sandr093

Just some more after effects practice I did over the Holiday to stop myself from stagnating, they consist of title intros, flare elements and some 3D practice. I did a lot which I won't bore you with sharing on here, let's just say particular has given me some good ideas for year 3 :) Retro/Futuristic Title Intro   Planets Align

After much soul searching I have decided to transfer from 3D animation to moving image, after just the first week of attending the 3D classes I came to realisation that it was something I felt very little confidence and passion towards and believed I would never be motivated to push myself and excel within it. More than the just the programs being hard to pick up is the fact that I'm not the most artistically talented in terms of drawing and have little interest in modelling, I would not enjoy this side of it. I believe I have made the right choice as it is apparent now that I should do something I'm passionate about rather than just what I think is the most challenging.  I could work with others and maybe enjoy myself in the process instead of struggling and fighting with what I'm naturally good at. What may have been...

I won't go into in-depth detail to how I came to the decision (that's what the essays for) but the pathway I've finally decided upon and which I am selecting for the 2nd years is... My Four Practitioners: 1. Shingeru Miyamoto (Nintendo) - It wasn't a difficult selection, as the picture indicated Shingeru is a incredibly influential game designer and fits nicely in at the start of my essay, he represents my early discovery into the world of game animation. He's been creating pioneering, industry-shaping video games and hardware for nearly three decades. His contributions have been blatantly copied by competitors just as much as they've been applauded by players around the world. His resume includes greats such as: Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., and The Legend of Zelda, Mario Kart, F-Zero, Star Fox and Super Mario 64. 2. Phillip Dobson ( Eurocom's Lead Environment Artist) - Another easy choice, Phillip (as the second name suggests) is a relation of mine, my ...

This week has been information overload for me, I've been contemplating my pathway choice for months now, desperately searching for something to tilt me one way or the other... moving image, virtual environments, moving image, virtual environment, moving image, virtual environments e.c.t. The deal is that I am passionate about both, different stages of my life have been dominated by the two at different times, for example I studied A-level film at college and watched/made film throughout my childhood, but in more recent years a big chunk of my aspirations and spare time has been dreaming about being involved in animation in someway, partly influenced by my increased interaction with games and animated films/shows. It's a really tough decision, my life could go either way and I really want to make the right choice, I need to make a educated selection, so I'm trying to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages, another thing for me to recognize is that since I started Univers...

My main ideas and intentions that I was trying to express in the project were: To collect and portray a direct vision of visual styles, moods and personal interests that were inspirational to me in the past and present and reflect them into a current project. For the audience to reflect on my work and be able to find similarity’s to conventions of the horror genre, specifically through sound, lighting, props and overall mise en scene. For audiences to be drawn into a realistic environment and experience a consistently interesting journey, I wanted the viewer to feel almost mesmerized by the travelling motion of the 1st person perspective, picking up on fine details along the way. Creating a genuine 1st person perspective that would mimic that of a real life theme park ride, using camera movements to replicate emotions such as being shocked and then jumping backwards. Using the camera as tool to explore the different possibilities of a 3D world through experimentation with angles, rath...

3rd person perspective of boat moving through water Swamp Plant Life Fire tourches, waves & bridge I am in the final process of incorporating my created props and scare scenes into the mechanics of the ride, It's a slow process as I have to check between the perspective viewport and the camera viewport to confirm what the audience will actually see when rendered. I don't want my boat to go through walls or my underwater crocodiles to be visible before I want them, this would ruin the realism and shock values. I want the audience to feel as drawn into this environment as possible, letting them experience the journey spontaneously rather than picking up on errors. Other interesting things to mention - I have viewed real life footage from existing theme park rides to remind myself what a first person perspective would look and feel like on a ride, the view of a person would normally be constantly changing due to a mixture of involuntary head movement from the shaking of the ca...

I have decided that my haunted ride will be slightly immersed from ground level in the water material, to adapt my cart to this I have decided to create a tribal boat which will move on top of the water. I have also now started applying bitmaps and materials to my props to make them look realistic, I had to choose suitable woods to blend in with my swamp/tribal area. Collection of images below: Transition between live footage and modeled, the tribal themed canoe Finalised canoa with material added, bump map increases the age of the wood Tiki Tiki hut with added wood materials, roof needs further work Simple modeled tiki mask made form splines and bitmaps I am also in the process of creating a space warp water section, I am able to create real life physics through the Havoc engine, My water detects the mass of and objects and produces the suitable waves when an objects impacts, It also detects wherever or not an objects mass will float in the density of the water. I'm quite confu...

I am currently working on tribal themed props and scare scenes for my haunted house ride, I have completed the track layout and motion for my my track through a mixture of motion paths and sweeping lines, I stuck to my previous sketches for the inspiration and for reference while modeling. I have learnt how to apply bitmap materials to 3D objects which will help drastically in making objects look realistic. What I have Produced so far: 1st Tiki Tiki hut design, with hair and fur effect hay roof 1st design of spear, which will poke out of water The virtual representation of my track layout

 After researching I realise I want my theme to be a hybrid between zombie scare scenes and tribal props, with similar lighting to the old horror classics such as Dracula and Gotham city from batman. I can draw influence from the mine cart scene from Indiana Jones for my track layout. The below video is essentially the mix of culture and horror I want as my overall theme for the ride. Resident Evil: Below are some sketches for the cart, track layout and a scare scene: Track layout with props and scare scenes First design of cart, a mine style cart with rail like tracking Scare scene #2, Crocodile emerging from water to attack the boat cart Storyboard Various designs for entrance

Firstly I need to harness existing haunted house rides and existing media to construct the theme of my whole animation, This inspiration can be drawn from anything, from pirate and ninjas to ghosts and monsters, to get the ideas flowing I decided to examine visual styles of any films that seem relevant to me The Dead Series The dead series is a three part installment directed by George A. Romero, the whole series narrative revolves around a zombie Apocalypse, where re-animated corpses walk the earth and terrorise the remaining survivors. I am a huge fan of zombie films of any kind, they allure me with their themes of pandemonium, survival, excitement and even humour. Zombie films sometimes get bad press, as there are many that are low budget, poorly produced and uninspired, but if done right they present eerie moods and scares along with adventure. Because of my fandom I will be including aspects of different zombie films into my haunted house ride, I believe It wil...

It's a new years and with it brings a new design practice, I have progressed onto design practice 2. This module focuses on improving my skills and knowledge in a range of media, and ultimately influencing me to select a path to continue onto level 2. It's all about helping me realise the purpose of media and building up a portfolio. My first project is an animation one, I am to design, build and animate a amusement park haunted house ride, It must have the correct virtual space so that it would fit into the Waverly theatre, the aim is to provide the audience with a few scares and to draw from my own storyboards, ideas and sketches for influences, which can be anything I want. I began setting up the structure of the Waverly theatre in 3DS max on Tuesday, we were enlightened to tools such as stretch and the custom line tool, this would allow me to create doors and windows where ever I desired and to free form a basic track to which my cart would move. The possibility's of th...

Here is my final 3DS max animation for the design practice 1 module, The main addition is the camera scan of the swords at the start and the plunging into water. I believe It adds a little adventure.

I have produced and rendered two stations idents, one with sound and one without. The one with sound may need some minor tweaking and I believe the quality is reduced because access to adobe premier, to add the foley was unavailable . There isn't much to discuss at this stage until I am requested or decide to refine and alter, I doubt major changes will be necessary to the shapes and models, more likely the colours, formats and camera angles will be an issue. Here they are, in all their glory:

Now I have the basic concepts and designs for my animation, but have made no solid judgements or sense of the development stage, I like to identify the implications of my inspirations and brainstorming before I continue with later processes. This allows me to learn further and avoid possible problems arising in the future. I  adapt any new ideas created by my analysis/synthesis at this point and usually incorporate them into my current project. Analysis involves listing as many questions as you can think of regarding your project. The questions will vary from project to project but usually the majority of these questions are the same, whatever the project you are attempting. the Synthesis is the following section in the design process and is a list of answers. Quite simple really. 1) What software is most appropriate to use? 2) How long do I estimate to completion ? 3) What shapes and fonts are best and why? 4) What colours will I be adapting to my work ? 5) What is the main...

My first design process being inspiration, I decided to note down any visual styles of existing work that I enjoyed and could see potential in. These included thumbnails, drawings and videos. This helped extremely, as my creative juices were allowed to flow. Now I had my inspiration I started to brainstorm any ideas I could incorporate into my animation. These included sketches, story boards and annotations, which helped identify colours, fonts, shapes and animation movement. Samuel Dobson

My first design practice for the year is split up into three category's, interactive spaces, film and animation, each section lasts three weeks and then I advance to the next practice. I think the idea of this is to give me a taste of what each media form involves and ultimately help me decide what route I would like to take In my second year. The order in which I appear to be completing these practical assignments is: Animation  Film   Interactive Spaces Which is good because the area I'm least interested in is last, after I've completed the three areas I need to round my work up into a presentation, which will show clearly everything I've done in a ten minute talk. For my animation brief I got to play around with a piece of software called Auto Desk 3D Max, and was told that my project was to create a station ident for a channel based on my life, to keep audiences interest between shows. I viewed examples of station idents from BBC 2, ITV, CITV e.c.t, and I think I f...