Finding Inspiration – The establishing shot

Reference;

Finding Inspiration for developing an Animation

Looking at styles

Some of the things I like to do; watch films and play video games. Now its time to use that and see what inspiration I can draw from them to develop my own style for visulisations. Setting the narrative and pacing will be key.

Here are some of the things that have stuck in my mind from those interests;

Hideo Kojima – Metal Gear Solid Series

 

Nicolas Winding Refn – Drive

 

Joseph Kosiski – Tron Legacy

The Woolwich Colosseum – Concept

Expanded Park

A film investigating a notion of expanded cinema in virtual reality sited in the Royal Victoria Gardens, North Woolwich. The architecture itself becomes a screen for appropriated images.

Source: Expanded Park by Dominic Davis

Final Composition

 

STORY

The story behind this animation was to have an exploration of my site using augmented reality and creating different experiences to help aid in finding the perfect view in an enhanced environment.

Final Video

1. The first motion was for me to get as many photos as I could to emulate a walkthrough.

For my Final Composition for my Future Representation module I decided to do a small animation exploring my site for Urban Design. Using an original photo from one of my site visits I go through initial preparation for my scene to look across the Thames Barrier.

First step for me was to use some adjustment layers on the original.

Isolating elements in the photo and placing them on separate layers.

Creation of a new sky layer using a panoramic photo to pan the layer across the composition.

 

 

A HUD (Heads up display to analyse elements of the area and create an augmented reality.

 

2. The next stage was to take these images and import them into the after effects work space just like we did in our introduction to after effects

.PSD File is brought into

3. Animating the HUD required me to use the keyframes and manipulate the positions of sight scopes

The next stage for me is setting up keyframes for elements of the HUD

 

 

Placement of the HUD on the main image for 2.5D animation.

 

Here a title sequence is being created using a solid layer in after effects

Rhino3D

 

Rhino is a modelling software  where all the geometry is based on NURBS mathematical model which produces precise curves

1. Here we have a Surface created by using the NetworkSrf command which creates a surface using a series of Crvs
2. Cage and Flow Along. This command works well with history because if you change the initial bounding box the cage pattern will change along with it.
3. Surface Modelling this form is created by extruding a crv and kinking the edges by manipulating the UVN.
4. Grasshopper is a plugin for rhino that uses visual based scripting allowing the user to create algorithms that effect the modelling environment. 
5. You can easily link Rhino geometry to your GH definition. To do so GH offer some empty components that you can link to the Rhino geometry. You can find these in the Parameters Tab/Geometry. For example lets’ drag two empty points in. In the right image below, the points as they appear once dragged on the canvas.
6. 

 

 

Waypoints and Blender

Blender

Blender is an open source 3D software that’s available for free to download. Due to the nature of it being open source there is a large community of creatives that have pushed the software in new directions which many prefer over most commercial software.

1. The blender UI heavily resembles 3DS Max so those who have used that would be comfortable with the interface but initially have to reconfigure the mouse buttons as they are reversed from common convention.
   
2. With the set up you can create basic geometries and move them around in the modelling environment
3. With the points switched on one can select the geometry and modify it creating a different shape in this instance here the two points are moved and dragged down making some legs this called ‘sub divide’
4. Using a preset mesh primitive you can move the faces to create more complex shapes 
5. By clicking on the colour button and selecting a colour and you won’t see something white.
6. There different materials that can be applied in this environent the neon material was applied
7. Blender also has its own rendering capabilities which work pretty well. Renders come out naturally noisy but all this can be adjusted through the settings.
     Before the model can be brought into the waypoints walk through environment the geometries have to be baked  

Introduction to Adobe After Effects

After Effects is a motion graphics and visual effects video composition tool.

 

1. We begin by opening After Effects and creating a new composition and importing a file.

2. Using a Photoshop file we used the layers to form our motion graphic composition

3. The photoshop file should have its layers arranged

 

 

 

4. This screenshot demonstrates the isolated layers that are ready to be animated.

5. We click on SCALE, click on the % number and move your cursor until the layer fits the COMP (ie 38% of original). Alternatively you can click and type over the scale number. The lock between the 2 numbers (width and height) stops the layer from distorting out of the existing height to width ratio.

 

We start to manipulating the layer by toggling the transformation properties and applying a keyframe.

 

ArcGIS

ArcGIS is a geographical information software, used to create maps and putting together geographic data that can eventually be shared.

 

To achieve this you would have to follow;

 

1. You will have to bring in the info from digimaps.

2. Then you will have to create your own geodatabase

3. To bring in the relevant layers its time to bring in using “import feature class”

4.  Contours from digimaps can be downloaded and set at intervals to form a land mass.

5. Different fields can be assigned different colours for better visibility.

6. Filters can be placed to isolate information

 

Woolwich Docks, London