Pre-New Designers 2018

Here is my film (again) with the tweaked rotting and meat shots. This also includes the updated sound design for the 'bees' entity. I'm happy with how my film has turned out with these improvements and I'm excited to see if it sparks conversations at New Designers.

I've also gotten my Art Of printed as a magazine using Issuu/Peecho. Via Moo.com I printed some business cards (with rounded corners to match my Art Of design) and some larger post cards since I enjoyed collecting the post cards when I went to New Designers previously. Overall I think/hope I'm prepared for next week and I'm excited to see what happens!

When: Meat Tweak Composite

Here is the updated shot for my meat entity. I've changed it so it appears to be a little more shiny/slimy and there is a subtle pulse animation as well. This was quite tricky to put together since I decided to render out just the orb to decrease render time in order to have this ready for New Designers.

It caused me some trouble at the compositing stage because of this, but I managed to sort it out. My final edit for New Designers is now just rendering out and should be ready in time. I'm admittedly not too happy with myself that this is so last minute...but I should have everything ready.

When: Rotting Tweak Composite

Here is the final composite of my tweaked 'rotting' shot. There is a very subtle 'pulse' animation and I also tried making it look more shiny/slimy. I'm attempting to render out my other meat shot without the room in the hopes that I can composite it on top of the original render like what I did for my 'silk' composite.

I'm unsure if this will work, but if it does I should have it done in time for New Designers due to the decreased render times. If not, then it will not be the end of the world because I think having the subtle animation added to this shot is more important and benefits it greatly as it takes up the whole frame.

When: Possible Meat/Rotting Animation Tweaks #2

Here are some more tests of the animated 'pulse' effect for my meat/rotting entity. I actually prefer the more subtle version now because I think it's more unsettling when you start to realise that it's moving/pulsing.

Test 001

Test 002

Test 001

Test 002

When: Possible Meat Animation Tweak Tests (Feedback Appreciated)

Once I had a gap of free time, I decided I wanted to experiment with ways I could possibly enhance my meat entity based on feedback I received on my project. I'm unsure if I will or can implement these changes for New Designers as that depends on feedback to these tests as well as if I can get Conductor working...but even if they are possible tweaks for the future overall I wanted to do some experimenting.

I want to do a low quality test render of both the 'meat' shot as well as the 'rotting' shot just to be sure I'm not using up money unnecessarily. To create this animation I brought the height map into After Effects and created an Adjustment Layer with a 'Brightness/Contrast' effect applied. I then created a mask, changed some of the settings and animated it so it moved down the orb (#1). 

I felt #2 was too subtle but for #3 I created two animated layers so I could have more of a gradient. For #3 I also decided to tweak the coat and specularity settings so it appears more slimy like it does in the 'rotting' shot. Out of these three tests I like #3 the most.

#1

#1 Animated Height Map

#2

#3

Bullion: Swamp Stage Assets #1

Over the last few weeks I've been working with Leda Entertainment to create assets for their indie game Bullion. I have never modelled for games before but I skimmed over the tutorials online, looked at the assets other team members have made, and asked them for advice. I had a go at making some models for their Swamp level such as cattails, bushes, grasses/reeds, a waterfall, and trees to start with. The tree still needs work - I need to add more branches for some additional variation. 

I'm sure overall there are things I need to fix, but I'm having other team members check over the models as I work on them. I tried to recycle assets where I could to try and ensure I was creating the models correctly. Only some of these assets are UV mapped since I wanted to check with the team if they were modelled properly for Unity (so far they've said the models work fine). I've put on temporary shaders for now to show what the textures may resemble later on. I think learning how to create some low poly games assets may be useful in the future.

'When' - Bees Sound Design Tweak 001

Another part of my feedback for When was a suggestion to return to my bees entity and make the soundscape more overwhelming. I wanted to increase the audio levels of the music as well, so I decided to play around with the bees as well. I added in another layer of insect sounds that were at a higher pitch as well as increase the volume of the whispers. Hopefully this is an improvement!

When: Additional 'Art Of' Pages & Projection Footage Brick Tests

After recieving feedback for my Major Project, I decided to return to my Art Of and add in a few more pages to conclude the document better. I decided to add two pages of statistics about Eating Disorders since I want people to have more information about it. I tried to include a range of statistics about the various Eating Disorders and how they affect different genders, sexuality, races, and so on. Despite it being an abstract project, I still want to ensure I have real life woven into it...so I think it's useful to have those statistics available for people to see after going through the Art Of. I also added a short concluding statement which is an excerpt from my 'filmmaker statement' that I've been using to submit to film festivals as well as a 'special thanks' section. I hope this wraps up my Art Of better than it had previously.

In my feedback it was also suggested I experiment with adding my brick displacement onto the geometry I used for my projection footage. For some reason the displacement on the plane was being very fiddly, but I'm experimenting with a few ways of achieving what I want. I tried to have the bricks be very subtle since I only want there to be a hint of them. The first test I did the bricks were straight - in my room all of the bricks are distorted because of the UV map. I then went into Photoshop and morphed the height map so I could imitate the distorted bricks. I still need to tweak the texture because some of the settings (ex. specularity) is not the same as my original brick texture...so that may further improve the look. I'm going to continue experimenting and see what I can do with it.