Friday 10 December 2010

I wish... :(

...i was this good

http://pensketches.blogspot.com/

http://rhemdoodles.blogspot.com/

same guy, two blogs. both inspiring.

Tuesday 7 December 2010

Review...adjust...review...adjust...review...adjust.......

My reviewed aim and objectives

******

Aim

"To evaluate if stereoscopic 3D within animation can affect the degree of audience presence when compared with 2d"

Objectives

1.0 To research 3d film making and the techniques commonly used to create audience presence.

1.1 - Research the principals of stereo 3d cinematography

1.2 - Research any additional requirements of 3D film making

1.3 - Produce basic tests shots with Maya's default stereo camera rig

2.0 To create a short animation with an engaging storyline that can be rendered in both 3D and 2D.

2.1 - Create all required assets (with assistance from another student)

2.2 - Prepare required assets for animation, including rigging, skinning and texturing

2.3 - Animate the sequence (with possible help from other students)

2.4 - Light the scenes as required

2.5 - Render the sequence in 2D and then again in 3D (in appropriate format for use with polarised 3d)

3.0 Asses the extent of the presence effect of 3D in the animation above.

3.1 - Research existing examples of questionnaires suitable for assessing audience presence

3.2 - Show the animation (created in 2.0) twice to two different audiences, once in 3D and once in 2D.

3.3 - Use the questionnaire created in 3.1 to test audience presence

4.0 Review the relevance of Stereoscopic 3D in generating a feeling of presence for an audience in animation

4.1 - Discuss the concept of Presence

4.2 - Review the findings of objectives 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0

4.3 - Discuss the effect that Stereoscopic 3D has on presence.

Friday 3 December 2010

Environment Concepts

just a couple of quick sketches of environment concepts.

newsagent

Bike shop 1

Bike Shop 2

Thursday 2 December 2010

Refining my Project

After a chat that I had with Robin Sloan and some thinking that I've been doing since then I have decided that I am going to change my project aim slightly.

Aim

"To evaluate if stereoscopic 3D within animation can affect the degree of audience immersion when compared with 2d"

Objectives

1.0 To research 3d film making and the techniques commonly used to create an immersive effect.

1.1 - Research the principals of stereo 3d cinematography

1.2 - Research any additional requirements of 3D film making

1.3 - Produce basic tests shots with Maya's default stereo camera rig

2.0 To create a short animation with an engaging storyline that can be rendered in both 3D and 2D.

2.1 - Create all required assets (with assistance from another student)

2.2 - Prepare required assets for animation, including rigging, skinning and texturing

2.3 - Animate the sequence (with possible help from other students)

2.4 - Light the scenes as required

2.5 - Render the sequence in 2D and then again in 3D (in appropriate format for use with polarised 3d)

3.0 Asses the extent of the immersive effect of 3D in the animation above.

3.1 - Research existing examples of questionnaires suitable for assessing audience immersion

3.2 - Show the animation (created in 2.0) twice to two different audiences, once in 3D and once in 2D.

3.3 - Use the questionnaire created in 3.1 to test audience immersion

4.0 Review the relevance of Stereoscopic 3D to immerse and audience in animation

4.1 - Discuss in the form of a dissertation the findings of objectives 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0

This feels like a clearer set of objectives and activities, although I'm sure these will change again as submission time draws closer.

Wednesday 1 December 2010

character designs

Thanks to Andy Rennie for helping me out with the character designs. Here's a few silhouettes he's been working on

http://andrewrennie.tumblr.com/

Tuesday 30 November 2010

more interesting sights

http://wardomatic.blogspot.com/

and

http://animationpodcast.com

some really interesting interviews with some top animators

Sunday 28 November 2010

Saturday 27 November 2010

Friday 26 November 2010

The morning after the night before...

Went to see Biffy Clyro last night at the AECC in Aberdeen. It was snowing all night and this was what we woke up too:

Monday 22 November 2010

interesting sites

I found these a few weeks ago but it never occurred to me to re-post them here.

This guys does some interesting character work

http://bedfly.tumblr.com/

Robin Joseph has sees to have worked at most of the big studio's including Aardman, Blue sky, LAIKA, and Disney.

http://patchoforange.com/

Really like the concept stuff this guy is doing

http://paulscottcanavan.blogspot.com/

Ian Worrel, I really like this guys style

http://enworrel.blogspot.com/

Thursday 18 November 2010

Supervisors

Just got an e-mail telling me that Robin Sloan and John Harrison are my honours project supervisors :)

Life Drawing Week 3

This weeks effort, oil pastel on sugar paper, not sure how long it took

Wednesday 17 November 2010

Research Notes

This won't really make any sense to anyone but me

The Effect of Two-dimensional and Stereoscopic Presentation on Middle School Students’ Performance of Spatial Cognition Tasks

"Results show that response accuracy

did not differ between the two types of representations

while task completion time was significantly greater with

the stereoscopic representations. The completion time

increased as the number of mental manipulations of 3D

objects increased in the tasks"

it doesn't make people anymore accurate but does take them longer to process the infromation.

******

"The lack of difference in response accuracy variables

means that using a stereoscopic environment neither

enhanced nor hindered the students’ ability to successfully

answer the task items when given enough time." p97-98 - A price, H-S Lee

"This delay, when combined

with the lack of difference in accuracy, may also be a

sign that students are focused so much on the visuospatial

processing that they are not deeply concentrating in the

cognitive aspects of the tasks." p98 a price h-s lee

people people spend longer processing the image because it is in 3d and are distracted from what the image is telling them by the 3d effect. thus ditracting from the story of a 3d movie, or requiring more time per scene to allow for this delay.

"Results of this study indicate that middle school students

found stereoscopic representations more difficult to mentally

manipulate than 2D images." p 99 a price h-s lee

at least part of the target audience find it more difficult to process 3d

Tuesday 16 November 2010

Objectives and Activities

A quick look at what my activities might be based on the objectives set out under my project aim

1. To research 3D film making and the techniques commonly used to create an immersive effect.

1.1 - research principals of stereo 3d cinematography

1.2 - research how other 3d mediums create immersive effect (ie. games and simulators)

1.3 - explore how these techniques can be applied to my animation

2. To create a short animation that can be rendered with varying levels of Stereo 3D depth.

2.1 - produce an animation with an engaging storyline

2.2 - render it twice with varying levels of depth in a suitable format for use with polarised 3d

2.3 - check

3. To use existing questionnaires that can asses the extent of the immerive effect used in the animation above.

3.1- research existing immersion questionnaires and asses which one is most relevant for use with the context of my project

3.2 - show the animation to two isolated audiences, one viewing a strong 3d effect, the other viewing a more subtle effect.

3.3 - using the questionnaire from 3.1 test and compare the two different audiences

4. To discuss and research the best use of Stereo 3d to immerse an audience in animation.

4.1 - Wirte a dissertation discussing the findings of objectives 1 and 3

Monday 15 November 2010

The longest day

I'm pretty sure that today's been the longest day that I've done this year, I think I've racked up about 10hours work today! The fruits of my labour are at least obvious, I've only got one more panel to do for the second draft of my storyboard which I started just this morning. I've not had time to scan all the images in yet but I hope that tomorrow I'll be able to get them together so I can upload them here.

I've just finished my Show and Tell presentation that I have tomorrow, so it will be interesting to see how the tutors react to the work done and the changes I've made to my project over the past couple of weeks.

I've been thinking this week about asking 3rd year Creative Sound Production students to help me with the audio for my film as I won't be able to do this myself. I'm hoping that if I send out an e-mail and generate some interest in the project. I've also talked to Lynn about getting 3rd year Computer Arts students to help with some animation, as part of their Advanced Animation module, although this is less likely to happen.

I might have lied a little bit about not having scanned in any of the storyboard images because I've just remembered that I did scan in one to use in my Show and Tell tomorrow...

Friday 12 November 2010

Mega-post!

Its been a crazy week this week, I've been really busy, so busy that I've not had a chance to upload the work that I've been doing it so this is going to be a bit of a Mega-post.

First up is the storyboard...

Firstly I'd like to thank Fraser Maclean, John Harrision, and Lynn Love for the great advice they've given me this week and for their time and effort. This storyboard is actually out of date at time of writing because after the various discussions with Fraser, John, and Lynn the way that the story will work is dramatically different. Even though it is all going to change I thought it would be worth posting to see the progression of the story and they way that it will be told.

...Secondly this weeks life drawing.

20 min pose

20 min pose

40 min pose

This week didn't go a well as I would have hoped. I'm not too happy with the drawings but then the only way to improve is to just keep drawing so I guess thats all i can do right now.

...Thirdly...

I managed to get some tests done in the HIVE at uni to make sure that what I'm rendering out in Maya will actually works in polarised 3D. It was a very simple animation (boxes moving around) but the important thing is that it actually works and it's kind of exciting to see that it's quite straight forward to get the rendered file into the Stereoscopic Player.

...Finally...

I took quite a successfully research trip to B&Q to gather stuff for colour charts, mood boards, and general reference. I posted it separately from this because it would really make this post huge. See below if you're interested but it's mainly for personal reference.

That pretty much sums up the week for my honours project.