleast passes) and then I can look forward to the next year after I've had a wicked summer. And next year I'm going to get my project management skills sorted, it's always been my problem and stopped me working to my best so it's time to change. Anyway I'll post my final piece up soonish, after I've made a few changes.

So onwards and upwards but what I am most disappointed with is my 3D work on my Identities project. This is the area that I want to go into next year and my Avatar wasn't what I intended. I spent too long learning the program and then ran out of time at the end, so I didn't have time to texture it properly and ended up with very basic colours and no shirt!

So I want to solve this and do some 3D work of my own, the reasons for this are simple... I spent a lot of time learning 3D studio max so the skills are there but they don't show in my final project, also I want to develop my skills further so I get much better and finally I'm really interested in part of the character designing project that will be in the 3rd year (I think). This sounds wicked I've always been interested in character design and this would be my ideal career (if i'm very very lucky).

So over the summer I'm going to design and atleast start 3D modelling a couple of cool characters. I want a real final fantasy style look to these characters because they are probably some of the characters in any form of media that mean the most to me, probably because the games and so long and deep that you feel like you've actually gone on a journey with them. I probably won't be able to achieve this but I want to design a cool couple of characters and see how it turns out.

Anyway I'll post up some rough sketches soon, till then....

English Rose - Finished

2009-05-15T04:10:00.000-07:00

English Rose - Finished

Ok while I was modelling my Avatar today I got a chance to add sound to one of my flash animations. Anyway here it is basically the idea behind it is the same as with my logo, in that it looks at the idea of the places you've been and lived directly influencing who you are. I also used this as an opportunity to adress one of my own personal issues, I'm from Huddersfield in West Yorkshire and I've lived there all my life and for some reason I'm quite proud of that but now that I've moved away I feel slightly more distant from the place I grew up.

Basically I used the song 'English Rose' by the Jam (no copyright infringement intended only used out of a huge amount of respect) and put it into a different context. What I'm trying to say with this animation is that although I've left it's still my home because of the people I know there and the experiences I had there have directly influenced who I am.

Anyway I hope you like it I know my description of the video is incredibly corny and I apologise sincerly, however although I'm from Huddersfield however it doesn't mean I'll ever say its a particulary brilliant place and I've made fun of it slightly in the video in a subtle way, but it's an important place to me so I felt that it was only right to get this into my Identities package.

Avatar Update

2009-05-13T20:52:00.000-07:00

Avatar Update

Ok I've now pretty much finished the body of my avatar and the head is almost finished so its all coming together nicely now. On the left is a picture of how it looks with the smooth modifier on and I'm pretty happy with it. One thing I've noticed after putting these screen shots up is that the legs look tiny compared to the body, basically it looks like Jonny Bravo. But thats pretty simple to fix I reckon.

But yeah I'm really happy with it so far. What I have noticed with other peoples avatars is to make the jeans they've added a picture over the UV unwrap thing, it looks wicked and I'm going to use this method but what I've also done is model some of the major parts of the jeans, like the pockets and the boxer shorts over the top. So should hopefully have this finished completely very soon.

Update & Final Element - English Rose

2009-05-11T18:49:00.001-07:00

Update & Final Element

Well it's been few weeks since I've posted anything worth while up on here. Well I'm sorry I have been working very very hard these past few weeks trying to get this whole project done and it's coming along quite nicely. So I should be posting them up very soon, my avatar will be hopefully done by the end of tomorrow, that is unless anything goes majorly wrong but I will post up something about it because it's actually come a long way since my last post.

But the reason I wanted to stick a post up is because I have totally changed what I'm doing for my final element, I was going to try experimenting with film and layering I think I put a post up about it somewhere. But anyway I was struggling majorly with this in that I couldn't find any way to make it about me, or at least say something about who I am without it seeming corny, one idea I had was layering a load of words over the top of film that described me (I know terrible). Anyway I was looking finishing my logo off that is meant to represent 'my journey' and I realised how important where I grew up was in making me, me.

So anyway I wanted to do a bit of a tribute to that. Basically my idea is based around the song 'English Rose' by the Jam, 'No matter where I roam I will return to my English Rose'. I do want to explore and see as much as I can in my life and I see University as being the first step. However what I wanted to show here was that I guess Huddersfield in West Yorkshire will always be my home and the most important place in my life because the experiences I had there made me who I am (God that sounds corny). So basically it starts with a short of Earth then that zooms in, then Europe, then England, then Yorkshire and so on.

I've also gone to town on the images for this creating them all my self, I'm actually very happy with them basic but quite cool I like to think. But yeah I think that it's going quite well really, it's pretty on the brief as well because it explores an aspect of my personality and who I am. It does work so well with the music as well a beautiful nostalgic song and the symbol for Yorkshire is a rose so result. It's almost finished I've just got to fine tune the last few images and stick them onto my animation and I'm done but it's looking pretty good so hopefully I'll have it finished for tomorrow, but I've got an essay to be writing as well so who know but yeah I'll post up them video very soon....

Avatar Progess

2009-04-28T10:13:00.000-07:00

Avatar Progess
Ok I started working on my Avatar, I used a sketch that I did a while ago as a basis to start on. I want my avatar to look very cartoon like and chunky a bit like a nintendo character with some jame hewlett influences.

Anyway I've started it now and it's going ok one thing that I am trying to do is not use the turbo smooth tool, It's rubbish I don't like the way that it totally changes everything that you've done. So instead I'm using a more difficult method ok tesselating harder areas and smotting the image off myself. I think this gives me a better effect and makes my model look how I want it to, not how the computer wants it to look.

Anyway I started with the body, I've seen a lot of people starting from the feet upwards but scale is one of my weaknesses so I decided to start with the biggest part and build out from here. Anyway that's about it, it's going well I think, I'm happy with everything except when it renders the detail I've put into the chest goes slightly weird. I'll fix it eventually but I don't think that it'll matter too much anyway because I'm adding a t-shirt. So yeah I'm going to just build the jeans onto the model tommorow and I'll post up the results.

Logo - A Final Tweak

2009-04-27T03:14:00.000-07:00

Logo - A Final Tweak
Ok on my last post I said that I wouldn't change my logo any more (it's taken long enough), well I lied! Well only a little bit, I showed my flat mate the video and all she said was 'which bit is your logo' and I had to explain that it is the bit with the 3 circles, not very good really. So anyway I decided to add another little bit on the end where the circles fade back in without getting much bigger so my final logo is actually on screen for more than a second.

Anyway I'm going to check with my tutor and see what he thinks but I think this is much better at delivering my logo to the viewer which is kind of the point of the project. Anyway check this out and see what you think, while I'm going to crack on with my Avatar..

Logo Animation Finished

2009-04-24T17:30:00.000-07:00

Logo Animation Finished
Hey Well I finally managed to get the animation of my logo finished and I can finally tick off one of my 5 elements and call it done. I am really happy with the results as I think the animation gives it greater depth than a simple flat image.

Basically It is a simplified version of the my logo I designed earlier (on the far left). What I liked in particular about this was how it came from the 'my journey' seminar in which we planned our journey through life (near left). I think that where you come from plays an important part in who you are so I was happy that I could show this in some way in my work.

So anyway I went with the idea of using circles like ripples on the water as I liked the way the branched out getting bigger, and how they overlap representing the connections between people and places. So anyway I hope you enjoy this short video, obviously it's not at the best quality ever but it will be for my final box, I think it's pretty much finished now, I might make a few minor changes but nothing drastic probably just a play again button. Anyway Enjoy....

Everything I Forgot to Post Earlier

2009-03-23T23:15:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-23T09:15:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-20T11:39:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-19T11:23:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-12T06:31:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-09T08:15:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-06T02:25:00.000-08:00

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

2009-03-05T04:05:00.000-08:00

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.

Comic Strip Development/Trial

2009-02-25T16:03:00.001-08:00

Comic Strip Development/Trial

Ok so I've decided to do a moving comic strip for one of my projects, I've now put a bit of thought into how this might work.

Weirdly the first thing that came to mind while thinking about this was my pixilation piece for my previous module, I did like it but I always felt that I could have done it better or in a different way. What I most liked about it was the first person view of the hands on the screen. So I really wanted to do something like this

Idid a couple of quick sketches to see how this would look then a more neat one that I could use to work with on Photoshop. I'm thinking at the minute that the animation will start from this view and then zoom in shortly afterwards to each panel individually. I'm hoping to give each panel of the comic book perhaps a few seconds of animation, and it entire thing will last about a minute and a half. I think that was one of the main weaknesses of my pixilation last time that it lasted far too long, so this time my work is going to be short and sweet.

So I took my sketch into photoshop and made it look a lot better and neater, it's not perfect but I just wanted to see how this would look after I've worked on it in Photoshop.

Well I've got a few ideas for this, one is that the hands could look really messed up, old and creepy. I do want to develop them a lot too, at the minute they're very Jamie Hewlett inspired, which is great but I want to make them my own and develop my own style, obviously with a lot of influence from his work but I don't want to simply copy him all the time. The other idea I have is as you've probably noticed I have no background at the minute (well I've coloured it in blue if that counts). But I think it would be really cool to do an example of really bad green screening, have the reader walk through lots of daft locations every time the animation zooms back out towards the hands. A running joke every time his location gets more weird, for instance he could simply be walking in the street to begin with, and then end up floating in space the next time the animation zooms out.

Well to pull this off I'm going to have to do a serious amount of work, I probably won't be finished for the presentation at the end of term, but I will get it finished for the deadline, I'll try animating the walking feet and a couple of page turns next. I also need to come up with a story, I'll probably do my flat on a night out but the animation will only be basic for the comic book so that shouldn't take a lifetime to produce. Time to start working then....

Identities - Another Virtual Object - Cartoon Strip

2009-02-23T21:47:00.000-08:00

Identities - Another Virtual Object - Cartoon Strip

Well I've been cracking on quite well with all of my work but I've not even considered what I'm going to do for my two free vitual objects, I think this is a chance to show what I want to do more than the other pieces because it isn't set in stone like the logo and avatar. Well until this point I didn't even have a clue what I was going to do until I was watching one of my all time favourite films today.....KES.

Ok I'd just like to say I didn't watch it on youtube, I have the DVD! Anyway I have decided to do an animated cartoon strip, If you take a look at the clip from the film above you'll see what I'm talking about a comic strip that plays out in front of the screen and zooms from panel to panel. What is annoying is that for all the rubbish on youtube I couldn't find the exact clip I wanted so I had to use the first part of the complete movie, the clip is right at the end by the way. But yeah I think it could work really well, I want to try and animate each panel slightly before it moves to the next, another idea I have is a narrator over the top like in KES to give it a humorous edge. I'd like to make it humorous and very colourful with lots of stuff going on in it, I don't quite know what its going to be about but having a cartoon version of my avatar in it might be a good idea jut to give my work some kind of continuitey.

As far as influences go I guess you can't go wrong with Jamie Hewlett I also like the Marvel comics a lot, not the point of obsession I might add I'd never collect them I just quite like comic books. What I really like is that I can work on it from home giving me lots of time to make it brilliant from the comfort of my own flat. But thats about it I'll work out a story and get on with drawing a comic strip, fun, but watch KES it's awesome, gives a real amazing picture of a deprived Britain and an evil older brother.

Journal Task - How do I Research

2009-02-23T12:58:00.000-08:00

Journal Task - How do I Research

Part A
Recently I have enjoyed my time at University a lot, not just because of the social life and the drinking, I've also liked how open my course is. After being given the module task and the brief, that's pretty much it, its my job to take the work the way I want. Take for example our current module, Identities, we have to design a 'box' and put 5 things in it that reflect us, in fact it doesn't even have to be a box. We are given lectures and seminars but that's more of a nudge in the right direction instead of a direct, "DO IT LIKE THIS!".

It wasn't always like this however at college I think we were pushed into a certain direction for the simple purpose of getting grades. To take for example I did a course in Graphic Art, where we would have to pick an Artist to study first, we didn't even have much time to research this due to tight deadlines.

I guess then the simple answer is that I was creative during my time at college was to get me here, which isn't the greatest thing ever but if you look on the bright side that has got me to the stage where I can be really creative so now I can do what I want to do. I love the fact that I can choose what area I want to go into next year, specialise and choose my own influences instead of someone picking out an artist from a book for me.

So in the future I would really like the specialise in Both 3D and 2D animation, but what I also love is games design, I've had a real passion for games for ages and nothing sounds better to me anyway than working for a games design company with my name in the credits. Make something that people like and I can be proud to say I've created.

Part B
I guess that research can help get me there by making the projects I do a lot easier, also the research I carry out that in my own time ie. watching films, can help me develop my knowledge in the multimedia area.

When I am researching I use the exploratory method, I'm a big fan of the idea that an idea can come from anywhere. I'll see something that looks awesome or strikes a chord with me and I'll use it in my work, this happens both when I'm trying to think of an idea specifically for a project and when I'm not working towards a project but I'll find something and use it in a project later. I use this idea as a starting point and then use the descriptive method to look into an idea more and see what influenced it and similar pieces of work. I also like to try pieces of work out before I properly start working on a project through the Pilot Stage of research, for instance with my logo for the Identities project I did a trial of my logo's paint splats idea making shapes, this can be seen on my blog a few posts down.

I do feel wary of doing descriptive research on its own however, I don't think it's very good at producing ideas on it's own, instead you tend to only look into the ideas that are given by the person who set the work. Instead I prefer to bring in my own influences and combine them with these to come up with an idea that's more fitting with the brief. I guess what it all come down to is that I believe that all good ideas come from a moment of sudden inspiration, a lyric in a song, a sight while passing in a car. Yes, I read into these ideas thoroughly after, but I don't desperately hunt around for some inspiration, I tend to find the best ideas I have come when I'm not even looking.

To throw a few examples into the mix I've chosen my two practitioners for the essay, John Laseter of Pixar who directed 'Toy Story' came up with the idea for the film 'Cars' while on a road trip with his family, he didn't deliberately go on a road trip to come up with an idea for a film. Also the legendary Jamie Hewlett and the equally legendary Damon Albarn came up with the idea for Gorillaz while sat on the couch watching MTV thinking 'that's rubbish, so many videos are rubbish,every 6 videos there's a great video' and thus the Gorillaz were born. I like to think that it was a eureka moment, but it probably wasn't, in my defense though they didn't sit down deliberately to help them come up with an idea for a cartoon band. Anyway check out the video I've posted up its a cool interview, about the Gorillaz story....

Box - Ideas

2009-02-23T12:11:00.001-08:00

Box - Ideas

Ok I have been working quite hard recently, trying to get on with this module so that it doesn't turn into a last week pro-plus fuelled rush to get it all finished. However other than post an idea up then scrapping it I haven't really thought about my 'Box', which is the thing all of my work is going to be in.

I was then quite concerned when my friend told me that this was the most important part of the project, naturally I was concerned. Even if my logo is fantastic and my avatar is cool that won't matter, whether that is exactly true or not I'm not sure but I do have to start cracking on with it.

Ok so I think I've got a good idea......

I've always been a fan sticking random things up in my room, posters, promotion adverts, artwork, CD covers and subsequently my room appears quite untidy. But I like this my room is my place my refuge, I also like the idea of looking around when I'm stuck on a piece of work and seeing something that will give me an idea. A kind of unintentional mood board. So I'm going to go with an idea like this, how It's going to be done (flash, 3D and so on) I'm not so sure of yet but I'll think of something. It could be a very messy version of my room, but I've already seen someones doing that idea so I don't want to look like I'm nicking ideas.

Anyway I've found a couple of pics along this idea that are quite cool, the first is the album cover for Jamie T's ' Panic Prevention', a really cool album, and I like the real scruffiness of the cover, really rough with lots of stuff on it, the only thing I'm concerned about with this is that it would be hard to find the areas with my stuff in it (logo, avatar etc), there is also a risk that the user may be over faced, if you look at the Jamie T artwork you don't know where to look first, nothing stands out. I've also got a picture of the legend himself Jamie Hewlett at work, again with lots of stuff on the wall, CD's, DVD's, but still a practical work place. Another Idea I have for my avatar is to have my avatar as a part of it, for instance in both of these pictures the guys are in it, this could help link my pieces of work together more.

Who knows but I've got an idea I'm sticking with it and if I did the room idea I would have a lot of room ideas to work with, it's a good thing I reckon when you have to think about toning down the content instead of adding more in. Next stop mood board.

Practice Modelling - UVW Editor

2009-02-20T03:37:00.001-08:00

Practice Modelling - UVW Editor

Today we were given a model of a car and told how to model the textures on Photoshop. This is a really simple way of making your models look good, it does take forever to do though. I did have a bit of a panic when the image wouldn't upload to my model for ages but it's on now. So yeah check it out, I've gone for a Lamourgini style with a bit of a Ford Gt style stripe, it's not too complicated to do and I would make it easier to model my avatar.

My Journey and Using this in My Logo

2009-02-19T06:35:00.000-08:00

My Journey and Using this in My Logo

On Friday we were given a lecture in which we looked more into what makes me me. One idea I did like however was that where you grew up and the experiences you had have a huge influence on your life. This projects getting very deep very fast.

But anyway in this we created a map of our life where we were born and places we've lived. I've knocked this much neater version up on photoshop, it's very basic but I've only really lived in two places and I lived in another village for the first year of my life. I was born in Huddersfield and for at least a year lived in a village called Golcar, I then moved to Meltham which is a village near by. I thought that it was important to include the village names instead of simply Huddersfield, where I grew up the villages were very important and there was a lot of friendly local rivalry between the villages (I'm proud to be a Melthamer). Meltham is the biggest circle on the image, it's where I grew up and has had the biggest influence on my life.

Similarly the line from Golcar to Metham isn't very thick that is because, I was only young and therefore it wasn't such a big change for me. The line to Nottingham is a lot thicker, I also made Nottingham a very big spot, although I've only lived here a short time I do really like it and I think I've grown up a huge amount and this time.

From this I was able to come up with a concept for a simple logo by applying my circles idea to this map, I've already stated that my shape is a circle and I was already planning to do something along these lines. Here however I've put this into some context as they represent where I've lived, and the ripples effect shows how important this stage of my life was to me.

I do really like this idea as it takes something about me and uses it in an attractive way, it also similarly to what I did with the paint drops (making the Xbox controller), takes an initial idea that I had and uses it for something that is more relative to the project.

I love this idea but it does need developing to make it slightly simpler, I do need text as well so I'll look into this. I'm also doing a short piece of animation before my logo just as an introduction, which will look cool but if I have a more simple idea in the end like this I will also fulfill the brief.

So I'm working on the animation at the minute my original idea for this was that all the animations would form the shape of my logo, this will be hard to do however if I only have the outlines of circles. So what I am now thinking is that my animation will play they all be sucked in to a single point in the centre of the screen, immediately after my logo will appear bursting out from the same point. I think this is a cool idea, I do really want to use animation in it as I think it will serve as a good introduction to the logo, how this will relate to my logo is that all the thing in the animation; a footballer, a guitarist etc will be things that represent me and therefore are a part of what makes up the inspiration for the logo. I'm really sorry if this sounds really confusing give me a couple of days to fire out the animation and all will become clear I promise.

Logo Development - What Shape Represents Me?

2009-02-19T03:54:00.000-08:00

Logo Development - What Shape Represents Me?

For my shape I have chosen a circle, why? Well I believe that it represents me because I feel that I have a quite rounded personality without one aspect of my personality showing through more than any other.

I also like the idea of having only the outline of a circle, I think this represents how I'm not complete yet, I haven't done everything I want to do, seen what I want to see but hey I'm only 19. So I've chosen this in preference of a full circle.

Another thing that interested me about this shape is the idea of linking the shapes together. This represents the connection between people and places. I do really like this idea for instance on the left the large circle represents me while the two others represent my 2 best friends and the way we are connected. Unfortunately I'm not the only person who came up with this idea as it is the logo for one of if not THE most famous logo ever. However even they have the same idea of representing the connection between different countries. I would like to use this idea for my logo obviously I'll have to develop it away from the olympic logo but I love the idea.

Practice Modelling

2009-02-17T05:13:00.000-08:00

Practice Modelling
Ok so I decided to do some practice at 3D modelling by using the same ideas as last week where I made a very boring man. This time I thought I'd make something I like, one of my favourite game characters, the binge drinking, chain smoking squirrel Conker!

Anyway I found this a lot lot harder, but I also found some unique ways of getting around the problems I found and for the very first time I made something myself without all the work sheets or tutorials to help. So all in all not a bad session even if I didn't finish it!

I used the same principle as with the man of using box modelling I then added a single arm that was then mirrored onto the other side. I do really like that tool I probably shouldn't use it until I've finished modelling the side but it makes what I've done look awesome. I also wanted to make Conker appear to be wearing gloves, so I tried the method of extruding along a line I had cut out, I found this method very hard to use which is probably why it doesn't quite look right.

I then added the legs and beefed Conker up a bit (he's not exactly skinny) and added legs and shoes. This time I used to instet tool to tell the program not to smooth that part. This method is much more effective. Can I just say I don't like the smooth tool I think it's almost like cheating and it never quite gives you what you want but it is useful at this early stage, however I do want to eventually phase it out of my work.

So all in all not a bad session of work, I know it's not finished but I forgot my memory stick (I'll come into uni tomorrow and IF it's still on the computer I'll finish it) and I have a lecture in 15 minutes but still lets be honest it isn't the best thing you'll ever see but it's a step in the right direction.

Logo - Can You Please Everybody? Try Anyway?

2009-02-15T19:26:00.000-08:00

Logo - Can You Please Everybody? Try Anyway?

Ok first things first check this advert out for the new Blackberry, I saw this and it gave me an idea that I think can solve all of my problems that I've encountered while designing this bloody logo. Ok I kind of worked out through feedback that what I'd created originally wasn't a logo, I loved it don't get me wrong I think its awesome but it's not a logo...... a bit of a problem then. The trouble is that it was too busy to be a logo.

Anyway I then saw this advert and realised how lots and lots of images make up the shape of this phone thing. A lot like how all the paint splats form the Xbox controller on the trial I did. So the idea I have now is that all the stuff I like music, sport, art, games and so on will all combine to form my logo, and much like the Blackberry advert all these images can gradually fade out and my solid nice neat logo can be left. Just a quick point I won't use what I've got at the minute for my new logo I'll design something new from scratch.

But yeah I do really like this idea. This way I can use the style of my original logo that I did get a lot of positive feedback from but I will be left with a single logo at the end which is my brief at the end of the day. I guess this does prove that you can get an idea from anywhere. I've got so many ideas kicking around my head at the minute, I love this I can throw the kitchen sink at it and have everything on it that I love but still be left with something simple at the end. Therefore I am pleasing both sides of my feedback.

Depression Forget that! I'm an Optimist

2009-02-15T19:14:00.000-08:00

Depression Forget that! I'm an Optimist
I put a post up last week called 'Another Influence and a Good Idea!' where I think I was being a bit too worried about my work and what it means or what it will mean. What I mean is that I said I wanted to paint a picture of a depressed Britain in my work that reflects the current climate. Yeah ok then....

The major huge problem with that is that I've always prided myself on being an optimist, looking on the bright side, the glass is half full and all that jazz. So basing an entire project around something that isn't me probably isn't the best idea, especially when this is an Identities project! So I've decided to scrap that idea, you can't get out of a recession if you just say how bad it is. Instead my work isn't going to even mention it, I'm going to be me look on the bright side, and that's what my works going to say about the current climate. Even though the worlds shit most people just get on as normal instead of moaning about it, and that's what my work will say about the world.

Star Wars Galaxies Online Journal - This Game Is Massive

2009-02-14T21:31:00.000-08:00

Star Wars Galaxies Online Journal - This Game Is Massive

Once again this game has amazed me at just how huge it is. I mean look at that picture on the left, that is Mos Eisley Space Station, the place from episode 4, you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy'. Anyway this is just 1 city on the game there are lots and not to mention loads of space around the cities, and then there's outer space of course that you can explore.

And if you think for a minute that I was missing the flying thing on Second Life check this out..... My very own speeder that I can use to fly around the map because it's so big. Yeah this game is cool but I'm getting a little side tracked with the fact that I'm in the Star Wars universe so I need to look at what makes this MMO different to other and why people play it and so on. So far I have been playing on my own as well which kind of defeats the point of it being online but tomorrow I'll find my friend on the game and ask him why his Avatar looks how it does.....(it's a fish alien!)But for the minute WOW.

Star Wars Galaxies Online Journal - Day 2

2009-02-14T18:51:00.001-08:00

Star Wars Galaxies Online Journal - Day 2
Just thought that I'd put up a quick post to say how my adventures in the Star Wars world are going. Pretty well in fact, I'm getting quite into this game. There are a lot of quests and general things to do which is cool, these generally involves running around finding a certain number of items or as I am a bounty hunter 'taking care' of someone (hopefully they deserved it).

But yeah this is so much better than Second Life, it's Star Wars! I also helped out Han Solo by finding him some parts to fix the Millenium Falcon, I'm always happy to help Harrison Ford out. I also have plenty of good news as I thought I was only able to go around this trial area, but the SWG people must have taken a note out of WoWs book and let me go anywhere! So I'm going hitch a lift with either Boba Fett or Han Solo to Tatooine next time I play and I'll post back, I'll hopefully meet up with one of my friends too.

Logo Even More Feedback and a Totally New Direction

2009-02-13T12:18:00.000-08:00

Logo Even More Feedback and a Totally New Direction

Ok I think that I've finally realise that what I'd come up with before for my logo simply isn't a logo. I mean logos are meant to be simple and when Andrew my tutor pointed that out along with my Graphic Designer friend I knew that it was time to change. A great shame I know.

Anyway what next? What else can I do? well... the parts that I most liked in my current logo are the circles and the paint drops, which kind of game me an idea.The idea of ripples being caused by the paint drops, I do also like the speaker idea so in this case the circles could represent sound waves. This needs a lot of developing obviously. But yeah I'm thinking at the minuite the speaker could play out sound circles that gradually get bigger like ripples, yeah this ideas crazy, but maybe just crazy enough to work... After all that madness has happened in a short piece of animation everything will fade out and my new very simple and sleak logo will fade in where it will stay.

Oh just a quick note I did personally really like what I did for my logo before, the problem is it simply wasn't a logo. But I like it that much I'm still going to finish the piece of animation almost like aditional work, I'm not going to hand it in unless after both of my logos are finished the old one is miles better. So more of a labour of love and why not?

Building a Man

2009-02-13T03:04:00.000-08:00

Building a Man

Today we had a seminar on building a quick man which will obviously be very useful when it comes to building my avatar. I am very happy with the results. I'm finding it a lot easier to follow the work sheets we are given and am also looking at doing some more advanced stuff. For example my geezer here (who I'm calling Geoffery) has thumbs. I also like the cartoon style of his massive hands a feet an effect that is very easy to apply.

So yeah getting a lot better at this program, I'll try modelling something else soon then it should be time to crack on with my Avatar.

Star Wars Galaxies Online Journal

2009-02-12T21:18:00.000-08:00

Star Wars Galaxies Online Journal

Ok Second Life really wasn't working for me so I thought that I'd play something that I'd actually enjoy, Star Wars Galaxies. First of all this is only the 14 day trail thing, I might start playing the proper one when I get into it but that's only a might at the minute.

Anyway let me say this took literally forever to download, well the game has been out for 5 years so 5 years worth of updates.... anyway it's finished now I decided to play in the most busy server (or as this game calls it galaxy). I was then allowed to choose my race which had the usual variety that you'd expect from a Star Wars game but instead I chose to keep it simple and have a human character.

I then started editing my character to try and make it look like me. The character editing thing isn't great it has to be said, all the hair styles commit the worst 70's sins but it is quite in depth you can for instance change height and weight something most other MMO's (mainly WoW) don't let you do. I'm not even going to pretend that it look like me, it really doesn't but it's the best I could do and when I think about it the game has 10 different races all with lots of customisation available so it is pretty in depth.

I was then prompted to choose my class, I chose bounty hunter because it seemed the coolest and Boba Fett is my favourite Star Wars Character. And that's it my characters name was randomly generated he's called Evasti Destar, not a bad name and it keeps in with the whole Star Wars canon.

And that's it the familiar opening sprawl came up and I'm trapped in a space station that's exploding talk about putting you straight in the action. Anyway C3-PO no less is giving me instructions, I find a gun blast a door open only to be rescued by Han Solo, Chewie and R2-D2. That really is the best thing about this game it doesn't mind letting you meet these characters and interact with them which is very cool. Anyway we escape (naturally), even Darth Vader was chasing us you do feel very involved in the Star Wars universe, obviously your not going to be able to change history or nothing but touches like that are nice.

Anyway we escaped and land at some space station otherwise known as the starting area, what I am very happy with is that there are lots of players running about, which is always nice to know. Anyway I went looking for my first quest and was very surprised to find Boba Fett lurking in the corner giving me a few quests, again getting to meet your favourite SW character after 5 minutes of playing is very nice.

Anyway just to let you know I have played through part of this tutorial before back home but my computer wasn't good enough to run it so I never finished it.

I've also managed to get a few of my friends to download it and play they haven't started yet though so I don't really want to leave them behind, I'm going to wait and then we can all play together which really is the point of these games. But so far very nice I have to say, the graphics are awesome by the way very nice.

Another Influence and a Good Idea!

2009-02-12T11:34:00.000-08:00

Another Influence and a Good Idea!
Ok I've just been checking out some videos on youtube as you do and I came across this awesome music video.

It's by the Frattelis, I know not exactly Britain's greatest band in the world but they're ok and they've got a few anthems at least. But that's not the point though this video is awesome, it's animated. I really like the look of the characters in it and I may use this style like the caricature style.

My lecturer Jool's also made a very good point, 'what will my work say about the time I live in?' or something like that. And I think that's a wonderful point and something I hadn't thought about until now? We've been watching all of these terrible films as research and It's easy to see the time they're from such as the one with the French kid's views on rebellion and uprising in between the 2 world wars and why this idea was so scary. Well as I say I haven't even thought about this but I think that I should, so what's happening today here and now?

The recession, bad times, people losing jobs..... all very bad things.

So I was thinking that for my box idea I will use the idea of a run down and battered street. This is the kind of area I grew up in and a sight that seems to be only too normal these days, closed down local shops, graffiti, and so on. I do also like the look of the streets and the buildings in the Fratellis video, so I can do something along those lines well with the view of a run down street on top.

So how will this work, I'm thinking at the minute that the shops will all have shutters on them, however when the user scrolls over them with the mouse the shutters will all come up and clicking on it will allow them to view the thing underneath. One problem I do have though and it's only a slight problem is being able to link my logo, which is almost finished into this depressing atmosphere as it's quite bright and optimistic. Maybe the logo will appear on a television that is then nicked who knows. Anyway I'll do a quick sketch of how my street might look but I'm happy I do have an idea for it at last as I was really struggling to come up with anything.

My Online Identity...

2009-02-11T19:50:00.000-08:00

My Online Identity...
Ok I was reading a couple of peoples blogs (as you do) and one post struck me by Tom Waring, check it out, anyway and his post 'My Online Identity' where he talks about his online characters mainly his World Of Warcraft character. Although he makes some very valuable points there is one thing I disagree with 'I don't personally like to de-characterise my creations, and see them as they're own entity almost. I control the character, but I am not the character itself. That is why I don't use tom_349 for character names'.

It's not that I disagree with the fact that he makes up characters I know a lot of people that do that, but my point is I like to place myself in the game I like to think of my characters as extensions of myself not something completely different. I do however give proper names for my characters though, not adam_222 for instance my own World of Warcraft character was called 'Minaith' (very geeky I know, its a pun on Lord of the Rings 'Minas Tirath', wow I'm cool) but I still view it as me. Online games for me give the opportunity to play in a role you will never ever be able to, obviously I'm never going to be a member of the alliance or a Paladin wielding a huge sword. But I still view it as me, I play as human characters and behave as I would behave in that world. For example on my Star Wars Galaxies account I was a bounty hunter who used stealth and speed to bring down my enemies, instead of jumping straight into battles I couldn't win (I must be sounding like a right geek now).

But yeah my point is that I enter these worlds as a version of myself, unlike a lot of the people who play as a character, there's a very geeky joke about when they added voice speak to WoW 'unfortunately most of you will find out that hot night elf chick is really a dude'. Well hopefully you get my point that it is possible to play as yourself on an MMORPG even if I have sacrificed my coolness to make that point. By the Way I'm sorry there's no photo evidence of all of this but I really can't be bothered to pay £15 a month anymore.

I am really struggling to get into second life I have to admit right now so I think I'm going to download the Star Wars Galaxies Online game and hopefully get a couple of my flat mates to play it too (they're Star Wars mad too) so then it can be more of a social thing. Can I just make one point though to save me some respect I only ever played these games because my friends were at the time, I'm not like a guy who sits in his room in the dark with my pretend friends on screen I like the social aspect of being in this world with your friends. But anyway I might start playing SWG or at least the trial and see how I get on I'll post back with details later.

IMVU Avatars

2009-02-11T19:22:00.000-08:00

IMVU Avatars

Well I have been a bit of a busy bee recently doing a load of work but I haven't really done a lot in regard to the 4 week diary of a avatar thing so I thought that I'd do a little bit more for that. Everywhere I look on the Internet I seem to see advertisements for this program IMVU so I thought I'd check it out and see what it's like.

Well to begin with I was very happy that it was free (well kind of but I'll come to that it a bit), you choose a basic starting avatar when you register in the beginning, so I chose the one that looked the most like me and registered my avatar with the name 'tunderball2' (I normally use 'tunderball' as my online alias) and continued.

Once it was downloaded I found it very easy to edit my avatar, again like with the Xbox Live Avatar system it is very easy to use, however one thing I found was that a lot of the clothes and hair styles have to be downloaded for credits and although you get some to begin with you have to pay cash to get them afterwards so only the really keane players have all the cool stuff and look how they want to. But still I was able to put together an avatar that looks something like me, one thing I do like is the anime style of the program this works really well.

It is them really easy to start to chat with people, this isn't as epic as Second Life you can more around in a small room and have a chat with some people and that's about it but I quite like it because it's so simple. It's quite a good way to meet new people I don't think that I'll use it any more than I have to, for research into this project.

Logo More Feedback

2009-02-10T08:31:00.000-08:00

Logo More Feedback
I quickly showed my logo to Jools my tutor today to get some more feedback and again it was very productive. That's the thing with feedback they spot things that you don't probably because your so involved in creating it.

However, what he said was the paint splats forming the controller was too slow and it took too long for him to recognise what it was. But in regards to my main logo he did generally like it which I am very happy about. One thing he did pick up on however was that the name wasn't clear, so I made this much bigger and a more major part of the logo. Another point was the colours, not that he didn't like the blue colour scheme but perhaps diversifying the colours more, I didn't however want to get rid of the similar colour scheme.

So to solve this I totally changed the colour scheme, to a red, orange and yellow theme helping me to diversify the colours more instead of just having different shades of the same colour. This then allowed me to use the much darker red on top for my images making them stand out much more therefore solving the problem.

What I would like to try next is adding a background to help build up my image more, I do like the white background though so I'm not ruling this out but It's defiantly worth trying adding a fancy background. I probably jumped the gun a little by already starting to animate my logo and now I've changed the colour scheme I'll have to do most of it again, so we'll call it a trial just to see if the idea works and it does. But yeah I'm very happy with the way that this is going and I'm actually getting really into it, It's a fun little project that I can do from the comfort of my own flat.

Logo Movement

2009-02-10T00:01:00.000-08:00

Logo Movement

So I thought that I'd make a start on making my logo move and began with making the paint splats on Flash. I am very happy with it so far I must admit, I was slightly annoyed with having to make the entire controller again on Flash but it's done now so ah well. I don't know what else to say, animating the rest of my logo will be difficult so I thought that I'd post this part of it up just to prove that I'm doing something. So anyway enjoy sorry about the poor quality but when it's completely done I'll export it in full quality, anyway have fun...

Logo Feedback and Improvements

2009-02-09T20:42:00.000-08:00

Logo Feedback and Improvements

Ok well I showed my logo to some of my arty flat mates and got their feedback which was very positive, however they did suggest that the paint splats were a bit random in their placement, they also said that nothing on it represented my 'geeky' side ie. computer games and so forth.

So I made the paint splats form the rough shape of a Xbox controller, I think this will be most effective when it is animated so the image gradually appears, kind of a Art Attack 'can you tell what it is yet' sort of thing but yeah I'm pretty happy with the results.

I moved the speakers slightly to the left so the controller is still mostly visible underneath. Another thing that came from the feedback was that the guitar was hard to see, my flat mate didn't even realise it was a guitar until I told her. So to solve this problem I changed It's colour so that it stood out more. Other than that no major changes have been made to it really. Just to let you know I may change the location of some of the images such as my name after I've animated it but for the minute I'm very happy with it on the whole. What I like the most is the randomness of the placement of the objects on it, I think this represents my personality better than anything else, I'm not particuar fussed about being neat and tidy or symetrical, I was checking out some of my class mates blogs and the only other logo I find was by Dan Ryland and it is very good by the way check it out but I wasn't crazy about having mine dead symetrical like his although in that case it does work very well.

I think I'll show it to one of my lecturers tommorow and see what they think and unless anything majorly bad happens when they looks at it I'm going to stick with this as my final logo well maybe a few last minute changes but other than that done...... well until I make it move.

Logo Finished Well Kinda

2009-02-09T17:45:00.000-08:00

Logo Finished Well Kinda
Ok so I think that I've kind of finished my logo, which is a bit of a relief. Well by finished I mean that I've got a logo that I'm happy with I do need to get some feedback though from some people just to have a bit of a check to make sure that it's all good. A few of my friends are quite arty so that helps and one does do Graphic Design, 'it's not what you know it's who you know'.

So yeah I'll do that tommorow make a couple of changes from what they say and then worry about making it move.

Logo Further Development

2009-02-09T16:25:00.000-08:00

Logo Further Development

This is my logo after I developed it a bit more, I added circles around it to help build up the image more, I think that this works well as it adds another level between the images onto top and the paint splats undearnearth and helps to bring it into one image.

I also added my name into the logo, I decided to add it on the side so that it is easier to read instad of being on top of the rest of the image so that it is much easier to read. I also added more paint splats to help bring it into the image more. I think that it needs slightly more development but so far I'm very happy with the results, So I'll develop finish it off then worry about making it move.

Logo Development

2009-02-09T14:51:00.000-08:00

Logo Development

I decided to develop most of my initial ideas further so that I could get a sense of what they would look like when assembled.

To begin with I started by dripping paint onto a sheet of white paper and scanning in the results, I then choose the ones that I was happy with on photoshop and assembled them into a larger blog. I am very happy with this effect and I also like the idea of using two colours as I believe that it adds depth to the image.

For my first idea I choose the guitarist and I also combined this with the speaker idea, which I think works well as it builds up the image well. One problem I have though with the speaker is that if it was just a silhouette like the guitarist it would be a circle, which would be rubbish. So I gave it a threshold effect, one thing I couldn't decide however was whether to leave part of it white, here I elected not to but it's something to definitely look into. But all in all I like this logo as a starting point as it has the potential to be made into a moving logo, ie. to guitarist can jump about playing the music coming out of the speaker.

For my second Idea I simply added a footballer to the image again in silhouette, although I like the simplicity of it, I do prefer how my first logo design builds up the logo more by having more images giving it a deeper feel. I also feel the this silhouette works a lot better than the first as it is clearer what the image is doing and the pose he is taking up, again this has the potential to move when finished.

For my final design I choose to add everything into one logo which I think is my strongest idea of the three, I like how the different images interact, and how it appears that the silhouettes come from one source in this case the speaker. Obviously this idea needs a lot of development but I believe that it is the strongest idea I have come up with. I'm going to look at the positioning of my silhouettes and the posture they are taking up, I also want to look at adding my name into it somehow, one thing I am very keane on is making sure that my name simply isn't stuck onto the image so I need to find a way to make it appear to be interacting with the rest of the logo.

By the way sorry for the really rubbish presentation on this post, It's so hard to get images onto text and keep the post looking normal.