In Combination of 2 1/2 Weeks now

My apologies that I had been missing so many posts these past weeks. Ever since the beginning of the factory project a lot of things; personal, family, work, and otherwise, had been happening to really limit my time. Also to be honest there is also my own faults, being that I enjoy putting detail and wanting to make those details perfect, which in the end makes it slow going and frankly wasting time instead of completing the project. Of course I want to make my work beautiful, realistic, and become my vision but considering my limited time as a commuter, completely unrealistic.

At the beginning of the project I had little more tan an inkling of an idea scrawled onto a rough storyboard. More of less I just wanted to make an factory line production of a robots head which in the end is placed upon a body. The first week I more or less just spent fleshing out the idea and dealt with visualizing out the process.

These set of pictures more of less is the first week of production. I really wanted to make it

realistic at least in the sense that mechanically it will be sound. Really a fault if anything on my part which in the end I spend far too much time sweating the details.

From a furnace the molten metal is produced which is poured into the buckets. Next the buckets of molten metal is poured into two separate molds, then compressed together forcibly (admittedly not particularly realistic nor sound, more for my own interest and enjoyment). The molded head will then carted onto the conveyer belt.

Apart from the conveyor belt I couldn't any outside model to make it work so as per usual made what I could with the best of my ability.

This progresses unto the second week where I more or less completed the modeling process. I found myself self aware about completing the project so I converted most of the actual production into an unseen process of going through "boxes". Also the actual process of putting the head on the robot is much simpler which I am kind of unhappy about due again to my own taste. With the general part of the modeling done I took upon doing the actual animation process.

Again I fell into the trap of making things perfect which made the time slow down significantly. I added the molten iron and the rise of it and started to get the flow down. Also look at an online tutorial on making interesting flame effects listed below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G43iS57qG_M

Next I Unfortunately I spent the better part of the class trying to make it work, in the end failing miserably. At the end of the day I will have to use different angle camera shots and cinematography to achieve the desired effects.

I know I a lot things to do left to do animation wise, the molding process and making the flashing lights. Also making the robot body and adding color and skin to the project. I will be spending the better part of the day of the faculty meeting doing all that.

March 20th, 2012

Starting with the storyboard planned out I did my best to finish up putting the sounds together for my still incomplete toy workshop and for my wordplay project. Some hiccups involving the wordplay happening, being some setting issues but were dealt fast enough. Most of the time was spent looking at the various tools and premade animations. Played around with it a bit and looked again at the other animations to gather some information and clues for mine.

Will update this post in a bit.

3/5/12 12:00-3:00

Today I spent most of time working on sounds for the Flythrough. There were some troubles in regards of the character (mouse) and it's feet. I then decided with the Sound Pro application to record my own by tapping my finger rapidly near the mic which turned out alright.

Before class I spent time working out some movement kinks in the letter. I pretty much got and will do what I can to finish quickly and put it on the render.

New Research Project: Wingnut

Again I screwed up so I went into researching a bit more to find another topic. Apart from the obvious of Pixar and Dreamworks I tried to find either something new or unique in the industries. Recalling the new Tintin movie I went out to see I was curious to see who was behind it. Peter Jackson's company Wingnut, who did effects in the Lord of Rings film gave me particular interest especially in the motion capture field.

Second Life Article

From what I read the boundaries between the digital world and the real world seem to mingle rather closely. The fact that despite the controversy surrounding the "world" of Second Life that art and its forms can exist. Idea of monetary transaction over the net is not foreign but that through the game actual painterly objects can be bought and sold, in such amounts, is baffling.

Also the idea of recreating or creating walk in paintings is amazing. It adds to another dimension to the work and another level of immersion/interaction. The only downside is that in terms of quality. The game engine only has so much it can do and accomplish that there is still the awkward sprite and shape.

There is an interest to be had in this world if not only that the artist is able to interact on a global level but achieve a greater platform for their work.

March 1st, 2012 Tuesday 12:30-3:05

As of today I found out the inherit problem that comes with making your own letters with the metaball tool. Through that process I would be able to control what it looks like in terms of the words I chose and aesthetically make it disgusting (as wanted). Though because of it they became too complex of objects that it literally affected the program itself bringing in major lag spikes that ultimately hindered the entire project for most of the class time.

The solution of the problem was found in just simply simplifying the objects themselves except in the letters (in case of F) that will have the actual complex animation. It took until the end of class but with that I was able to get a semblance of a start to the piece.

Luckily I was able to solve the problem but it leaves me alot to do. Again I wasn't able to do much this weekend and again will not be able to stay long on Monday. There are the problems in that I would like to have some wiggle in the words and the stretching of the F and the word skinny. I will do what I can to do what I can do at home (sounds, exact planning) and post it to the blog. On Tuesday I will come in early and do the initial fly through and if needed wait later for further help on the details.

On a slightly better note I had worked on the Gepetto piece a bit more and had finished the transition from the mouse revving up to push the plane. Next is the flythrough and getting to the cheese which can be maybe solved and all in one scene. It all depends if I would like to sacrifice some things or not. I guess it depends on time which I usually sorely lack but I will do what I can to make it work.