Week1 Part 2 - Research and Mood Boards!

Yep, its about that time again when mood/research boards are necessary, so it says here...

Ideally, looking around at the current standard for 'Idents' in televisual broadcasting and commercial advertising, giving a student a broadcasting outfit from which to progress from, in regards to research, is fairly helpful. In fact, the BBC has been creating 'Idents' for over 50 years, and that's before the word 'Ident' was even thought of!!

I, personally, wanted to go with a digital company that broad-casted programs that held my interest and also had a great deal of subject matter through that 'casted material I could put to use...

And so, having researched the BBC most recent batch of 'Idents' and created a board for them, I settled on creating animations for the Sci-Fi channel, a channel which has an extremely varied listing of programs, including updated Sci-Fi favourites such as Dark Angel and Medium, as well as brand-new seasonal shows like Eli Stone and Sanctuary...this isn't advertisement for them, honest - I'm just enthusiastic for the channel and this projects possibilities...

Right, the BBC's 'Idents' are the broadcasters chance to display the skills of some of the best (tele)visual entertainment-inspired media technicians creating some fantastic graphics and top-class photography and cinematography this side of Hollywood movies - I'm a big fan! The subjects they cover vary wildly, from awe-inspiring landscapes through to mystical faeires in woods through to Maisai tribes in outer Africa...

^The subject matter of the crop circles in the top left and the moon's surface scarred with pits and impact craters are definitely relevant to my chosen channel and its requisite material, but I will take these 'Ident' designs and begin to develop them into a style which will work with the Sci-Fi persona^


From what I have discovered, the Sci-Fi channel hasn't really had a very varied or substantial history of 'Idents' since its inception in the UK in 1995, and the montage I created is made up from the ones I could find - one of which was from the French version!

^As it is, the titles have barely altered either, with most of the imagery focused on contemporary photography of the outer-space orientated kind and this, coupled with more stereotypical UFO and planetary imagery, means that my ideas could in fact be possible for my proposition of a single, recognisable character within certain situations...^


The Mood Boards

After much deliberation, I have decided to choose the very idea that I had originally doubted when looking at the Sci-Fi channels choice of the familiar UFOs and "Your not alone" slogans; I want to create an alien/outer-world being dressed up as an 'Average Joe' (perhaps a baseball cap with the Sci-Fi logo on it as well!) He (It!?) will be in a set of three situations involving a monotonous and typically British task of housework - purely the idea that an alien could be doing these activities would most certainly draw the viewers attention, that's for sure!!

^This Ident relates to a scenario in which 'Si' the alien (its easier if I use that terminology!) is washing up and the channel titles appear in the soapy water in the bowl. In order to prove his humane qualities, yes he will be wearing marigolds too!
Its difficult for me to describing any emotional or psychological detail the differences between all three, but if the whole point of the Idents is to portray the channels sense of humour, willingness to try out subjects that haven't been tested, and promote their material,then I'm willing to give it a go...^


^A scenario related to 'Si' doing some ironing. This one, and the third down below, will take place in his lounge, so I have the chance to create an environment which could have all different and varied accoutrement's to do with outer-space or fashion an interest in astronomy - 'Si' could well be a character interested in learning where he came from, in actually fact!
The channel titles will appear on the iron's sole-plate, still red-hot after burning a hole in his shirt, which could also have the logo on it perhaps!^


^And, lastly, this is where 'Si' will be dusting away (perhaps clearing the dust from his shelf of model aircraft or Rolling Stone memorabilia...!) and, either he gets dust up his nose and sneezes, the dust flying into the room and the titles appearing as the dust floats around the room/settles again, or, in fact, he is merely wiping down the shelf and the areas he has wiped shows the Sci-Fi titles against the still-dusty areas^


I have quite a few ideas to be getting on with, but rest assured I will only go with them if they are perfectly plausible as flowing animations or won't require weeks worth of work, only for them to look gravely average at the end...tune in next week to see drawn sketches of possible designs, rather than have me babble once more, that not exactly constituting a worthwhile post, if I'm honest...

2nd Semester - Something called 'Ident(ists)?!'

Animation in 3DS Max; not something I was expecting to find as accessible as I have so far. Even so, I've only just started today, but its definitely an aspect of 3DS Max which I should find exciting and creatively-stimulating!

I managed to create a short 6 second video during my time in the first tutorial, which I will show at the end of this post, but for now I will show the windows that I learnt would take me through each stage of the production process

The render window is, of course, initially identical to when you need to render static images on screen but, when an animation has been produced through key-frames and multiple tracks, there are a few options you need to change in order to output render correctly

Time output will be set to the files 'Active Time Segment' of however many frame are contained within the motion-capture, the output resolution needs to be selected also (I chose a equivalent QVGA res. of 640x480) and then all that needs to be done is save the file and finalize output through the .imsq path

Once the render button is chosen, it will take anything from 10 seconds to upwards of 90 seconds, depending on file size...

This image shows two important windows that ,although not completely necessary, are indeed provide important information throughout the process of constructing the animation.

The upper window is the 'Schematic View' which allows the user to display the relationships between the scenes entities (the on -screen objects), which are colour coded for quick-reference! This window is useful for analysing any entities that make up a complete item e.g. fingers made from bone,muscle etc

The lower screen allows the user to adjust the postion of all the key-frames and crucial moments in the animation and alter their properties

^ This is the window along the right-hand side of the screen which is used, as with static objects, to modify the shapes/forms of on-screen objects. The process by which you add modifiers onto the objects is only different by the use of the 'Set-Key' and 'Auto-Key' button underneath the timeline which will determine at which point the object will move or alter its form (this part confused me for a while but, almost by chance, I found out how it worked) ^




Now we come to the actual object itself...
Here I have my object, which has a marble-effect material on it, during the action of moving around the screen

This is visible due to the trajectory markers present in the image, markers which scale out the path which the objects take through all three-axis

The two-tone scheme, I believe, relates to the inner and outermost edges of the object and the path the take interdependently from each other
The next images follow in sequence...


^ The 'Squeeze' modifier was used to good effect here and the top of the object begins to pinch inwards and pull the form upwards into an almost bow-like shape at the top ^

^ I then used the 'Twist' modifier to achieve the curved shape underneath the object, as well as it gradually folding over itself as it began to swoop away from the camera ^

^ Finally, I used the 'Bend' modifier to achieve an almost witches-hat form to the shape as it distorted, bent over and hunched with a drooped peak on it ^

^ As the image shows, the rendered material also stretches and warps as the object changes shape which, in some instances, may be a disadvantage or not ^




To quote a certain individual in the room at the time I was creating this 'piece, my 'magical-moving-humbug' has been adorned with a typically relevant background too, even though the actual animation look ever-so slightly out of place on it...

My next post tomorrow will be the start of my project, in which I will be presenting a research board and usual text to explain my decisions, in addition to this I have three mood boards which will include imagery related to my chosen subject matter and any images which I feel add to the point I'm making (even if that point is vauge and not-so-crystal-clear as it could be!) Onwards and upwards, as they say...oh yes, the video>>

EDIT: Week 2: After learning about cameras and structured paths that can be created, thus allowing them to follow a set route, I decided to post a much improved animation on here (well, in truth, its a short camera fly-by of an interior that could come from the inside of a spaceship...if that space ship had a gigantic oversized teapot in a storage room perhaps...!