A Sneak Preview

Hears a sneak peak at something im working on at the mo. Nuff said.

Dark Elf Project (Update 3)

So I have been doing a little more work on the model since last time. Im starting to get close to the final base mesh before I start adding the fine detail in Zbrush. To be honest this is a lot more involved than I ever expected and i'm now struggling to keep focused and excited about the project because of the amount of time I have spent modelling, but should hopefully begin UV layout and texturing in the next week.

Dark Elf Project (Update 02)

So its been a while since I have done anything on this, basically because im lazy and enjoying my hols but here is where i am at so far.

Dark Elf Project (Update 01)

So what have I been up to for that past week? Well nothing really just enjoying the break from Uni. I did manage to have a look at this years graduating student exhibition and must say that the standard of work was phenomenal, hopefully I can create something as special for my final major project.

What little work I have done is posted below, basically the chest armor, belts and spikey bits on the dress. Not be long now until the model is built and textured.

Typographic Deconstruction

Deconstruction Theory was first proposed by French philosopher, Jaques Derrida in 1967, in a paper named ‘Of Grammatology’. Here he argues that language is not a string of words but a group of thoughts or images in the mind. He states that when a speaker talks they are actually thinking aloud, and the listener interprets their words. At any point, if the meaning is not clear, the speaker is able to clarify their ideas with the listener. However, a author is usually absent at the time of reading and therefore is unable to clarify any ambiguity of meaning. Another problem with writing is that the alphabet is also supplemented with conventions that bare no relation to speech at all, for example; spacing, punctuation and page layout. These non speech related conventions have infected language and have in turn influenced the way we think and talk.

Deconstruction Theory, in the context of design, was given the name of ‘Deconstructivism’ due to an exhibition at the MoMA called ‘Deconstructivist Architecture’ in 1988. This helped secure its place as a design movement and propel it into the mainstream. The curators Philip Johnston and Mark Wrigley used the term Deconstructivism to contrast a range of contemporary architectural practices to Russian Constructivism. In Wrigley’s view, ‘deconstruction in architecture asks questions about modernism.As with most architectural movements, deconstructivism found its way to graphic design where its mission statement is to favour complexity over simplicity and legibility. Simply put; the viewer should have to decode and translate the piece to arrive at a their own conclusion.

This post looks at Derrida’s argument to explore the possibilities of his ideas on Deconstruction Theory. Using a range of experiments, I will ultimately derive a new typeface based on the same principals, but at the same time reflect a more contemporary feel.

As deconstruction theory states, the of meaning of the typeface must constantly be in flux between the creator and the viewer. So with this experiment the idea attempted was to give a holographic quality using two fonts split along the vertical periodically, then composited together to derive a new unique letterform.

For this experiment the sound of the letter A when spoken out loud was recorded and broken down into four main frequency groups of High, High–Mid, Low–Mid and Low. The waveform of each frequency type was then traced in Adobe Illustrator. The traced waveform was coloured in grey–scale based on its pitch, and ‘blended’ to create a visual representation of the letter’s sound.

Taking the idea of sound depicting writing further, the waveforms were arranged to depict the letters they were derived from.

An experiment was then conducted to determine if different accents would give different results. The letters A, K, O, and Y were chosen as they gave a greater diversity of the audible characteristics in each sound.

These last images were a chance to have fun with the typography.

Flash Torture

This interactive piece was designed to be incorporated into the B.B.C.’s history site. It is aimed at teenagers, and was designed as an educational tool to give an insight into medieval practices of torture. It is intended to be fun, engaging and informative. The piece has five interactive elements to it, each one detailing a different torture device used during this period. Because this is designed to be used by children, any scenes of torture or execution are dealt with in a stylised cartoon and humorous manner as not to upset or offend.

Re-Envisioned

28 years on and still it looks amazing. Blade Runner for me is one of the best examples of technical and creative work in a movie. It is described as being the last film to use in-camera special effects, and I personally believe that they could stand up to any C.G equivalent today. It could be argued that the reason the techniques are regarded obsolete is the cost involved and the time it takes to create them.

I was given the task of creating a title sequence for any movie, and for me the choice was obvious. Although Blade Runner is visually stunning the same could not be said for the title sequence. I wanted to try and stay faithful to the ambience of the move and emulate the dark and dystopian environment that Ridley Scott achieved in the move. Even though this was an assignment based around learning Adobe After Effects I also wanted to try and recreate some of the in-Camera effects that were used in the film.

Neon feature heavily in the film, you could say that Ridley Scott was very close in his vision of the future, especially if you look at cities like Tokyo or Las Vegas. For this reason I wanted to use the theme of neon for the names of the people involved but not only as just text but as a logo for the character's personality. The city itself is a very dark and wet place, ravaged by the effects of global warming and acid rain, The way I accomplished a similar look was to set up the camera on a rainy day and film the lights of cars and buses as they reflected in the puddles. Then a smoke machine was set up in front of my car's headlights with a black piece of card behind so as to almost create a smoke alpha pass. All of these elements were composited in After Effects and tweaked to make them all flow together. I decided against changing the audio for the opening credits because the mood that Vangelis creates with this haunting music is 'perfect' to use absolutely the right word.

Here is an early draft of the piece as to better illustrate my idea and pitch the concept to the lecturer, it was also used so the class could have input on my project and give feedback to help create a stronger piece. This draft has two different concepts to it, the first of them shows a room with light flowing through the blinds which I ended up rejecting, this was because it used after effects heavily instead of the in-camera effects I wanted to pursue and also I liked the idea of an outside scene better,

Here is the finished video. I hope you all enjoy and comments and criticisms are welcome.

Dark Elf Project

So as of last week I have finally left university for the summer holidays and I'm already bored, so I have decided to give myself a little project to keep me ticking over until I start my final year in September. After seeing the amazing trailer for Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning and watching the making of on the Gnomon School website it has just inspired me to make a model based on concept art from the Warhammer site. Im gonna take my time with this one as I have a while before I get back to uni, and make sure everything is perfect on it. The aim is to have hair and cloth sims as well as a full facial and body rig with deformations sculpted using an excellent plugin for Maya by Michael Comet called pose space deformer and I also want to learn how to paint detailed textures from scratch. So all in all it gonna be a blast.

For the head I sculpted the detail on a very basic base mesh and then re-topologised it using zspheres, then exported it to maya so now i have a detailed head with animation friendly mesh.

I have also started work on the dress, just basic geometry with textures applied

check back to see my progress