Research – Page 6 – Media Project One

October 23, 2017Andrew Cartwright No Comments

Aesthetic Research

For my project I will be researching different space aesthetics from different sources to help strengthen my idea, I will be further providing screen grabs and videos to help explain what I like about certain aspects within that source as well as an explanation as to how I intend to use it in my project.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy is an adventure sci-fi film that follows a group of intergalactic criminals who are force to work together. Within this film, the group travel around the universe to different planets which are introduced to the audience an very attractive way with slow cinematic shots. I would like to utilise the title/naming convention that is adhered to within the film, a specific example can be seen below where the brackets come up and reveal the name of the planet with extra features below it such as: a description and the planetary co-ordinates. (Full Intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNlnQwHWSYw)

I feel that this convention would be highly adaptable and usable within my own project. I would intend to use this convention by showing to the viewers what the mysterious cube is in the space/zero-gravity environment. A small point would fade onto the cube to which a narrow arm from extend from it, this would then allow a point for the the cube name, description and co-ordinates to be displayed from.

In Addition, I would also like to try and replicate the space environment, through observation I can see that there are starts within the background, however, they aren’t overpowering and distracting. This would be an aesthetic I would also like to replicate within my project as I would want to keep the audiences attention on the objects in my scene.

Star Trek

Star Trek is another space themed adventure film, it follows the crew of a space who aim to defeat a villain with a specific fluid called ‘Red Matter’ which has the power to create blackholes and destroy the universe. Within a key scene at the end of the film, the container in which the red matter is kept gets mashed and the camera pans up to a group of small dots of the fluid, a quick series of edits inverts the images colours which adds a really dynamic effect – especially when accompanied by the non-diegetic sounds (can be seen below).

I would like to take this piece of inspiration and adapt in into my animation, I would like to use a similar camera shot (CU) to denote the spheres moving around, however, instead of inverting the image colours I would like to use an RGB spilt effect , cross cut with another perspective view of the spheres floating around the cube. I feel that this would made the animation more visually interesting to the views by showing them for information about the environment and if done correctly & subtly, it shouldn’t disorientate the audience.

Additionally, the ending of Star trek has a attractive space aesthetic which I feel inspires my work. Although I might not necessarily employ any of the convention used into my own animation, I feel that it narrows my aesthetic ideas more.

Ending Credits:

Overall, I really like the 3D effect that is created within the ending and I was fully surprised to find out it was created within Adobe After Effects by Andy Kramer. I didn’t associate After Effects as a powerful 3D software tool.

Oblivion

Oblivion is an adventure mystery about a veteran assigned to extract Earth’s remaining resources begins to question what he knows about his mission and himself. Within one of the final scene of the film, the hero find himself approaching a large space station called the ‘Tet’ that he didn’t know existed. The general object design of the tet is fairly simplistic, however, it again reflects the man-made aspect I want to incorporate within my own animation. The shot below as again shows the contrast between organic (Earth) and man made (the tet).

After the shot, the scene then cuts to the inside of the tet, which can be seen below:

The geometric design is reflected inside of the tet as well – I specifically like the use of straight lines as it further reinforces the notion of a man made structure – Within nature today, organic organisms adapt to their surroundings, twisting and turning around obstacles that might be in their way. The ‘Tet’ and also the cube in my animation are the binary opposites, the objects do the exact opposite and forces obstacles out of its way.

Star Wars

Star Wars, the very famous franchise, also incorporates elements which I desire to be inside of my animation. The geometric design on the death star is an obvious inspiration as it creates and interesting aesthetic. However, there are further elements about the design of the death star that jump out as well – I would also like to try to create luminance objects on the surface of the cube so that lights can be seen, this can be specifically seen in the large ridge across its perimeter, I feel that this adds a different aesthetic to the object – more functional than others such as the tet.

From the screen grab above, the death star further reinforces the geometric design I would like to have on the Cube in my animation – compared to the ‘Tet’ its geometric protrusions are more pronounced on the spheres surface which I feel makes it more interesting for the audience. In addition, the death star also conveys the notion of man made, something which I intend to use.

October 16, 2017Andrew Cartwright No Comments

Cinema 4D – MoGraph Research

I will be looking at a different element of c4d, specifically the MoGraph toolset that allows for the creation of complex scenes and titles for digital/motion graphic artists. From the screen grab below you can see the different MoGraph tools: Cloner, Matrix, Fracture, Molnstance, MoText, Tracer, MoSpline. I will be giving an explanation of what they all do and additional renders to help visualise it.

Cloner

The cloner object is the MoGraph tool for the duplication of other objects, allowing for the clones that were created to be arranged into any pattern that is desired within the settings. The cloner object sets the object(s) up so they can be affected by various effectors – which I will be researching into further.

The renders below show the power of this MoGraph, allowing for quick arrangement and building of scenes just from one object. The render on the left shows how the default set up of the cloner when first added to a shape in c4d – after the tweaking the settings the shapes can be arranged into different patterns, which can be seen in the render on the right.

The screen grab below shows the settings box for the cloner. The ‘mode’ section allows for different arrangement of the clones, ranging from: Object, Radial, Linear and Grid Array (which has been used above). From this the other settings can be altered to make smaller changes to the layout, the most noticeable being the count and size section allowing for more/less clones to be added and also the spacing between them to be changed.

Matrix

The Matrix tool is very similar to the cloner as explained above. When the matrix in placed into the scene, a grid array of cubes appears – each smaller cube hold positional co-ordinates so that when a shape object is entered into it, it duplicates it and places it the scene with the same positional co-ordinates.

The test video below explains this better – From the first test you can see that I dropped a matrix mograph element into the scene and then added a sphere, after this I then changed the object property mode of the matrix from grid array to object. This was my first mistake as I was telling the matrix to take positional co-ordinates from the surface of the sphere instead of the initial positioning. After this, I then placed the sphere into the cloner tool and the further told the cloner to arrange all of the objects accordingly – the arrangement of the clones depends on the settings of the matrix, in this case it was a grid array.

Fracture

The Fracture tool allows shapes and objects to be broken down into their key polygons. The most common example of this when a sphere smashes into a cube – during the collision, the cube smashes into lots of little pieces and adds an interesting dynamic to the scene.

The screen grabs below show how the fracture tool can be used within objects to make them ‘explode’ – using the example given above about the ball smashing an object, I have put it into practice in the renders by following a tutorial. The whole process was very complex and didn’t really allow for different variation in the way the different shards react, this might be very realistic if comparing it to a real world example, however, if I would want the object to break and react in a different way im not sure I would be able to make it happen. To conclude, I will have to conduct more research into ways of making finer adjustments to each shattered object – I think i would because to use some part of it within my final project but again further research is needed.

Molnstance

The MoInstance tool can ‘look’ back at its only animated history in the scene – the tool then looks at the specified frames (entered into the settings) and creates the past states in the form of instances from those frames. These instances, in turn, are regular clones that can be affected by any effector for specific effects.

The screen grabs below show how the MoInstance works – the start position of the sphere or frame 0 (on the left) shows one instance of the object and because it hasn’t moved, its history cant be shown in the display port. By frame 32, the object has started to move and this is when the mograph tool can start to work – the tool recreates the clones from the objects history producing a delay effect and by the final frame, the object has stopped moving – allowing for the clones to catch up. The tool is very powerful and can create some nice effects, one way to make this better is to have the object follow a more organic path instead of just a straight line and also alter the settings to make it have less clones created or either by increasing the space between each clone.

MoText

The MoText tool allows for easy animation of text – when inserted into the scene, the tool can be edited to any word, phrase or sentence and then has further controls which allow it to be animated in anyway which is needed.

The renders below show the MoGraph tool – its fairly simplistic and has some good uses. The control panel on the bottom right of the software shows how customisable it is, allowing for: specific fonts, letter bevels and spacing controls to be used – the good factor about the tool is that it turns the letter/word into a 3D object which can then be fine tuned to your needs. However, due to the nature of my project I don’t think ill be using it as I don’t intend to be creating an text within my scene, and if I do, I think it’ll be flat or 2D rather than 3D.

Tracer

The Tracer tool traces the movement of objects or particles within your scene, this is done by creating splines from the paths that follow – giving the object/particle a ‘tail’. The tracer tool can then be edited to alter the length of the tail and also the overall effect that is created.

The screen grab below shows how the tracer would initially work – the red sphere would move and from behind a white line would appear, this shows the path that the object has taken and also shows the tracer mograph is understanding its path. The tracer mograph can also be changed in the settings to not only produce 1 line but can also make it produce a line for every vertices on the shape (this can be seen within the screen grab – the sphere has lots of white lines, the tracer would then produce a line at every point where they intersect).

From this, I was able to push the tracer mograph further by adding a circular shape and a sweep to give the sphere a ‘tail’ – this was done by adding a circle (a 2D object) to a sweep which turns the 2D object, in this case the circle, into a 3D object (The 3D version of a cicle is a sphere, however, as its following a long path, it becomes a cylinder). To make it stand out, I added a orange material to it with some luminance.

This could be very useful within my project as it could make simple shapes become more interesting, this would be further benefitted by a more interesting path to follow which would make it look more organic and natural.

MoSpline

The MoSpline is special tool that allows splines to be generated within a sceen in c4d. The tool can create squiggly, flower light shapes and can also grow custom drawn shapes, such as text.

The renders below show the different objects that can be created – when the mospline is first added in the scene it creates a single spline, within the settings more can be added and altered to create the same object in the first render on the left, this was done by changing the number of segments and angles H, P and B (all angles react in different ways depending on others settings). Additionally to this, the mospline can be used in conjunction with a 2D shape under the pen tool – the render on the right used a 2D flower shape and a circle to give it a wavy/organic feel (this was created by accident but I feel it looks really interesting and if it could be effected by turbulance then it would be very interesting to watch).

Conclusion

In conclusion, this research was very beneficial but also very tricky to make work and time consuming. I feel that the cloner, tracer and fracture mograph tools could be used within my project as they give very interesting aesthetic objects and shapes – I also feel that they could make creating the scene very easy as well, especially the cloner as it would mean that I could make a lot of objects very quickly all with unique characteristics (which could be used within the colour of the objects and their overall shape or defects within the shape).

October 11, 2017Andrew Cartwright No Comments

Cinema 4D – Lighting Research

In preparation for my project, I need to conduct some research into effective lighting inside of Cinema 4D (c4d). Within the software there are 7 different types of lighting, these include: Light, Target Light, IES Light, Sun Light, Spot Light, Area Light and Infinite Light. Each of them have different settings that make the light that they produce react differently on objects within the scene. (Different lights can be seen in the top right corner of the screen)

Light

The default light in c4d is very basic, it allows for general illumination of scenes and also allows for very limited shadow controls – as you can see from the render below the light spread itself is very large and very harsh. The rendering below shows how the light acts within the scene and also on the platonic shape – compared to the Area Light it has a much broader spread.

Target Light

Target light allows you to target a single object or a group of objects within a scene – it does this by creating a null object which the target light follows, you then have to make the null a ‘child’ of the object you want to be illuminated.

*To make the null a ‘child’ of the object means to attach it to the object.

The render on the left shows the target lights settings – under tag properties you can see that the target object is set to Light.Target.1 which has been made a ‘child’ of the platonic, this means that wherever the shape is moved to in the scene, the target light will follow it. The render of the right shows the way in which the light illuminates the platonic – the light itself acts very much in the same way as the spot light.

The target light could be very useful for highlighting the key elements in scene to put emphasis on certain objects further drawing the audiences eye.

IES Light

An IES light tries to replicate real lights and the patterns that they cast in the real world. A good example of this is your standard everyday desk lamp, when this is angled downwards onto a surface you can often see a halo effect being cast on the surface – this is due to a number of reasons like the design of the reflector around the bulb, the glass covering the bulb and the shape/thickness of this glass.

When inside of c4d, the IES light can be selected and it will be inserted into the scene. You then need to download and IES light file which tells the light what type of light effect to cast onto the object(s) in your scene – this is done through the photometric tab in the main control panel and then the IES light file can be inserted into the photometric data section.

Below are two example of an IES light. On the left you can see an intense light with a unique dark ring and then a faint secondary ring – and on the left is a similar pattern, however, both light rings are similar in intensities and in size. Both examples below are both made with different IES light files that I was able to download online, along with this there were many different light patterns available to download too.

Sun Light

The sun light tries to replicates the real sun by offering more dynamics such as: time of day, month and year to create more realistic light, this would be suitable for a scene where photorealism is trying to be achieved as the sun light would act exactly how the real sun would do e.g. in the morning the sun light would emit a warmer light and larger shadows would be cast, and at mid day the light emitted would be cooler.

The sun light wouldn’t be suitable for my project as I don’t intend to incorporate the sun – My project will be in space and therefore this lighting might be too complex for what I want to create, having time settings to alter will be too time consuming when I can just add a simplistic light to do the same job.

Spot Light

The spot light emits a focus beam of light and acts similarly to how a real spot light would act on stage – the best example of this would be for a torch, the light emitted would need to be very focused and illuminate very little of the surrounding area.

The render below show how the spot light illuminates objects within the scene, it is very much used to highlight key object within the scene and therefore could be very useful within my project. As my project will be in a space/gravity free environment, the spot light could be used to highlight key elements in it to put emphasis on certain objects further drawing the audiences eye.

Area Light

An area light is a light that emits light over a large surface – this makes it smoother and more evenly spread when it comes to illuminating an object.

Additionally to this, an area light doesn’t need to be altered too much after being added to the scene within c4d as its omnidirectional, meaning its emits light out in all directions – this could be an easy fix to get some good lighting within scene when it comes to the lighting stage as its fairly powerful and soft light source at the same time.

Controlling the light is also very easy within the light parameters, the colour and intensity can all be altered to give the perfect settings for the scene – this could allow for very organic looking lighting especially of spherical shapes.

Furthermore, shadows can also be controlled within the light parameters, this is an equally important factor as having effective shadows can make the difference between an object looking realistic or not. Below are two renders of an area light being used on a platonic – the left render had ‘area shadows’ enabled and the right has no shadows enabled. Although the actual shape itself is illuminated, the render on the right doesn’t look realistic as there isn’t a shadow.

Infinite Light

The infinite light is a light source comparable to the sun, the light is very intense and because of this it causes very harsh shadows. The light source only works in the Z-axis, this will allow it to either work -Z or +Z space – this would be best used as the sun in a scene in any other ways in which harsh shadows are needed to be cast.

The infinite light wouldn’t be very suitable for my project as I don’t intended to create any scenes that incorporate the sun – My project will be in a space environment and therefore very intense lighting wouldn’t be suitable for the mood I am wanting to create.

Conclusion

Overall the lighting research showed me very clearly which types of lights will be best to use within my project – mainly area lights and potentially spot mights to help emphasise key objects within the scene. To further consolidate my research I shall produce a short video showcasing all of the different lights illuminating different stationary and moving objects which will help show A) how well the different light illuminate different objects and B) how the different shadows that the different lights produce.

October 5, 2017Andrew Cartwright No Comments

Software Research

For my project I am going to conduct some research into the different types of 3D software that is available today, looking specifically at: What they do or What they are most commonly used for within industry, What platforms they are available on – either Windows or Mac, Cost of the software and Accessibility to me as a student.

Cinema 4D

Cinema 4D is a 3D Modelling, Rendering and Animation software that is most commonly used within the television and advertising industry – mainly down to its specific features for motion graphics, its has developed a powerful set of MoGraph tools that can make real-world motion graphics by enabling cloning, the adding of effects and easy motion creation of objects. In addition to this, Cinema has also been used on major film productions such as Spiderman 3 and I Peggiori (an Italian film) for select features like Bodypaint 3D Module which was specifically used within the special effects of the films. However, it is key to state that the majority of the film industry do not actually use Cinema 4D – the preferable choice is often other softwares such as Autodesk’s Maya. As Cinema 4D is supported by mac and windows, many people recommend the software to those who aren’t yet a professional but have the desire to learn 3D skills – its recommendations often come from its easy to navigate user interface as it consists of a small amount of buttons, however, hidden within the tabs are all the necessary tools needed to create your projects. Unlike the other 3D software, Cinema has its own render engine that allows for project scenes and animation projects to be rendered straight away as soon as they’re finished, it also allows for external render engines such as Maxwell Render or Vrayforc4d to be used within it as well – this is often used in conjunction with cineware which allows for 3D integrated scene to be transferred directly into After Effects CC and vice versa. Cinema 4D has a limited accessibility as I can apply for a 30 day free trial, but as a student I am able to apply for a free and complete student license of the software which makes it a more viable option.

Autodesk Maya

Maya is a 3D graphics, Character and Animation software that is most commonly used within the film and video games industry – mainly due to its writing language MEL (Maya Embedded Language), it can expand the functionality of the program by allowing external plug-ins and custom button to operate alongside the software. These features have been very beneficial to larger studios hence it being used a lot for famous films such as Avatar, The Lord of the Rings and Transformers as well as many successful games such as the Halo and Call of Duty franchises. Maya is supported by mac, windows and linux which makes it very versatile for many users across the industries, however, it isn’t a novice friendly software as the graphical interface is fairly complex but still manages to be adaptable to the creative guidelines. Additionally, the software uses an integrated render engine called Arnold which is a highly rated renderer which, is also accompanied by MASH which is a procedural animation toolkit that enhances the users ability to create visual effects within the software more easily and in a decreased amount of time. Maya is very accessible as I can either apply for a free trial version of the software, but as a student I can get a free 3 year student license of the software which makes it viable option also.

Blender

Blender is a 3D modelling, Motion tracking and Game creation software that is used primarily by indie game developers and hobbyists. Because of the user base, a large amount of community forums have been created therefore there are lots of avenues for support if any problems occur during the creative process. Blender is a free open source software that is available for mac, windows and linux, and has its own built-in game engine that allows users to create their models, animations or game assets quickly as the software can allow them to be directly viewed within the environment they intend to be in. As Blender is open source, it is constantly being developed by hundreds of active users around the world – it has advanced API scripting using the coding language python to further customise the software with specialised tools which can be released to users all around the world. Although this is a positive aspect for developing the software, it could pose some stability issues as all the coding might not be 100% bug free from one operating system – I might be able to use the latest tool in it on a windows machine, however, when I try to use it on a mac it could crash.

Adobe Dimension CC (Project Felix)

Dimension CC is a 2D and 3D asset building software that is created by Adobe and distributed through their Creative Cloud package. As the software is still in early development it claims to create high-quality and photorealistic 3D images through adding different assets to your scene. It also has added functionality of allowing the composition of 2D and 3D assets to build product shots and their scenes and abstract art. As this software is still in development, I might not be able to get a copy of it iin time for my project and if I did manage to get it, it might not be the most reliable of softwares to choose from as it could have stability issues when in beta. However, the software is available on both mac and windows operating systems but it will cost £15.20 per month for students.

Conclusion

*Cinema 4D – I am able to get a free copy of Cinema 4D via a student license and I already have a small amount of pre-exisiting knowledge with the software. In addition, using this software would allow for increased workflow as it has convergence with other Adobe CC applications, specially After Effects, which I not only have on my computer but also intend to use towards the end of my project for editing the 20sec animation together with. Another major factor for the use of Cinema 4D is that it is modelling orientated, this would allow for easy creation inside of the software of different shapes also accompanied by the effector would allow further manipulation of those shapes to create aesthetically pleasing results – this is benefitted even further as if I was to choose Cinema I would be able to use the excellent built-in render engine to export my work. I feel choosing this software would produce a good animation – I am more inclined to go with this software over Maya as I have a small amount of knowledge of Cinema which means I would be building straight onto the technical skills rather than start form the 101 basics.

Maya – With Maya I am able to get a free copy of the software through a student license which beneficial, however, I have no knowledge of the software which would make learning it more of challenge – especially if the software isn’t very novice friendly. I feel that Maya could sufficiently handle the project in mind as it is a 3D graphics orientated software which means I could build my project inside of it and also render it out thank to it having its own render engine, Arnold. I feel choosing this software would produce a good final piece, however, sticking to a fail fast approach I feel that it would take longer than 12 weeks to properly learn everything about it.

Blender – As Blender is mainly a 3D modelling software it would be good to choose this as I could easily prototype my project, texture paint it and finalise it. The only problem that I can foresee is when it come to rendering the project out, when researching I discovered that it doesn’t have a particularly great render engine when compared to Cinema 4D or Maya, this might cause problems with having to source another render engine that is compatible with Blender to get my final product.

Dimension – With Adobe Dimension, I am currently unable to get a copy of the software as it is still in development. Due to this factor alone I cannot select this software to create my project with, however, I was able to get it, I feel it would be fairly useful.

*Overall I am going to use Cinema 4D for the reasons listed above.