Projected History - Final Ship

There was room for improvement on my last video to do my ship a bit more justice. Previously, the movie represented my ship a little bit too much on the 2D side. Now, I have changed the camera position and created an ocean shader resulting in a more impressive 3D render with a kinda real looking (but not really) ocean underneath it. I'm content with this and it seems to have been all worthwhile! Fingers crossed for Simon getting it projected in freshers week later this year..



I achieved this by first rendering the ship alone from Maya using Mental ray. Then I put a black surface shader on the ship and rendered the ocean shader using Maya software. I then composited them together using Composite and put it through after effects to make the final movie files. I also experimented using a bezier warp tool in After Effects to create more of a fish eye effect, this works well in making the ship seem massive. I will upload a video of this and put it here soon. The whole process took a day from when Simon told me yesterday he would like the final ship files to this afternoon when I handed them to him.

Negotiated Brief - Music Video

For this we are given free reign and can do anything we like (so long as it is related to animation.) This is a great chance for me to explore and develop some of my own ideas and techniques of producing animation. I'm also hoping to develop a personal style and look to my work. As I enjoy linking visuals to music I have decided to do a video for my musician friend Nathan (Lazulene is his music alias). Click on the link below to listen to the tune I will be doing the visuals to. It's called Terrestrial Sci Fi.

So far I have done a fair amount of research watching music videos and audio visual albums. I have done several mind maps and also produced artwork and written down ideas, thoughts and feelings whilst listening to the track. My new Sony Nex5 camera will come in handy, I have just ordered an intervalometer for it which will be useful for time lapses (I'm looking forward to doing a sunrise time lapse which I reckon will suit the latter half of the track.)

I will go on continuing the pre-production stage for another couple of days and hopefully end up with a rough storyboard. I'm considering that it may be wiser to aim to produce just a few clips to fit different parts of the track as it is a bit of a tight deadline (less then 4 weeks, taking into account the Mapping and Audio Visual festival in Geneva.)

Here is my work space :-)

Here is my work, initial doodling, research notes and ideas:

These show my thoughts/ideas/feelings that I got whilst listening to the music..

The 3 pages above condensed into one page..

Heres my visual response whilst listening to the music - These have been fun to do and should hopefully come in useful..

Some experiments with using cellulose thinner applied through magazine/printed imagery onto blank paper..

I like African and Aboriginal art - the visual look of it may help feed into my animations..

Richard Morrison - an Inspiration!

This guy had a great attitude to his work and life generally and I gained a lot from his lecture.. He is well known for directing film titles - see his website here.

He kept coming back to some important points about not letting the machines take over and keeping creativity and ideas generation alive - saying how its good to get into the idea with all your senses. The computer is a tool just like a paintbrush (albeit a very sophisticated paintbrush!) but we are the ones with the ideas. Life and reality around us can be used as a great source of inspiration. Here is a quick sketch I did inspired by his lecture.

Other points he said were:

Its a marathon not a sprint: ie. Expect to be churning out work on a long term basis!

Its best to have preparation and research sorted before embarking on a project.

Fear is a good thing because it stops you being complacent.

If you're sure of your idea stick to your guns. Don't let agents, producers etc.. change your mind.

Be relaxed with the idea. Don't force it out - things will happen for you.

Mentoring from directors can help push your ideas.

You must be consumed by creativity.

The more you share, the more that comes back.

All jobs are great - you just have to find the best part of it and not get anxious with ideas being thrown out.

Be like water. Go with the flow.

Pete Felstead took a video of his lecture, I will link to it on this post if it gets uploaded online. I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in working within the creative industries..
Richard Morrison works for Th1ng - an Animation and Mixed media company - in Soho.