Game Mod's

Whilst undertaking this project i have thought a lot about my context of practise and how i could take these skills i have learnt into my own project. I've been thinking about mods a lot in the past couple of weeks. I love the idea of mods, taking something you like and turning it into something you desire. One mod in particular that i used to play and steal respect is the mod of 'Battlefield 2', 'Battlefield: Project Reality.

Project reality is a series of tactical first-person shooters which aims to recreate a realistic combat environment, which places great emphasis on team work and co-operation. The game has been critically acclaimed through the mod-ding world with IGN and Gamespy both highly recommending the game. So it's no surprise that the game has won several awards as mod of the year 2006, 07, 08 and 2010.

Looking back at project reality has given me a drive for my game environment that i could potentially make a high quality game such as this. It has also prompted me into doing a side project using the tools i have learnt from OUDF406

Warehouse Project

For my main asset in my game environment i decided to create a slightly futuristic Warehouse in Maya. When starting this project my Maya skills weren't particularly great, kicking the project off to a uneven start. But as i waded through the project i felt myself improve further and further.

Here is some rendered screen shots of my Warehouse -

Battlefield 3, game textures

I purchased Battlefield 3 back at Christmas and have been amazed and astounded at the attention of detail made for the game. The new Frostbite 2 engine, which was designed specifically for the game has taken the shooter experience to a whole new level.


I looked at the official trailer for the DLC 'Back to Karkand' to dive and explore the world of gaming textures and just how well and what i can learn from the people at Dice studios.
Unlike any other first person shooters Battlefield 3 has an almost 100% destructible environment. This means that in texturing all poly faces must be textured even if they are not initially seen in the game. Discovering how long it takes to UV and bump map on a smaller scale has made me appreciate the work done by Dice in Battlefield 3. Along with developing the technology to allow the textures to rip apart in fantastic and mind blowing explosions has helped me push my work driver further, hoping to achieve a realistic and exciting game environment.

Murmurs

I did not think i would be sat here, writing a blog post. When i had finally got into bed about ten minutes ago. Until i stumbled upon this music video directed and shot by Matt Terry for the song Murmurs by Barefoot. The video starts in the dead of night and several lights have been placed around a stone circle. When the minmal beat of the various percussion are played the lights are shone in different directions. Illuminating in a mesmerizing and beautiful pattern. This light work is all captured in a time-lapse, as you see the dark sky move on through the night. Some breaks and interludes are filled with the light painting in the stone circle in the same shot, and sewed into the video. Which brings it all together and complements the chilled ambient vibe the song was intended for.

Modernism

Modernism in it's broadest definition is modern thought. The term describes the modernist movement in the art, it sets cultural tendencies and associated cultural movements which originally arose from wide-scale western society in the late 19th century.

Max nordau
Lumiere brothers first films - ran screaming out of theatre as they thought they were going to be run over. This new way of cinema had taken the world by storm, and some people literally couldn't believe what they were seeing

Modernism is a subjective experience and is not a style, 

Monet - modernity blurred brush strokes. Paint the experience of the world. 
New technology and new buildings allows a new view of the world. Tall buildings - different (higher) view.

Modernism in design. Responds to changes in the world. New is better anti-historicism.
Truth materials tube steel chair not painted to look like Anything, left to look like tubular steel 
 Form follows function, good function is more important than colour. It looks good because it works well 

Auteur

An Auteur is a filmaker usually the director whose movies are characterized by a filmaker's creative influence. Auteurs often start the conventions of genre, but do not follow them. They have their own personal language with creative control and like artists produce their own original work.

The technical competence of the director is early cinema was story telling in the silent era. Conveying a story is hard today without the lack of dialogue and sound. The directer would also need to think about the expressionist lighting, use of subjective camera and the use of the dolly zoom. A lot of directers used clever montage's with cutting in order to create tension in the usual production code.

Directors vary from style to style, what makes these styles different are the expressionism of the director and the form that evoke emotion from the audience. How the story is told often separates directors from their styles, if the narrative is often visual rather than told through dialogue. How the director builds suspense or not and the Cameo appearances of the directer

Typography

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type and text in order to make language visible and bring the words to life. The arrangement of the type is involved in the selection of typefaces, text size, line length, linespace, the space between the groups of letters (tracking) and adjusting the space between the pairs of letters (kerning). Typography is all around us in everyday life, advertisements, film, television. We are all subjected to a variety of words and thousands of different ways they are put across to us. Typography in our day and age is extremely important, especially in the advertising business. The cross between visual communication and verbal communication is writing itself. With typography you can extort these communications making them stronger or to make a point in communication to the reader.

The history of typography can trace it's origins to the first punches and dies used to make seals and currency in ancient times. When there were printing techniques, there was typography. People wanted to express words in their own way. This only grew bigger when the printing press was invented.

Reservoir Dog's

This brief for me has been a slow start. Grasping an idea for what i'm going to do for my practical in OUDF401 has been tough.
But i've finally come to an idea that i am confident to per-sue.

I've decided to take Quinten Tarantino's 1992 Reservoir Dog's and mix it with Roger Hargreaves Children's books, The Mr Men series. I am planing on shifting the genre from the adult target audience to child friendly characters

Practical

For my practical i decided to take existing films aimed for adults and reverse the target audience for children. I made 3 posters for 3 different films 

 Inglorious Miniatures, a play on Quinten Tarantino's 'Inglorious Bastards'

The Lion King's Speech a parody of Tom Hooper's 'The King's Speech'

A parody with the Mr Men characters with Quinten Tarantino's 'Reservoir Dog's'

Graffiti

Graffiti is not a new form of art. it has been practised for centuries since the prehistoric times. There were Drawings and paintings on cave walls from the Paleolithic period (17, 300 years old) discovered in 1940 by some teenagers. These paintings were stories and depicted the live of the caveman and what they did day to day, such as hunting


These are obviously not as complex as some of the intricate designs that there are today but it shows us that even thousands of years ago people wanted to tell stories and expressed that through graffiti. 
Graffiti was used heavily in Ancient Rome and it's traits and use of Graffiti is steal seen in modern Roman culture. In Ancient Rome Graffiti was used for advertisement and spreading news about the empire.












When i think of Graffiti to me i think of the london and Berlin train lines, and the movement in the 90's that all started with the Berlin wall and still goes on today. Graffiti is all around us and although by many not seen as Art, is a beautiful thing.

Avant-garde

Avant-garde come from the word "advanced guard" or "Vanguard' The term represents pushing of boundaries of what we in society accept is the norm or the status quo. Avant-garde is at the forefront of higher culture vs lower culture and it said to be a hallmark of modernism. Many artists have aligned themselves with Avant-garde thinking trying to push to new horizons to discover their own art.

The concept of Avant-garde refers exclusively to marginalised artists , writers, composers and thinkers  whose work is not only opposed to mainstream commercial values, but often has an abrasive social or political edge. Many writers, critics and theorists made assertions about vanguard culture during the formative years of modernism.

Lady GaGa's Bacon dress can be seen as Avant-garde, pushing social boundaries against the norm.

Italian Cinema

"Film is not the art of Scholars but of illiterates."
-Werner Herzog

Cinema Federico Fellini was a writer/directer is the age of early Italian cinema. Fellini was taken very seriously as an auteur with his production commenting on the superficiality of the middle class. He held that all of his films has "style and sophistication" and that they were seen worthy for critical appraisal.

The historic and social context of Italian cinema was huge. And the industry brought a new economy to Italy. The Italian working class was at the centre of this new media. A lot of Italian working class families would go to the cinema everyday and watch movies like people watch Television at home. People talked, eat and drunk in the cinema bringing a casual atmosphere to the cinema with people entering and exiting the cinema when ever they wanted.

Prima Visiona - Cinema's that attracted a middle class sophisticated audience usually in major cities, the audience selected a film they wanted to watched

Terza Visiona - Less populated area, cheaper tickets, audience went to the cinema based on habit rather than selecting a film. Films were more formulaic than popular.

Filone was another word that Italian cinema use for genre, it was based on the idea of Geology. Examples of Filone -
 - Giallo: Based on detective novels
 - Spaghetti Westerns
 - Mondo/Cannibal film
 - Poliziottesco: Police procedural

The beginning

OUDF406

We now move onto the games module for OUDF406. It is the module I have been apprehensive for since the start of the course, so it was fair to say i was slightly nervous on my first lesson. However my first lessons with Annabeth felt like a weight off my shoulders. The frustration and anxiety i faced with learning how to use Maya i did not feel with learning to use Unity with Annabeth. To me she taught the programme in a clear and simple way in which i seemed to grasp the programme faster than Maya.
Although Unity is a great tool though, you can only make basic shapes to model. I will still have to improve my Maya skills in order to produce a realistic and convincing game enviroment

Birth of a genre

Facebook post by Plastician that summed up my love for deep music. The story for me inspires me in my work. It's the start of something new in media. Determination and the pure love for the music made this unknown basement genre into a world wide craze.


- I agree with Skream that this right here was the track Neil Joliffe was referring to when he used the term "Dubstep" for the first time to describe the fusion of dark 2 step garage with dub reggae. 

We may have had people doing stuff before it - that was perhaps the seed being planted by the likes of Zed Bias, El-B, Steve Gurley, M Dubs, Dem 2, DND etc.... Then we had Horsepower productions making this sound which inspired people like Skream to go on and make the stuff he was making in 2000 / 2001. 

Alongside this sound, influences were drawn from the dark, breakier side of UK garage produced by people like Zinc and Oris Jay / Darqwan. As well as the emerging, stripped down and at the time what was often described as "juvenile" sound of grime, this is what pretty much made up the early influence which was taken on board by a group of producers in Croydon - most notably Skream and Benga.

Hatcha would play a lot of it - particularly the more tribal influenced sounds. The stuff I was making at the time probably took a lot more influence from grime. Skream was doing full on tribal dubby stuff close to the Horsepower sound, Benga sat neatly in the middle with the deeper basses of the dubby stuff mixed in with catchy sounds and riffs often noted in grime productions. Outside of Hatcha's radio show, not a lot of people were taking any interest in what we were doing. Most people into dark garage at the time were beginning to move onto grime and were focusing on stuff being played by DJ's like Slimzee. We (the croydon producers) also used to send our stuff to Slimzee, but he didn't pick up on too much of it. He eventually started playing some of my own productions which prompted Hatcha to play a few of my early stuff too. Not long after, Slimzee was also spinning the odd bit of early dubstep being produced by Skream and Benga.

At the same time as this, I think the only DJ's supporting the croydon side of the dark garage evolution were DJ's on Delight FM based in South London - notably N Type and Walsh. They'd support the usual dark garage stuff being played across the board on all pirate stations, but also used to play a lot of exclusives from me and producers like Skream, Benga, Random Trio, Artwork, Horsepower and the likes all coming thru the Big Apple records shop on the weekends to swap new music.

Labels started to emerge. Tempa were already releasing stuff by Horsepower and Kode 9. The Ammunition Promotions company also ran other labels such as Vehicle, Soulja, R.O.A.D. and Bingo and were starting to release more of the new darker styles coming out of the garage movement.

At this time people were still not calling the sound dubstep. It was still garage to all of us, we never really thought it would evolve into anything more than a spin off strain of garage.

Around 2003 / 2004 the scene began to draw in more interest from other people involved in the garage scene in other pockets of the sound. It was around this time that Coki, Loefah and Mala began making stuff along the lines of what was beginning to mould into a small movement of croydon producers and DJ's spinning what we were now beginning to call dubstep. Outside of FWD on a monthly basis we now had a couple of new events. I remember Thriller Funk ran by Slaughter Mob down at Herbal, and Filthy Dub ran by myself and my mate Dave down in Croydon. We were trying desperately to help build the sound and branch out to new ears but the events predominantly attracted the same crowd you'd see at FWD - people were just willing to travel out to wherever the sound was being pushed. It was a real community. Nights began to pop up in Bristol soon after.

The DMZ boys (Mala, Coki and Loefah) began running their event at 3rd Bass in Brixton. After Filthy Dub and Thriller Funk stopped we didn't really have anywhere else to play regularly so it really came at a good time. By this time there was also a healthy movement gathering pace in Bristol, centred around Pinch's Subloaded event which would promote acts from London in line with all of the new blood coming thru from Bristol. The crowds began to pick up, and the sound began to gain support on mainstream radio stations. 

John Peel on Radio 1 was the first to pick up on it - he played stuff by Digital Mystikz, Mark One, Distance, Hot Flush recordings and also my own stuff. This was also around the same time Maryanne Hobbs was introduced to me at a DMZ event still in it's early days. She became a huge supporter of the sound. She played music from all corners of the sound which at the time was not as vast as it is now in 2012, but was still varied enough for her to be able to showcase the many styles without turning her electronic music show into a straight up dubstep broadcast!

Maryanne Hobbs' interest and support of the sound was the main catalyst for it being recognised as a legitimate genre as opposed to a small movement centred in south london. She showcased a handful of producers and MC's on her "Dubstep Warz" broadcast in the lead up to the DMZ birthday event. In the lead up to the event there was a definite buzz about it but nothing any of us expected to see was the sight of around 800 people queuing to get in before the doors opened. 

It's important for me to mention that prior to this birthday event, most dubstep events would be half empty. At best, the busier events would only attract around 400 people as the venues in use were small to medium in size. For us to see the surge of people in such a short space of time was actually unbelievable. I remember thinking just 6 months prior to the DMZ event that I might have to give up making music to focus more on a career as opposed to doing my part time work to fund my attempt at making a living from music. I was earning just enough money to pay for the dubplates I was spinning to be cut, and being paid to DJ in these events usually depended on how many people came thru the door - but this was all agreed in advance anyhow. It was only when you picked up the occasional booking outside of your circle of mates that you'd pick up any money, and this was never substantial enough to be considered "a living".

But... after that event, everything seemed to fall into place and all of a sudden it began to gather speed amongst people interested in new music. Events began to pop up, university events were bringing in dubstep acts to provide something new for their punters. We were slowly being bled into the room 2's of drum and bass events and all of a sudden, we were being respected.

The rest, as they say, is history!

Cat Shit One

cso1-1



I came across Cat Shit One when i was looking at my character design in OUDF403. I didn't pursue the video further until we were given this animation module. Cat Shit One is a computer-generated net animation series by Studio Anima. A successful youtube phenomena which has seen an english dubbed version with a DVD release. The animated series is set in the Middle East with indication that the action takes place after 1991.

The animation of the animals in the series is incredible, showing how far technology has come that independent studios like Studio Anima can produce such high quality animation. With fur movement that could rival Sully from monsters inc this series boasts eccentric  and life like human movements in the body of a fluffy rabbit.

Motofumi Kobayashi the producer of the series has done extremely well in bringing this piece to life and has inspired me from an independent company to produce something of this high standard. The series is action packed and fun to watch and would recommend it to anyone.

John Lasseter and Car's

I decided to look at Pixar's cars due to the fact that my animation was based on trains and the movement of the two would be quite similar. The concept artists and director of art for Cars was John Lasseter. His movement of the cars is regarded as a stepping stone in CGI and tested the capability of animators.

John Lasseter has had a huge career over seeing all of Pixar's films and associated projects as executive producer and he directed Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Cars, and Cars 2. John Lasseter having worked on many animation titles brought key ideas to the project of Cars.

It was John Lasseter's idea to have the eyes be in the windshield. It separated the characters from from each other and allowed more expression in the eyes than if they were in the head lights. It also centralised the point of which you viewed the car. Eyes in the lights would have brought the focus to the bottom of the car ignoring the full detail of the vehicle. It also made the car's seem more human like with the car in a small way resembling a human face. Where as if the eyes were in the lights, would have resembled a creature like a snake. Lasseter also decided the characters would use their tires emphasising the human factor in the cars. Some cars are even shown shuffling sideways by moving their wheels about on their suspensions. These fundamentals of animation transferring human qualities into that of a car is what i need to be to be looking at for my animation and key points i need to pick up on for my future in animation.

John Lasseter's work is inspring to me as a producer, especially looking at his extensive career. Looking at Lasseter has helped me hugely on what track i need to be following. His animation techniques are brilliant and ingenuitive, and if it works for him i should take inspiration from his work to better my own.

Princess Mononoke and Hayao Miyazaki

My favourite animation of all time, Princes Mononoke is an inspiring piece of Animation. Produced in Japan back in 1997. Princess Mononoke is a period drama set specifically in an alternate Japanese fantasy. The story concentrates on involvement of the outsider Ashitaka in the struggle between the supernatural guardians of a forest and the humans of the Iron Town who consume its resources. There can be no clear victory, and the hope is that relationship between humans and nature can be restored. Studio Ghibli have set the var for Animation for nearly 20 years now, with huge titles like 'Spirited Away'. But Princess Mononoke for me brings animation to life. The scale of the scenes are just incredible which makes hard to believe that it was produced nearly 15 years ago. The scenery is just beautiful, and some the creature leave me speechless 
Princess Mononoke is mostly hand drawn, but at points incorporates the use of CGI. The computer animated parts were used to blend and support the beautiful hand drawn animation. Hayao Miyazaki who directed Princess Mononoke mastered the whole piece in digital paint, which gave the animation a sharp edge of which would have been revolutionary at the time and subsequently is used now in all Studio Ghibli films. The introduction of Computer aided design sped up the production of the film greatly which shows how useful the technology is and how effectively it can be used. Miyazaki is an all Inspiring producer, he personally checked all 144,00 frames in the film and according to sources personally redrawn  80,000 of them. It is this kind of work that inspires me to work at my animation and strive to be a animator like Miyazaki. In conclusion i looked at this production of this film to see exactly what undertaking a feature length animation would be like. It has blown me away at the sheer amount of work that needs to be put in, but as also inspired me to work harder and push for better marks with my own animation 

OUDF405 Storyboard

My environment

Finally i have reached my end product -

A over view of my environment with the small brio train going along the track

A camera angle i plan on using to the opening of the animation as the train enters thew environment

Another camera angle that i will i use as the train continues down the track

My brio train stopping at the cross junction waiting for the larger train to pass by

Another wide shot of my environment, could be used as a wide panning shot to grasp the size of my environment

Finally the brio train passing the cross road and heading towards the end

Children and Trains

When it comes to children programmes, trains have been a huge topic of interest and very successful over the last 50 years. Trains have been animated from hand drawn animation to 3d modelling. In research for my brio train animation i have looked into various cartoons with trains (old and new) to try and take points in how they move and are animated for inspiration with my own Animation.

 

Going back to 1958 Ivor the Engine was filmed using stop motion techniques, animated using cardboard cut-outs painted with watercolours. The series was originally made for black and white television by Smallfilms for Associated Rediffusion, but was remade in colour for the BBC in 1975. Although the Ivor train has little animation techniques i can transfer to my Maya project, it is still good to see where it all started and what other animators took from Ivor to produce more advanced animation.

 

Watching the opening to Thomas the tank engine for me is my childhood in 32 seconds. Thomas the tank engine and friends took a new form of animation and was produced with live action model's. The use of moving models was seen at the time of the show's conception as an effective method of animating the stories. Locomotives and other vehicles were operated by radio, while humans and animals were static figures. Stop-motion was occasionally employed for instances in which a human or animal character would move. And some hand drawn animation was used at times. Watching back at Thomas gave me several ideas for how i wanted my train to move. Coming to a gradual halt with perhaps the wheels stopping vigorously whilst the train is still skidding along the track. Thomas and friends was eventually animated in CGI in 2009 starting a new chapter in animation

 

Chuggington is an international computer-animated television series for children produced by Ludorum plc and broadcast in 175 territories throughout the world including the BBC children's channel CBeebies. Chuggington currently airs on the Disney Channel Disney Junior’s preschool block in the United States. Chuggington is an very advanced Animation compared to Thomas and friends and Ivor the engine. The new CGI has been worked to a very high standard and although over the top at some points, offers lots of techniques and principles of Animation that i could source in my own work. Firstly I like how the pistons on the top of the trains squash and stretch as the train chug's along emphasising the motion of the steam exhaling through the pistons on the top of the train. The trains also bob along the track as they move as if they had a happy bouncy personality. Looking back at all these different cartoons has helped me build on the principles of animation that i will be representing in my animation and influencing my idea of how a train should move in a Cartoon.