Interestingly enough, both of my final motion projects for this term include an extensive amount of 3D work. While this wouldn’t be such an issue as I find modeling and creating things in 3D rather fun, the camera has been quite troublesome for me recently. For example, one of the necessary controls in Cinema 4D is control of the focal point for the camera. I would use the auto-keyframe option to make the process of creating a timeline faster, but what I didn’t realize is that the auto-keyframe only stores data for what you have moved; unlike after effects which stores all the data for an object. I suppose this is ultimately done to save space, but in the case of multiple keyframes that use the same focal length, C4D will transition the focal length from the previous change to the next, regardless if there are keyframes in the middle.
I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I ended up wasting a whole bunch of render time, but learning a good lesson about moving the camera in C4D. Exciting…
I have for you friendly folks two rendering projects I am currently working on.
The first is a soccer field that is being designed for a motion graphics infographic piece for this term. My partner and I are going to explain the lovely game of soccer (that’s football to you non Americans) and give the viewer a basic introduction to the sport. So, this field is going to be the primary container for the piece, moving about and exploring. Should be fun.
The hardest part I found was in creating the net. The goal itself was pretty simple and just a matter of creating the cylinders and then bending them as needed. The net though, was a bit of work because I wanted to put the
slight gravity drop into it. Ultimately, I created a plane and attached cloth nurbs, then bent it the same as the tubing. Finally, after setting fixed points to all the edges, I applied “relax” and watched gravity do its job^^ Quite thrilling when it all worked out. The ball was the result of a tutorial I followed. I had painted it beforehand but discovered that shrinking the size of the ball messes up the special texture, so I need to repaint it. *sigh* As for the field, the floor and texture are native to Cinema 4D while the lines were originally created in Illustrator, then imported into the area. All in all, it was a fun project! Now I just need to apply the camera movements and we’ll be in business.
The other item for you today is a pill I kinda threw together for a DVD menu. The ultimate look will feature text on the pill indicating “Play,” “Scene Selection” and so forth. I thought it would be cool to have the pill rotate when the user clicks the “left” or “right” button on their remove and shift to a new button. Here is the front where the main menu will be.
and here is the back where the special features or scene selection will be. We haven’t quite worked that out yet!
I’m rather proud of this idea and I like how it is shaping up. I’ll be sure to post more about it in the future!
Multitouch displays have been popping up more and more recently, from the homemade one developed by students at UBC to the showcase of one at TED and now this one that offers not only multitouch, but wireless interactive technology. It amazes me how far computing is going and makes me wonder if the stuff we see in movies will be viable and prevelent within my lifetime. Of course, with all the great new technology, one must be slightly worried about hacking issues. Course, at $5,000 to $10,000 a pop, I don’t think we’ll be seeing these tables with widespread influence quite yet. Now, all eyes are on the iPhone!
Oh, and a side note, look at the giant multitouch world map that Han has in the video. Totally amazing.
Today’s image comes from a project for class in which we needed a marker. Well, it was much more fun (and useful!) to make in 3d, so here we are! It was pretty simple to put together.
Project charters are not the easiest things to write. One of my big issues is that I want to make it the best I can, but the whole thing still hasn’t really clicked in my mind. On the other hand, it is a very learned skill. The more one practices, the better one gets; at least that’s what I tell myself! In any case, I’m currently working on one for a team project. Utimately I had to redo the whole thing after the first client meeting changed a few elements of the project, so that’s been a fun activity for the weekend, but all in all, things are slowly getting better. Here’s to hope that over time they’ll just continue to improve!
Coming out in mate May and early June, Paprika looks to be an awesome film. It is about the nature of dreams and reality; a theme that director Satoshi Kon played heavily with in his film Perfect Blue. I’m highly looking forward to it! However, I’m not just interested in it for the sake of the film. The soundtrack, as revealed in the trailer (viewable at the Paprika link above), sounds quite interesting.
Designed by Susumu Hirasawa, it is a fascinating amalgamation between vocals, analog instruments, digital manipulation, and digital instruments. In looking at his site, I discovered that he has made the main theme for Paprika available for download (it is “The girl in Byakkoya – White Tiger Field”). For your listening pleasure, I have also included it below:
The girl in Byakkoya – White Tiger Field:
I hope you enjoyed it! I really like this song and have been listening to it a wee bit too much, but sound is captivating and quite good. The first time I heard it I was a little like, “huh?” but it grows on you very quickly.
(did I mention I’d love to get a hand on that poster?)
On Erik Spiekermann’s blog, I found a link to something very interesting, called Amaztype. The site asks you to choose one of Amazon’s different databases, media type (book, cd, dvd, etc.), title or author and asks for a search term. What it then does is searches Amazon’s database for that word, gathering sample images and data when it finds it. Finally, the site generates the search term you entered using the media it found. Tis a rather fun and interesting page!
I’ve spent a bit more time working on the pirate ship. I’ve found that it is an awesome thing to do in those little stretches of time where one doesn’t have time to do serious work, but has too much time to laze around. In any case, I’ve added in some rigging, the captain’s wheel, some barrels and the flag! I also managed to get the sails looking like I want them to. There is a bit of a weird shadow that shows up in the image, but that is due to the kind of shadow being applied (hard). When I do the final render, I’ll use area shadows to make it look super nice, although it will take about 5 to 10 times as long to render. Fun!
This term we started working with Cinema 4D, a 3-d design program with timeline elements too (the fourth dimension!). In any case, I decided to start trying to model some stuff. At first I thought I’d make one of those tanker ships that are so prevalent out in English Bay in Vancouver, but as I went I changed what I wanted to do. So, I’m currently making a pirate ship. Tis a good deal of fun despite fighting with the program….a lot. Oh well. The longer I work with it, the better I’ll get, eh? In any case, here’s a screen from what I’ve been building.
This term in flash we’re working on these mini applications built entirely in Flash. I’m rather proud of the work I’ve done on them, so I thought I’d stick them up for people to enjoy.
Drawing Application
This is my little drawing program.
This one was a lot of fun to make. The logic came pretty easily and it was just a matter of figuring the best way to do things. The one area i struggled with was in making it so that when one clicks the mouse in the “toolbox” area, no line is drawn. I found a solution for that problem and there are still a couple of odd things that happen involving it, but overall I’m pleased.
Oh, and for your amusement, this is the first creation of mine on this drawing program. Ah, the joys of simple pleasures.
and crab hands, apparently…
Curve Generator
This is a test of creating curves in flash.
Having created the drawing program with relative ease, I was given a harder assignment of creating a curve generator that would draw curves. So, one clicks the draw curve button, then clicks in two different locations. From there, a curve is generated to help one decide where one wants the curve to lie. This assignment had a few more logical challenges than the previous, but I found the order by which I wanted to create it fairly quickly. After that it was a matter of troubleshooting as to why the curve was not actually being drawn. All in all, I was pleased when I got it in the end!
