Today....

We talked about Design and how we perceive it. It's all very clever. For example, take the Swastika. You will automatically think 'Aha! Nazis.'. No! It's been around for well over a thousand years and actually means 'peace'.
Example of mind-fudgery:

René Magritte's "Not To Be Reproduced" 

It was all about how our brain tries to make sense of everything, like everything has a solution and a logical outcome. I think next week we're learning about the The Golden Section/The Divine Proportion and the Gestalt Theory (The sum of the whole is greater than its parts).

We also showed our personal Design Process Powerpoint presentations to the whole class. This was about how we go about designing and working our ideas, but we could only illustrate it and not explain it. 20 slides, the presentation must last exactly a minute. As each presentation was shown, we were given tailored questions about that certain presentation and had to note them down. After all were finished, we put our notes on a table so we could walk round a read what people have said about us. I was described as 'believeable' and 'powerful'. Powerful! I love it!

And then me and Sam went to the Noodle Bar.

It was pure win, Relentless in a glass bottle! A GLASS BOTTLE, I SAY!

My Ident!

Finally, after much swearing and squinting, my Ident is nearly done!
No sound as of yet, but I will edit it when I get back in Uni.
It will be edited in Adobe Premiere Pro, and will feature many fancy sound effects :)

Again....

I've been browsing again. I've found this guy called James Clyne who does Conceptual Illustration, he's worked on all the massive films such as Transformers, Star Trek and Minority Report, to name a few. His imagination teamed with gouache paint makes for an amazing combination. It's just mind-blowing how good he is! He's just my sort of guy, massive Sci-Fi nerd with a crazy talent.

Here's a link to his projects page.

http://www.jamesclyne.com/projects.php?gallery_id=297

Update!

Sorry, haven't been on in a while!

Our main project at the moment is our 3D Ident. I'll be honest, I'm having trouble grasping the software and coming up with individual ideas that compliment my lack of 3D knowledge. I'm sure I'll get something done, it's like everything!

Today, we (well, the 6 students that bothered to turn up) had a discussion on Ethics. This was regarding consent, working with people with possible difficulties, basically a lesson how to not dig yourself a hole. I really enjoyed it, and found it interesting. It was also nice to get in on an intelligent discussion, I haven't had one in absolutely ages!

Also, while browsing the Internets, I've found this guy. His name is Patrick Boivin and he's just brilliant at anything he tries. His Stop Motion work is the best, though, I whole-heartedly suggest that you go and look at his work! Here's a taster.

3D day!

Today was my first animation lesson, and it involves lots of 3D! I've never really taken to 3D, I don't know why, but it's never clicked with me like other mediums. Our project brief is simple: Make a TV Ident. For those of you not in the know, an Ident is this type of this:



Simple! Now to think of something....

Anyway. Seeing as I am technically a 3D virgin, I had to learn how to draw and animate using 3DS Max, a simple program that I picked up surprisingly quick. We had the task of making the word 'Jelly' move in a jelly sort of way. Here's mine:



Not bad for a first timer! It uses keyframes, and having lots of experience with Flash and After Effects really helped with this. I had a bit of time after that, so I did this:



Pardon my French. I particularly like this one as I did it unaided and it looks pretty convincing, obviously lighting is needed and a more tasteful colour scheme too.

I want to try reactor animation next, though. It looks so fun! It's a basic Physics engine that you plug-in to 3DS Max and it automatically works out what goes where when collisions occur.

EXAMPLE TIMEZ:



See? Fun! There's a few tutorials floating about for that so I'll give it a go when I get my sweaty paws on the software for my personal computer.

That be all for now.

Ciao!

On my mind....

and it has been for the last 3 years from when I started driving, is the lack of basic car maintenance on our roads today! I am a keen driver (not a boy racer, oh-no!) and I regularly service and check my car over for anything that is out of line. I see driving as something that should be seen as important and serious, not a chore or something that endangers both you and the people around you.

Anyway, it really hacks me off. I see countless cars with lights of every kind not working. I see wayy too many cars with absolutely NO brakelights at all too!

And people who think that the car only runs on petrol. NO! It needs oil too! I know someone who doesn't top up the oil, they 'send it for the service and they do it.' Once a year!? Christ!

God only knows the amount of cars on the road with no oil or coolant. Or brake/clutch fluid, more importantly!

All of these things I see on a daily basis, and it's just not good enough. There needs to be an advertising campaign or something to remind the public to regularly check their cars. If one bulb is blown, change both of them as it's usually a sign that the other is about to go. It's not hard, and it's not expensive.

/rant.

But....possible project? Auto-awareness?

Whiteboard animations!

Yay! They're finally up! My group's animation starts at 0:49, short and sweet :)

First lecture…

is tomorrow. I wonder what it's about?