I am Already here

Recently i am increasing the amount of writing in existing universes that i am doing. one in particular is in the star wars and dragon age series. As a writer i feel that this is something that i need to improve since it is going to be very rare to make an original idea it seems likely that i will need to write in an existing universe but also make it my own. this was something that susan mentioned is quite a good skill to gain in.

The idea's for my stories are gonna have to be researched while writing them since the amount of info is really detailed and expansive. i will be using my friends as characters so i will need to somehow put words in their mouth which will be an interesting challenge but also quite enjoyable.

I will be doing another piece from D.C over the summer holidays which i think i may get others to help me turn it into a short film which i would also write and direct for.

Scripts

Recently i have gotten into writing more scripts and also i was looking in to how to lay it out in a more professional fashion and how to write it in a easy to understand way

I was using D.C characters for this script so it helped to be trying to write something based on an existing franchise and having a more professional feel on how it actually is for a script writer. I had a hard time with trying to write a lot of detail without revealing too much since it isn't my job to write camera angles or set designs. i only wanted to do a short script which would last a few minutes which i think i was able to do.

Next year i will be doing scripts which hopefully will be influenced by people in the course but time will tell due to the length of certain sections of the course next year i think i will do my own filming of shorts and will write the script and film with other people in the course.

Republic Commando

Let me just say i love this game not just because its a star wars game but just because of the game looking very gritty and how the mechanics though very similar to every other first person shooter these days it is a old game but it was really enjoyable and did very well at expanding the universe and also changing some of star wars elements star wars. I would suggest to anyone to play the game it also next year i will be do these as vlog formed review. As you progress the gameplay and how much you immerse yourself into the characters is the selling point and that is why i recommend it.

Anno 2070

Around Christmas i bought Anno 2070 which is a city creation simulator.

 Anno is very similar to sim city but instead is a island/ colony style game instead, it is a very fun, difficult and complex game. the objective of the game is creating thriving colony using different islands for resources and deciding if you are gonna go for the environmentalist approach or the money grabbing tychoon path. i would suggest if you can give it a go since even if it takes  forever just to get the basic stuff it is enjoyable. Now it is just a pc game which has allowed it to have beautiful graphics so most of the time while waiting you can enjoy looking at it :3.  I would like to do a real time strategy in the future so we will see what happens in the future.

SWOT analysis

I decided to do a basic swot analysis

Strengths:
Story creation
Creativity
character design
Modelling

Weakness:
drawing
Lazy
Can be easily distracted
texturing

Opportunities:
Writing guilds
Competitions
Briefs
college resources

Threats:
other script writers
other modellers
cost of software.

Anthony Ward

This is from his website: 
My name is Antony Ward and I am a freelance digital artist, animator and writer. I have over 18 years experience within the games development industry, working for some of the biggest companies at a senior level. During this time, I have grown as both an artist & animator as well as a manager. My senior positions within the art departments have enabled me to develop my skills in not only managing my own time and workload but also that of a team. I have proven myself adaptable, tough under pressure and a good team player. My understanding of the industry, having worked from the bottom up to leading on a big budget project, has allowed me to be confident in my own abilities. I have been able to pass on the skills I have learnt effectively through both my in-house roles and my books.

I am the author of three successful technical manuals, Game Character Development in Maya (2004), Game Character Development (2008) and 3D Modeling in Silo (2010). These have been popular and have been translated into many different languages including Chinese.

I have also written numerous tutorials for 3DArtist and 3DWorld magazine, as well as creating video tutorials for Digital Tutors.

As Featured In - Digital Tutors, 3DArtist Magazine, 3DWorld Magazine, Exotique by Ballistic, PixelArts Magazine, 3DMag Magazine.

My Specialities – High and low resolution 3D Modeling, Texturing, Rigging, Animation, MEL Scripting, Maya Tool Development, Tutorial Writing.

I really enjoyed this talk but not as much as the one by susan. I am not a character modelling but i appreciated his input and the advice he gave us.

Susan Everett

Susan Everett was a script writer who came in for a talk An spoke about being a script writer, for me this talk was exactly what i needed since it is what i want to go into. Susan won the Carl Foreman Screenwriting award which she said really helped here to get more work. she used the reward to get a job for 18 months at the California state university which led to her first short film. Her next project was a novel called Crazy Horse which ended up in the final of a competition.

Her stories have ended up in multiple literacy magazines which later she directed multiple short films and she showed us Mother, Mine (2008)  which i really enjoyed. The style of Mother, Mine was the sort of writing i really enjoy doing myself so it was good to see an example. 

BAF

I did not take as much out of Baf this year as i did in the first year which i think proves i am growing and learning new things. My favourite talk was the talk from Neil Thompson who is the director of art and animation at bioware. What the talk was about i show he went from doing 2d games in the 1980'w and now working at a industry giant, he also went into talking about creating an interactive experience in dragon age and mass effect.

Besides from the baf game topic i enjoyed the student films from the animated section since i feel it is always better to see people who are like you and comparing your skills to them rather than giants of the industry since it feels overwhelming. I wanted to just get the tickets for Baf game but didn't but i will next year just go to the game one since i felt that some of the things spoken about in BAF would be wasted on me.

I did enjoy the paranorman talk and watching the film since it isn't something i would normally put effort into seeing.

Competition brief_finished and input

This was the finished piece and when i look back on it there are a lot of things i would change and improve. The leg design was horribly designed which didn't help that the uv's for the texture editor was done really badly. The only thing i liked in the end was the design of the head which i would slightly tweak and put on my show reel. The texture was too shiny in the end so that is another thing i would change.

In the end i got some good advice on how to make improvement on cghub when i submitted it but in the end i didn't win. I didn't expect to win but it was a nice experience and a learning curve for me which i would do again if it helped me to improve in the future.

Competition brief_ Creation

I really enjoyed creating the piece but the main problem i had was trying to create the model in a way which makes it flow but also look rigid in certain sections. The concept i had was a creature that lived underground in the mountains in the dragon age universe. The design was suppose to be a blind creature that is flowing with magic and never approaches the surface. the design was very insect based and was supposed to be thrice the size of a human male. He was supposed to live of spiders and creatures of the sort so i made him have teeth for gripping and teeth for crushing. The headdess is for show and the armour on the creature was all salvaged.

I had major problems with scale so i have tried to get better since this design.

Competition brief _ brief

The brief i decided to do for my competition brief is a bioware modelling competition that was hosted on cghub and the deadline was for February and started in november so there were four months to get it done.

The idea of the brief was to create a character to fit into either the dragon age or mass effect universe and either create a character from an existing race or design you own race with information on that race submitted as well.

I want to improve my modelling so i jumped at the chance for this one.

Unity

it felt weird going back to unity after so long especially getting used to some of the features i used to know. the hardest part for me in this section is getting the scripting done since though i looked online for a guide as i was doing the code it wasn't matching with the bloke i was watching on the tutorial. I finally got the script working but i couldn't do the advance version to stop the voices talking over each other. This is definitely something i will need to go back to do.

Crit

At the end of the crit i was told the parts i needed to look into were:
Sound Design
Small Assets completion
Textures
Lighting
Puzzle needs to be completed
I started working on all these issues except for the puzzle since at the point of the crit the amount of time it would take to get it right would cause problems when it comes to building the final piece.
I will be honest the puzzle should of been tested earlier

Maya

It's been awhile since i have had a modelling session on maya since the last time when i didn't need to animate was a bioware competition that i entered which was around christmas so i enjoy just sitting and modelling. The problem i did have was working out which side the normals were when importing to unity but when i figured it out it was a lot easier to sort it out. It took awhile to get used to laying out the UV textures properly and making the textures look how it is needed and high quality enough to be able to see the details.

The bad guys

i created 2 gang bosses to:
1. Improve skill at character creation and design
2. To have an extra element which makes the game world feel more expansive
I used a 100 question system for creating the characters called Anthony Faraday And Samuel Anders Brian Roth, which was really enjoyable but also time consuming.
I would put it up on here but due to the size the document i would not be able to show it but with the construction of the characters i was able to come up with more designs for the artefacts.

I can talk

I decided to record my own voice as a narration which was interesting and a lot easier due to me being able to know how i want it said without having to explain to others. As I progressed i realised the difficulty with sounding convincing while reading it. It was fun to mess with different styles to get what i wanted. i would next time like to set it up in soundtrack pro so i can experiment with sound effects. i only wrote one script and it was the one i used in the end.

Mansion floor plan

This is the bottom floor plan for the mansion layout i decided on using as you can see the different rooms which uses the idea of storage spaces in the eastern side of the house. I decided to make the building seem it was functional. 

I wanted to just have two liveable floors and the last as a form of attic space which leads to the room at this point the only way to get in the house is on the bottom floor.

This is the top floor this is the part that has the door leading to the trophy room. the room is very blocky but the idea is the main mansion is made of wood and the tower is made of stone.

City

The idea for this city is that the city is full of vice and sin which has lead to it being a criminal run city were no proper form of justice system exists in the city. The idea is it is a dark and grubby world which gives the darker tone to the stories.The city will be divided into districts which has the slums separated from the rest of the city which causes the divide and poverty.

The idea is the sin of the casinos and such buildings being the centre of certain districts and the idea of the powerful ruling the weak.

The skyscrapers is what i want to incorporate but i would not want the buildings to be too high since if the buildings it will make the slums seem even lower.

The tower shows the style of buildings were they are not majorly futuristic skyscrapers 

I well have the city as a city of lights since it is stereotyped with sin these day, exhibit A las vegas.

The Ancients

The main origins for the artefacts is the ancient civilisation that was dominate a long time before the story begins. The main influences for the civilisation is looking into ancient civilisations such as the greeks the egyptians and the aztecs. As i looked more into each i decided,

out of all three the ones i decided to use was the Egyptians due to there style and culture really suit the visual style i want and they feel more like the type of race that would create some weird puppet. When looking into the hieroglyphs it's understandable by the masks that the idea of a demonic puppet with a weird appearance would fit in and not spread suspicion in the ancient world.

Star Wars

I decided for the transmedia element i would look into an existing series and the first and favourite that comes to mind is the universe of George Lucas' Star Wars. I remember watching star wars as a five year old with my dad and after that i was captivated in the universe and although i get called out because of my fandom you can't deny how well designed the universe is. Personally what i think makes star wars a great universe is that it can be added to by anyone and in any format and it has been since the 1990's. As a gamer i have 15+ star wars video games and due to the design team of each it feels that they are on their own but as well are in the universe together be it at the same time as the movies or before and after, the universe has expanding in comics as well which is a very powerful medium since most people who read comics as a kid may pick one after it getting their attention this has allowed alot of dark scenes in star wars which at the time wouldn't be able to be seen on screen but now that games and tv are more open star wars has started to use their good writing to create something memorable.

I will talk about a game example for transmedia in star wars which is republic commando. republic commando is set after attack of the clones and before revenge of the sith it follows your squadron of clones which must go though perils and disasters during the missions. the game is very nitty gritty in appearance and unlike the movies it does not focus on the jedi/sith and brings it down to a more realistic story which we connect with, that is war and the plight of a soldier. this story gave a new experience to the player and gives you a new feel of the universe.

Recently an animated series has been created which bridges the same gap that republic commandos does but instead of following the spec ops group it follows a mess of characters as the war progresses. As the popularity of this series has increased it has allowed fans new experiences in the world or seeing an expansion on what the comics have mentioned. i really enjoy the series and i feel it delivers the idea of transmedia well, the universe will expand in multiple different mediums but still will be interconnected.

It's a Puppet

One of my favourite assets i wanted to create was the puppet that was frozen solid.

The thought process behind the puppet is that he is a puppet made by an ancient civilisation and over time has gained a soul which was full of hate, as you look into the creatures backstory you see that he mercilessly slaughtered people but this was to be his downfall since it caused his joints to stop working and seize up.

As with the mansion the points are split into numbers
1.for this i looked into number of eyes to give an unsettling feel since i don't want people to sympathise with this thing and i looked into a major fear of a friend of mine which is spiders so i am using spiders as a reference to my design.
2. I decided to look into kankuro's puppet from naruto which is a well known design. The thing i love about the head of this thing is that although it has three eyes it feels menacing but not always threatening in appearance. the jaw is exactly what i imagine for my character but i think only one row of teeth will make him more threatening in my final design. The arms feel very clockwork and pieced together which is how i see the civilisation that created this, that being they design very advanced things but at a unrealistic time period to build these things.
3. Colour is the deciding factor, i like the off putting colour of the eyes since it makes you fell like the thing isn't from this world. Another element i like is that neither of them have legs which like kankuro's puppet means they stand in different ways which is more menacing than using normal legs
4.The sharpness and the ornamental appearance of this mandalorian makes me think of making the puppet seem decorated since it feels like a rank of authority or belief system when you see something like this. that may be how i interpret it but it seems very prominent with religions/ancient civilisations.
5.Egyptians are a major part of the research for me due to them fitting the appearance and ideals i am feeling for the civilisation. The point of interest here is the headdress and the gold colouring since it feels regal and feels that that person is dominate. the idea of the puppet is to show power but also feel you with fear.
6.Gilding is connected to the gold colouring since it makes the piece feel like it was designed for greater things than murder and gets you intrigued with it's backstory and the worlds backstory.
7. Now since this thing is stationary i decided to look into marble statues since they feel sort of common place but would feel out of place in a rundown mansion. the idea of combining the gold and marble gives a classic appearance of the egyptians which is what i want.

Thought the pic isn't great quality these are the concepts i narrowed down to and decided on the top left.

mansion

Above is basically what i want in my mansion, the idea is a museum/trophy room that all the asserts will be placed. the mansion is also a really important component in the design of the level.

1. The plan for the trophy room is making it the top room of a tower which is why i looked into real world examples and into fiction based pieces. the fictional examples placed above are cirith ungol from lord of the rings and the wharf from dishonoured, others i looked into were fairy tales but i thought that the towers were too stylised to medieval castles. In the end though i wanted it to stand out against the rest of the mansion and also appear like it has been there longer i kept the style of the mansion into the design of the tower so it didn't seem too out of place.
2. This number represents the idea of how to get to the tower now i really like the idea of using a outdoor ledge to get to the trophy room since it gives the trophy a separate room and lets you enjoy the erie feel of the environment.
3.The mansion is supposed to have been abandoned and left ransacked so it will have damage so i looked into ruins in video games to get some idea of what is too much and what is the right amount for the task at hand.
4.Now as the trophy room i loved the idea of being behind a clock so though this image is from gargoyles i decided the simplistic version that this is gives a better feel for it's goal rather than proper clock towers such as big ben in real life or the version in basil the great mouse detective. In the end it isn't the room you are supposed to be paying attention to so the simpler design the better but i will give it a distinct and nice appearance.
5.This is looking at the style of mansion exterior i want or elements i would like to work into it the use of arches is an interesting aspect but i do not know if it will suit i will need to make a final decision. Certain parts like the stairs style and the amount of floors in the mansion i will definitely be using since i think having three floors has the feel of a mansion but not to extravagant.
6.this is just the idea of the world being more advanced than it looks.

My idea

For my responsive brief i decided on a game space which would work as a game hub as well as a game level. The idea itself is a museum that will show assets which would be related to the world and will also have their own backstory. The world, story and narration have been created by myself.

You will play as a homeless male in a city overrun with sin and crime and while you were in the slums originally you have found this rundown mansion which is difficult to get to due to the water as you have made a place to stay in the derelict house you find a trophy room with all these artefacts and decide to live in there due to the safety of the room.

I will be offering my help to anyone who needs a script so for now i will focus on my own stuff. My main area of stuff i want to improve is hardline modelling, world creation and improve my abilities in unity.

Cry of Fear

Recently i have been playing a standalone mod of half life 1. Originally you needed half life to play it but now you do not need any base game, while this helps people to be able to play it easier this also affects the bugs in the game which makes it difficult to play due to glitches.

    Cry of Fear is the mod and it is a horror game which has a single and multiplayer campaign below is a picture of the multiplayer campaign.

The game uses very well done story arcs to create sections that generally makes you throw the controller down and take off your headphones. the game visually is old in graphics but it definitely makes up for it in gameplay.

The reason i like this game enough to make a post is because it was made by students from the base game half life and made a story of there own and gave the feel of a individual game which just shows the other possibility for modding and how being a game developer does not just stop the games changing as long as there are fans that will put in the effort to make new sections for games.

You Have My Sword

Modding... ok well every gamer has used a mod of some kind in this day and age be it a game fixing mod to a expansive mod that expands the game quite a bit. The world of mods live mostly on Pc games but in this day an age it can happen on consoles if you know how.
 
   Main culprits of this is bethesda and bioware games in acclaim but there are a lot more i own skyrim, fallout new vegas and dragon age which all together have had 40+ mods installed and removed from them but now it seems that developers like with map editing software are releasing creation kits which make it easier to mod the game.

One kit that had a lot of hype was the redkit which made it easier for amateurs to still make good expansions for the the witcher 2 and is still being developed for the next game release.

Why are mods so good?
Well i think the only way you can describe it is that while the developers might make a great game they will stop making stuff for it at some point though with mods it allows the world to continue due to the love of and the creativity of the fans.

Form The Line!

The Screenshot above is of Shogun 2 which is a acclaimed rts game that has many players online such as myself but this post isn't about shogun 2 this post is on Shogun 2 map editor. Total War the designers of the game had released a map editor for free with the game which is downloaded on steam. Unfortunately they didn't grace us with instructions so you will be watching a lot of youtube videos like i did to work it out. This is one of those things that will take awhile to get good at but when you do i think it will really help environment designers in video games. Now the main reason i have decided to talk about this is that games are setting up map editors ranging from really basic fps games to advanced rpg games. I used to play a lot of forge on halo but due to it being console based it was limited but the map editor on shoguns was so much more expansive.

So why am i talking about all this well it seems that developers understand that some of us don't have the capacity to create mods so with this very basic program they have given out they have allowed fans to immerse themselves on a whole new level of gameplay in the game, for example the player can set the level up to a siege battle and make it exceptionally difficult for yourself so unlike you improving the enemy you are making the game more difficult in a more basic war problem being terrain. Now that sounds like rubbish but the thought of a level were you can be attacked by archers from a cliff to the west unless you catch he point yourself and set you archers up it will change the gameplay and the thought needed during the battle. now this is very case specific but it shows that developers are doing more for there fans which is appreciated and also has allowed fans to make amazing scenes. If you have Shogun 2 i suggest giving it a go.

Christmas Expo

Now while this was quite awhile ago i need to really write this up. apart from my expo at the end of show i have never had my work up to show the public. So what do i think about how the show went well i felt that the location we had was quite hard to get to unless you knew were it is due to it being a deceptive set of corners which i think puts people off when coming to the show. The amount of time we had to set this up was too small i found and though we talked about it a month before we didn't start doing stuff till like a week before so it felt a bit rushed or less organised in my eyes.
      Well the negatives are out now for the positives. As for actually having my work shown it felt good and though you noticed little mistakes with your work on the big screen there is always going to be that element since as "artists" we are always progressing so what you may once be proud of can nose dive quite quickly when you improve your skills.

I look forward to doing another expo in the future since it is nice to have others looking at out work outside the course.

AOI Book

Recently i have been using a book called
      The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design
written by Flint Dille & John Zuur Platten
This book has really helped improve my writing and story telling by helping me work in a more professional layout. The main problem i had was trying to set it up into chapters when i am writing or arcs since like any story, games are set up the same but unlike other stories there is an interactive element that i knew i lacked in when writing the script. As i progress in the book i start to do the exercises it suggests and i have found that it has really helped me with writing scripts and being able to get the character's action across in written form. Another part in the book that is enlightening is the legal and financial side of the job since most books wouldn't go that far when it comes down to it. I have gotten the book out of the library many times but i will buy it other the summer.

Popular Culture

Doesn't have to be said:
Culture
General process of intellectual,spiritual and aesthetic development
works of significance
base
Forces of Productions
relations of production
Superstructure
Social Institutions
Form of consciousness
Capitalist pyramid
All mass Culture is identical

I will not write up gaze, panopticon, censorship or psychoanalysis due to the task be on those theories

Subculture and Style

same as before:
Subculture is a group with a culture unlike the larger culture
Skaters, parkour etc
Graffiti artists
Your Graffiti speaks for you
Bike Girls
Hells Angels see girls and g.f or mom figures
21st century demonisation one sings praise other curses
Skin heads and the threats of subcultures

Celebrity Culture

Same layout as the last one:
Celebrity Portraits in the Pictorialist tradition
Poets and artists were celebs in 1875
Famous for what they did rather than just being
Males Photographed differently
Josephine Baker 1906-1975
acted in films
pet cheetah
spied on nazis
resistance helper
imitated by people
Bette Davis owned a great servicemen club
celebs become brands
paparazzi are our envy and greed
twitter bring a new outlet

Globalisation the Media

Only i can read my notes so i will write the basics below:
Definitions of Globalisation
Socialist & capitalist
American Sociologist George Ritzer coins the term McDonaldization
to describe fast food places taking over the world

Centripetal Forces bringing the world together
Centrifugal Forces Tearing the world apart

Globalization
three problems
Sovereignty
Accountability
Identity

Cultural Imperialism
Ownership
Sustainability development
Eco vs NON Eco

Psychoanalysis of Au Chien Andalou

First what the hell now that is out of the way Au Chien Andalou or in english An Andalusian Dog is a surreal trip rather than a movie saying that with salvador dali it isn't surprising it is to say a little bit odd but yeah on to the review.

Now i will admit i had not heard of this 'interesting' movie before but when i watch it and compare the year i could see how it was so big and so groundbreaking with it's filming and and how far it would go when it wanted to show something. Now while watching this i feel like i am in a messed up dream which from what i have heard these are all pieces of dream sequences anyway so i guess it does deliver itself very well but i tell you dreams in media are either weird gruesome or really well done i think this one is a combo of gruesome and well done.

While saying that it feels like it is the beginning that gives that feeling and the rest is a limping dog trying to keep his back end up with his healthy front but that may just be my opinion but i think this really lets it done since most of it i have no clue what is going on what really doesn't help when watching it with others since you want to lean over a go 'did i miss something','huh why is he doing that' which no one enjoys listening to while watching something.

I am not sure if i have the long version but it is about 15 minutes which when it gets to the last five minutes i get really bored. i will be fair though i believe this was the director's first movie and normally no director can get there first movie as the one they are gonna be sitting on the green/money because of it but what i think is that though it seems like a cult classic which can go either way by being so bad it's good or just being bad, It seems that unlike most cult classics people have good things to say about it which i guess is a major praise keeping in mind the age and the length of it.

You know besides that it is worth a view for you to judge yourself after all you may love it, myself i think i would maybe see it again in a few years time but i tell you no rush to do that also have fun trying to make sense out of it all, i assure you it is impossible to understand it completely.

Censorship and the Truth

What do we really know, that is a powerful statement since we are now in a world were people only need good photographs to build non existent castles in the countryside or giant sharks attacking helicopters. Those examples are silly but the lecture proved one thing that most people should know and that is people tell lies. The examples they gave were such as mashing two photographs together to make it look like a soldier is threatening a iraq man with a child which is a very good mechanism to create fear or uncertainty.

The Censorship for news definitely seem to come from a few very manipulative people who know what they are doing for example the Gulf a Tonkin incident which kick started the vietnam war was twisted to benefit the president/Government now this may be a very cynical view but i know that when i am not supposed to know something i won't find out.

Now Censorship this is a funny topic for me since some of the arguments or how they are changed to make it fine just make me laugh, like if a woman has a flake in her mouth someone thinks of a sex act all i can say is jesus christ are you that dirty minded it's a flaming chocolate bar for god sake. but the line i start to draw is when it comes to kids naked now myself i don't find it wrong since if you have a kid you see that sort of thing hell it is natural but using it to shock or advertise something is bad in my opinion. Saying all that though i think the thing about kids in adverts i think you need to be smart about it and unfortunately the smart ones sometimes get picked out rather the non tasteful ones.

Now kid pictures are fine i think if they are the whole family album thing but for the love of god don't put kid pics on facebook when naked or do it in a gallery that is just wanting a reaction or worse some sick bugger who will look for those pics, it just isn't right but one thing that was a very good point with the lecture was why is a painted kid with his Colonel out fine but a picture with a trouser snake isn't well i guess 'it's Art'. Now unfortunately this came as more of a rant but when i look into such pieces as Venus, Cupid, Folly & Time i do see art funny really i guess it's the theory of what is real since you know it is a painting it for some reason doesn't feel real but a photo in a weird way feels like it is real now this i my thought but it may not be this that causes the controversies that always appear but all i know is people need to be a bit smarter with such things and what can be shown be it news of death or showing nude pictures.

The Gaze

SEX.... Now i have your attention the Gaze i won't pretend i am not a person that isn't roped in to something by this since i am the type of bloke who would look back to check what i just saw but this is more than that. Now what i got from this was the idea of making something a sexual object and not a person one example they gave was lara croft now i won't lie i own lara croft games and enjoy them but they put too much emphasis on the butt and chest so while you are playing a little bell rings in your head going 'damn she is hot' and the rest of the brain is like shut up i'm listening to the cutscene.

The Gaze causes a lot of psychological issues due to it stemming from humans finding themselves wanting to be attractive and also those who are interested in the person and if any evidence of this was needed look on social network sites since the idea of gaze is seeping from the sites. Now i will not pretend that i am not a guy who doesn't appreciate looking at a girl i find attractive BUT how i perceive most occasions is 'She is an attractive girl i wonder what she is like' which i think is the combination of the idea of the abolishment of the gaze and the gaze itself together which is probably the best way to do it since it isn't bad wanting to be found attractive.

So is the gaze good answer is yes and no i'm afraid and a lot of people would be arms about it but looking into games again if you created a really sexy character and then after you use the gaze to objectify here she has a great personality, she makes you smile and you care for her at that point she is no longer a gaze since you do not see here as an object in theory so the idea can be toyed with.
The bad now and the best example i can think of is my ex since she was really effected by how see should be seen which wasn't good because we will be sat eating a nice meal and see will stop eating and say i am on a diet so i can't eat anymore, first thing to my head why the hell are you on a diet you are perfect in my eyes and the gaze strikes making her not see herself as a human who has feeling but seeing her self as some guys do and just becoming an object.

At the end of the day it sucks it can work but it is not just the people who implement the gaze which are in the wrong it is the "victims" since will power can move mountain so i am sure it can ignore rubbish in the paper.

Panopticism

Now this was one my favourite theories so far because when doing a comparison to other theories this one felt like it had proper research and actually did happen. I am jumping ahead Panopticism is the Theory of a form of stimulant such as a camera and believing you are being watched which form your behavior to react to the simulant being by behaving in a certain manner which is normal been drilled into the ‘victim’ before. I feel that I can personally vouch for this since one of my friends used to smoke in school and she always avoided camera areas and tried to hide things when she saw a camera but the odd thing is you didn’t know if they were even recording. Lets take a step back though the original idea originated for prisons and it is evil but genius at the same time since there will be always more prisoners than guards and with the circular design which was the panopticon and the tower in the center it caused the prisoners to be alone effectively which meant it may cause some psychological difficulties with the prisoner but it also keeps them abandoned alone and weak which is a basic idea in warfare and with the tower being a way to trick the prisoners you could only have one guard and they would be none the wiser. I looked into this in a more playful sense than others that led to me looking into videogames when it hit me that quite a few bosses in video games use this theory or at least a part of it that is the design. Seems a bit far fetched but thing of legend of Zelda quite a few bosses are in circular rooms in the center which means less control over yourself and your environment since when you move you have to have your back to them or be moving something while they just slightly move and watch you. Now this may be me over analyzing things but the theory is still implemented in modern life be that the security cameras in town centers and such especially the ones with four camera giving a 360 view or the one which looks 360. We are a observed country which is not good but security cameras and panopticism is good and can be really helpful such as identifying thieves or being able to track people for the police. With the internet and computers now you can be watched any time hell I could be watched while typing this but in this world were a lot of bad stuff can happen with a lack of security, it isn’t bad even though it is over the top and if I have to be recorded on the high street 1000 times and I get attacked once and saved by the camera hell it would be worth it.

Is that a plane?

The whole idea for this module is for a spaceship to come down and pick up the victim so that means that i need to create a ship. I went with the idea of a dreadnought and doing a matte painting instead which made it easier since i didn't have to model anything like how they do the cutscenes in halo 4 of the cruiser called infinity. i created multiple designs by taking reference of the ones on my list and some i went with an already existing design and changed it.

Above are some ideas that were abandoned but parts of the designs were incorparated into the final design. Look below

the final design ended up being very star wars based but suited the image of a dreadnought over all the others which made it the obvious choice.

Head on

Now the first bit of concept art i created was the head of the creature which i developed the most since that is what i wanted seen most in the shot since there was a close up scream scene in the storyboard here are the concepts below

the angle i was going for was robotic but also threatening which led to me not adding eyes on the character due the human mentality were we are scared of things that don't have features similar to us  in the end i decided on the very top two due to it being more of a ominous design and how unlike the others it's less thin and took influence from gorillas.

i only did one concept for the body which is like a gorilla but with small legs and walking on their arms altogether it made a very inhuman creature to terrify tim with in the final piece.

I'm Learning

Some of us like myself needed to learn how to use after effects from the ground up underneath is a pic from the lessons he taught us.

I really found the lessons helpful since it assisted with the teleport in to the ship scene later but the main thing this was supposed to help with was a title sequence which it assisted with but i choose to do a little different.

I think i would be watching alot more guide videos if it wasn't for those lessons so i still find the resource helpful

Lights camera action baby

so tim's personal shoot from what i heard we were the biggest group which made the time management a pain i tried to take charge during the session since i became the camera man for everyone so during the session i tried to limit how spaced out similar shots were such as shots for me a sarah were similar so they were filmed after each other.

The group stood as sarah, me, tim, dan, wiz, andy, jes, phil, joel. The sort of shots we did range from close up shots to crane and dolly shots though i admit we did joke about while working. I enjoyed working together and i improved my skills with the camera compared to last time i used it, i hope we do similar teamwork in future projects and also it goes better because i almost strangled joel twice....on purpose.

Yeah don't let joel near the camera when it is running

JACKIE RESEARCH

Now as everyone else we have a set storyboard except the last panel and the designs are all our own so i decided the first thing i would do is make a list for influence being influence for ships or the alien design here are the lists below:

       

The above and below pictures are the designs i used to reference my own design these designs range from games to films and even comics as you can see i am looking into a more cybernetic creature rather than just flesh and blood which i think will give me more experimentation in my modelling.

Mow here are the ship influences and if i didn't mention i am a sci fi fan which i think comes though with my research of the ship. I have decided that i will make a dreadnought and do it as a matte painting rather than model a huge ship even if it is a small model.

My main focus for this module is to improve my character modelling skills so that will have a precedent other the rest of the components for the composition. this should get interesting.

It's Alive....i think

I found a interesting video showing how a VFX group called Fido set out their scenes by using the example of Underworld: Awakening.



Another wake up call as someone in the industry, now as someone who has watched this movie i can say that the effects aren't as grand as other films but as you can see the bits they do are very well made such as the guys throat being ripped out i wouldn't think in a million years to try that but here it is right in front of me in guide form even down to the wires for effects being removed.

  Altogether a great find of a video and this will definitely influence my after effects in a good way

Deja Vu

Now A group it would be stupid to ignore is double negative since the are a very prominent VFX company for movies at the moment. i have a showreel of one of there employees to show just below.



Now i don't know about you but i am jealous of what is shown since they are very well done shots even though most of the shots he shows are all action scenes with the extra spice of over the top.
I love the sort of films he shows so i am happy with the crazy actions scenes but even if you are not a fan of the style you have to appreciate how well they are down since some you wouldn't believe are VFX.

EXTRA EXTRA

I had my acting debut today, oh joy but yeah i was only an extra as you can see in the shot but as the day progressed and we got in the mindset we all worked together well. We all had jobs though some weren't as glamourous as other but as a group i think it went well. The shots themselves we had i think that a few are duds due to the people in the background but that is to be expected since we are students not a multi-millions pound filming can that can close the street for a day.

Haven't seen a class in so much unity like below, also on a side note we couldn't use this audio due to iron lungs on the far left in the picture since the scream was so loud it becomes distorted when you use it. personal tip for next time try to do better city audio.

Once all this filming was done Annabeth showed us how to film properly using the green screen for our private shoots later on in groups which became invaluable during that day of filming.

World of pure imagination

I decided since it is a movie series that i love i would do a post on it especially since it is a behind the scenes that we all watched together as a class.

Watching the behind the scenes got me ready for what would need to be done when it got round to doing our own green screen work since it outlines the difficulty for the actor as well as the director and camera man so have a look

Now as i looked at this i didn't have delusions of grandeur since while the ones who create are professionals that have done this for many years i am a green horn that hasn't effectively used after effects at all until this module so this video got me hyped for trying after effects.

If our shots look half as good as above i will be happy with the outcome of the shoot and will enjoy experimenting in after effects. The thought that the possibility of doing something like this in the future looms over as I do the module lets hope it goes well since this may be a potential form of enjoyment in the future.

Walk before you run

Now before i did some research into companies or individuals that use after effects or VFX i decided to do some research into how to make a video and what steps will be needed for me to make a relatively good video/movie sequence.

       The youtube video i decided to do my research from was the 102nd episode of the angry video game nerd since he had a history of video editing, a series that is very popular and which he uses his knowledge on for every episode. So with out further a do the vid is just below.



Watching him demonstrate how he works makes me realise how inexperienced i am ranging from how he arranges all his work and just his workflow. This video doesn't show his after effect work even though he does use it.

  What i learn\t from AVGN is that as i progress i really need to use some of the techniques he uses such as time codes which really would make my work a lot easier than it was in other modules that we have done.

I thought i should mention that i was also going to put a shot on that shows a more action heavy sequence but ended finding that the video i was going to use has recently been deleted so i will explain what the video showed. The mainly explains how he composited the shot to make it appear like he was thrown on a chair and broke it, how he does it he shows taking a still shot of the empty chair, a shot of the chair being pulled down to show the effect of it breaking and finally james jumping into the futon which is being held up. I think this may be a basic form of after effect but is shows good compositing since it looks seamless.