Final Compositions - comments and evaluation.

Here are two stills of the final result. I really do love how the glass look of the shapes reflects and blends in with the background. It's unfortunate that I was never able to get video footage while I was in these places as it would've been amazing to 'travel' through the 3D forests I've made, but sadly my phone was unable to take decent quality videos (that and there were so many people who just didn't want to get out of the way).

Another unfortunate thing is that I have been unable to actually animate my tree shapes. Since this is a late hand-in I've been very pressed for time and so I've had to simply show that I can composite images, but with more time I definitely would have liked to experiment with making the trees 'grow' from the ground or weave in and out of the water in the second one.

I'll probably end up using one of these stills for the Look Book too, just to add some variation in addition to my usual illustrations.

SWOT:
Strengths- creating 3D shapes, positioning objects appropriately
Weaknesses- remembering how to do everything, forgetting little steps. Must take more specific notes in future
Opportunities- N/A
Threats- Not enough time to actually animate the shapes!

Compositing Progress III

For my other composition I wanted a similar sort of look, except with a more organic look to the shapes. Creating this effect turned out to be quite simple. I used the 'tree' shapes and simply placed them inside HyperNURBS to smooth out the shapes.

You can see how the objects are much smoother than in the other piece I was working on. You can also see how I've set up the planes and used the cameras get the lighting etc. right, and the effect of my sculpting on the planes.

Fianl versions will be coming up in the next post!

Compositing Progress II

Today I continued my work with the compositing module. I'd decided I wanted glass/crystal shapes for my 3D element. To begin with I applied my cube shape to a Banji material and found that I loved how well it blended and reflected the scenery. I tried using a pyramid and extruding all the surfaces but it looked juuust a bit too crazy.

I then went on to build a spiky tree-shaped object by starting with a cube and extruding from there. When I copied the object and applied it to the Banji material in my composition I was again very pleased with the result.

As you can see I copied this shape and played with the shape and size of them a little, rotating and stretching them so that there would be some variation. I think this still works really well as a visual, and I'd like to play around more with the layout of the 'trees' before rendering a final version. 

Perhaps I will use one of these stills as one of my look book entries to give more variation than just illustration.

Inspiration.

Here are some stills and a model sheet for the 'Cat Beast' from '9'. I like how the creature is a combination of the organic skeleton and other mechanical parts; it suits the post-apocalyptic aesthetic very nicely.

The model sheet itself gives good indicators to how specific parts of the creatures body works- definitely something I'll take into account when creating my own sheet, though for my character it would be details of the organic and sometimes intangible, ghost like elements of my character.

Outcome of Character Design unit.

An update of how my character for the character design unit ended up looking. As late as I am in updating this, I'd like to reflect on how pleased I was with the outcome. The character ended up well fleshed-out both in style and substance; he's definitely a personality I feel I could write some interesting and funny short stories about in the future.

As far as translating the design to 3D was concerned, time constraints meant I was unable to fully build the character; however I was able to build the parts necessary to rig the entire body. Here you can see that I was able to give my character the reclining posture that I tended to draw him with by adding extra controllers in the spine. The only things I slipped up on were the head and foot controllers- fortunately this is something that could easily be fixed at a later date by changing the direction my character faces and re-organising the hierarchies. Overall I was pleased with how he translated to a 3D model, and was able to animate him with a basic walk cycle for the deadline.

General Inspiration - Tokyo Plastic

I was highly entertained while researching some of the productions by this team while also slightly disturbed. All in a good way, though. I do have a certain love for the creepy and gruesome, after all.

On watching this for the first time, I was almost put off by how sickeningly cute this was. As beautiful as the smooth, shiny style was, it seemed far too much. 

Needless to say, I was surprised (a little more pleasantly than I'd like to admit) when the grumpy creature in the sky decided to make the little critters explode with some sort of heat ray. I find it both disturbing and amusing that the sun continues to beam happily in the background while the inhabitants of this cute and colourful planet screech in pain. Even their skulls are adorable. Overall, a genius idea. I approve.

Another somewhat disturbing sequence, this little fellow appears to have a mouth that smiles at the eye-creature, but it in fact turns out to be an eye socket by the end. There's something disturbing about creatures that are nothing but masses of flesh and human parts, and for that I like the design all the more  - along with the fact that the switch from mouth to eye socket is very cleverly done.

A more genuinely cute ad campaign. I found these two characters very endearing - I loved the shoe details like the laces and fabric types. It reminds me somewhat of the sackboy design from Little Big Planet.

General Inspiration - Studio AKA

Studio AKA productions have some very creative examples of 3D character design, many of which are notable for the exaggerated bodily proportions and facial expressions.

I like how the stars in this H Samuel ad campaign almost look like tissue paper. It makes it stand out nicely from the rest of the scenery. The motion of the character gliding on the ice is also very smooth and attractive.

The dancing movement of this character works well with the unusually long arms, giving a simultaneously funny and creepy effect.

The simplicity of the shapes that construct these characters' faces become surprisingly expressive with the simplest of changes. The slight difference in the eye shapes give that sinister look, while the lack of anything but a socket adds to it.

I find this concept both disturbing and very clever. The idea of wearing a smile is quite symbolic. I like how the dramatic lighting gives off an almost unnatural glow regarding the smiles.

General Inspiration - David Oreilly

I recently watched 'Please Say Something' by David O'Reilly, and instantly fell in love with the creepily adorable characters.

This walk cycle was highly expressive considering the simplicity of the character's limbs. The bobbing of her head from side to side was cute and endearing.

I really liked the geometric, blocky shapes that gave the whole story a cold and clinical atmosphere, along with the 3/4 view of most of the scenes, which lent it a retro video game sort of look.

I liked the use of fragmented, nonsensical letters to portray sadness/illness.

On top of that, I found the story very touching and may or may not have shed a single manly tear. It was a typical enough plot, but the use of animals and switching of the cat and mouse role was very clever and thought-provoking.