Week 2 : Collab Meeting and Class

Meeting 1 – 2nd February:

This was our first meeting to discuss what we thought about the project. This was just nice to finally chat and talk to each other. We hadn’t really have had a chance to meet yet because of the pandemic so it was nice to hear what everyone like and preferred as music etc.

Things we discussed:

  • Look for references
  • Look for available assets on the uni drive to use
  • Look at festival cameras / camera shots. How do they move?
  • Crowds / festival flags

Collaboration catch up with the class:

For Pre-vis projects – Check the university library

Friday 10am will be a pitch of what we will be doing.

Camera rig is film standard.

3 types of cameras

  • default
  • offset
  • aim

Dolly

Aim to make realistic camera work

Blueprint

Techvis

Keep audience connected – strive for realism

The camera should be as though it was on a railroad track on the X and Y.

Focal length and angle view

35mm standard for the focal length

Look at lens views in other films as references.

Use more than one lens size. Most films use more than one.

e.g. 27, 30, and 35mm

gopros normally use 18mm

Near clip pan – o.56

18mm is the lowest i would probably need to use but you can use lower e.g. 9mm

Reference in the objects so that it will be easier to edit the files when other people try to access the file – remember to set project.

zoetropes

Keep outline clean – make sure that everything is in its group so its easy to know what is what.

Auto update in preferences in the playback so the camera is showing what it going on in all perspectives.

Don’t go back to the same shot – make sure it changes.

For next lesson:

  • Make sure story is flushed
  • Build environment
  • Think of camera placements
  • Next week we will be learning motion capture

Meeting 2 – 5th February:

This was our first meeting where we got to meet Kenneth from the BA Sound course. This was exciting because we got to hear what Kenneth did and what he thought about the project etc. He seemed to be excited for what we were doing and onboard with our idea etc. He said he was going to set out some short term goals where he would do some experimentation with his music. I love the idea that we would use his music so it becomes a very original project with new content and using references to support it.

Areas we discussed:

  • What is the objective of this project? Is it to advertise a festival or it is to tell a narrative story.
  • What music should we use? Kenneth was talking about using his techno/motown music. I love this kind of music so i’m down.

Kenneth’s Schedule:

  • Free Tuesday after 6pm
  • Free Thursday after 5
  • Free Thursday between 12-2:30pm

We also found a time we were all free next week to book a tutorial with Luke at 1:30pm and then we could have a group meeting after to discuss what we will be doing from what Luke has said. This meeting was very successful as we were all fired up with ideas etc.

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Week 2 – Houdini Lesson 2 (particles)

Before diving into the next lesson we talked through how everyone found the cabin building. From what was said from other students, it looked as though people understood it enough. One student from another course showed his work and it looked amazing. They had made the cabin in more detail like Medhi had done in a more complicated version. This meant that there was planks of wood instead of one solid piece to each side of the cabin. I didn’t have enough time to attempt this as I was already learning so much with the easy version.

Notes from Teams Meeting with Medhi:

  • Procedural working
  • Every vertex has normals/vectors/markers
  • How will light bounce off the surface?
  • Template is there for a reference, for the view point and to help
  • Primitive is scale, centred pivot
  • Delete node – Delete selected parts
  • Booleansolid – cut shape, close shape, cut out

Lesson 2:

Notes from Medhi’s recorded lesson:

  • Atrributes
  • Dynamics
  • Particles
  • Rigid bodies
  • Auto update – bottom right corner
  • Manual – efficient when you know what you’re doing. It is better to save in this mode

Shortcuts:

  • Alt, drag and drop – duplicates nodes
  • Alt l – lines nodes up to make clean workspace
  • j – draw line to connect
  • y – cut lines
  • Select nodes and shake to disconnect nodes,
  • d – display options
  • Arrow up – play and pause
  • Arrow left and right – start from beginning of animation
  • UV – Attributes, cuts object into a UV seam, breaks up objects attributes so you can see all the different components.
  • When you make changes it will always show the value changes in the geometry spreadsheet.
  • Blast node – takes parts out of objects
  • attribute vop – create code without coding, inputs and outputs

Vector (green)

  • v@test
  • 3 values
  • e.g. 1,0,3

Float (turquoise)

  • f@test
  • 1 value
  • e.g. – 2.5769856767848

Integer (blue)

  • i@test
  • Whole number
  • e.g. 1

String

  • s@test
  • Words
  • “hello world”

Advice – try all the noises and nodes and see what happens, this is the best way to learn. Chaining two noises creates a distortion.

Making Particles Exercise:

  • dopnet nod – time dependant
  • popnet – creating something raw
  • pack – used for crowds
  • unpack node – separates
  • popobject – container of particles
  • popsolver
  • popsource

Gravity is normally -9.8
Image players is a useful tool to view any image sequence.

Here are some screenshots of my process through out this task. As you can see I have played around with the gravity to see how the particles respond. I think this was a really great lesson to learn how to mimic real life movement in a virtual space. I probably could remember it all from memory but I think I definitely understood the concept of gravity and the movement of gas, wind nodes.

Final Outcome:

This was my final outcome for this project. It wasn’t perfect but I was pleased I got this far as working with particles is very tricky getting the right balance. As you can see there is some particles stuck on frame 1. I mentioned this in the next lesson to Medhi to see why it wasn’t going away. He responded that that it was just a case of closing it down and reopening the file. Sometimes files get a bit stuck so best try to restart them.

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Week 1 – Collaboration Project Introduction

artslondon.padlet.org – Is where I can find people to collaborate from other courses at UAL.

I can download the brief here and choose which format I want to work with.

  • VR
  • Production pitch
  • Pre-vis

Here I can post what my project will be about so that other people can contact me if they want to join my group.

Project:

  • Description
  • Contact
  • What roles needed
  • 3D modeler
  • VFX artist
  • Shot cinematographer

For this project, I will have to show 10 weeks worth of work to complete. This means I have to make a post each week where I break down what I have been doing with my group. I don’t need to finish the project we start but I do need to be working each week.

Tips: use Ftrack to upload work we’ve been working on so we can all access it easily.

Most likely I will choose the Pre-vis project as it fits better with this course.

Pre-vis

  • Storyboarding
  • Rough animation
  • Camera shots
  • Shot concepts
  • Replicate real life cameras
  • Motion capture
  • 30-60 seconds long
  • Concept development
  • Story development and pitch idea

Pre-vis Festival Performance Concept:

Using famous footage of musicians as a reference. (E.g. Freddie Mercury, DJ sets, whoever) Creating a scene of a staged festival event with different characters impersonating famous performances (previs). 

References include: films, music videos, festival footage, live performance… anything

Roles:

  • 3D animators – pre-vis (blocking) – Mariana Deville, Abbie Elmes, Tina (more people welcome)
  • VFX artist – camera shots and special effects (e.g. fireworks)
  • 3D modelling – Set designing (Not essential but an opportunity for someone to try)
  • Sound engineer – Kamil Gacikowski, BA Sound Arts, On the music and transitions.
  • Lighting artist – Colourful and playful lights for the stage and the performer.

So I quickly got my project idea onto the MA Collab site. I was fortunate enough to have two people from my course to join! Tina and Mariana. They seem so lovely and full of excitement for the project. Also I got a message from Kamil who is on the BA Sound Arts. I am so excited as I would love to someone in the project who knows a lot about this topic and make our project more experimental.

I created a Festival Collaboration Sever on discord so we can all chat and document all of our research with links, images, references and brainstorming ideas.

I created a google document for the group to edit so we can edit the project description with everyones input. I know I started the project, but I want it to change and alter according to what we all agree on. Also I set out all the weeks so we can start to plan our timeline.

Google Doc Content :

Festival Collaboration Project – Pre-vis

Remember:  Have fun and learn from each other. All our ideas are important. Record all conversations and work we do. 

Concept

Using famous footage of musicians as a reference. (E.g. Freddie Mercury, DJ sets, whoever) Creating a scene of a staged festival event with different characters impersonating famous performances (previs). 

References include: films, music videos, festival footage, live performance… anything

Roles:

  • 3D animators – previous (blocking) – Mariana Deville, Abbie Elmes, Tina  (more people welcome)
  • VFX artist – Jane Boehlert (isn’t 100%) camera shots and special effects (e.g. fireworks)
  • 3D modelling – Set designing (Not essential but an opportunity for someone to try)
  • Sound engineer – Kamil Gacikowski (On the music and transitions)
  • Lighting artist – Colourful and playful lights for the stage and the performer.

Asset Links:

  • Free3d.com
  • Sketchfab
  • Turbosquid

Week Schedule:

Week 1:
1st Feb 

  • Find people to join group
  • Add research to collab group
  • Define concept further
  • References performances
  • Reference cameras

Week 2:
8th Feb

  • Experimentation 
  • Research
  • Collect rigs/environments to use in animation

Week 3:
15th Feb

  •   Pitch to Luke

Week 4:
22nd Feb

  •  

Week 5:
1st March

  •   

Week 6:
8th March

  •  

Week 7:
15th March

  •   

Week 8:
22nd March

  •  

Week 9:
29th March

  •   

Week 10:
5th April

  •  Final Touched
  • Submission
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Week 1 – KK’s Lesson 1

This was our first lesson with KK that we learnt about him and what he does. He talked us through a presentation where he describes different kinds of lighting and how they are used in different films.

  • NPC lighting artist – KK Yeung
  • Blade runner – Watch this film as a reference
  • AOVs
  • CG render layers
  • 3 main types of lighting – Fill/Rim/Key
  • Ratio between lights
  • Gobo lighting is part of creative lighting. Putting objects in front of light to make broken shapes of light.
  • Direct and indirect illumination
  • Create light & shadow
  • Behaviours of light
  • Path tracing
  • Refraction
  • Caustics
  • Image based lighting – used on reflective surfaces to get a sense of the background.
  • Environment needs to cut down on data but still look complex.
  • Scripting used in Python.
  • Scratchapixel.com has good render lessons for free
  • Indy Mogu is a You-tuber who also explains

Task for next week:

We were asked to do a task for the week which I actually found quite interesting because I did use to do graphic design and photography. So i do think that I did have some experience before. Also I knew that I was interesting in lighting from shoots I had done and other friends who specialised in this area at my last university. I did enjoy this task as I got to evaluate some interesting films which I love.

  • Choose 3 frames from films
  • Identify lighting techniques

Drive 1.1

I love this film and it’s soundtrack. I had remembered this film for the way the different lighting was colourful and interest. Here you can see how the back light it a mixture of green and blue coming from different angles. And main character and car is lit from the left hand side with a warm red/pink light. This breaks up the shot and gives a sense of two sides of the seen – front and back.

  • spotlight
  • back lighting
  • temperature change

Romeo & Juliet 2.1

This remake of the classic tale of Romeo and Juliet. This is their first meeting and its through the fractured light through the fish tank. Their faces are magnified as is their fascination with each other. There is lighting in the tank and lighting in the hall way which makes Leos face a little warmer than through the blue light of the tank.

  • temperature change
  • fractured light

Romeo & Juliet 2.2

This is another shot from the same film. I loved the way the fake candle and blue cross light create the mood for the scene. The scene is lit from the bottom upwards which intensifies the feelings and dramatises the Romeo walking down the isle. His face might not be completely clear but the point of the shot wasn’t his expressions it was him in comparison to the weight of where he was in church.

  • temperature light
  • low light

Sabrina 3.1

Sabrina was the last film I wanted to discuss light about because it is a black and white film. Shooting in only these parameters means that like is more important here as it has a larger role in the scene to create a mood. Here she is spying on the party in the bushes yet her face is well lit. Its not to obvious she is there but the light catches her face perfectly.

  • spotlight on face
  • back light from moon

Sabrina 3.2

This is when Sabrina is waiting in the tennis courts excited about being the girl chosen. All the window leave beautiful shadows and shapes distorted by the moonlight and outdoor lighting.

  • natural light from outside – gobo lighting
  • tennis court spotlights
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Week 1: Houdini Lesson 1 (introduction)

We will be having online lessons with Medhi Daghfous who has specialised in the Houdini programme. Medhi started has been working with Houdini for 6 years in the industry.

  • Photogrammetry
  • Pipeline td
  • Modelling & Environment
  • Katenya
  • Procedural way
  • Learning the vocabulary e.g. Nodes
  • Houdini apprentice

Lesson 1

This was our first lesson into Houdini which meant it was just to learn the basics of how to use this programme. Medhi talked us through the interface and where you had to go to change settings in order to make it a workspace that was convenient.

Notes I made from what Medhi said:

  • To move around the 3D space – left + right + space bar
  • Pane tabs
  • Graph Network View
  • SOP – geometry, surface operators
  • Obj – Object
  • DOP – Dynamic content
  • ROP – Render operations
  • VOP – Vex Operations
  • alembic – .abe
  • file – .bgeo and can also load alembic files .abc
  • .bgeo.sc – compressed version
  • Merge node – to visualise more objects together
  • Transform node – rotate / move / scale object
  • 1 unit = 1 metre
  • i – information – this is where you find dimensions, bugs and leave comments.
  • D – Display options
  • ROP – render operator
  • $OS – variable
  • $F – frame
  • $HIP – formate of file best for sharing
  • $JOB – set project
  • file cache – reading from disk

I started off by following of his instructions of how to make a sphere in geo and adding nodes which I connect to apply effects and changes. Nodes were the base of how this programme worked. You can choose a selection of different nodes and link them together in a specific order which created the effects you want. Medhi emphasised that there are many different ways for someone to produce the same outcome but that he was teaching us the procedural techniques so we really understood in depth how this programme works. It feels like this is something that once you wrap your head around it, it starts to get easier.

Our objective was to create a rock like shape from just changing the attributes of the sphere with the attribute node. I took two screenshots of the result as the one on the left looked like a crumpled piece of paper and the other looked like the texture of a rock. This was to show that just changing settings of the attributes can completely change how the sphere looks in weight and texture.


I also did a test with a torus shape to see how it would work using different shaped nodes.

Our task for this lesson was to build a cabin, which we would later on destroy. I was surprised at how easy I found it following the steps. Although there were nodes I didn’t understand what they did but I did understand how the building was made. I have always loved building in the workshop so it was nice using that side of my creativity. It was all very logical in the sense of if it were a physical model.

My first impression of Houdini was that I loved how logical the program worked. I have always been someone who loves maths and art so this felt like it could be a programme that would suit me well. However, the new acronym I have learnt are very confusing so I think will take me a while to remember and understand. There is 10 weeks of learning so I think this will be possible.

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Week 16 – AR 10 Minute Essay Presentation

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Week 16 – Showreel

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Week 15: Essay Bibliography

Books:

  • Ferrier, A. (2014) The Advertising Effect. Australia: Oxford University Press.
  • Hackl, C. And Wolfe, S.G. (2017) Marketing New Realities. Great Britain: Amazon.
  • Stuart, H. (2019) Virtual Reality Marketing. Great Britain and the United States: Kogan Page Limited.
  • Brinkman, T. (2020) Virtual Reality for Main Street. United States of America: Aviva Publishing.
  • Rubin, P. (2018) Future Presence. United States of America: HarperCollins Publishers.

Websites:

Film:

  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011) Directed by David Yates. United Kingdom and United States: Warner Bros. Pictures.

Youtube Video:

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Week 14: Image Bibliography for Presentation

Images:

  • The future of augmented reality in advanced medicine (no date) Available at:

https://www.oneyoungworld.com/blog/future-augmented-reality-advanced-medicine (Accessed: 18 January 2021)

  • You can now virtually try on the Gucci sneakers through AR (2019) Available at:

https://www.nssmag.com/en/pills/18993/gucci-sneaker-app-augmented-reality (Accessed: 18 January 2021)

  • TIL that greek starred in WALL-E (2018) Available at: https://www.reddit.com/r/Greekgodx/comments/8p2ao1/til_that_greek_starred_in_walle/ (Accessed: 18 January 2021)
  • Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality: Past, Present and Future (2020) Available at:
https://www.daacap.com/augmented-reality-and-virtual-reality-past-present-and-future/

(Accessed: 18 January 2021)

Videos

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Week 14: Exploring Consumer Psychology in Augmented Reality Advertising Applications Presentation

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