Lectures- Fashion in Photography

 Fashion in photography creates dramatic and striking images and outfits. The first fashion model was Adolphe Braun (pictured right) who made clothing her art being incredibly theatrical in her costumes and masks. These images she created were really unconventional and sparked off using fashion as a subject.

Mentioned briefly in the Lecture was the programme 'Seven Photographs that Changed Fashion', which I had watched when it aired. It follows the Fashion Photographer Rankin attempting to recreate seven of the most iconic photographs in fashion. 'Rankin exposes the ways in which fashion photography uses fantasy and beauty to communicate something about reality.' Which was quite interesting, especially his use of older cameras, etc, to re-create the style of the image.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00gq75c

 Theatricalism in fashion photography seems to effect film too. I found this website: http://www.fashioninfilm.com/. Which illustrates some of the use of dramatic imagery - through extravagant costumes and poses, used in film. I'm also reminded of the costumes in Tim Burton's 'Alice in Wonderland' (since I've been researching him for my essay), which are also striking and dramatic. (Pictured right)

 Fashion in photography is changing and spreading now. 'Everyday' photo's of 'Normal' people in the street are used to spot the latest trends and fashions, though this imagery isn't as striking it does create a more 'realistic' down-to-earth view of fashion, as complex photography and fashion, though incredibly visually impacting, doesn't really promote clothes that would be worn by regular people. Fashion in photography isn't even confined to the pages of a glossy magazine any more, as many people set up websites and blogs showing what they're wearing through photographs from their mobile etc.

A bigger mood board and more ideas.

Collecting a range of images is allowing me to develop my ideas in a lot more detail, and slowly my concept is become a little bit more clarified in my head. I am leaning towards the idea that the UFO is also ancient, resembling more of a ship than anything too futuristic, and is abandoned overgrown, but still quite beautiful. I like the idea of having statues of some sort that have been part of the ship broken and covered in moss. Whether or not I'd be able to create these is another matter though.

(> I've used statues from Doctor Who -the weeping angels - to roughly illustrate that sort of thing I mean, this would probably be done in texturing... Though I will have to be able if I can achieve this level of detail)

Reading Material - Computer Game Design Course

For this Module we are using the book 'The Computer Game Design Course (principles, practices and techniques for the aspiring game designer)' which is incredibly useful, giving great tips and advice on how to go about developing concepts and building them.

Design Inspirations: outside interests and personal experiences , such as literature and real world locations, sketchbooks and notebooks are helpful to have to hand, photos and cuttings drawings and workings.  Questioning is incredibly useful too, questioning why something is what it is could lead to Activision's Call of Duty 2, recognised that the concept of a health box was artificial, so came up with a newer compromise that actually creates more tension in the gameplay. asking questions etc.


Gathering Material: Having a range of resources and materials, from first hand to photos are always good when it comes to design. The us of mood boards, morphing and distorting references, etc. This can help inspire, for example bugs could become some form of machine, offering organic and in sense 'new' shapes. Recording these references are important to design work - and help give a realistic/believability to designs.


Design Process: It's important to look at things that already exist - not only to avoid repeating, but to see how challenges have been overcome in the past, and what is successful as well as what doesn't work.


Research and Development: As said above it is important to be aware of the current market and what has done well. Other aspects, such as the audience should be considered, as well as age - especially in game as there are certain classifications that would determine the sales of the product.


Game Concept:  It is important to have a strong concept to build designs of - this will give a believability to the work - even if it is fantasy. It is key to design most assets, so they fit as a whole environment, as well as considering Sound Design. Sound Design is incredibly important in creating atmosphere and can be key to 'selling' an environment to the audience.

Lothlorien - Lord of the Rings

I am aware that at the moment I'm mainly focusing on the environment of the 'UFO crash site' instead of the UFO itself, but since my concept is of the UFO being old and abandoned, the environment (the tree's etc) taking over becomes key to the overall feel I am wanting to create.

I've recently re-watched The Lord of the Ring's trilogy and have been re-introduced to some of the beautifully crafted sets and designs in the films. One of note that seems relevant to my concept is the set of Lothlorien. It's got an other worldly, ancient feel to it, slightly 'magical' in the way it is lit, with a  glowing aura. This is highlighted by the blue/green colours without seeming too cold.

There's a calmness yet extravagance in the design, which is just beautiful. I'm really warming to the idea of the 'set' I build being ancient, despite being a UFO, perhaps less decrepit than I originally planned.

Work by Levi Hopkins

Levi Hopkins works as a concept artist for the game industry. His work is incredibly impressive and beautiful incorporating great imagery and colours.


His work can be found here:
http://levihopkinsart.blogspot.com/
His style is really nice, and images rendered to a high quality, there's a luminosity in them that I really admire, and is the sort of effect I want to capture in my designs for this module. In general too the images appear 'full' and illustrate depth and scale, which is something I want to achieve in my concept art.

I especially like this image, the shape and textures are quite 'organic' in a way, with the curving and slightly shambolic structure. There's a level of detail too that completes the image, this kind of detail, if I were to have it in my 'scene' would be added through the texturing of my objects. A few other images of key interest are here, here and here (the cogs overgrown with moss etc, particularly are relevant to my work so far, they give a sort of other worldly yet 'old' feel) colours. This is a little different and has a more organic, and slightly more colourful look, it's lovely though and has a sort of 'alien' feel to it which again is an effect I'd like to achieve.

Shiny Trees and Shiny Cogs

This is an initial sketch and colour incorporating the idea's I have at the moment for this module (Game). I am leaning towards the idea of the UFO crash site seeming quite organic and beautiful (instead of all metallic and square), though I am aware this would be quite hard to model (That tree alone looks so daunting...) I'll be able to make adjustments as I research and develop.

Texturing and lighting will be very important if I am to achieve this sort of look, I should look in depth at tree and wood textures, as well as more metallic materials. I quite like the idea of cogs and wires being exposed, so may look a little into steampunk work, though I don't want things to become too mechanical.

Gotye - Bronte

This is a lovely animation to accompany Gotye's song 'Bronte':



The animation's soft and quite slow, using pastel colours to create a calm atmosphere. This compliments the music really well. It is mainly the settings, the background, and use of lighting which create the peaceful atmosphere, giving the animation a richness - despite the main characters quite simple colourings.  It's clear too, what the story is, without needing a voice over or for the lyrics to narrate whats happening. This seems to make it quite universal, the idea of losing imagination and your childhood.

Lecture - A History of Advertising

The lecture gave a brief insight into the history of advertisement, mainly focusing on the importance of 'soap' to it's development.

Advertisement is everywhere and spans loads of different medias. From magazines to videos to games. Advertising film is incredibly important for the success of the film. If no-one knows about it, or aren't intrigued by the trailer, then it's less likely it'll be seen. (Common sense really). 

This is why the advertising of the Hunger Games is quite interesting. It's illustrating the range of devices used to create hype. For example, all the books are suddenly clearly available in major retailers, along with merchandise (such as wrist bands and posters) before the film has even been released. It's strongly implied that it will do well, so with this in mind, people will be curious to see it. 

The trailer itself is quite intriguing, explaining the concept without ruining the story (choosing not to show the major action that will come later). The use of music too is incredibly powerful and builds up a slightly eerie and slightly dangerous atmosphere. 

Terrain and Textures

Using the Terrain tool in Unity allows you to quickly create an environment, such as mountains etc, with a tool similiar to a paintbrush. You can basically 'draw' the mountains and sculpt them into the height/smoothness you want.

Texturing these elevation you create suddenly will give atmosphere to what you are creating. Layering and collecting different textures allows a level of detail to be achieved and adds to the overall effect of the environment. Adding texture is also done using a paintbrush like tool, this allows some control and 'artistic flare' to be added.

Terrain assets can also be downloaded, for example trees, this then allows you the option the 'paint' trees onto the terrain, which is incredibly useful for backgrounds.

In Passing - Chris Croucher

In Passing - a short film, set in 1940's London, by Chris Croucher, starring Lesley Sharp, Russell Tovey & Sean Pertwee, tackles the emotions of grief and saying goodbye. It's a nice little short film which illustrates the impact strong actors can have on a piece. Russell Tovey's acting is, as usual, fantastic, he's got a subtlety in his expressions that's really powerful and genuine.There's a quietness to this film, highlighted by  the mournful movements of Lesley Sharp coupled with slow moving shots, for example, there's no urgency during the sirens. This and the initial and final shots highlight the constant repetition of this grief in the war, and accentuates the importance and worth of every soldier that has fought. 

http://www.chriscroucher.com/films/in-passing

Initial thoughts and oo getting a bit excited.

So we have a few options as to what environment we make, and I was torn between Fairytale and Crashed UFO site, because both are really good start points.

For the moment I've decided to take on Crashed UFO sites, and have had a few initial ideas.

I like the idea of the wreckage of a crash that's been there quite a while, (not entirely sure how long yet, we'll see) to the point where it's starting to blend a little with it's surroundings. There's the idea that perhaps it's been altered as the years have passed (perhaps to repair it, or just keep it functioning/standing). Things have begun growing with/on it, and it becomes still and forgotten over time, perhaps lost for a while.

 The vibe should be quite calming if a tad surreal, I don't think this scene should necessarily be a dangerous place. Something that really seems fitting at the moment is the film A.I by Steven Spielberg (despite it not being about aliens). 'Pogo' has remixed the film to create this beautiful piece of music, which captures the feel of the film, it has a sort of sad innocence to it, which I love. It's soft, and quite light, carrying an 'otherworldly' sound with it, and has the sort of feel I want for the environment. As the 'set' will not be that interactive it will be, in a sense, 'stuck in time', I'd like to create the same sense of stillness this piece of music captures.

I really could listen to this constantly...

Texture is Everything

Instead of having a crazily high Polygon count, it's more practical to give simpler shapes good textures and give the illusion of depth etc. Plus it makes things look good. Since this module is game art and not programming, this is incredibly important.

We were introduced to effects such as bump mapping etc through following the 'tutorial' of texturing a crate. This allowed us to see the different effects that can be achieved, as well as highlighting the importance of using Photoshop to achieve some of them.

Starting with Unity.

For our next Module (Game Art) we've been introduced to using Unity, as it will be a key player in making our end product. For the moment we are focusing on 'scenography', not actual gameplay or interaction, therefore we have been learning techniques that will be useful when creating our 'sets'.We'll be using a 'First Person Controller' to move around the sets we build.

I'm enjoying using Unity at the moment, finding it quicker to get to grips with than Maya (though probably using Maya has helped this ease in someway) and am excited by the potential the program has to produce something interesting.

The left image illustrates some of the Render Settings on the programme, such as the Skybox (which creates a sky) and Fog. These are brilliant because already it seems like a world is coming together.

It was really motivating to see how much progress could be made in a short amount of time as we began following a 'practice brief' and building a Dock. This was done by  blocking out the scene then adding things such as a Skybox and water etc.

We also began using Lights, which seem to work in the same way as those in Maya, they add to the over all effect and 'vibe' of the set, and will be very useful in our actual end 'sets' that we build. These lights could be coloured to create different moods to the scene, for example the image to the right is 'nighttime' (and with a nighttime sky set to the Skybox it seems quite plausible.

Final Animation

So this is my final animation. I'm pretty happy with it, though obviously there's room for improvement (I really want to get rid of the few seconds of darkness at the end) and if I had more time, I'd perhaps work on sound a bit more too. I've enjoyed the process, though it's been a very heavy workload to get it to the standard I wanted, for example, I changed the eyes after a while as I wanted to create more expressionate characters. It's been a big learning curve though - I wouldn't have believed I would be capable of making this at the beginning of the module, as I could barely model a truck.

Cameras, Rendering and Sound.

Renders: I wanted my animation to be quite clean, with simple colours and smoothed shapes, as it was based on a toy so I wanted to keep a 'pre-school' type feel. Originally I planned to add a white background and smooth the characters manually (as they were quite blocky - see pictures to the right) but was then shown how to render using Mental Ray.

This created a really nice finish to my animation with the lighting looking really soft and the characters looking more whole. It allowed me to create some nice visuals, and mimic my storyboard to the extent I wanted. It was quite exciting to see the render-previews as I was animating, as it illustrated how it would look finished, which gave me hope for the overall finished product.

Camera: Knowing how my rendered shot would look like I then focused on the camera angles, as I wanted to be able to illustrate the story clearly. (The little cat thing being scared - the big cat thing being dominant and scary)

Sound: After positioning the Camera angles and Rendering all my frames the animation needed sound. Though I searched for copyright free sounds and music it became very time consuming and hard to find exactly what I was imagining. Instead I used the soundbooth to create the sounds myself, such as the footsteps and cats 'meows'. I also enrolled help to create some simple backing music and additional sounds. This hopefully added to the over all animation.

Making Large Cat-Thing Move

So after paying so much attention to the Little Cat Thing, it finally came to animate...the Large Cat Thing (I should've really given them names). This was simpler as I had already worked out how certain aspects (Such as the tail etc) should be animated on the Little Cat thing, so only had to transpose these deformers to the Larger model. It was then just a matter of timing for the opening of the mouth, and how I would make it lurch forward.

When tilting the body forward the static feet were incredibly obviously, so needed to follow the body a little (so the big cat things form still had some validity). I wasn't happy with them just tilting upwards so added deformers to them so they would bend. This seems to enhance the lurching effect and works quite nicely.

Timing was also important when doing this, as by lurching and moving the top of the head first it looked like the jaw was opening, instead of the head swinging back. This meant I should 'unhinge' the top of the head before any major movements occurred. 

             

Pocoyo!

I've been quite heavily inspired by the children's animation Pocoyo for this animation project, so thought it was about time I blog about it.
Pocoyo is aimed at children but is enjoyed by all ages because of it's good quality. It's design (a white background and simple shapes and colours) is appealing to the eye, and allows the narrative to flow through the animation.

A quote - taken from the 'Re-Imagining Animation - The Challenge Face Of The Moving Image - Paul Wells and Johnny Hardstaff' - summarises this sentiment:

'The simple, clean design also enables the animation to embrace a range of engaging choreographic motion and events.' 


The colourful, plasticine textures and slight cartoonish design allows Pocoyo to be animated in a slightly cartoony way (instead of constant 'realism'). The animation is playful, allowing jumps between motion that seem more expressive than jerky and exaggerations that add to the energy of the characters. (For example I love that Pocoyo goes flying at 5:24 in the below video)


By having such expressive characters (with individual character-specific movements) Pocoyo is able to transcend language barriers (as it is originally a Spanish creation) by not being reliant on speech from the characters to drive the narrative. Timing too is used to enhance the expressions of the characters, and overall has great comedic value. Pocoyo is funny in a way that will appeal to adults (there is subtlety and detail in the animation - such as Pocoyo changing gear in the above video -) as well as children and is overall a lovely bit of animation.

I want to emulate the simple yet expressive design and animation of the characters in my own animation. The slightly plasticity effect is quite similar to the texture of my original toy and seems quite playful yet aesthetically pleasing in a white environment. However more importantly, I want my animation to be expressive enough to convey a narrative without a narrator and good enough to justify being in a white space.

This article on Pocoyo seems to sum up the advantages of pocoyo's simple design and finely tuned animation brilliantly : http://mayersononanimation.blogspot.com/2011/11/genius-that-was-pocoyo.html

Hmmm...it's a bit..shaky.

I've been key framing the Little cat thing to move quickly left and right (up and down etc.) to create a shaky effect. It seems ok, if a little too jerky, and I realised, at a distance it's a lot harder to notice.

This was the shaking up close.

This, however, is it at a distance:

So in order to notice the shake, I thought I'd attempt to make it move back and forth a little too. (I'm also  considering seeing what fluctuating the body size will do.)

To speed up the process as well, I used the graph editor and oscillated the 'shaking' movement, in order to key frame more quickly. The graph editor was also handy in attempting to make the shake a little smoother. The below video illustrates the (hopefully noticeable different) in shake, and the stage which I am at at the moment. I still think the shake should be restrained a bit more (as it seems to jerk out).

Shaking, Tails and Hindsight.

The Little cat thing is meant to be scared, so to make it shake I keyframe every frame and shift it's body ever so slightly, to add to the 'fear' it's meant to present I wanted the tail to curl round it's body, I imagined something like THIS (-Picture from a previous blog). Thinking it'd be simple to make happen with a few deformers...

Unfortunately this wasn't the case...(I spent forever trying to make this work!!)
I've realised now I probably should have modelled the tail as a simple long shape, and then created it's bent shape with deformers, making it a lot more agreeable when it came to animating. However I didn't, and time restraints prevent me from recreating the tail (as I've already animated it wagging etc.)

Instead I've reached a compromise, making the tail drop and curl up.

 The animation again is a little slow when it comes to the tail - but I'll edit this later (and the shaking should continue):

Oh Graph-Editor :)

Timing's really important in films/animations to capture and keep attention and I've just not been happy with mine in my animation so far:

The walking sometimes jerked and tail swayed out of time a little, some things just took a little too long to happen - for example the 'jumping-in-shock' motion is too slow removing any of the 'shock' factor I wanted as there is no urgency - it looks like its happening underwater.

Therefore I began tinkering with the Graph Editor, cleaning up any unnecessary key frames (this helped make smoother movement) and altering the timings of movement.

The below video is some of the animation after being altered with the graph editor, some of the changes aren't as noticeable as the others, but the walk has become a little smoother and faster. The jump is a lot quicker - perhaps too quick? I'm not quite sure.... Either way it is an improvement on before, I've realised just how useful the graph editor can be!

Walking!

So I've been trying to give my character a little bit more life, attempting to make the movement flow more and seem more interesting to the eye. The body of the little cat thing originally tilted left and right by rotating around a central pivot. 

This seemed a little static so by moving the pivot lower and swinging the body left and right the little cat thing seems to have more expressive movement. I want it to seem cheerful and carefree at the start, and this seems to be a step closer to achieving this. The timing is still a little off so I need to alter that.