Responsive Collaboration: Projection Mapping Planning

After making my 3D mock up in Maya, I wanted to make a gif of some fireworks as an example of what I want to project onto the background of our display. I thought this would be a great idea as we are having a dark scene behind the doll house, so a firework would look really charming and stand out, making people want to take a closer look inside the display.

I looked at some gifs of fireworks and liked these ones in particular. I noticed that there are several different patterns and paces that fireworks go in. Sometime they expand outwards, others downwards, and of course some are really colourful. I think sticking to a white firework might be best in terms of my light projection seen as how white works best when projecting from an inexpensive, ordinary projector, as I am thinking of the materials available to us.

I also noticed that fireworks start of fast, but then radiate slowly, which makes them more magical and mesmerising.

From this then, I made my own gif of fireworks behind our display. This took me so long because I spent ages trying to get the timing right. I drew the firework way too detailed in the beginning, meaning I had too many frames resulting in a really slow start up. Once I rectified this, I then spread the firework out way too much so that it didn't look natural, so I tried to solve this by drawing the firework millimetre by millimetre and then deleting frames afterwards in order to achieve an okay looking firework. 

I then duplicated this just to see what it would look like with a couple of fireworks and I think it looks fine. I think it will look much better in real life, and if the fireworks are spaced out a bit more. Overall, I think that it is achievable and I am happy to show my group and see their feedback.

Applied 2: An Intro to Stop Motion

For the second half of the day we had a small induction for stop motion and dragon frame. This was really useful for me because this exact module I am working on is using stop motion, and I don't really have much experience with it. Therefore it was really good to go over the key elements of what to expect and what not to do.

I learnt that there is a lot of planning that is involved in stop motion, a lot more than what you would expect for computer animation. I did go into this project with knowledge that there would be a lot more to consider, for example modelling characters and building a set, however there is even more than to what meets the eye. For starters, once we have our models and set, we will have to do some shot test framing, lining up everything on camera and with a laptop, to make sure that what we have looks best on a widescreen. We have to check for creases, cracks, proportions, depth of field and lighting, so that when do start to animate, we have already considered the overall look instead of realising it looks awful after capturing 150 frames.

In terms of the actual animating process, we were given a good few tips to help us with the production. Sara told us that many people have different animating 'rhythms', in other words giving each character a certain personality and life. I think that this is so creative and lovely to have each model act a certain way, perhaps to emphasise a voice even further. I am not sure how I will enforce this upon my own characters because I have no experience, but I am defintely going to be considering it as I think that will bring the animation up a level. 

Another important factor we were told to think about is focus. Sara said don't try and make everything in the shot happen all at once, keep the audience's attention to a minimum unless for a certain effect. If the scene is too chaotic, this can be distracting and really take away from the message and story so the audience won't have a clear view or understanding. This was really important for me to hear, as I kept thinking of other things to move in the background of our scenes, and now I feel like it would be too much of a distraction.

Overall I received some great and very useful tips that I am going to try and apply to our animation. Sara also told me that it is a case of trial and error, so if anything it will be a huge learning curve to experience.

Applied 2: Lip Syncing Lecture

In today's morning lecture, we learnt all about lip syncing and how to do it correctly. There are several different ways to go about it, and many companies use different references, however Martin advised us to stick to vowels and a few consonants to keep the process simplistic and much easier than over complicating things. These are; A, E, I, O, U, M/V/F, L, S, K and a resting pose.

We also leant about the golden rules of lip syncing, some of which I have heard from Martin before, but it was nice to go over them again, especially as Hayley and I plan to start animating as soon as we possibly can. We learnt that light travels faster than sound, in other words your mouth moves before there is any sound coming out, so it would be unnatural for the sound to be delayed, whereas if the mouth poses are a little earlier then if anything this can improve the overall syncing. We were recommended to go perhaps 2/3 frames early but never ever late. The best way to do this for Hayley and I's project, is to make some exposure sheets and animate the frames from them. If we animate to the exact sound on the exposure sheet, then we can shuffle the sound later on, improving the overall look of our animation.

           

We then had the task of animating a piece of our audio, matched with some lip syncing. I was apprehensive to do this because after my own stop motion tests it was near enough hit and miss whether I got it right or not. However, because we had the audio in After Effects along with the different mouth poses, I was able to pair the correct ones whilst listening to the peak vowels. This made the process so much quicker and easier, but also made me realise that I really do need to print some exposure sheets because it is all about consistency and not plain estimating.

For my first test, I used way too many poses for when the actor is speaking quickly, so it is very hard to make out what he is saying, from a visual perspective. Also, when he says 'nowadays' I really struggled with trying to pair the poses with this word. I think it was because I didn't have an 'n' or a 'w' pose, so I blanked a little bit, and as you can see in this first test, it didn't really turn out well.

          

I then tried this test again, and I am much happier with it. I took some poses out with the quickly spoken part, and I also fixed the 'nowadays' section. I still think it looks a little choppy, which is perhaps because I have made 12 mouth poses for my models instead of around 6, so I am used to more choices. However this task gave me much more confidence in lip syncing and how to match it up with audio. It also made me feel less pressurised as we can move along the audio in post-production further on in the project.

Applied 2: New Audio & Animatic

                             

After rerecording my half of the audio, I showed it to Hayley and she actually really like it. She thought that it was useful that I asked a lot of questions because this meant we had a lot of versatile material to choose from and manipulate. I sent her my audio and she then picked out the parts that she liked, intertwining it with her own half of the audio for our animation.

I really like her audio also because there is a versatility in the topics, as well as the accents which will help engage our family audience because the actors aren't really monotone, and actually have more character and personality than when we asked them to just read our script. Once Hayley put all of our audio together to make a 1-2 minute length combination, I now see how much better it was to rerecord, and I am glad Sara sat me down and told me this, as I think that there is such a natural feel to the clips, because they have never been said before, and have come from a spontaneous answer. 

           

Hayley then sent me her images from our old animatic and because she had already made two, I decided to put them in the final animatic so that she wasn't repeating the process over and over. I added some colour to them and put them with the audio clips, just so that we can replace them with the footage that we capture, allowing us to follow our timings correctly and stay on track. 

Now that we have the preproduction all finished, I feel ready to start animating, and I am motivated to get started with the production side because we have had to constantly refine our concept over and over in order to get it to a standard that we are happy with.

Applied 2: More Baking & Some Painting

Since I really liked the outcome of the first sheep, I went ahead and started to make alterations to the other one that I was to make. This sheep has a brown coat, and since I don't have brown sculpey, I was considering just leaving it as plasticine. However I thought about what if we wanted this character to speak? I didn't want to end up ruining the swirl pattern, so I decided to see if I could potentially paint the polymer clay (which you can!).

I began with the hair. This was much more fun to make than the coat, because it was a much quicker process and was more humorous to put together. These didn't take too long to bake at all because they are lighter colours, but of course they would not stick together. This is because they have been set, so I went and bought some generic adhesive, and stuck them together this way. I tried to replicate Hayley's original curlers moulding and I am quite proud of how it turned out. Like with the teeth that I painted previously, I used acrylic to go over these baked pieces of clay, too. The only difference here is that I had to mix a few colours to get the correct shade, and once it dried, it dried slightly shiny, like a satin finish. This is fine for the curlers, but not as ideal for the coat, so I am going to have to buy something that will make this matte. I already have an idea, clear matte nail polish, so I hope this will work!  

For the coat, this was a much more lengthy process. I did exactly what I did last time, except I painted the polymer clay once it had been stuck on the plasticine. As you can see in the top middle image, I did a paint test to see if it would look okay, and I liked it, so I went and carried on making more pieces for the rest of the body. In total I made around 70 swirls!! However it was well worth it because like the other models, I can move it around, pick it up and not have to worry about the pattern changing. I also made the eyes like the other sheep, and I think that it has come together a bit more. The only part we have to consider now, is legs/feet, as they got somewhat squished when I was putting the clay and the body together.

Applied 2: More Baking

After baking the mouths for the female bird and seeing it as a success, I decided to go ahead and make the mouths for the sheep. I wanted the lip 'liner' to be the same as the skin tone, so I kept it a peach colour, with white teeth and a brown base. Obviously I didn't buy brown fimo clay, so I did what I did last time and decided to paint it/colour it in the desired colour, this being brown, as I thought black would be too harsh.

I also made the mouths for the sheep a bit smaller, because I had made plasticine versions of them, and they were too big and too overwhelming on the models face. Therefore I made sure to use my red mouths as reference, but minimise their scale slightly, so that they would look more suitable to fit.

Because the mouths were smaller, this meant that the process of making the teeth in particular was even more finicky. I had to take longer to get the teeth to look precise, however I really enjoyed this process because I found it satisfying seeing the mouth form come to life. At this point I had made 24 mouth shapes, but I made some extras because there are four/five other sheep in our scene at a time. Though they are not all talking simultaneously, I thought that it would be nice to have them move their mouths a bit in consideration/agreement, or if anything, at least have closed mouths prepared for animation.

I baked the mouths again, at 100 degrees Celsius for a bit less this time, around 13 minutes, as opposed to 15, because I read that with lighter colours you need less time, which is true because on my previous set, there was a tooth with a crack in it! So I think I learnt from my mistakes and was more wary this time around.

I placed some mouths on the models to see if they fit and I am quite happy with them. I don't love them as much as the bird mouths, but I think once they start to move and they begin to animate, they really will look more enjoyable and entertaining. I am enjoying this process, especially because I don't know what to expect every time I try something new.

Then it came to considering the coat. Because we already had a shape and size for our sheep bodies, and they we weren't planning on moving them, I thought that if I baked individual swirls and stuck them onto the coat, this would prevent it from moving, and from the pattern from being flattened. I originally wanted to place the swirls onto the plasticine and then bake it, but then I thought about putting plasticine in the oven and if this was safe. It definitely is not, nor is it to put foam in there or any other type of material that could be set on fire, that is not specifically made to be heated. Therefore this was the only other option that I could think of from our feedback that would be efficient, and aesthetically pleasing.

This probably took me the longest our of all the modelling jobs, because I had to repeat making the swirls and then continue sticking them onto the sheep bodies. That is not to say that I don't like the result because I really do, and now I feel that our models are much more durable as we can squeeze them and they won't be ruined. It also allows us to move the head and ears as well without being too careful with the bodies! 

I then thought about eyes, since this was another part that we were advised to change. There were a few options we could take, the first being buying animation eye type beads for our models. Hayley and I looked into this and found that they were quite expensive and a bit too realistic for our liking. Sara also advised just plane beads like you can get for making bracelets, but I went to the Range and could not find any that were small enough for our model size. Therefore I decided to think further.

I decided to make the eye ball out of polymer clay and then bake it so the overall size and shape of the eye would not move. I then made smaller balls of clay for the pupils and was going to paint them. However I realised once I took them out of the oven, that I wasn't sure how I was going to make them stick to the eye ball because I didn't want to glue them together as we wanted them to move around, therefore there was no way for them to connect to each other. I then remembered that I have black plasticine and that this would work well for moving around as the pupil, because it is quite sticky and easy to move with a toothpick.

In the top two images above, these were the models with the eyes that were all plasticine, and the lower two images, are with baked eye balls, and plasticine pupils. I think these look much more realistic and give us more versatility. We can manipulate the plasticine to make the pupils smaller, as if they were in surprise or even larger, without being restricted by the baked clay, but still having a strong foundation to work from.

Therefore this is what I have so far for our sheep models. I feel like I have taken feedback from both my peers and teachers seriously in order to improve the look and structure of our models.

Applied 2: Starting to Bake!

After thinking about the feedback from Sara, Hayley and I talked a lot about what we would do to our models. They took a really long time to make, so we didn't want to completely get rid of them from our animation. Instead, we decided to apply the feedback as best as we could, considering our time frame and finances. There were a lot of materials Sara suggested we use, but we could not afford some of them, so we talked some more on what we could do.

We agreed to remake the mouths, eyes and other parts of the models that won't be moving. We chose Sculpey as the material for this, because we can let it air dry or we can bake it, plus it is affordable. This means that we can change mouth shapes without worrying about making marks on the teeth, or moving the lips every time we change them. We also agreed on buying some magnets so that we can change the mouths and eyes, without the model moving place, perhaps buying magnetic wire so that we can place it through out the model.

Therefore I went out and bought some Fimo modelling clay which you can mould very easily, and then put in the oven to bake. I have never used this previously, so it was a first for me. I chose the colours red, for the bird, peach, for the sheep mouths, and white for everything else. I could not find any black Fimo at my local art supply stores, however I thought buying two blocks of white would be more efficient, because I could just paint on top of the white, any colour that I didn't have.

There were a few differences I noticed when moulding with the new modelling clay. Firstly, it was VERY soft, much softer than plasticine because that can go a bit harder in colder temperatures. This meant that it was more tedious to make the mouths, and took me longer than the first time, as I was being too forceful with the clay. 

I began to make the outlines of the mouth shapes (red clay) first, to see if I could replicate the ones I had done previously. Once I was happy with them, I then made the 'shadow' of the mouth, which had to be white because there was no black, but I didn't mind painting this afterwards. I then made the teeth, and the tongues. I mixed the red and the white clay to get the tongue palette colour, and if anything, I actually think it looks more realistic than the first set I ever did. 

First batch

Then it was time to bake them! I was actually really nervous about this part, because after looking online and doing research on the different types of clay that need different temperatures, I had read many stories that said they burnt their clay the first few times they baked it. I thought that this would be me, and I did not want to put the mouths that had taken me two hours to make in the oven to burn. However I took the chance, and guessed the temperature and time (I chose 100 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes!!) and placed them on a baking tray that had tin foil in it. I am not sure if this helped at all, but I did keep checking on the clay and opening the oven to make sure they weren't burning or cracking, and after the fifteen minutes, I took them out and let them rest to cool.

They worked perfectly and were nice and hard after about five minutes of cooling! 

P=Plasticine ... C=Clay (Baked)

And this is the result. After they were completely cool, I filled in the shadows with a black marker, because I didn't trust myself with a paint brush. However I think I might have to purchase a permanent marker, because there is a shine to the shadow which I don't really like.

Nevertheless, I am quite pleased with the results. They look more realistic with the fimo clay, the only thing is, is that the white is not very white, and I am considering going over the teeth with some acrylic paint to make them 'pop' a lot more. Other than that, they are a lot more durable and will stay like this until we are finished with them, because they have set and will not move. Although I really didn't want to make all of these mouths again, I am glad that I did so, because it will save us so much stress and hassle when we come to animating.

Responsive Secret7: Chvrches Production

After making a mock up of our collaborative concept in Maya, I really liked the idea of creating an album cover in 3D and then rendering it as a design. I had looked at so many 3D artists who excel in this field, and I felt really inspired to have a go at making something in this medium, myself. 

I started off by making a cube in Maya, and then added lots of edge loops and began to sculpt the polygon into the shapes from my designs. This took me SO long, because I could not get the 'waves' to be symmetrical, or look balanced. I wanted the design to look perfect, without any completely obvious mistakes, so I spent a long time perfecting this, and then smoothing it so that it had curves as opposed to sharp edges.

Once I had a polygon that I was happy with, I duplicated it a few times and then lined them up so that they looked more full and 3D. I then picked colours from my colour palette that I had chosen previously, and went from dark to light. 

For my lighting in render, I experimented with this a lot because it was hard to make the scene look realistic but also exaggerated slightly. I chose 'sun and sky', and then in Photoshop, I altered the saturation and the levels, to make the colour stronger and more vivid, like in those that I had researched into and loved.

I practiced a lot with different shapes and compositions that I had thought out in my head and put on paper. I tried lots of visions that I could relate with the the lyrics, and a few of them I quite liked. I have never really made anything that is both 3D and 'obscure', so it was hard for me to understand if what I was making was worth submitting. I began to doubt this whole concept, especially because I haven't seen anyone in real life do it before, but I am experimenting and trying something new and adventurous, so if anything I did learn and experience something new. I have also learnt that you can use Maya for things other than animation, you can use it for mock ups, illustrations and concept design! 

And this is the design that I have submitted. It was defintely exciting to submit something than many people wouldn't have thought of, but also worrying because I am not sure what the judges will make of it. I have seen so many minimalistic covers that have won Secret 7", so I know it could be a contestant, but I am still worried about whether or not they will think it is adventurous enough.

Also, like my Penguin brief, I wanted to print my designs out and 'bind' them to their relevant product. I actually own a 7" single vinyl, so I used this as my reference. However because my printer was running out of ink, this experiment didn't go as well as the Penguin one, and I much preferred the digital mock up. I am glad I tried this though, because it did feel good to hold my design with a vinyl inside of it! 

Applied 2: Set Design

Because Hayley was doing set design, I decided to give her some of my ideas so that she could combine both mine and her own to make a set that will be influenced by the two of us.

I started with looking at British farms mostly, because since our animation is based within the local areas, I thought it would be more appropriate to take influence from them. I noticed that there really isn't that much complexity to a farm in general. There were three main elements I spotted that were most prominent, these were, a wooden fence, a lot of green hills and sometimes, a red farmers shed. I quite liked these elements, and they weren't that extreme, so I decided to incorporate these into my designs.

I began with exploring different types of fences. I drew a few in fine liner, just to see how I could interpret them, and I quiet enjoyed this. I didn't realise that there were so many different types of fences, but there were. Some were heavy duty wood, some had barbed wire in them, there was a lot to choose from.

I ended up really liking the wood that was very rounded at the edges and looked like it had been hammered together. It made the fence seem well loved and hand made, which I liked.

I then began attempting to put the scene together. I am not the best at drawing scenes without an exact reference image, but I tried my best. I began in pencil and then went over it in fine liner (left image). I basically just wanted to get down the parts of the moodboard that I had liked most, into my own version for our environment. I then went into Photoshop and roughly replicated this digitally, adding a colour palette that I really want to go for. From my own experience and my research, British farms are quite muted and neutral in colour, especially when captured on camera, therefore this is what I created, and will use as

 a reference when making the farm.

Hayley and I had talked about just making a wooden fence and then green screening the background in ourselves, so that could be one option we go for, to create a more realistic scene.

                                             

However, just in case we opt to make the whole thing, I made a very rough plan of how we could potentially set out the scene. The square itself represents the surface area of the farm and then the wavy lines, the hills, and I also included a puddle for the sheep and the newts, and a tree for the birds. This is very rough but it is a guideline for when I make the set and will help me with positioning each component.

Applied 2: Rerecording Audio

After the interim crit, Sara had suggested we re-record our audio again, because it sounded too forced and not genuine. At this point in the module, I was feeling really disheartened with this project because everyone was telling us that it wasn't good enough and that we had to redo practically everything even though we had been spending a lot of time on it. I also realised that it is not that easy to just remake something in stop motion because everything is hand made, so when we got told to remake everything, I felt like a lot of time and effort had been wasted.

Nevertheless Hayley and I spoke with each other and agreed that we would record our audio again but use a different technique this time. Instead of writing out what we wanted our actors to say, we asked them particular questions instead, so that we didn't have any expectations, and we would have a variety of material to choose from.

              

I found this to be much harder than previously, because I had to make questions up as I was going along, in order to expand on the answer given, and keep the interview going; essentially like a conversation. It also took me SO long, because my mum didn't know that much about climate change, so kept pausing and having 'mind blanks'.

I narrowed the questions and answers to five minutes, out of approximately 20 minutes worth of audio. I tried to pick parts that I thought would be interesting to animate, and are actually relevant to our topic choice. I was going to ask some of my friends to be interviewed, but they didn't really know much about climate change either, and because my mum is older, I thought she would have some firsthand experience in seeing some changing patterns in weather and climate conditions, making this audio more useful and reliable.

              

I then removed my questions, and some of the answers, to make a three and a half minute audio, just to see if the answers themselves would be strong enough on their own. I think they are, and even though they are quite spaced out and have a lot of pauses, I think this is what will make our documentary more natural as opposed to our previous one which was scripted. Also with Hayley's audio, I think having this one interchanging it, will emphasise the contrasting opinions as her actor doesn't believe in climate change at all, so it will be nice to have that differentiation.

             

I then picked out some lines that I thought were more stronger for our animation, and I was still up to one and a half minutes so I will leave it up to Hayley to pick the ones she likes. I am glad that I recorded a lot more than necessary, because it means we have much more to choose from, and we are not just using material for the sake of it. 

I am not sure if I prefer this audio however, to the previous one, I think it will be a case of more feedback because at this point I am struggling a lot with finding the balance between applying all feedback and sticking to what we want to do.

Responsive Secret7: Chvrches Research

The last vinyl that I have chosen for my Secret7" brief, is 'Clearest Blue' by Chvrches. I chose this next track because I loved the beat of the song. I have not heard of Chvrches previously, nor listened to any of their music, but I was entranced by this track and I have already began to listen to more of their latest album. 

I would describe their music as more electronic, but it also has quite a summery feel to it, for me personally. This track in particular is quite atmospheric and like Secret7 state, it build and builds before exploding into a more deeper techno beat.

Like the other two vinyl covers, I had a look into more meaning of the lyrics. I picked out words that stood out to me this time, because I had already illustrated two portraits, I wanted to go down a more obscure and unique route. Since 'blue' is in the title and mentioned a good few times in the song, this will be my main colour(s) within the design. I also picked out key words such as 'eye', 'halfway' and 'tied'. There weren't any particularly visually appealing words that I could expand upon, so I tried to pick some that were slightly enticing, but also have two meanings. For example 'tied' could link to waves and tides, especially with the blue connotations within the chorus. 

I then looked at their previous album and single covers! They were all very vivid in colour, especially more so when all put together. I noticed that they are all very geometric and simplistic. Though bold in colour palettes, with the exception of a few, there isn't much of a story or a meaning going on in each of the covers. This was quite promising to me, because like I said earlier, since the lyrics were a bit obscure and metaphorical, I decided I wanted to be rather obscure with my design. I have never really done something like this before, as most of the things I create are very literal in their aesthetic meaning, therefore I thought it would be exciting to make something more modern and unique! 

The route I wanted to go down however, is also modern and obscure. 3D art is something that has been catching my eye lately, probably because of how vivid and beautiful it can really look. Though the ones that I have put together in this collage are quite simple (and sporadic), something about them really intrigues me, and I find them to truly be charming.

I did some research and a lot of the time, art like this is made in Cinema 4D, but some of the time, it is made in Maya. Though I would love to try C4D, I do not have the software, or the time at this present moment, to learn all the new tools to make something as complex as in these images, therefore I will be using Maya to create my album cover. 

I did some brainstorming of each of the lyrics that I could possibly go ahead and expand upon. I chose around six of the lines, and actually came up with a good few ideas! I thought about perhaps making a 3D galaxy (lyric: You, were the perfect star), or perhaps making a whole 3D piece of rope for the line 'tied to the shifting ground'. I also thought about the lyric 'shaped, by the clearest blue' as this was the most vivid of the lines to me and the one that I kept singing over and over. To illustrate this, I could make a series of blue coloured shapes in Maya, and make them glossy and large like in my contextual photos, or I could link this to another lyric, and create some blue wave shapes. 

                               

These are my sketches that I drew from my brainstorming. I tried to think of things that I could make three dimensional, but I also just experimented and tried to just draw different concepts. I quite like the galaxy idea, the knots and the random 3D objects, therefore I think I will be experimenting out of these in particular. It will be more of a case of how I will be able to build these objects, because I don't want to be over ambitious for the time that I have to complete this brief, but I want to still be ambitious enough.

Overall, I have a lot of options to choose from, and I am excited to experiment with making something contemporary like this, because it is a chance for me to explore another new area in this module. I feel like I have really tried to expand and explore on all of my skills in this module, trying new things and rekindling skills from others. I am really enjoying how self directed this module is, however it is quite unnerving when you have to submit your work to judges that have specific tastes and interests and are complete strangers! 

Responsive Collaboration: Mock Up 2

After making the outside of the dollhouse for our responsive collaborative brief, I decided to make another mock up of the inside, so that I could illustrate my concept more thoroughly, and create a 3D demonstration of what I aimed to achieve. This was also great because it allowed me to see the concept as a whole, as well as seeing if it was actually worth putting together, physically.

I started with creating the shape of the house. I had tried to make this previously, with removing one of the faces off a square and then building the house within that, however it didn't seem to take lighting very well, and it was difficult for me to manipulate. Therefore I started from scratch and built the walls individually. I then added 'shelves' and the doors, trying to make everything as symmetrical and organised as I possibly could.

I then tested some lighting. After doing some research, I was advised to use 'point lights' within each room which would make them look more realistic. I tried this with a few of the rooms (bottom right image), and liked how it was starting to come together!

I then added a point light to each of the rooms, which looked great during the render, however I had to turn off the natural lighting within the perspective because it was washing out almost everything within the house, making it difficult for me to see what I was doing.

Once I was somewhat happy with the lighting, I decided to make a few objects for some of the rooms. I decided on only a few because these take a lot of time within themselves, and I didn't want to put all of this time and effort into only my concept, when in reality, we will all be pitching in with patterns and objects and geometrics. Therefore I stuck to only a limited amount, such as stairs, counters and a fireplace. This still allowed me to illustrate my concept, as well as make the house look more realistic and a bit more complex.

And this is what the inside of the doll house looks like rendered with more appropriate lighting. I changed the point light shade to a more yellow tone, because this is what I had done to the previous mock up, and it made the house look more warm, homely and inviting, which is what John Lewis is all about. I tried to illustrate lighting a lot, making the house glow slightly, because we all felt like this would attract customers into looking at the display, and be our unique selling point.

This are what the two models look like side by side. The one of the left does look a bit empty without any furniture in it, but I still think I was able to portray my concept in a unique way. I am glad that I have tried something new. I don't know why I chose Maya to make my doll house, but the thought just came to me and I decided to experiment with it and really go all out with this brief. I think I achieved what I had in mind and I am happy to bring it up in our next meeting.

Like last time, I had a go at experimenting with day light, but this didn't go as smoothly or as nicely as the light that I spent a while on, for the night time. I added some 'dark' green planes to the house, some street lamps with a 0.900 intensity glow, and a glass window in front of the display. I used the same texture as the window on the dollhouse as the one on the window display, because I was proud of making it myself. However it didn't really look that great in render, so I don't think I will be submitting this in our 'development' eight slides.

Therefore I went back to the night time, and tried my previous lighting again. I added a spotlight to the scene so that the glass would be more apparent, and I am much happier with it. I think with some light projection examples, some furniture and scenery around the outside of the house, this could actually be one way we illustrate our concept in the presentation. We could have a 3D mock up as well as photographing a small one. These are things I have written down to talk about in our next meeting, and I am excited to see what the girls have come up with and how we can incorporate all of our ideas together!

Responsive Collaboration: Making a Small Mockup

After the last meeting with my responsive group, we had all left feeling secure with a concept that we had all agreed on. This concept, was to make a large doll house either through paper or plastic, via laser cutting. We had all said that we were going to go away and start some designs on how we think the doll house should look, so that once we come together, we can take elements from each one and start producing it.

I did quite a simple sketch for my design, because I thought that we could focus more on the contents of the house rather than the detail of the outside. Also, because we have such a fast turnaround time, this would make the process easier for us, so we can really focus on presentation and display. I wanted to include a lot of windows in my design, because light was really important for us in our meeting, and I think that will be one of our unique selling points for our final result.

I then quickly coloured the designs in Photoshop, using colours from the trend forecasting websites. Salmon pink was mentioned a lot for Autumn 2016, so this was something I made sure to portray, using it as the dominant colour for the house. I also thought about the time of day, and I really want the display to be at night, not only because the lights will look much more powerful, but also the light projection will be more captivating on a darker back drop.

To make the small mock up that I had in my head, I went straight for Maya because I am quite familiar with the tools, and I also wanted to push myself. I have never made a mock up before, or have I made a complex building such as this one, so I knew this would be challenging for me, especially to remember all of the tools, but I was excited to have a go! 

I started with making a cube polygonshape and then added multiple edge loops in order to manipulate my object. I extruded the faces of a lot of the vertices to make indents for the windows, but it was extremely hard to get everything to look even and symmetrical. To overcome this, I remembered that you could mirror the other half of your object/model so that you don't have to worry about asymmetry, so this is what I did once I was happy with the left side. 

I also noticed that some of the patches on my house were a bit harsh/uneven. This was because I had moved the edges too far across, and it was 'stretching' my geometry. I had to keep tweaking these edges to make it look more smooth, but once I added a material to the model anyway, it started to look less of putting.

I then added the salmon pink from my designs and began to add more and more detail. I used my designs as a reference, but thought that there were too many levels, so I stuck to just three. At this point, I started to think about how I would illustrate the windows. Would I just add a white lambert material and hope that people would know what part of the house it was? Or would I try and find out how to make a glass mesh? 

I actually followed a tutorial online which showed me how to make your own glass mesh. I had to make two .pngs in Photoshop, one with a white back ground and the other with a black. These would be the textures for 'shine' and 'gloss'. Once I imported these, I was able to add them to the faces of the model. At first, I thought that this material had deleted the face because it looked like it had disappeared, however once I rendered the scene, or chose 'front' perspective, I was able to see that it was in fact glass! And I had been able to achieve the reflection effect.

The only downside to this however, was that it was really hard for me to sort out lighting, and I really struggled with trying to make the inside of the house look even mediocre! It either looked really empty, and the window pane shadows were extremely strong, or it just looked like there were holes in the wall. Again, I looked online and someone suggested to make a plane and then change its special effects so that it glows slightly. I tried this (top right image) and with multiple glow intensities, but it really didn't work for me. It looked too obvious that there was a plane inside the house, and it brightened up the outside of the house as well as making the contrast of the scene too high.

 

I then changed the lighting options to 'Sun and Sky', and I did actually get a better looking scene. I made some fencing around some parts of the balconies, and I added some plants and I think the model looks much more realistic here. 

I think it illustrates our aims really well, and at least if anything it is a 3D version of my concept. Though this is only the outside of the doll house, I do plan to make a mockup of the inside, as well as attempting to make the whole scene in a John Lewis window display. I think I am pushing myself here because this whole concept is new to me, but even though it has taken me a long time to make this mock up, I feel like I am stepping out of my COMFORT zone and exploring new ways to incorporate animation.

Even though I liked the sun and sky lighting, I still wanted to make my mock up in a darker setting, because that is what we are aiming for, so it would be more relevant and practical. Therefore I went back in and tried multiple lighting options again, and found one that I was happy with! I used 'point lighting' for this next test. This meant that I could light the inside of the house, making the windows almost 'glow'. I preferred this a lot more, but it did wash my window panes out so that you can't see them, so I will have to think again about how to solve this.

However, I am happy with my practice mock ups, and I think that once I expand on it and add more to the concept, it will look even more developed and I will be more confident showing it to my group.

Further testing within glass display.