Final Video

So here we go, this is it. Hold on to your pants.

Ok we have a problem, turns out my video is a 200 MB file, so its going to a while before I can upload it. But it shall be done!

Made some noise

Not really, i just recorded the audio for my video today.

And no Im not giving you a preview because at the moment it sounds tinny and horrible, which I shall fix.

Photoshop layer problems

I guess there is a problem with photoshop images as you import them into other programs, because the layers have sort of bled into each other. The outer edges of the words have the colours of the layers that were underneith them.

Heres what I mean:

The problem here is that I've spent the last 3 days making these frames so I'm not restarting, and I don't know how to fix it so I guess we're just going to have to grin and bear it.

Finished it, Like a Boss

Despite HPs best efforts and the time constraint I had I have finished my second interactive Processing application.

The way it works is that you click on the space and a series of ripples will expand and contract from the origin point of your click. You can have upto 4 points at any one time on the screen (on account of it starts to make the computer lag up something crazy). The additive effects of the circles start to make it look like a puddle on a rainy day, hence the dull grey background.

Admittedly its not all my own work. I mean I wrote it all -its all my own code- but I had ALOT of help from Mr Jose Sanches and his YouTube tutorials, and the Red Bull corporation of course.

Developing Frames

Bassically I need to develop each individual frame for my video, here are some of the ones ive come up with

Ive been making the frames in photoshop, its just alot easier to use. I actually understand this program (somewhat).

Cornelia also mentioned that I should try to incorporate some of the app into the video itself, as this is what the whole project is about. So thats what ive tried too do here.

Game On

Ok.

So I have like three days to create an interactive thing in Processing, this is a project we were given nearly a month and a half to do the first time around. Its going to take way too long to create the interaction I wanted before, hell I hadn't even entirely finished it when my laptop died. Ive decided to go very simple and create a sort of wave simulator (kinda).

So this is a quick example. Basically what I want to have is a bunch of rippling waves that interact with each other. Its crunch time and I'm gonna need alot of Red Bull.

HP Sucks

My PHP laptop died yesterday. Todays the day of the presentation and i have literally nothing to present because everything on my laptop (at least all of the important stuff) was wiped. It did a factory reset. Yay.

At least it tried to run a backup right? A for effort there HP. Too bad it just wasn't enough.

Yea, too bad.

BUT! My tutor and course co-ordinator were kind enough to give me an extension to next Friday. So here we go again...

Final Images: Project 3

These are my final images, Rener and Photo:

 For my render I wanted to show all of my models as if they were objects, sitting waiting in a surgury to be implanted into the body. Like a pacemaker, or a false hip. To do this I put them on a refective metal surface to mimic a stainless steel tabletop, this was also good for showing off the contrasting black and white of the models. The lighting was done to mimic the lights that would be shining down on the operating table, throwing light across the models. I also had a second light to illuminate the shapes of the models and show off the detailing/textures.

For my photo I wanted a similar effect, but I thought that just taking the photo on some stainless steel would be a bit of a cop out. So I decided to take it a step further and find some medical equipment to put in the background, and as it turns out Grdon Harris stocks surgical blades. So $20 and a bottle of food colouring later, I had a bloodied scalple for my background. The surface they are on is actually a peice of cardboard covered in reflective paint (not painted by me). As far as image manipulation goes all i really did was remove the horizon and bump up the levels.

Rendering Experements

These are just some of the renders of my final three models that I didnt use, on account of poor composition or lighting that I didnt like.

 

These two were just a look at what  it would look like if all of my models were connected to create one big "limb". It kinda looks like something from Transformers or Terminator.

This was a precurser to my final render, however I didnt like the lighting or the reflectiveness of the material used on the bottom plane.

Playing With Colours

I decided to do some renders where I changed the colour of the light, heres what I got:

Obviously the half colour ones are alot less offensive, this wis because it doesnt mess with the base colours of the model too much but still manges to change the feel of it.

Model 3 Experimentation

This is the development of my third model which I have been doing over the last few hours:

Model 2 Lighting experiments

These are some of my experiments for lighting and texture modeling for model 2:

Model 1 Lighting and Texture experiments

These are some of my experiments for the first model I finished. They arent anything near a final render, just looking at illuminating key points to show off the features of the model.

Inspiration

For this project Ive decided to make a Kinetic typography add for my app. Ive fallen down something of a manhole in the sense that i've spent the last few hours JUST looking at kinetic typography videos. Needless to say ive found some pretty awesome ones;

This is a rant by Stephen Fry about language. Its really good at giving the words some shape, and then the zooming out at the end completes it all extremely nicely. Its also extremely interesting and really helps point out how important it is to have a good narrator. I'm going to need to find someone with a cool voice.

This excerpt from V for Vendetta also shows how important a good narrator is. But to such a higher level than the first one.

While a little melodramatic this music video shows how tings other than words can  be used, like logos and such to greatly improve the overall aesthetic of the video.

Triangles to Circles

I realised very quickly that using triangles, and getting them to align how i want them to hen they collide is going to be very hard. Far beyond my skill level in Processing. Ive decided to change them to circles, which only need to grow bigger instead of rotate and join into each other ect.

Good news is Ive also gotten the objects bouncing through space aswell.

Storyboard

This is my storyboard for my kinetic typography video, it basically shows a few of the key frames of my video aswell as a script down the side, just encase you couldn't gather that by looking at it.

Learning Alot

This Jose guys tutorials are great, I've been learning everything from defining my own classes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP4_96YzBnM&list=UU5dMacit2C5fYiS4lMNq3ow&index=27&feature=plcp

to implementing arrays http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj6UgZ9j2t8&list=UU5dMacit2C5fYiS4lMNq3ow&index=26&feature=plcp

this should get really cool.

Help has been found

Ive found a guy on youtube who does amazing tutorials, which are great for helping me with the holes in my knowledge http://www.youtube.com/user/jomasanrec?feature=results_main

He seems to have everything that ill need to get this project up and running.

There we go. Looking good

These renders are of a form I made with my awesome future muscle and the hexagon slates and I gotta say, pretty happy with it.

Go on, take a peek for yourself.

A growing infatuation with the Hexagon

Ever since James (my tutor) showed me the Futuristic Capillary I've been thinking more and more about the hexagon and how much it fits in the narrative of my form. Plus it just looks freaking awesome.

It fits the whole futuristic biological-technological (say that really fast 5 times, I dare you) theme and is another layer of cool looking stuff I can add to my models. Its not too much to add to my precedents right? I mean, I'm allowed 10 of the things and this makes what... seven? So yea. I'm all good :)

Ive made a quick hexagonal slate in Solidworks that I can import into my models and I couldn't be happier, I think this is going to fit really well with everything else.

Also, here's something entertaining I found while doing a Google image search for hexagon (click on the image to expand it)

Finally!!! God I thought it would never work

So what I first did was make a sketch pattern of rectangles to slip on the cylinder:

I did the math so that it would fit perfectly on a cylinder 20 mm long with a diameter of 3 mm (and no i'm not going to do it again to show you, too lazy).
I then wrapped it around my cylinder (obviously) and extruded the sketch inwards (intruded?) to create little indents to break up the geometry a little bit.

After that was all done I filleted all of the horizontal lines in the cylinder. Now i cant stress this enough, I filleted EVERY SINGLE HORIZONTAL EDGE. There's over 350 of them and it took about 30 minutes of pressing the fillet button, selecting a bunch of edges, telling Solidworks to fillet them, waiting for it to load the new form. Then repeating.

But it was so worth it. Look at this.

Now tell me that doesn't look like something you'd expect to see on a futuristic prosthetic-cyber-arm, or a similar thingy (don't actually tell me that by the way, it will make me very upset. I spent an irresponsibly large amount of time on this one piece of my form).

You know what the best part about this object is though? It behaves itself in 3DS Max :)

Stay tuned...

*sigh (STL)

Its not my lucky day.

The STL files have unfortunately turned out the same as the last batch (not the cool one James showed me, the lame ones I made). I think its because the horizontal faces haven't been broken up at all, because they still wont bend/twist the way I want. AND this time I got screen shots to show my point:

Because all of the points are at the ends of the shape (the only corners) when it is bent it just pulls the rest of the body with it. Sad face :(

BUT now i've learnt something about STL files, so that's cool huh?

Building Muscle (not the way you would think unfortunately)

What im doing today is wrapping a very simple linear horizontal pattern around a cylinder. This will hopefully mimic muscle fibers.

I'll then fillet the edges, make them look more natural and rounded...

Woops...

Much better

Code Design

OK, here we go. This is the final design (the one il have at the interim), ive divided it into 11 different frames to show my point: