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Project 2B

Production

After sending my files to Maya and adding it's skeleton, I played around with the textures a little with my character and came up with this render which looks like the type of thing that I'm looking for. Like I said in the previous post, we won't be seeing her details too much just little glimpses of her so this is perfect. Her skin is blood stained and the dress looks older and ragged more than before. There is only one thing left to do with my character and that is to add it's hair which will cover a majority of her body.

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Project 2B

Production

I'm not too sure if I needed to or not but I added a skeleton to my character just incase I wanted her to move around in my animation. I haven't quite decided at this point but it'll be good to have one for her just incase.

MDDN 241

Project 2B

Production

After I finished sculpturing my character on Mudbox, I added a dress to her so she has some form of personality. The dress I found an important part of the character because it defines what kind of character she is, and the material and texturing I'll add to it in the end will definitely help. It's an old style dress which I also changed and sculpted to cater to her body. It also looks like a dress that a scary little girl would wear like such characters from the games Fear. I sculpted the face of the character a little bit but I won't be completely showing her so she'll just be a silhouette.

MDDN 241

Project 2B

Production

Skipping ahead a little bit, I decided to make my second character that will be used in the background of my animation. Sam's a little girl who needs to be scary and small and petite. So I opened up mudbox and started working on the female template/base and eventually created this model here below. 

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Assignment 4

"Plan Your Attack"


1. Introduction


For the introduction, I will be identifying my two intersecting themes which are the two topics of “The Everyday” and “Design Sociology and Anthropology”. I will elaborate on these topics and explain that I will be talking about everyday things which do and do not have a “brand” and how it is related to the youth and young adults. I will introduce my claims that the youth and young adults of this generation “do not seek cheap and economical products” and how “expensive and branded everyday things are requirements”. I will split these claims into three main paragraphs. The easiest way I have decided to help support these claims are to relate them to the different markets that most of our money are spent on. 

2. Clarify and Describe

For this paragraph, I will write a short description of some of the terms I will be using so it is easier for the reader to follow along and understand my use of words. For the feedback that I have gotten from the last assignment there were some terms that were hard to understand that I needed to clarify and explain more to get a better understanding. For instance, the term “brand” I will elaborate more to suit my research paper, and also “generation” as in our generation or the next generation. I will also write a short background on this topic relating it to everyday design/things and Design Sociology and Anthropology. 

3. Paragraph One

The first step to supporting my claim, is to build a solid foundation for this research paper. So in this paragraph I will write about brands within clothing. I chose clothing for the first paragraph because it is what people my age shop and need for the most out of everyday things. This could also include shoes, jewelry, perfumes and colognes. I will mainly use Alissa Quart’s Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers as my main source of information and citations in this paragraph due to the relevant content within her book. She talks about how brands are “Selling Adulthood” (2003, pg.12) and how they paint images within their advertisements showcasing the way teenagers should dress. All this information will help me support this first paragraph on how the youth/young adults are sold to clothing brands and their advertisements. 


4. Paragraph Two

The second step is to build on top of my foundation, and to lead the previous paragraph to furthermore relating it to technology. Chernatony’s Creating Power Brands with the factual support of marketingcharts.com will help me write this paragraph. With the sources and information in my hands, this lead my research paper into talking about cellphones. This will include all the android devices and especially Apple’s iPhone. I will explore what and why we have the cellphones that we have today, what made us choose that brand, and relate it back to my my claim.

5. Paragraph Three

For the roof of my foundation, I will lastly write and talk about rituals and intimacy. Tom Chatfield wrote an article for Aeon Magazine called Cyborg dreams with his opening statement as “Gadgets are the first thing we touch in the morning and the last thing we stroke at night. We are their slaves” (2013). I found this quote of his inspiring, but also understanding and true. This is a great way to lead on from the previous paragraph of technology and cellphones to how the youth and young adults of this generation pride ourselves with these expensive branded things that we own. I will mention the treasury involved and why we value our expensive branded things more than we do others. I will have my claims in this paragraph supported by Attfield’s Wild Things: The Material Culture Of Everyday Life along with Chatfield’s article. 

6. Conclusion

To end this research paper, I will link the conclusion to the rest of my report and highlight the three topics that I wrote about which were branded clothing, branded technology and the rituals and intimacy taken place involving these things we own. It should be a quick summary of my paper once again stating my claim and how I just proved and supported it with my resources, without writing and adding anything new to the conclusion. I will also add a relevant quote just to end this last paragraph.



Resources Used


Chernatony, L. D. (2011). Creating Powerful Brands (4th ed.).
Oxford, UK: Butterworth-Heinemann. 

Quart, A. (2003). Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers.
New York, NY: Basic Books. 

Peters, T. (1997). The Brand Called You.
Retrieved from http://www.fastcompany.com/28905/brand-called-you

Attfield, J. (2000). Wild Things: The Material Culture Of Everyday Life.
New York, NY: Berg.

Teens Both Fickle about and Obsessed with Brands. (2007). Retrieved from
http://www.marketingcharts.com/television/teens-both-fickle-about-and-obsessed-with-brands-698/

Palmer, J. (2012). The balinghou.
Retrieved from http://www.aeonmagazine.com/living-together/james-palmer-chinese-youth/

Chatfield, T. (2013). Cyborg dreams.
Retrieved from http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/tom-chatfield-technology-intimacy/

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Project 2A
Pre-production

Presentation Review

So after my presentation (lucky last on the day) I received feedback for my project. I am quite happy with the outcome of my project as a whole and have managed to finish to a pretty high quality. The tutors didn't have anything bad to say about my project but they had further ideas to make my story even better. One of the tutors mentioned that the story itself is good, it has a good storyline and the climax and tension in it really works for my character. However, there's a part in my story where the climax gets up so high, but ends quite rationally. He mentioned that I should swap a couple of my scenes around and instead of the bear shooting at the door then noticing that the door says pull, I should do the opposite. So the story goes...the bear will get angry and frustrated at the door, start hitting it and pushing it like the mad bear he is, then notice the door handle and that it's "pull". After this, he will rage and then shoot the door with his minigun and completely destroy the door, walking through it afterwards and disappearing into darkness, leaving the audience wanting more. Kind of like a game or movie trailer, the tutors said. The also admired my sketches and drawings, along with my high quality 360 degree turntable animation.

MDDN 241

Project 2B

Production

Leading on from the previous project, it's time to take what we've created and take it to the next level and animate it. When I made my character and put it on the turntable, I didn't want to have a static model of the character. I wanted to make it move. So in my turntable I made my evil bear breathe by moving it's chest, I made his mini gun spin furiously and the wind up key attached behind it wind. The next step I did was to add a skeleton to my character for the last project. I put the first joint on the bear's neck and lead all the other joints from there. This was an easy character to add a skeleton to and I got it done quickly.

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Project 2A
Pre-production

Final Turntable Video

Samantha's Bear

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Project 2A
Pre-production

After the little dilemma, I managed to finish it in time. I am happy with the final product of my character and animation, it looks awesome! Here is a screenshot of one of my frames on the turntable.

MDDN 241

Project 2A
Pre-production

Problems/Trouble

There were a few little problems along with a huge one with my project along the way. The main one was when I was rendering my character and all of it's 300 frames overnight. It got up to about 64 frames then froze, freezing my computer with it at the same time. I woke up in the morning hoping to see my renders would have finished and was shocked to see it had #&*% itself throughout the night. I couldn't do anything and hand in was a day away. I had to reset my computer and when it restarted, my file for that scene could not be opened and had been corrupted for some reason. So I had to open the previous scene that I was working on and started from the bottom. Grrrr the stress! 

MDDN 241

Project 2A
Pre-production


Upon finalising my turntable animation, I have designed my own touch to a render studio. I have also sorted out the lighting in it so it shows off the bear quite well, in a style of a showcasing. All I need to do now is to hit that batch render and let it do it's work! 

MDDN 241

Project 2A
Pre-production

After sorting out the textures for my bear, I also decided to add "fur" to it to make it look more realistic. I wanted to go with the more realistic look instead of the toon look because my environment will be made realistic. Here is a screenshot of my bear so far.

MDDN 241

Project 2A
Pre-production

I've searched everywhere for the perfect texture to use for my character and have found these ones. There are 4 bear skin textures which I will use by trial and error to see which one works the best. I have also selected textures for his bow tie, mini gun and wind up key. 

MDDN 241

Project 2A
Pre-production

The basic model of my character has been finished. I am happy with the way it has turned out and the scales of each polygon is the right size. My next step now is to find my materials and textures so I can add them to my character. 

MDDN 241

Project 2A
Pre-production


This is the model of my mini-gun I designed for my bear. Surprisingly it was not too hard to make make, only a few polygons though. I will resize this all after combining them then attach it to the bear's arm.

MDDN 241

Project 2A
Pre-production

Just rendered my character so far. It currently has its main body finished with the arm needing to align. The scale of the character I have adjusted a little so it now looks the same scale of a teddy bear. 

MDDN 241

Project 2A
Pre-production

This is the start to my modelling. I am happy with how the head turned out, which I figured to be the hardest part about modelling and creating my character. I am only modelling the character first and will add the texture afterwards.

MDDN 241

Project 2A
Pre-production

This is the environment that was in my mind throughout creating my character. It fits the storyline perfectly having it a girls bedroom. One sketch is of the bedroom before the decay and one is the other of the room after it has decayed. On the decayed sketch, there are cracks on the walls and floor and the shadow of Samantha on the ground. The last sketch is of the door outside of the room, with her name on the sign.

MDDN 241

Project 2A
Pre-production

These series of drawings showcases my character's motion and movement. He moves with a wind up key on his back. Without it spinning, he can't and won't move. His movements are pretty basic, that of your normal average teddy bear. 

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Project 2A
Pre-production

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Project 2A
Pre-production

Introducing my Character..

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Project 2A
Pre-production


Orthographic Sketch Final v2

I have re-designed character and replaced it's cannon to a mini gun, which is a lot easier to work with in Maya plus it makes the story line make more sense.