What my job is at the moment...

Today we have decided what jobs each person is doing at the moment. I was given the job of researching and to start modelling the stair ways, which are a main part of the interior of our environment.

My idea for the stairs in the lighthouse is too make them seem quite regal and decorative giving a sense of style to the interior and a time period of when it was made. Also looking at films that have mixed machinery have mainly made building styles look Victorian and Renaissance styles.

I looked up examples of Victorian and Renaissance stair ways, here are some of the best examples:

Based on these images I have started sketching and drawing out different styles and shapes of stair cases that look like they can flow through the space. The styles above looks aesthetically great and would go well with the mechanical objects that are going to be situated in and around them.

While i was searching for examples I also came across a stair case design by Thomas Heatherwick, which has pushed the design of stairs to the extreme. Instead of sticking to conventional designs he made the stairs flow to create new forms and shapes. Taking this as inspiration I'm going sketch possibilities of using different forms and shapes to create conventional stairs.

Later I will scan in my sketches and post them up on here.

Things I've Looked Into...

For this environment I am looking into the inhabitant of it first. There are 3 different characters that were suggested being a Scientist, a Sea Captain and a Composer. These mainly because theres a machine involved thus the scientist, the lighthouse so i suggested a sea captain and the composer because we are using a musical element to it.

In the group we have decided to use the Composer because the is more style to him. It also makes more sense seeing as theres going to be a musical organ made of different instruments. Looking into composers the caricature of them is crazy hair slicked back, formal composer outfit with a ruffled shirt, shoes and wand. 

Or they all look like Beethoven...

This will make quite a good interesting character to base an environment on. As the character is quite eccentric the environment , so plenty of weird machines and mechanisms in and around the lighthouse he inhabits. There will be plenty of scrap metal, cogs, etc. which will show his engineering side. Along with  scrap everywhere there will be different mechanisms like a stair lift or pipes and gears steaming/rotating in the walls and ceilings.

Pretty much it...

I was scoping out youtube for ideas for themes and inspiration for ways of having small animations among our environment, thats when i came across this. I'm subscribed to Vancouver film school's youtube channel and this is a film they uploaded recently:



This film has the theme and pretty much the same idea my team is thinking of. A mixture of steampunk looking scrap machine incorporating musical instruments. Obviously we won't copy this but now we definitely know that our idea can come into being.

First post on Character Animation

Right this is my first post on my character animation because I haven't gotten round to doing it. The characters we had to choose from in this brief were out of 5 characters, all varying in personality and interest. Out of the characters I chose the 9 year old boy as he had the best description that stood out to me, as he sounded more fun to try and design.

I went through many different ideas for the character in a brainstorm (I'll scan it and put it up when i get to a scanner). Through my brain storm I decided on the idea of making the kid an Anteater. I thought this was a good idea because the description of the character was he is obsessed with "creepy crawlies" and hyper-active. I got the image of an anteater running manically to the insects house in a zoo.

I've done a few drawing based on my brain storm which I also need to scan in. The designs I've done take into account that the character has to be clay-mation styled (so textured with clay like substances with a few finger prints thrown in). Thats all for now I'll post again soon with ant eater research and hopefully my scans!

Ideas for a style!

We as a group have come up with the idea that the style of the environment and animation should be cel shaded. I'm gonna look up good examples of this such as this example Jared showed us:
http://www.axisanimation.com/index.php?id=456&loc=WORK

Finally decided on an Idea!!!!

Right we have finally decided on an idea!!!!

Our idea is *achem* "The Weather Maestro"!!!

The idea is basically the environment of a lab situated in a lighthouse, that within it is the scientist who has created a weather machine. To use this machine he plays it like an organ (phantom of the opera style, except not as ominous.) As he plays we will visit the different areas through screens on the machine.

For this idea we are going to have to design more than one environment... not full scale ones but snippets of them with maybe a matte painting for the rest of the environment. The concept of the environment is that it is organised chaos. The lab is going to be in disarray but the character is going to know exactly where everything is. 

To research this I'm going to look into films and art books that have the same sort of feel of what I envision the lab to look like. Its meant to be along the lines of organised chaos so along the lines of maybe, his lab is like an office desk. It looks disorganised and cluttered but to the owner it is organised and has everything where he wants it and knows where it is.

Another idea for the organ's pipes are going to come out of the lighthouse or connects to fog horns. Through the pipes/foghorns weather is going to be produced and manipulated. The team were also thinking if boats should be involved that react to the weather being produced and maybe feel the consequences of this.

Right now that is it so laters

Ravensbourne = start of the new year

Wow I haven't been on this blog for quite a while (been distracted over the longest summer I've ever had). I started back last week to Ravensbourne at its new home in Greenwich. The building is awesome and so many new toys to play with haha. Straight away we are in the middle of plenty of work :( no room for summer blues.

We've been given two main projects and also contextual studies (laaaame) anyway the two projects we've got are:

1. Digital Environments

2. Character Animation

Digital environments sounds awesome we (as in my little motley crew of animators) have to design a 3d environment with animation happening within for example: a ghost town with animated tumble weed blowing through it. The possibilities for this project are endless.

During the class we were told to start thinking of ideas and not just generic ones like Castles and Fantasy/Sci-Fi environments because we can make them look like whatever we want them to look like. The idea is we have to research and produce a well thought out idea that can  be fleshed out into "reality" with our group modelling, lighting, etc. 

This actually started to get my imagination going, i was thinking of so many ideas but most of them were ridiculous and nothing to do with anything substantial so I focused on really interesting places and how they became like that.

First off I thought of Chichen Itza the Mayan sacrificial pyramid in Mexico... yes this is because I watched Idiot Abroad the night before (was quite funny, so funny in fact its still on my sky+ box.) None the less the environment itself was amazing, the structure was ridiculously steep with god knows how many steps up to the top. I started thinking what an amazing place and i wonder what it would have been like when Mayans still lived around there in its hay-day. I started thinking that would be fun to model this grand structure standing out with its civilians milling around it going by getting on with their day (until there was a sacrifice... then I think they would be hiding just so they wouldn't be picked.)

As I was thinking along the lines of ancient cities and structures the thought came to me of Pompeii and how well preserved it was after being covered in ash. To see that as a working city with its delegates, soldiers, farmers, etc. moving around it, lit with torches and alive. I thought that would be a challenge especially as roman architecture is quite intricate.

While thinking up other ideas I remembered something Jared (our tutor) said about some animations were subtle showing environments and what effect time itself has on them. Pompeii has an interesting history seeing as it was at the centre of a devastating natural disaster. The thought of showing the environment going through its time line would be wicked having it all happy go lucky one moment and the next molten rock and ash crashing down destroying the city in blink of an eye and then being cocooned in the ash until it rose again when it was excavated in 1599 accidentally (honestly how can you accidentally discover a city that was lost for 1,500years, its not like your walking down a road and trip over an ash covered pillar and go "oh I've found a city"... they should have at least pretended like they knew what they were doing to give them some credit.)

anyway for now thats it from me next time ill talk a little more about environment and a lot more on my character project once I've got some done hahaha (slacking :( )