Creating an outside environment in Maya.

Last night I decided to create an environment in Maya with a grassy terrain. Using both bump mapping and fur, I achieved a nice looking shot. I rendered it using Mental Ray.

Creating a particle system in Maya

Irrelevant to the course, however this is evidence of further research in both software and animation physics. I taught myself how to create a water fountain from an emitter in Maya.

Drawing a face

Creating and launching new website for projects.

I have launched http://www.doughnutstudios.com. which is a website for my personal projects. The website is still in development, but I thought it would be a good idea to create a 'hub' for my work.

Getting an online job with Aniboom

I recently applied for a job at Aniboom, which involved sending them a show reel of my work to date. I got a position, and I now have the opportunity to create work for possible clients. This is a very exciting opportunity for me, and I will update asap.

http://www.aniboom.com/

Research of early Pixar shorts

I have started researching early Pixar films to get a better understanding of more simple modelling and rendering, to both inspire and help me with Maya. I've always been a huge fan of their early work, as it was way ahead of its time and stunned people visually and emotionally. The two I have looked at are 'Tin Toy' from 1987 and 'Knick Knack' from 1989. Their simple and both professional charm creates a masterpiece which has stood the test of time, and still looks great. These two films both one awards when released, and rightly so.

Knick Knack - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuJasJ5uHGU

Tin Toy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_n6KT9nukU

Edit of young carers project

Courtney and I have edited together a shortened version of the video archives from the carers project. We picked out what we thought was interesting moments, and complied them into a single edit.

Awareness of space and scale in 3D modelling

Character designs on paper

Here are my rough sketches and ideas for my two character for my carers project. They are two Teddy bears, one being the younger sibling, who is cute and scruffy. The older one is cleaner, but strict.

Fur in Maya

I have added fur to the bears to give them a much more realistic look. This was achieved in Maya - and as you can see both bears have different fur attributes to separate their look and feel. The bigger bear is a clean new bear, and the smaller bear is very old and quite fragile.

Character designs in Maya

Below are pre rendered character designs for my two bears:

Working in Maya, and creating my first project.

In the last couple of weeks, I have picked up Autodesk Maya again, and taught myself the foundations of 3D animation, and have started to work on my own project. So far, I am pleased with it, and perhaps somehow I could incorporate it in to my carers project. 

Changing my character design dramatically

I have thought about my character design, and whilst experimenting at home, I have recently developed two character designs in Maya which I would prefer to use. This therefore changes my outlook on the project from a surreal manner to a cute and colourful CGI look.

Carer project - Character design concept.

We have been designing concepts for character designs for our carer project. This is simply conceptual and may not reflect our final piece. I decided to give the drawing a rough and depressive feel, reflecting the mood of the sound clip of  the interview. 

Introduction to negative space

In our life drawing class today, not only were we introduced to a new skill, I managed to overcome my fear of trying a new style. It's all too easy sometimes to stick within your comfort zone, but I learnt a lot, and I'm glad I just went for it. Photo to be uploaded soon!

Journey on paper.

Human life drawing

Here are my two final life drawings from our life drawing classes. I used a different range of materials to achieve both looks. The one on the left was drawn with pencils, whilst the one on the right was drawn with charcoal

Soundscape - Audio to Video.

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Questions and Research.

I have taken an interest in surreal types of animation, ranging from different methods of animations, and I want to know; what contributes to a films mise en scene, and various other questions:

• What other animators are out there producing surreal work, and could I perhaps study their work for both inspiration and theory practice?

• How do various countries receive surreal filmography? Do some cultures and nationalities perhaps find it more vulgar and offensive than others? If so, which countries should I research?

• What methods of animation are there to create these pieces? Apart from the 3 main ones: cell animation, CGI and stop motion.

• Where do these animators look for inspiration? Perhaps past events, personal thoughts, or even inspiration from other pieces of work.

• Where would they submit or contribute their work? Film festivals, online websites, show reels?

• What do animators or writers base their work on? Imaginative surrealism or perhaps satirical, political, religious etc. 

These questions tie in with the research I have done about surrealism and its roots. Like most animation, it takes a lot of inspiration from past artists, and this is clearly evident in surrealism

 Melting Clocks - Salvador Dali

Surrealism actually started of as a cultural movement in the early 1920s that consisted of ‘group members’ who would create visual artworks and even writings that were often non sequitur, and give a surprise, due to the ‘at the time’ groundbreaking way of delivering arts. Despite a lot of peoples ‘snobbish’ approach to the surreal movement, their members regarded “that their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost”

The movement essentially started in Paris, however from the 1920s onwards, surrealism caught on with many more countries and eventually spread worldwide, and since then has had a huge impact on many different platforms of the arts including: filmography, music, visual arts and even the way people look at politics and social theory.

Research on the 'Uncanny Valley Theory;