At the start of this project I was rather skeptical regarding the necessity of doing it and wondering how it would benefit me, other than taking up a large chunk of my time, however with it now behind me I look back and can see how it has been helpful in improving my understanding of what I want to do.
Making me focus my attention on the specifics of my interest in 3D and animation I have gained a clearer idea of the area that appeals to me most as well as finding a large quantity of inspirational and high quality professional work in my attempts to find practitioners to discuss.
As well as gaining a better concept for a future goal on this project, I also took it upon myself to use the opportunity to advance my 3D and animation abilities and produce a piece of work I can honestly say I am proud of. I feel as though I have achieved this as, although my great schemes were foiled by the curse of extensively long rendering times, I still am happy with the result and was content with leaving it how it was, resisting the urge to reproduce the entire 3D section, incorporating steam, puddles and generally making the scene look much gloomier and dank as well as fixing those niggling things that only I notice.
Here it is, my complete visual essay
And now I hope with this project finished and my summer technically started I will be able to relax and work on some of my own ideas I have been brewing for a while.
With the deadline looming for this project I have made a lot of progress with my animation. Having been faced with dauntingly long rendering times for the 3D portion of the project, reaching close to 450 hours at its max, that section is now behind me, having produced a scene I am happy with to use at the backdrop for my animation.
Below are some screenshots showing the development of the 3D scene from modeling, to finished with textures.
One thing I am disappointed about is the noticeable difference between the above and below image in terms of having much stronger shadows in the above one. This is down to having to use lower settings for the shadow mapping to avoid extremely long rendering times, which I feel makes the scene lower quality, but still suitable for what is intended.
As well as the finishing of the 3D section I have begun work on the editing and compiling of video clips and voice-over that will make up the essay part of the project, explaining my decision for choosing virtual environments.
Last but not least I have also improved my intro scene, making it higher quality and smoothing out the timing issues to be added to the beginning of my animation once it is complete.
Over the past couple of weeks I have had minor developments on my visual essay project with a number of ideas being considered, reconsidered and then scrapped due to unimpressive results or the inability to achieve them at my skill level.
Even with this I have made some progress in refining my concept of how I want my animation to look. Firstly I know that I want to take the opportunity whilst working on this essay to improve my ability with 3Ds Max and gain a better understanding of the areas I haven't had much contact with.
I know for my animation I will have a single background scene following a steampunk theme as this will be very mobile and active, allowing me to experiment with animation and particle effects such as smoke/steam in 3Ds Max.
To implement a way of showing video and images in my animation that fits in with the whole theme and doesn't appear out of place I have designed and started modelling a small, flying robot that shall be attached to a TV monitor floating around the scene. This monitor shall take focus when necessary to display video footage and have also considered other mechanisms that can enter the scene to show images rather than overlaying them directly onto the screen.
Robot Untextured
Robot Textured
For my introduction I have looked at a couple of different possibilities involving animating the text in someway. My original intention was to have the text be formed from separate shapes, using the 'Morpher' tool, in a similar fashion to the Transformers title sequence, however I wasn't pleased with the finished result so, looking at other methods I could use, I followed a tutorial to produce an effective exploding text animation utilizing a number of different tools including particle effects and forces such as gravity. I am much happier with the end result and believe that this will be perfect for the introduction to my essay.
The only points I am still considering are musical accompaniments for the intro and other parts of my animation, as well as the level of texture detail I am going to attempt, as I want it to be a high quality scene with a number of animated parts.
Originally coming from
an architectural studies background, Bagiński left this field to make movies.
His first movie Rain (1998) won some
local based awards that moved his career to working with Platige Image; a
Warsaw based post-production company focusing on advanced animation and special
effects for films. His first short film, The
Cathedral (2002),took him three
years to produce and received first prize at SIGGRAPH, an annual conference attended
by computer professionals, held in the United States.
Fallen Art (2004), Bagiński’s second short film received several
awards including another at the SIGGRAPH festival in 2005, making him the only
artist to have received two main awards from it.
He has done a variety
of other works including more short films and game cinematics as well as
commercials for a variety of different companies.
His current project is
a feature length film entitled Hardkor 44,
a steampunk/ fantasy based story of the Warsaw Uprising.
From looking at his
works I see some common themes within them. The environments he creates are
always quite surreal and might have some inspiration from his architectural
studies with the level of detail and design that they take, giving them sense to
the structure, whilst still having an unrealistic appearance. In his films
there is always a great deal of emotion effectively conveyed that grips the
audience and makes them more than just a visual piece, but thought provoking as
well. The works I have seen all have a deeper underlying message that is not
apparent until there dramatic end, making them seem light hearted and comical
at first e.g. Fallen Art, but have a
moment of strong emotion through a combination of the visual and audio used that
portrays the reality of the situation within it.
The main reason his
work is both the level of detail as well as the effect it has on the audience,
something that I hope to achieve in my own work by having it compelling and have
an underlying message. The surrealism of his characters and environments is
something I also like with it always having interested me and been something I have
personally wanted to create.
Rain (1998)
The Cathedral (2004)
The Kinematograph (2009)
An Animated History of Poland (2010)
The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings - Intro (2011/12)
The main thing that appealed to me about animation are the characters themselves. Their exaggerated features that make their role in the animation instantly recognizable if something I find to be very effective in quickly giving a personality to a character in a short space of time. I can see similarities between this style and that of Pixar studios characters such as the Incredibles.
Each character is recognizable for their individual physical appearance that in some cases is exaggerated to make it abundantly clear. This aspect of producing characters that are visually interesting and stylized in a caricaturist manner is something that has always appealed to me. One reason for this is their simplistic design that has a sense of humour to it, coupled with the animating style that complements the characters appearance with an exaggerated movement style that suits the visual style as a whole. For example, the Drown to Life animation has two characters, the small child character that has a scrawny body with a large head. His movement is very quick and nimble, which is something expected from a character of his style. Meanwhile the other character, the large, angry man has a much bulkier movement to him that reflects the character being big and overweight. However, even though both characters are very different in terms of their physical design, they both also move in a slapstick manner later in the animation with them bouncing around, fighting each other.
This other animation also uses this exaggerated style for its
characters, but also utilizes it for the environment and structures as
well, with very elaborate contraptions and rickety tower buildings that
would be impossible in reality. The emotion conveyed, much like the
first one, is done very effectively without the used of words, but
rather the facial expressions used. In the first animation they are all
very exaggerated and comical and compliment the theme of it, however in
'Fallen Art', the second animation, each characters facial expression is
much more detailed and realistic with slight sighs or audible cues
narrating their emotion as well.
Having recently watched a video discussing narrative and the authentic self there were a few points that interested me when I considered them. One point stated was that of the two being connected by associated values in the sense of maintaining consistency through coherency and growth possibility. From this I gather that in the same way that a story has plot points or aspects that allow for further development of these ideas or twists in the story arc, ones description of their authentic self through narrative is used to show possibility and change the unordered chaos of life into a more logical order show development and progression.
Another point made by Father Tim Clancy in the discussion was the way we cast ourselves in a narrative has an effect on our esteem or emotions. Stating that bringing coherence to everyday events or activities can empower or dis-empower you depending on the genre in which they are told and what character within the story you play, be it the protagonist, antagonist, hero or victim. To me this reflects on how we see ourselves and the part we played in a particular narrative, effecting our emotions and the opinions of those around us.
Something I thought was related to the idea of esteem and others opinions was a point that they want to be individual, but not separate and stay within a community, making me think of popularity as well as wanting to stand out among the crowd and be unique.
Overall I found the discussion rather interesting in terms of how it approached the subject and the different arguments made for it and to some degree could understand the concept they were describing whilst not having a complete grasp of their ideology.
Simon Cornish is an
independent animator, illustrator and scriptwriter who provides the Mental Roy character
illustrations for a monthly column in 3D World magazine as well as writing other
articles and reviews.
Originally starting
with a chemistry degree where he worked under a Nobel Prize winning professor,
he moved on to a motorcycle instructor business to fund his animation degree. Cornish
produces work in a variety of fields including visual effects, 3D CGI and
animation working for and having worked with a variety of companies including
Future Publishing and related magazines, producing illustrations and writing
articles for them as well as a variety of other projects he has worked on for
different companies.
One particular reason I
like his style is because of the simplistic, comical work he produces. In
particular his Mental Roy character illustrations are very varied and in some
cases of a mature nature that are very effective at conveying a message whilst
maintaining the same style and character traits.
The Rule of Thirds applies to the location of elements within an image and states that, when splitting up an image into a 9x9 grid, key points of interest should be placed on the points of intersection where they act as the main area a viewer would focus on. This rule is used in a number of different fields with a few being photography and where to position the important subjects in an image, as well as film and where characters or main plot elements should be placed to maintain the audiences focus.
