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13. Proposal(s)

Here are some concept materials I'm working on. I'm really not sure about which idea to pursue with what changes.
In order:

1. Elevation/'building plan' for the architecture/typography project. The blue shape is the camera angle seen in the first color plate.
2. Color plate/texture study for the architecture/typograph project.
3. Color plate for the larva loop project.
4. GIF loop animatic for the larva loop project.

12. Finished Project 2

Final video won't upload through blogger; will update with embed once Vimeo processes it.


Mars from John Leftwich on Vimeo.

11. short film progress

Class critique feedback

• the city could echo gross neural structures in its architecture -
• the information flows could react to stimulus that the audience is able to hear in the sound design. This stimulus could be universal, which would further help to contextualize the visualization. I really like this idea. It seems Brechtian, and reminds me of the feedback of Jess in crit last week: Something I seem to like to do in my work is expose the artifice of the object - make the illusion consciously imperfect.
• the buildings/city architecture could react to the information flows. I like this idea quite a lot as well - it's accurate to the metaphor and adds visual interest.

10a. Storyboards

Storyboards.

Concept: In both cases, I'm hinting at a process without literally showing it. In the first, I'm trying to show the action of a hay baler while abstracting the machine itself. In the second, I'd like to make a parallel between the architecture of a city and the architecture of the brain. Information will look like traffic flows.

Premise: What if...these are non-narrative, so concept and premise are similar here.

Color plate:

9. Project 2, progress update 5

Continued working on glass, debris, and UV. Tweaked sun-and-sky a bit. The glass is being a giant pain; in order to get shards that follow the curvature of the girders, I have to split them by hand, sculpt them, re-topo them, and then vert-jockey them into place. I have a few ideas for a better workflow, but for now I know that works...it just takes forever.

Here's my progress shot:

Project 2, progress update 4

From the list:

• UV mapped and painted the large  HVAC pipe
• Fought with Mudbox and crashing problems :/
• UV mapped the floor
• Refined the glass breaking
• Picked a camera position
• Organized my scene file into groups and layers
• Imported the toy
• Switched to Sun-and-Sky, which is what I'm hoping to use for the final. Started refining light settings.

The floor texture is strictly temporary, but I wanted something for some contrast/perspective in my test render. The only object that's actually textured so far is the curved HVAC pipe in the right middleground.

I suspect I'm going to have to re-do the UV mapping on my toy, since I did the UVs originally thinking I was going to have a normal standing-running kind of character. So the UV seams are on the bottom, and unfortunately, I think that's the part I want to have facing the camera.

Here's the progress render: