Pink Floyd - The Gnome

Whilst researching Gnomes, I came across an interesting blog which happened to be all about...yup you guessed it, Gnomes. Whilst browsing this blog for longer than I'd like to admit, i came across a Pink Floyd song called The Gnome. I was surprised I hadn't already heard it, and if i had i was unaware of what the song was. Below is the song with a video someones made with lots of gnomes. 

The song and lyrics are quite interesting, and i decided to loosely base the character on the gnome they're singing about. His name is Grimble Gromble.

Initial Character Moodboard

For my character Archetype I decided to go for a living Garden Gnome. The reason I chose something so peculiar is exactly that, because its peculiar. There aren't many games where your running round as a garden gnome. Also, garden gnomes can be a lot of fun when rigged up, there tiny legs will make for some happy gaming.

To start with I did a google search, and found just how loved they really are. A lot of people say they're creepy, but theres a lot of people out there who adore them. I even came across a story about an old lady who had about $800 worth of garden gnomes and other ornaments, stolen from her. She was devastated. 

BAF 2010

This year at Bradford Animation Festival, there was quite a selection of interesting projects ranging from mainstream games, to indie developers. One of my favourite talks was about 'Brink' the new release from Splash Damage.
Splash Damage was founded in 2001, and started out creating mods, non-commercially, for games like Quake III Arena, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and Counter-Strike. 'Brink' is set on and around the Ark, which is a floating ecosystem divided into two areas. The main island is populated by the rich citizens, and features futuristic looking buildings. The outskirts of the island are the slums, populated by the poor and needy. After being sick and tired of living amongst the rubbish and scrap, the poor decided to fight for what was equally theres. The game features two factions, the Resistance (the poor), and the Security. The resistance started out peaceful, but due to the conditions they are living in, they turned violent. The Resistance armed and defended themselves, using tools from work, and found objects such as license plates, drills, and scrap metal. The Security perceive the Resistance as terrorists, in there main role to protect the Ark from poverty.
        
The art director wanted to give the characters an exaggerated look, which was realised by elongating the faces and height. originally they intended on having characters of different heights, however due to technical issues, this was unable to happen. Instead they went for three different body types; light, medium, and heavy. The game features several Archetypes, all distinct, exaggerated versions of people on the Ark. This was done to make them iconic and recognisable. A few of these archetypes are listed below;



The Bug - A character for the Security side. With this character the art director wanted to return to the Sci-Fi look. With different coloured masks available to choose from, this is quite an intimidating guy.










The Look - Another security character, featuring full tactical clothes, headgear based on the jumping spider, and is light and athletic.









The Wasted - One of the Resistance characters, representing the absolute
lowest level of poverty










As the character development team consisted of 4 members, they wanted to focus on quality rather than quantity. That being said, they still managed to bring us around 16 very different characters, which can be extensively customised; from body type, facial hair, and face paint, to clothing and tattoos.
The characters sculpted in ZBrush, and Maya, were created with bold forms, emphasis on larger folds; in the clothing, and were low poly to allow for the technical capabilities of the consoles and PC.

Some things I learned from the Splash Damage team, were to start simple and prototype, allowing constraints to be identified, along with close collaboration being essential, to make sure everyones on the same track. The designs also need to reflect the tech limitations of the project.

Another talk I found to be quite interesting, was from 'thechineseroom', which is an independent games studio based around the research and writing of Dan Pinchbeck, experimenting with first-person gaming.

"Story is a system for manipulating peoples behaviour" 

                                                                            Dan Pinchbeck

'thechineseroom' released the critically acclaimed 'Dear Esther', in 2008. Based around the Half Life engine, 'Dear Esther', features a man (the character you play) stranded on a scottish island. Throughout the game snippets of voice messages are exposed to you, in a random order, as you walk around the island. This creates a lot of confusion, as a lot of the voice messages contradict one another. I found this really encouraging, and enlightening, due to the usual nature of First Person games, contrasted with this very eerie Source mod, which contains no action, other than walking and listening. It was created to experiment what makes a game good, the level of fun, or the story? Or can the story alone be 'fun' enough. 

(Image of the highly detailed, remote landscape, 

 of the scottish island, featured in 'Dear Esther')

In 2009, 'thechineseroom' released the cult horror 'Korsakovia', which is also available as a Source mod. This has been described as 'the Silent Hill sequel that never happened. in comparison to 'Dear Esther', the game does feature action, as your main character is followed by enemies made of smoke, similar to The Fog, featured in the hit series Lost. It sounds like quite a frightening, on edge, game.

(Image of the strangeness featured in the source mod 'Korsakovia')

Zen Font

The font I thought would be perfect for this project was found using Identifont.com, which gave me near enough the exact font used on the book cover. The reason for choosing it was because it was a serif font but had very distinct and particular serifs, I was instantly drawn to it. The font is ITC Elan Book. I looked everywhere for a free version or a similar font that was free, but no such luck. In the end i purchased the font from ITC. There was no other option, as i had not found a font like it that would do my project justice.

Zen Mood Board

Due to the nature of the book I chose for this project, I decided to keep my mood board quite simple, I didn't want it to be too wild and cluttered. The chosen images have close ties with the book, because one main aspect was the 17 day motorcycle journey, through all sorts of beautiful scenery. I also added the wood texture because I wanted the opening sequence to be very natural. One thing i definitely wanted to include was the lotus flower from the front cover of the book. 

Zen Test

Due to the fact that my Maya scene is taking approximately 37 hours to complete, here is a video of what it will basically look like when completed.

Few notes about this video:
   - The room is actually just two pictures at the present time, in the final thing there will be camera movement.
   - There will of course be more clouds and more rain, but due to the maya scenes not being fully rendered i saw little point in making it perfect just to have to restart when the rendering is completed.

StoryBoard

Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

The book I have chosen for this project is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, written by Robert M. Pirsig. The book is about the author (although he is not named in the book), and his son on a 17-day motorcycle journey from Minnesota to California. Throughout this journey the main character talks about the meaning of 'Quality' through a series of philosophical discussions, referred to as Chautauquas by the author.

"What follows is based on actual occurrences. Although

much has been changed for rhetorical purposes,

it must be regarded in its essence as fact. However,

it should in no way be associated with that

great body of factual information relating to

orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It's not very

factual on motorcycles, either."

                                          (Authors Note)

I found this book on a bookcase at home, and it turns out it was my dads when he was about 17. The title and look of the book intrigued me to read it, which i hastily did, and within no time at all it was over. It seemed to drag me into the story, enveloping my mind with great visuals and thought provoking questions. This is the reason i chose the book for this project, because in a way, (not to sound too cheesy), it holds a special place in my mind. And i advise anyone who has not already done so, to try and find a copy and lose yourself in it.

Cinema as a Door

I found todays topic really interesting, this idea of the cinema screen being a hole into which we can see things that sometimes only our imaginations can dream up. I could go into a lot of detail about title sequences of films, and content of films, but im not going to. In this post I want to focus on this fundamental concept of the screen being a door, and how it has evolved.
The term 'screen' can have many different meanings. one of these meanings is to hide or even protect something or someone. On the other side of the scale, a screen could also refer to making something visible to us. From the start we have this division, separating two sides of the 'screen'. On one side, we have our world, the world we live our everyday lives in, go to work, come home and so forth. On the other side of this division we have the world of the film, which could be anything, a surreal sci-fi world, or even just a world similar to ours. this division allows us to 'enter' this other world. This adds to the idea that the screen is a 'semi-permeable membrane' it allows the spectators to

"plunge into the film, to temporarily dissolve part of his/her bodily boundaries and give up his/her individual subject status, in favour of a communal experience and a self-alienating objectification; and, pointing inward, identification means the spectator can absorb the film, make it his or her own,"

(Elsaesser, T. (2010). Cinema as Door. In: Film Theory. New York: Routledge. p37.)

This idea about making the film your own is actually starting to become a reality. A new German horror film called 'Last Call' is pushing a new 'interactivity' gimmick that will have one member of the audience receive a phone call from an onscreen character during the film. When purchasing your ticket you provide your mobile number which is then input into software which, at some point during the film, will randomly pick a number and call it. Upon answering you will hear the onscreen character requesting help, and depending on what you say, the outcome of the movie can be very different each time.









Obviously this concept has some major flaws, such as what if the audience member thats called hangs up, or doesn't say certain things, resulting in the film not being able to progress. But the fact that this is becoming a reality just opens that metaphorical door a bit further.


The next thing i want to discuss is the rise in 3D technology and how its opening that door even further, allowing the audience to completely lose themselves in the film. When stereoscopic technology (red/blue glasses) came around, it was brilliant, although quite gimmicky, it was often used on footage of things like bugs and i vaguely remember as a kid when a Doctor Who episode used it too. But nowadays with the whole 'Real 3D' its added a whole new essence to watching films, its a lot easier to get sucked in to a film, not just because things fly at you, but the fact that it adds so much depth to the movie. Last night i saw the new Resident Evil: Aferlife, and the opening sequence of the film was astounding. it featured a busy Tokyo crossing, while it was pouring down with rain. There were people rushing about in there everyday lives, but one japanese woman was stood perfectly still. The camera, which was focused on her shoes, slowly panned up her body as the actors names were appearing on screen. The rain from the scene appeared to be everywhere in front of you, and around you. And even managed to get on your glasses, to which the natural response would be to attempt to wipe your glasses clean. I know I said I wouldn't be talking about title sequences in great detail but I seemed to have gotten sucked into this writing for a while now, thanks to the parergon. To end this post i shall leave you with a quote:

"when we look at a painting we take the frame to be part of the wall, yet when we

look at the wall the frame is taken to be part of the painting: '. . . the parergonal

frame stands out against two grounds, but with respect to each of these two

grounds, it merges into the other' (Derrida, 1987, p. 61)"

(Marriner, R. (2002). Derrida and the Parergon. In: Smith, P. and Wilde, C. A Companion to Art Theory. Cornwall: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.. p351.)

The First of Many

The book ive chosen to make a title sequence for is " Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert M. Pirsig. Its a book featuring two journeys, one of which is with his son on a motorbike, the 'physical' journey, and the other, a mental journey, through the authors mind, about the meaning of 'Quality'. The reason i chose this book, is firstly because its an amazing read, but also because i thought it would be a bit of a challenge, since its a philosophical book.

My interests lie mainly in 3D animation, but for this project im trying to try out different things and play around with some 2D animation in After Effects.