Well, my last post was about how much id been neglecting this blog, then i went and didnt post anything for a year, great dedication on my behalf right there haha. Hopefully THIS time round i'll remember to keep this thing going.
So updates seem like they're in order! First off, completed second year and currently 6 weeks into my third year (eep!). I'll most likely get posting my second year work soon in a catch up post, but tonight lets keep it in the here and now.
Started off the year pretty slow, being ill is not so good for building up the motivation to work. But now that motivation is well and truly mine, and im hoping to keep the work flow going steady once i catch up to where i should be in everything.
Speaking of everything, heres an overview of my work for the next few months:
Advanced Visualisation - gotta make a 30 second 3D character animation, including lip synced dialogue
Advanced Interaction - Need to make an interactive service to help with a variety of themes (i chose tourism)
Screenwriting - Must create and develop a story idea for a digital media
Personal Project - My personal favourite, in this we are in groups working on client briefs for mostly games.
In my next posts ill go over these and what im doing in detail, with some pretty pictures to spruce the place up a bit. But for now, im going to catch me a healthy 8 hours sleep! Highly unusual activity from me haha
Monday, 24 October 2011
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
Well its been a while
The titles kind of sums up the general gist of this post, i completely forgot about this over the (awesomely awesome) summer, but people keep reminding me about it and telling me to post something. Do people enjoy reading this more than i do writting it or something? - and i do quite like it, its rather fun..
So yeah, thats me into 2nd year and its been goooooood so far. Ill put a quick summary of my modules along with what i have planned for them, and probably the next few posts ill scan some sketches and so forth
Sound Effects and Psychoacoustics
What an awesome title, psychoacoustics, great word. Basically our task for the next 8 remaining weeks (eek...) is to come up with a sound library for a demo level of a game. The game description (i don't think it actually exists) is a bunch of English knights storming a French castle, on a quest to find a magic sword, set during the medeival period (if the first part didn't give it away). The demo level is set in a courtyard of the castle at dawn, when the statues of the castle come to life to fight the intruders. So theres a bit of the supernatural in there which will require some imaginative sound design. So right now my ideas mainly consist of loads of little things flying around my head of what sounds i can use for what and so forth. I'll need to write a list sometime soon.
Entertainment Design
Probably going to be my hardest module this semester as we're learning action-script, and so far i haven't been able to get anything working in it. I think ill do a bunch of tutorials soon though, to try and boost my confidence in it. On the upside however, our task was to come up with a fun and interactive game concept and I'm loving mine. Short Version: Seagulls shitting on peoples head. Long Version: The seagulls of the world, sick of the humans, have united forces under one leader, and declare war upon humankind. Squadrons of seagulls fly to every major city across the world, and prepare a bombing run. The player plays as a seagull, and has to aim and poo on peoples heads. Iv been thinking through some of the game mechanics lately and iv figured out how i would implement more difficult levels, a reward/punishment system etc. Im also still working out the artistic style i want. Im thinking of making it look old fashioned, perhaps an art deco kind of look, or perhaps a world war 2 film look to it, old fashioned and grainy. Perhaps a combo of the two, who knows? (I should, but oh well!)
3D Production Design
No coursework as of yet (Wooooo party time!! *grabs pinyata*) BUT we will be getting tested (Awwww *puts away pinyata*)on our knowledge of maya techniques of which we learn in tutorials. So pretty much were learning how to use maya, without the stress of also having to making something while your learning. So iv just been playing around on it, making little things, doing additional tutorials, etc etc
Life Drawing
Its that time of year again folks, grab your pencils and a sketchpad and go draw some people! - Thats what they should have done as the introduction, Its short and accurate. Drawing models in the studio, and drawing people outside the studio. Lots and lots of drawing people. I'm really getting into it actually, Im surprised at how full my sketchbook is currently, think iv filled 12 or so pages, a little over a quarter, thats like the amount i filled of one sketchbook the entire semester last year, if i keep this up i might have started a second one!
So yeah, thats me into 2nd year and its been goooooood so far. Ill put a quick summary of my modules along with what i have planned for them, and probably the next few posts ill scan some sketches and so forth
Sound Effects and Psychoacoustics
What an awesome title, psychoacoustics, great word. Basically our task for the next 8 remaining weeks (eek...) is to come up with a sound library for a demo level of a game. The game description (i don't think it actually exists) is a bunch of English knights storming a French castle, on a quest to find a magic sword, set during the medeival period (if the first part didn't give it away). The demo level is set in a courtyard of the castle at dawn, when the statues of the castle come to life to fight the intruders. So theres a bit of the supernatural in there which will require some imaginative sound design. So right now my ideas mainly consist of loads of little things flying around my head of what sounds i can use for what and so forth. I'll need to write a list sometime soon.
Entertainment Design
Probably going to be my hardest module this semester as we're learning action-script, and so far i haven't been able to get anything working in it. I think ill do a bunch of tutorials soon though, to try and boost my confidence in it. On the upside however, our task was to come up with a fun and interactive game concept and I'm loving mine. Short Version: Seagulls shitting on peoples head. Long Version: The seagulls of the world, sick of the humans, have united forces under one leader, and declare war upon humankind. Squadrons of seagulls fly to every major city across the world, and prepare a bombing run. The player plays as a seagull, and has to aim and poo on peoples heads. Iv been thinking through some of the game mechanics lately and iv figured out how i would implement more difficult levels, a reward/punishment system etc. Im also still working out the artistic style i want. Im thinking of making it look old fashioned, perhaps an art deco kind of look, or perhaps a world war 2 film look to it, old fashioned and grainy. Perhaps a combo of the two, who knows? (I should, but oh well!)
3D Production Design
No coursework as of yet (Wooooo party time!! *grabs pinyata*) BUT we will be getting tested (Awwww *puts away pinyata*)on our knowledge of maya techniques of which we learn in tutorials. So pretty much were learning how to use maya, without the stress of also having to making something while your learning. So iv just been playing around on it, making little things, doing additional tutorials, etc etc
Life Drawing
Its that time of year again folks, grab your pencils and a sketchpad and go draw some people! - Thats what they should have done as the introduction, Its short and accurate. Drawing models in the studio, and drawing people outside the studio. Lots and lots of drawing people. I'm really getting into it actually, Im surprised at how full my sketchbook is currently, think iv filled 12 or so pages, a little over a quarter, thats like the amount i filled of one sketchbook the entire semester last year, if i keep this up i might have started a second one!
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
Sum-up
Well its been a while since my last proper entry here (not including that single image post for dynamic communications - i was just feeling lazy that time) So ill run through a quick summary of how my works been going the past few weeks.
The life drawing deadline came and went, my desire to do as many drawings as possible to add onto the minimum of 4, led me to a fairly sleep deprived, stressful, but overall satisfying result of 12 final drawings (with another 4 planned but lacking motivation on the last leg... ah well, life goes on)
Next up was some audio, i took an audio recorder out from the library and did what recordings i could at that time, and finished the rest at a later date. So i am now in possession of what i believe is everything i need to complete my audio coursework, and i've set myself a deadline of friday to do it (todays wednesday right? hmmm... i better not take too much longer on this thing in maya - ill get to that soon)
After the first batch of audio recordings and before the last, was dynamic communications. Me and George got together over the holidays and got to work on designing our "natural cathedral" (see previous post). It took us about 16 hours or so to finish, and we took pictures of the progress at intervals and plan on creating a small animation to show the evolution of our idea. That can be done quite quickly and easily so it can wait for now.
Finally, we get to maya. Oh maya, iv already had the rant about maya on here sometime earlier in the year so i wont bother again. I'll just say things havent changed. Iv been (and still am as i write this) stumped as to how to get further in the creation of one particular shape i designed for my environment: the top of the lookout/entrance tower. I seem to be full of ideas on how to most easily go about it, however each in turn decides to crash and burn and slowly douse the small flame of hope left in me. I stumbled upon a way to create a very similar shape to the one i desire, however i feel that if maya is going to be a major part of my life for the next few years (possibly much longer too) then "very similar" just isnt quite going to cut it. I want my shape. And i wont stop till i get it.
...Or until the deadline begins to encroach and i start thinking it best to have something rather than nothing, but lets not think of that shall we. Ill leave on a positive note - brought home all my in-class life drawing, yay!
The life drawing deadline came and went, my desire to do as many drawings as possible to add onto the minimum of 4, led me to a fairly sleep deprived, stressful, but overall satisfying result of 12 final drawings (with another 4 planned but lacking motivation on the last leg... ah well, life goes on)
Next up was some audio, i took an audio recorder out from the library and did what recordings i could at that time, and finished the rest at a later date. So i am now in possession of what i believe is everything i need to complete my audio coursework, and i've set myself a deadline of friday to do it (todays wednesday right? hmmm... i better not take too much longer on this thing in maya - ill get to that soon)
After the first batch of audio recordings and before the last, was dynamic communications. Me and George got together over the holidays and got to work on designing our "natural cathedral" (see previous post). It took us about 16 hours or so to finish, and we took pictures of the progress at intervals and plan on creating a small animation to show the evolution of our idea. That can be done quite quickly and easily so it can wait for now.
Finally, we get to maya. Oh maya, iv already had the rant about maya on here sometime earlier in the year so i wont bother again. I'll just say things havent changed. Iv been (and still am as i write this) stumped as to how to get further in the creation of one particular shape i designed for my environment: the top of the lookout/entrance tower. I seem to be full of ideas on how to most easily go about it, however each in turn decides to crash and burn and slowly douse the small flame of hope left in me. I stumbled upon a way to create a very similar shape to the one i desire, however i feel that if maya is going to be a major part of my life for the next few years (possibly much longer too) then "very similar" just isnt quite going to cut it. I want my shape. And i wont stop till i get it.
...Or until the deadline begins to encroach and i start thinking it best to have something rather than nothing, but lets not think of that shall we. Ill leave on a positive note - brought home all my in-class life drawing, yay!
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Thursday, 8 April 2010
Some life drawing
Not been on here in a little while, iv been working away on everything mostly, and the past week or so iv dedicated to doing some more anatomy drawings for my life drawing module. So heres the extra that iv done so far (already did the minimum of 4 and uploaded them on here)
Muscles of the Back
Muscles of the abdomen
Muscles of the Neck
Skull (my personal favourite)
Iv still got 4 drawings of the ribcage and spine at different angles i want to finish in my sketchbook before handing it in tomorrow. If i manage i should have a total of 10 pages with 16 detailed drawings, should be fine i reckon!
Muscles of the Back
Muscles of the abdomen
Muscles of the Neck
Skull (my personal favourite)Iv still got 4 drawings of the ribcage and spine at different angles i want to finish in my sketchbook before handing it in tomorrow. If i manage i should have a total of 10 pages with 16 detailed drawings, should be fine i reckon!
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
sleep sounds good
well its been a good wee while since i posted on here, my apologies as i was ill, and couldnt seem to muster the motivation to work. That is until yesterday when i remembered its crit week and essay deadline on friday! So i got cracking on some sketches, made a couple coffees and had a very productive all nighter. Managed 9 pages in my sketchbook. Most of it is 3D environment development, stuff that i had in my head, and transferred into maya, and kindof bypassed the sketching, but folk dont seem to like it if i dont show all my ideas nice and drawn out so i got to it.
These ones are for my audio coursework, theyre quick little maps of what my environment is going to sound like, and where each sound will come from, to give an idea of the distance i need to create
Then i went on to further details of my environment, the way that the sun effects the interior of the temple etc
And hes where iv left off in my actual maya work, doing the towers currently, then ill do the guardhouse, then its pretty much a choice between the mountains or the lower city buildings (copy and paste towers)
So iv got my pitch in just over 2 and a half hours, that should hopefully go fine with all the work iv done, then ill head over to the library to try and borrow a hand held recording device, as i plan to record most if not all my sounds by the end of the weekend. After library is a quick trip to the bank to sort some stuff out, then once i get home either sleep or essay... im probably going to bet on sleep
These ones are for my audio coursework, theyre quick little maps of what my environment is going to sound like, and where each sound will come from, to give an idea of the distance i need to create
Then i went on to further details of my environment, the way that the sun effects the interior of the temple etc
And hes where iv left off in my actual maya work, doing the towers currently, then ill do the guardhouse, then its pretty much a choice between the mountains or the lower city buildings (copy and paste towers)
So iv got my pitch in just over 2 and a half hours, that should hopefully go fine with all the work iv done, then ill head over to the library to try and borrow a hand held recording device, as i plan to record most if not all my sounds by the end of the weekend. After library is a quick trip to the bank to sort some stuff out, then once i get home either sleep or essay... im probably going to bet on sleep
Friday, 5 March 2010
Mountains
Title basically sums it up, iv been playing around on mayas hypershader (looks really complicated but i think im starting to get a basic understanding of some parts, the rest still eludes me completely however) and managed to come up with quite a good way of creating a rocky texture using displacement shaders, bump mapping and fractals. Takes an AGE to render, but i think it looks pretty good on my very quickly sculpted simple "mountain shape". The real one will be alot more... er... mountainy. Yeah... so anyway breakfast time! mmmm porridge.
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