Adaptation A: Infographic Draft

This was a draft that I did in time for this week's tutorial. There are many changes to make in terms of the alignment of the texts and making sure that the whole infographics comes togetther. As of right now, it feels like there three different parts to it- the newspaper, the drawings of the characters and the 3D globe. I will make the necessary adjustments.

Adaptation A: Characters Development

From the set of Characters I had previously, the design was not able to convey which era they were in so I went on to redesign it. Here's the new set of characters.

Adaptation A: Infographics Development 04

This is another portion of the infographics that has been completed.

Adaptation A: Infographics Development 03

As I look at how to improve thee animations and the infographics in general, I have coloured and re drew several characters, along with having a textured background.

Adaptation A: Infographics Development 02

This is my progress so far. I wanted to show the different era with the different hairstyles of the characters and it seems less apparent here. Hence, I will rework on it by also designing the background of the webpage to show how it evolves through time.

Adaptation A: Infographics Development

As I looked at what I had, I decided to change the way the information comes to screen. By this, I mean the drawings instead of just changing, I have decided to have a drawn on effect on it as I would like my whole animation to have a sketch/doodle feel.

This is the development.

Autodesk Mudbox Lesson 2: Organic Sculpting

For today's Mudbox lesson, we were tasked to sculpt a pepper and this s the final outcome from the class.

Adaptation A: Storyboard (Panel 9)

From my storyboard, I went on to develop an animation for it and this is what I have so far.

Adaptation A: Storyboard (Further Exploration- Development)

After the tutorial and the discussion how to make the newspaper, this is is what I have developed it into.

I've added a grunge texture to the background of the newspaper and changed the title of the paper itself.

Pipeline 2: Game Assets Maps Part 11 (Using Viewport 2.0 for Look Development & Rendering)

This is the settings set for the scene and the final rendered image for Pipeline 2 Tutorial.

Settings

Final Rendered Image

Pipeline 2: Game Assets Maps Part 10 (Shield- Normal Maps Using Xnormal & Photoshop)

This is the diffuse map for the shield completed, and it has been combined with the flag's diffuse map.

Shield_Flag_Normal_Map

Flag_Shield_Diffuse_Map

Diffuse Map Plugged into the Lambert Shader (CU of Shield)

Diffuse Map Plugged into the Lambert Shader

Pipeline 2: Game Assets Maps Part 9 (Diffuse Maps - Fabric Flag)

This is the diffuse map for the flag completed.

Flag_Diffuse_Map

Flag_Normal_Map

Diffuse Map Plugged into the Lambert Shader (CU of Flag)

Diffuse Map Plugged into the Lambert Shader

Pipeline 2: Game Assets Maps Part 8: Diffuse Maps - Wood & Metal

This is the diffuse map for the wood and metal completed.

Wood_Metal_Diffuse_Map

Diffuse Map Plugged into the Lambert Shader (CU of Anchor)

Diffuse Map Plugged into the Lambert Shader (CU of Wood)

Diffuse Map Plugged into the Lambert Shader

Adaptation Film Programme: Paprika (2006)

Figure 1: Movie Poster  [Still Image]

Paprika (2006) is a Japanese animation directed and co-written by Satoshi Kon. It was based on a novel written by Yasutaka Tsutsui in 1993, with the same name. Satoshi Kon was a Japanese director and a graduate from Musashino Art University. He started off as a Manga artist and went to be a director. In his short career, Kon has also made other award winning animation that includes Pafekuto Buru (1997) and Sennen joyû (2001). For Paprika, he has bagged several awards that includes Feature Film Award from Newport Beach film Festival and Public’s Choice Award from Montréal Festival of New Cinema. The success of Paprika came to the west and Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010) was Hollywood’s version of this animation.

Paprika (2006) is an animation set in the near future where a team of therapists from the Foundation for Psychiatric Research developed a device called the D.C Mini. This device has the capability of recording and watching the dreams of the patients they were treating. However, when one member of the team betrayed the research, he had the control over everyone else’s dream. This creates a havoc as dreams bleeds into reality and making the line between the conscious and subconscious to be a blur.

At the start of the anime, it was confusing because you did not know if that was reality or dream. But as the film moves along, you will be able to distinguish between the two worlds with the existence of Paprika. The very stylistic animation was created using a popular Japanese animation technique called Limited Animation. It is a cost effective technique where parts of a frame are redrawn and the rest are recycled and modified to suit whatever is needed to be in motion. Because of this, the creative team behind Paprika had room for experimentation to do all the bizarre, warping effect and making the amazing morphing animation and dreamy visuals. Additionally, the vibrant colours in the film made it visually captivating to watch. If you love science, technology and understands the Japanese culture and art, Paprika is the film to watch as it brings the three elements together.

List of Illustration:

Figure 1 Paprika(2006) [Poster] at http://seller.be/Blu/Images/145.jpg (Accessed on 23 January 2015)

Taster Day Presentation

Taster Day Presentation

Adaptation A: Storyboard (Further Exploration)

After the first initial storyboard and the discussion, there was a couple of missing panel in it. One of it was the abrupt start and as discussed, there should be a panel at the start to show the transition from newspaper to all the information transferred online.

I did a quick newspaper introduction to give me a rough idea on how to continue and let the storyboard flow. 

Adaptation B: Ishtar Exploration Design

From the further research I did. I went ahead and try to develop head shape for Ishtar, The Goddess of Fertility from the short story. I was trying to not make her look like "Barbie" and dress her up with her accessories. Initially, I tried adding a veil and hair to the first head shape and felt something was not quite there and decided to do a couple more head shapes, incorporating facial features of Arab woman. 

Pipeline 2: Game Assets Maps Part 7 (Diffuse Maps - Rope)

This is the diffuse map for the ropes completed.

Rope_Diffuse_Map

Diffuse Map Plugged into the Lambert Shader

Lighting & Rendering Part 2: Mental Ray Part 5 (Portal Lights)

This is my outcome from the Mental Ray Portal Lights tutorial.

Final Rendered Image

Adaptation B: Further Research

After a discussion with Alan, I went ahead to continue looking at the culture even further to give me an inspiration for my design of Ishtar, Goddess of Fertility. 

From the designs and art produced during that era is highly detailed and a scaly kind of design is present is most of the works which I should be considering to include in my designs. Lots of curves and swirly designs are also present in this ancient works.

Lighting & Rendering Part 2: Mental Ray Part 4 (Physical Sun & Sky)

This is the outcomes from the Physical Sun and Sky tutorial.

Gamma Correction Added to the shaders

Horizontal Height was moved down

Rotation of the light to create a sunset effect

Linear Workflow

Autodesk Mudbox Lesson 1: Introduction to Software

For today's class, we did a recap on After Effects and it was to bring an artwork from Illustrator. This is the outcome.

For the second half the class, we did a bit of modelling in Autodesk Mudbox. I started of with the base head from Mudbox and this is the outcome.

Mudbox Model_Untextured

I also tried to use the texturing and this is the outcome. 

Mudbox Model_Untextured

Adaptation A: Initial Storyboard

As my graphic style was to do a doodle/sketch like infographics, I then went to do my initial storyboard to translate the information I had for the evolution of online dating, visually.

Adaptation A: Graphic Style

For this project, I initially wanted to do just silhouettes (vectors) but I have decide to challenge myself. This is mainly because I have been quite mathematical in terms of designs (when I use vectors, everything is so precise) but with doodle/ sketches, I find myself more free. 

Here are some doodle/sketches I came up with for my infographics. This would be my graphic style.

Adaptation A: Evolution of Online Dating

After the tutorial, it was best for me focus on an aspect of dating and I have chosen to do on Online dating. I did my research on online dating compiling its brief history and statistics. Here are my findings. I may or may not include all the statistics though.

Brief History

1965: Project TACT provides computerized matchmaking via surveyed info in NYC

1990 -1994: Chatrooms and Instant Messaging through AOL exploded with traffic

1994: Apple Quicktake 100 and Kodak DC40 cameras were released. Display pictures became common

1995: match.com goes live. 75M people since 1995.

1998: Internet dating goes mainstream after the release of the movie “You’ve got mail”.

2004: Dating goes mobile.

2005: 37% of single Internet users were dating online

2010: Premium online dating sites gross over $1 Billion

Statistics

> Half of women dating online are divorced.

   - One quarter are in their 20s

   - One quarter are in their 30s.

   - The rest are in their 40s and 50s.

> Adults with obligations and family don’t have time to meet new people. Online methods get around this issue.

> Online daters often lie about their information.

-        - 60% had lied about their weight

-        - 48% lied about their height

-        - 19% had lied about their age.

> 66% of online daters have gone on a date with someone they met through an online dating site or app.

> 7% of smartphone users have used a dating app.

> Online dating is the third most popular meeting spots of newlyweds

> 2 years average time it takes for couples who meet online to get married.

> 23% of couples who married met on a dating site 

> 1 in 5 singles are currently in  a committed relationship with someone they met on a dating site.

Most important factor in finding a potential partner according to many online daters: 

   - 42%  physical characteristics

   - 58% common interests

@Alan Adaptation B: Idea Development

Background information about the Mesopotamian culture.

- It believes in multiple gods and goddess instead of just one.

- The people of Mesopotamia worshiped these other worldly beings and tries their best to keep the beings happy,

> They believed is something bad happened, it was because the correlating god was angry at them, hence they were punished for it.

- Large temples were built so that the people of Mesopotamia could go there and worship their god and goddess. Because there is a high infant mortality rate, as was miscarriage, Ishtar, Goddess of Fertility, Love, War and Sex is one that has been worshipped with much devotion especially by young couples who wants to start a family.

- However, love and desire became strangers to man and animal alike. Birds no longer sang. Bulls no longer searched out the cows. Stallions were no longer attracted to mares. Rams no longer cared for ewes. Wives no longer caressed their husbands when they returned from business or war. Husbands no longer longed to lie with their wives. The women in Ishtar’s temple became lonely, nobody wanted to spend time drinking and singing and making merry with them. This was all because Ishtar has gone to the underworld in search of her deceased lover.

This was Ishtar has been portrayed at the temple.

Ishtar Sculpture  

Mesopotamia Dressings

Mesopotamia Dressings

However, I was thinking the goddess to look more of like this instead of the sculpture.



This is the extract for the story that has the description of how Ishtar has clothed herself.

In this myth, there are two other interesting characters that I could consider to do instead. 

1) Irkalla, the Queen of the Underworld

2) Namtar, the Demon of the Plague.

Adaptation A: Planning

Below I have my initial plan out of what I thought I could do for my infograpgics, I did a quick vector in illustrator of the two main characters. 

I would want it all be in silhouettes because the hairstyles, the clothes and the mode of communication will be coloured. 

As for the camera movement, I thought that it could start by having it move from the male character to the female character then the joint thinking. Once the thought has been played out, the camera will then zoom at something, for example the stamp from the letter and when it zooms out, it is the female skirt. This is to create the connection between once shot to the next.

Adaptation Film Programme: Mary and Max (2009)

Figure 1: Movie Poster  [Still Image]

Mary and Max (2009) is an Australian claymation which was written and directed by Adam Elliot and produced by Melanie Coombs. The Australian born director based in Melbourne, is well known for his love for clayographies (Clay animated biographies) and his traditional ‘in-camera’ technique. Mary and Max is one of his many successful piece of work. This claymation won a few prestigous awards. This includes Best Animated Feature Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Award (2009) and the Grand Prize at the Ottawa International Animation Festival (2009). In all of Elliot’s works, there are bits and pieces of the happenings in the society at the point of time the claymation was made that he had included. In this case, it was how the idea of certain people from the society was conceived. Additionally, the authenticity of the materials to make the animation remains intact because the methodology that he follow is of the French auteur. This means that he refuses to digitally edit them by adding any computer generated imagery to them. To make his animation possible, he has recruited a very large number of animators and modelmakers to personally have his ideas handcrafted.  Because of this, each film takes a few years to be completed.

Mary and Max is about two unlikely people from opposite ends of the globe who became pen pals. It all started when a curious 8 year old Australian girl named Mary Daisy Dinkle wanting to find about more about Americans. One day, at a post office, she randomly picks Max Jerry Horowitz’s name from the phone book and decided to write him a letter, introducing herself and hopes for a reply from the American. She was delighted when the 44 year old obese, Jewish atheist replied. It was then that the start of a great friendship. Additionally, they were able to relate to each other because of their common struggles which includes bullying. Max offered advices to solve the problems that she was facing because he had been through them before.

I think that the film is trying make the society aware that problems like alcohol abuse and bullying, to name a few, will affect an individual mentally if no proper action is taken against the person doing it to them. In this case, what each character suffers from/ experienced was brought forward to their adulthood. This shows that those scars are etched in their memory and sometimes it is hard to get over it. This indeed is a strong message about what bullying can do to an individual. I believe that the film has successfully put the message across. In terms the art direction, it is indeed a stylized animation as the character are designed to be quite chunky and that the colours used are mainly brown and grey but occasional specks of red, which was used appropriately to depict love in some scenes. With that said, however, there were some scenes or dialogues that I find inappropriate for a film that has been rated PG 13 by the Motion Picture Association of America. This did affect me while watching it because I would laughed it off but an interpretation from a younger audience would be different and this film is for audiences from all age groups. All in all, I would recommend this film because despite several parts of the film that I find inappropriate, the bigger message of it was that how society acts towards an individual will affect and destroy them in some ways and it is an issue that has to be addressed. Also, the start of beautiful friendship can be as unexpected as that of Mary and Max. 

List of Illustration:

Figure 1 Mary and Max (2009) [Poster] at http://digitalnews.ua.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/mary-and-max-22895-hd-wallpapers.jpg (Accessed on 15 January 2015)

Lighting & Rendering Part 2: Mental Ray Part 2 (Final Gather)

This is my outcome from the Final Gather tutorial.

Final Gather

Final Gather with mia light surface material assigned to selected objects

Lighting & Rendering Part 2: Mental Ray Part 1 (Samples & Quality Control)

This is my outcome from the samples and quality control tutorial.

Render 1

Render 2

Render 3

Render 4

Render 5

Render 6

Final Render