Idea Developments #2

After talking in groups about the different assessment strands, I discovered that I will have to produce a product for the end of this semester. I’m more inclined to select one of the first two strands as I wanted the majority of marking to be based around the development and research of my work and not on the final product in case it wasn’t up to a high standard. I feel that this will work better for me this year round because I don’t know the software very well and means that my R&D can save my final product if it fails.

Additionally, after conducting research into different competitions I thought it might be a good idea to look at some tutorials on YouTube to get more familiar with Cinema 4D. After watching a couple videos I came across one (embedded below) that talked about a plug-in called X-Particles – after googling it I found out that its an extension of the software that allows for better particle rendering and control within the software which I found real interesting.

To find out more detailed information on the plug-in I checked out the website and discovered that they have an online competition for December called the X-Particles Challenge, this could be a competition that I enter this semester as it being held on a similar date to when our work is due in. In addition to this, I found that I can get a 30 day free trial of X-Particles which would work with my student version of Cinema 4D.

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Above is a screen grab of the website hosting the challenge. They specify that the final product must be created with Cinema 4D and X-Particles combined and that the final product must be no more than 20 seconds long and in the ratio 1280 x 720. Sticking to their guidelines will be easy, however, the more difficult part would be researching the plug-in and understanding its capabilities within Cinema 4D.

 

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. 

Idea Developments

After reflecting on my decision to go with Cinema 4D for my final project, I have been searching online for different competitions that I could enter using the software. As I was fairly open to creating an animation, I started to conduct generic searches in google to which didn’t lead to much success due to a number of factors –  the main two being the time of year and the broadness of the search.

Finally, after a lot of searching I came across a really useful website called Animation Festivals which was purely dedicated to hosting different animation events that were and currently are going on around the world. After scrolling through the list of different competitions I found one that I could potentially enter for next semester – this would allow for a perfect amount of preparation this semester before creating the concept next semester.

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Above are two screen grabs of the Animation Festival website showing the different competitions that are running this year – the only downside to this is that none of them are put into any type of order and there was no ability to filter them. After scrolling through a lot of the competitions, I have come across a few that might be work entering for next semester as this semester would allow for plenty of time to learn and prepare Cinema 4D.

Below is a screen grab of the Trollywood Animation Festival in Sweden, this is a competition that is running next year from the 17 May – 19 May 2018. This competition would be good to enter as it is being held right around the same time as our deadlines are due in. In addition, the Animayo Competition in Spain could also be a contender for one of the events I submit my work to as it is being held on the 30 April – 5 May 2018. However, the submission date for any work is due in a bit earlier on the 1 March which could be the only negative.

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Initial Idea’s

Originally, when thinking about my project I wanted to follow a similar route to Semester B’s assignment where we created a website for a concept or product. As I really enjoyed creating the website on Adobe Muse, I thought it would be a good idea to further develop my technical skill within this area as the software allows for very aesthetically pleasing and modern websites to be created with interesting features. The website itself would be very dependant on the product it was based around in-terms of its style and the scale/size, due to copyright issues I was thinking about creating a website for a product on Kickstarter or Go Fund Me sites to hopefully avoid this.

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Although I was building my ideas quickly for the project, it didn’t feel like I was pushing my abilities far enough into technical area’s that were unknown – as I had already created a product with this software, I though that would only be building upon prior knowledge. Additionally, after having some exposure to the industry, it had some come to my attention that companies wouldn’t create websites using Adobe Muse, they would have specialists who would create them from scratch using code – this finalised my decision to change idea’s as I want to experiment with softwares/technologies that will be used within the industry in the future, making this project more valuable.

After making my decision to change idea’s, I have been thinking about different technologies and softwares which I could potentially use. Over the summer I had the opportunity to go to a media company – Red Bee Media – to see what their environment was like. After talking to some of the employee’s there I started to experiment with a software called Cinema 4D – created by Maxon. Cinema 4D is a 3D software that is used within the industry today and used within several disciplines of media. Below is some examples of work that I have produced using it:

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The software is very exciting as it allows me to create work which looks realistic, the images above are examples of this (even though they are very abstract). In order for myself to use this softwares to create a product I will need to research heavily into the software as my understanding of it is very low – prior to this I have used YouTube tutorials to help create work.