Post Production - Tag Wellington

To Come Alive

I came up with the concept of using cave drawings as I was looking through old pictures that I had drawn as a child. Stick people and simple patterns were both things that appeared a lot, which then lead me to think of cave men drawings.

I used Google to help get ideas of different cave drawings and then from there I went on to draw my own. After setting up my layout in Photoshop, then using the write over tool in After Effects I felt it still needed more. This is how I came up with animating these symbols individually in a stop motion fashion. I made them move in a way that I felt these images would have moved back in the days of when they were drawn. I used very simple, yet structured movements.

For this project my process took a while, as I have never used After Effects before. However, after watching a very good tutorial video I was able to quickly understand how to use the write on tool. This allowed me to get the effect of each image being drawn onto the wall. Adding in the stop motion movements at the end of was very time consuming and got rather confusing at times. Making sure I had slightly moved all of the different parts for each image in Photoshop took up a lot of time. But I feel it worked well together in the end. One thing that was rather difficult to do was match the video footage to the single images. I added drop shadows and blur effects to the images in After Effects, and then had to have the single images match these effects. This would have been my biggest challenge for this assignment.

Renee Warner - To Come Alive

Post Production - Mediated Sculpture

One Block, Many Forms

For this assignment our group came up with the concept of creating some form of building in which we could see peoples daily lives through windows. This soon developed into the idea of creating six different buildings with each being from a different time in history. We show a journey from a stone block building to a modern, all-glass building. We were inspired a lot from the EVOL Building’s Series where he transforms walls or street furniture into miniature buildings through stencils. We have done this through the projection. The buildings all age in a different ways before transforming into the next building. The website CGTextures is where we found a majority of the images we have used to form the building fronts and the decays on the buildings.

Our group process was very simple when it came to creating the footage needed for the projection. We all each had different roles. My role was to help Bec find the different building fronts, decays, doors etc, as well as learning how to use the program VDMX5. I had to role of mapping the footage to our chosen environment when we were setting up for filming. We had originally planned to have the ground animated along with the block, however the footpath was too dark and we could not get the layer mask to work. This was the only major issue we had when it came to our footage. We did do one test projection near the beginning of the assignment, where we realized that our idea would be possible.

Altogether I am very happy in how the final projection turned out. As a group I feel we all worked very well together and it ended up being a rather fun assignment to do. We have managed to turn a plain concrete block into it’s own building structure history.

Renee Warner - One Block Many Forms

Digital Video - Anxiety

This film shows my chosen feeling of anxiety; through the many ways I have abstractly shown what being anxious feels like for me. The running through the forest gives the sense of being alone and anxious while the eye in the background portrays the feeling of being watch. I interlocked this with footage of rather abstract objects, including a balloon lying in pins (as this is how someone could feel while being anxious – the balloon being the person). The rope tied in knots around somebodies stomach represents the feeling of having knots in your stomach when you become anxious for whatever reason.

The second half of my film is based more on the thoughts of a person when they become anxious. The spinning of thoughts through the mind making little sense, while at the same time it feels as if your thoughts are on fire and you have no control. Within this I included a few things that can make a person become anxious / what they do when they are anxious. This is where the locking of the door, tap dripping and bushes blowing in the strong wind came into it. Combined, these pieces of footage portray the feeling of being anxious – the feeling between fear and excitement.

The audio I have chosen in the first half adds to the fear side of being anxious, whereas the second half audio containing the Tick Tock track really helps to portray the feeling of mixed, confused, fast-­‐paced thoughts. 

Renee Warner - Anxiety. How it feels

3D Game Design

Individual Summary

Garglyer has been a very enjoyable game to work on, especially for the fact that we decided to make it as an iPad game. As the design team we have each had very set roles throughout this assignment. Personally I had the role of designing and creating the different interfaces for the game and also finding sound and sound effects. We had many group meetings during the assignment, which as a group project were really helpful, specifically when wanting feedback from the team as a whole. These allowed everybody to contribute his or her individual opinions on different things. All team members were always present at the meetings.

With the interface design I wanted to carry through the theme of concrete in which the main character Mason the Gargoyle is made of. I initially began by putting together sketches and showed these to the team to get feedback. I then started mocking up designs in Photoshop to use as placeholders until I could use final assets. The designs for a couple of the interfaces changed quite a bit throughout the process. From my initial mock-­‐ups that were made to the iPad screen size we realized that by making them double the size of the iPad screen resolution (2048 x 1536 px) they appeared much clearer. I created all text needed for the interfaces and buttons in Maya. I added the concrete texture and a granite bump map to each of these, which worked really well. I am very pleased with how the text turned out. I had to make sure all the buttons were sized correctly for our coder Steven to put into the game. Through drop box I would give him the files. By carrying the same design theme and colours throughout the game has really worked well with the game. It has really helped with bringing the game together. I began using illustrator to put together the interfaces as it allowed me to easily add in drop shadows to the titles. This helped give the titles a bit more depth. I am personally very happy with how my interface turned out. After hours playing around with sizes and effects like drop shadow and outer glow, the work has really paid off.

Sounds turned out to be a rather difficult thing to find. As a team we weren’t too sure as to what sort of music we were wanting for the backing track. I spent hours searching free sound websites online and would bring different ones to play to the team to see what there thoughts were. Sound effects wise we weren’t after too many. However, these too were also rather difficult to find, especially the fan and smash sounds. I edited the sounds in audacity by playing around with effects and then saved them all out at the correct volumes to be put into the game. The sounds really add to the game, in particular the smashing sound, which was a mixture of three or four sounds put on top of each other. It really makes dying during the game worth it, and certainly added to Nicky’s smashing animation.

Overall I am very happy with how both roles of mine turned out. Both the interfaces and the sounds fit really well into the game. I have had fun working on this assignment and really find our game enjoyable to play. Although we didn’t manage to get as many levels in it as we would have liked, it is still a fun game to play. 

Post Production - Project 1: Behaviours

My piece is called Backyard Bullies and I have created it in the form of a stop motion using Photoshop. The three behaviors that I have chosen to use are structured, sneaky and aggressive. To begin with the smaller circles enter the screen and create a structural form of a pyramid, which is my structural emotion. From here I have two bigger circles that appear from each side and watch the structural form from behind the trees, creating the emotion of sneaky. To produce the emotion of aggressive, I have then had the two bigger circles approach the small circles and crush them, hence the title name ‘Backyard Bullies’. I got the idea for my concept by seeing a small group of children creating a human pyramid while at school. That is where I got the idea of creating an outdoor background using tree silhouettes. 

My process through creating this piece was rather straightforward. I began by creating my background buy using both free vectors offline and also creating my own using the live trace tool in Illustrator. I had to do a lot of trial and era in order to work out the best amount of movements between each separate image. I also changed the structural shape the little circles created many times. I then got the idea for the pyramid structure, which turned out to work best. Initially I wanted to have the big circles roll into the pyramid and have the small circles being bowled over all across the screen. However, this turned into a dead end, as I could not get in to look right and flowing.

The link to my video is: Renee Warner - Project 1 Behaviours

Wearable Technology 2013

The Twinkling Tutu

For my design I have created a tutu for my three-year-old niece. I came up with the idea as she has just started ballet and I wanted to make a garment that had a purpose. She is a very girlie girl so I decided to stick with using a white tutu with pink and purple accessories. Flowers and butterflies are both things she loves so I chose to use these.

As she dances and moves around the tutu lights up and flashes. One set of LEDs is located around the waistband of the tutu inside flowers and the second set is spaced out around the bottom of the tutu. When lighting up, the two sets alternate their flashes. Because the tutu is based on movement, it is controlled by an accelerometer, which is located at the back of the tutu along the waistband in a small pocket. This is where the batteries, Lilly pad etc. are all positioned, as I wanted these parts to be easily accessible yet hidden from viewers. All the wiring to the LEDs is stitched around the waistband to also keep it hidden.

I feel the tutu came together well. It is both pretty and cute to look at which is what I was aiming for. My niece had a great time trying it on and dancing around in it so it certainly fulfilled its purpose.