Week 3 Maya - Fur...

The santa hat must be one of my favourite things we've produced in Maya yet. I'm looking forward to using fur to create characters like Sulley out of Monsters Inc. This was amazingly quick to make and it looks amazing too. Definitely a cool tutorial...

The other fur practices were great to help us understand how to use the tool. Below is the different textures I was able to create using the tutorial...

Maya Week 1 and 2 - The Pirate's Cove...

So i finished the pirate's cove a while back, but for some reason i never posted it up here. It was quite long and i did get a bit stuck along the way, but overall it was a great introduction to texturing which has helped me model my final piece. It's amazing how good textures can make a model look...

Adding the Final Details...

Today i had a bit of a slow start, mainly due to going into to university and finding that the computers there made my image to dark to work on. I didn't want to mess around with the lightng settings because i was happy with how the image looked on my laptop. However, i will need to consider raisinghe brghtnes slightl in Photosop for the crit tomorrow. Anyway, I was trying t add some more details in Maya like a spotlight for the torch and ossibly tr ut sme fog effects, as well as making some changes to the landscape and trees. But, Maya has been messing me round a little and therefore i had to take the render of what i already had because it wouldn't render properly otherwise. This didn't atter to much though, as i was already fairly happy with what i had textured and modelled and i was ready to take it into Photoshop where i add some details and a backdrop. I firstly added my backdrop which is a series of trees going into the distance. I blurred this slightly and made it slightly bluer to blend in with my model better. Once was happy with that i added aome fog/mist, using the effect i had practiced, and i then made that slightly bluer to reflect the light source in the scene. Finally i added the torch light which i'm still not happy with and i'll probably change several times tomorrow... But with these added details, this is what i have come up with so far....

I may make a few changes here and there between now and tomorrow, but i am fairly pleased with the end result...

My Idea Development - Concepts/Digital Paintings

So i took a break from the modelling and i've decided to upload the concepts and digital paintings that helped me get to my idea... To start off with i knew what i wanted but i wasn't too sure how to get there... One particular image stood out for me which i used as a reference throughout my idea development (I couldn't get rid of this image from my head, all of my ideas and sketches pretty much revoloved around this image). and here it is...

I know what you're probably thinking and it's along the lines of "its a picture of the woods... so what". But the thing i loved most about this image was how theatrical it was and this was the style that i wanted to stick to in my final piece. I feel that my final piece isn't as theatrical as this, however it does have some theatrical elements, particularly the lighting, which is slightly overemphasised but helps create a eerieness. I got so hooked and obsessed with this image that i hit the 'writer's block' and i even began using the image to draw over as a digital painting...

After avoiding the problem for a while and jumping onto my Maya tutorials and completing my essay, i realised i needed to get my ideas flowing again. This break seemed to help me refresh my thoughts a little bit and i came back with new elements to my idea and i was constantly chopping and changing things... in my head... i still haven't got used to this putting my thoughts straight onto paper. Bu thats next on my agenda in improving my skills. However, in our Photoshop lessons, Phil was able to take my ideas and put me on the right path for digitally painting the idea i had...

This was my first real start to portray my idea and although it seems very flat, it was a step further than what i had been stuck on. For me the idea was there, it just needed some perspective, compostion and a lot more depth. This was my first attempt in taking the concept to that next step...

As you can see, i was getting there, slowly but surely. Luckily Phil came back just before i finished this concept and gave me the guidance that i needed to turn the concept above, into more refined concept...

With Perspective, composition and depth i was able to produce a more wholesome concept and get a good idea of where everything could go in my model. I was actually reasonably happy with this concept and i was just going to add a few little details, but again, Phil popped up and gave me a few pointers on deciding how i wanted the lighting to be and straight away this gave the image the eerieness that it needed, turning it from something kind of uncanny to something that was unmistakeably uncanny. However, there was one more important point he made in allowing me to give the image the uncanny effect, and that was storyline. The importance of narrative and meaning in products is massively important and for a second, mainly due to my amazement at how far my idea had come, i had forgotten about the narrative. So i spent the next day or two racking my brain while i was modelling my idea and this was what i came up with...

Although, elements of this image have changed in my final model, like the positioning of the objects, i have pretty much used this concept and the one Phil produced to model my final piece. As you can see the blue blue gives it that eerieness as well as more life, i suppose it is the realistic life given to the image that makes it even more uncanny. In terms of narrative, i still kept it quite simple with the torch and footprints which end near the wheelchair, i feel this is slightly ambiguous and mysterious as the footprints could have been from someone who walking with a person in a wheelchair, or slightly more supernatural, the wheelchair could have been more involved with th disappearance of the person. I feel in the final piece the torch and the footprints will be slightly less suttle and there to make the audience think about what is going on, but the main focus should be the wheelchair...

Developing My Scene - Ambient Lighting...

Just been moving the trees about and positioning them so that the composition in the shot works. I've also added an ambient light which i made blue to follow a similar effect as in my concepts. Still got a bit more to do, but i think it's coming along nicely and almost has a similar uncanny effect as in the concepts... i need to add a spotlight to the torch too because it's unnoticeable at the moment and some footprints as well....

Blue Velvet...

Blue Velvet is a 1986 American film written and directed by David Lynch. The film tells the story of a college student named Jeffrey Beaumont, who comes across a human ear in a grass field, in his idealized American hometown of Lumberton, after visiting his ill father in hospital. He proceeds to investigate the ear with assistance from Sandy Williams, who provides him with information and leads from her father, a local police detective. Jeffrey's investigation draws him deeper into his hometown's seedy underworld, and sees him forming a sexual relationship with the alluring torch singer, Dorothy Vallens, who may be connected to the ear, and uncovering a breed of criminals, including Frank Booth, who engage in drug abuse and sexual violence.

Before watching this film I thought the villain in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover was the root of all evil, but apparently there is a bigger villain. For me, the surrealism and film noir exhibited in this film work wonders, in a classic film where special effects is irrelevant, and the power of the characters dominates the narrative. I found the film awkward to watch at times because of the power of the sexual abuse scenes, however it did remind me of a Quentin Tarantino style of violence but with a better narrative and less focus on the gore. Similar to poltergeist, the intensity in this film works wonders and your always kept wondering what happens next. It was clear that the film was named after the song of the same name, considering it was played countless amounts of times. However, I found, at times, the storyline to be quite confusing in the middle with the introduction of many new characters, but by the end I fully understood who was who and how they played a part in the overall narrative. I particularly enjoyed the scene in the latter stages where the man was standing half dead with blood pouring from him. It is films like these that has made David Lynch so highly regarded as a director in the film industry.

Poltergeist...

Poltergeist is an American horror film, directed by Tobe Hooper and was released on June 24, 1981. The plot centres itself around the haunting of a suburban family home with the suspected cause being poltergeists. In the beginning we see Carol Anne, a five year old girl, communicating to the spirits through a television set with no signal. As the story progresses, an earthquake occurs, which only the family feel, and the spirits begin to play harmless tricks. What happens next is not so benign. During a rainstorm we witness a tree coming to life and grabbing Carol Anne’s brother, Robbie, through a window. However, this is just a distraction, by the spirits, to leave Carol Anne unattended. A shining light appears in her closet and sucks Carol Anne into the other dimension, controlled by the poltergeists. As the parents pull Robbie from the tree that tries to swallow him, they soon find out that Carol Anne is missing and later find that they can communicate to her via the television set. They decide to bring in a team of parapsychologists in an attempt to get their daughter back. As the team investigates the case further and further they uncover more paranormal activities and establish that they are being tormented by poltergeists. With the help of a spiritual medium, they realise that the entrance to the other dimension is in the closet and in the latter stages of the film we witness a terrifying sequence in which the mother ties a rope around herself and crosses over, bringing her daughter back with her. However, that’s not the last we hear of “The Beast” which is the mastermind behind Carol Anne’s captivity, in a last ditch attempt, it again tries to suck the children into the closet. But the family manages to escape, finally watching The Beast implode the house into the other dimension. The final scene shows the family staying at a Holiday Inn, where the father puts the television set outside of their room.

I enjoyed watching Poltergeist because of the intensity that it provided throughout the film. For me, it is another example of a successful Spielberg film and i'm quite suprised that i hadn't seen the film prior to this. As i said before it was the intensity that kept me hooked and it definitely had a Spielberg feel to it. One of the most intense parts was in the latter stages of the film where the mother attempts to bring Carol Anne back, the pace seemed to be just right and it kept me right on the edge of my seat. However, i feel the special effects, including the Beast and the clown, let this film down, i don't even feel that it was a necessity to even show these as living beings. i feel it's strong factor was the element of the unknown, we as the audience don't know what they are dealing, but we can only imagine. as soon as we see physical attributes though, i feel our attention is taken away from the unknown and i didn't like that. A couple of examples were the tree scene and the clown, which could have easily been scary without it actually moving; similar to the ventriliquist's dummy. I feel The Haunting was a greater success in that sense because it leaves that element of the unknown throughout the film and we never truely know what we are dealing with. Excluding that, i found the film to another great representation of suburban neigjhbourhoods gone wrong. For some reason i seem to find it amusing watching their "happy lives" tormented. i especially liked the end shot with the tv out side there room; for me there was definitely something uncanny about it. i was expecting something to happen.