Week 21-26/19

Investigation:

Texturing will be very important for this project. I do not want it to look poorly made with how much work I am planning to put into it. This video explains both texturing and bump mapping in blender cycles and I will be applying this knowledge next week. Because I have to use cycles most basic things will be a bit harder and take more time. I wish I could have used blender render, but I would have to re-texture the models I had gotten off of blend swap.



This is what I want my scene to look like. I am struggling to figure out how to do this. I don't want to make a whole bunch of separate objects so what I am trying is to make hill like structures then add a texture and then do a little bit of separate objects. I am worried about tackiness and struggle to render because it is in cycles. Hopefully everything will work out in the end. If it doesn't I'll just have to keep down sizing and taking things out of the scene.

Next Week:
If I don't finish texturing I will still work on that, but If I haven't I plan to work on rigging the two models. They are modeled in such a way it will be quite easy to add a rig to them. I have never attempted a project this big so I am excited to see the final project. I just know I will start having to work outside of school if I want to get this done this marking period so I can start on something new. I do not plan to work on this all year.
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Monday- watched presentations
Tuesday- watched presentations
Wednesday- watched presentations
Thursday- worked on modeling terrain
Friday- blogpost/texturing

Banksy: Text & Image

Who is he?

Well the interesting thing is that no one really knows. He is anonymous street artist, but possibly the most famous. But why is that? Most people know him for starting a sort of revolution with his art with the text obey over an image of Andre the Giant. It was a phenomenon and took the world by storm. He is also very famous for many other works but this is definitely what has caused the most commotion. In Banksy's film I even learned about how much of an impact his art can cause. He was in a city and had people hunt for his art, but it would only be up for a minimal amount of time. People went crazy and a ton of people participated in the event. It is crazy what he has done.



Text & Image:
Text and image is an art style that is quite different than others. This style can evoke feeling I believe more clearly. It is easier for the artist to get their point across to the viewer because they don't exactly have to guess. Text and image is used in all sort of media. It has been used in street art, magazines and even propaganda. There is a sort of desperateness to this style, because of the text. It is saying something it wants the viewer to know.



What I have Learned:
For the most part I have learned that this type of art is good to use if you want a solid point across. The viewer may understand what you want them to more easily than if you weren't to add text. I do like this art style but personally I don't know if I will ever use it myself considering I do film and animation, but who knows maybe in the future this research will come in handy. 

End of MP1

Exploration of Ideas:

For my first project I am delving more into animation even though I have also studied film. As much as I love film, right now creating animations interests me a bit more. More specifically I want to make animated short films. To be inspired for this project I had watched many animated short films and analyzed what made them good and what I wanted to take away from them. The two that I enjoyed the most and inspired me the most was "Piper" a Pixar short and "Spring" a Blender Open film. What I enjoyed most about them was the life they brought to the characters and how real they felt. This is something I hope I can achieve.

                                                        Planning:

This was my biggest struggle so far I had trouble creating my idea. I went days even possibly weeks without a definite idea for my animated short film. At first I wanted to use real film and layer animation above it, but because I was not educated enough about animation yet and my story was based in spring the idea fell through. So, I scrolled through every page in Blendswap as to find a character to use and maybe have that inspire me. To my luck this did work. I found these two characters and after this the ideas came flowing through.

Production:
I have not finished this project nor am I near to finishing. So far I have my whole story planned out with camera angles/movements and animation, even most of the editing aspects and I have started creating the scene that this story takes place in. I still need to rig the robots, finish the scene, and obviously animate and execute my plan.

The Story:

The story I have created is about two robots in a scrapyard/landfill. Here one robot awakens from a thunderstorm one night and is now autonomous. Not really truly understanding who he is or what to do he starts collecting random trash from around the dump. One day he stumbles across another robot. This peaks his interest, so he then tries to communicate with it. But, there is one problem... that robot does not work anymore. Still wanting the company he stays with the robot hoping it will awaken just as he did. Then a disaster and a miracle happens. A dump truck pours trash all over them, but in doing so the robot also finds batteries to power the other robot and he can finally awaken.

The last part of the story is a bit iffy because if it is just batteries then the robot will only last for so long, so I don't know if I will change that or not, because it would be a bit more realistic, but it is also a very sad thought and I don't know if I want my robot to go through that.

Difficulties:
Some problems I see in the future are creating lightning and day and night cycles. These are two things I've never done before and will really have to study how to do them. Also, when it comes to lightning I don't know if I should just use after effects or create a simulation in blender. Another problem I foresee is haw long it will take and if the computers can handle it. I already plan to render it out in sections, but what if they can't even render at all. I have to use cycles because both robots were created in cycles and I don't want to lose their textures and because of that I am worried with crashing and not being able to complete or render the final project.

Week 9-10/30-4/19

                                          My Thoughts:
I have worked on my storyboard but I think I have decided to hold off this project and in the meantime study motion in animation first. I am definitely up to the task of doing this project, just my biggest problem is the changing of the seasons. Fall does not fit the story. Dragonflies really only appear in the spring and summer, also birds become less active and migrate in colder weather. I plan to take this up again but in the meantime I will start on something else. While I struggle to find an idea I will study character movement. I do have a rough idea in the making so, I will solidify this next week. It pains me to not already be working on something, but it is just hard to find what I want to do and work out ideas to execute it.





My Take Away:
On Tuesday I decided to study animation short films and this one really spoke to me. I had originally had an idea of having a story about a girl lost in the woods and she is guided by some light and this I suppose is similar. The story in "Spring" is about a girl who must go into these dark woods and guide these creatures to bring spring to her land. The colors and animation are so smooth, not to mention the models are magnificent. Obviously, I could never pull something like this off but I think it is good to look at what real animators can do.
The awe and wonder this animation brought to me really surprised me. I never expected a short film animation to be able to make me feel this way. I hope to one day be able to create something that is able to invoke deep emotions even if only slightly and inspire people like me.

Next Week:
I plan to not only finalize my new idea but make a new storyboard. Then, I can start on my animation and start studying character movement and more. I think I have finally gotten past my art block and I should follow this till the end. I am excited to see how this will end up and I hope for a good learning experience for my first project.

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Monday- Storyboard

Tuesday- Studying Other Animations

Wednesday- Drone Piloting

Thursday- Storyboard

Friday- Blogpost