ZTV Ident and Design Process ideas.

Okay so given our first brief for DP1 animation was to create an Ident that would feature between programmes if our lives were televised.. or something like that, anyway I had a few ideas and came up with a few thumbnails to outline how I wanted to animate the idea I'd chosen.

I had a few thoughts on the design process while making this piece. I think that the implication of a final piece is actually the smallest part of it's conception (obviously it's the biggest part of it's purpose) but I think the most important stages get exponentially less critical as the design process continues, and the time spent on each section should correlate to how much work is needed for each part of the design process.

Brainstorm - 

 Unless you already have a good idea for what you want to do this stage is critical, it's a good idea if you're working in a team to ALL have input as someone might have thought of something that wouldn't have occurred to you. So the actual idea should come from the brainstorm if you don't already have one. Depending on the size of this project this stage could last a while if each idea has subsections explaining their implication.

Thumbnails and blueprints -

 So now that you should have an actual idea from either the brainstorm or you're own brainwave you should be sketching how you're going to implicate this, so if you're creating a moving image through film or animation you should draw out a few thumbnail keyframes of how you want it to go. (In a hyperbolic example of this the graphic novel series 'Lone Wolf & Cub' has been converted into a film, the direction of this has been implicated so that almost every shot from the books is filmed in the same style, almost as if the books are full length thumbnails for the film's production.) Again depending on the size of the project this stage could range in size from a few sketches to a book of images and written content. This stage is critical and without it the final design implication can be fraught with issues due to poor/no planning, spending time on this stage is worth it even if you create ideas that you don't use.

Full scale implications -

 After the basic work has been done on the initial ideas for the project then the final product development should commence in whatever medium has been designated for the project. If you look back at my thesis on 'Dimensional Design' this should be regarded as the 3D stage, just as the brainstorm would be 1D and the sketching and planning would be 2D. In terms of how long this stage should take I often see it in sections, during the creation of my Ident for example the longest part of the creation process was simply making the props and shapes used for the final piece, in contrast to this the final animation process was very quick by comparison. Similarly I've always had this thought with other projects I've worked on, Flash for example. I've spent a good few hours or so drawing sprites and different images over various layers only to spend a short while throwing all the pieces together in a quick animation. I guess this may change when you alter the ratio of detail to length.

After these stages of course all that's left to do is present your finished part to whoever requested it.. see this part is tiny and barely critical to design. Of course if there are changes requested then this stage my alter it slightly, with proper planning it's unlikely that the production of this project will need a total remodel.

Anyway enough talk, here's my Ident ^_^

-ZH@ZTV-

Let's go to the MOON!

Today in 3DS I tried a little bit more tweaking in a little more detail to try and get a little more used to working on more than just a square or a jelly face. Here's a couple screenies of what I've made today and a little bit of animation..

 Hooray, I'm getting better..

-ZH-

Beep

Was experimenting in 3DS and made this weird spider... that is all.

-ZH-

Spikey Bouncy Jelly Chomper..

Spent a bit of time on 3DS today, trying a little creativity with what I've learnt so far from the past couple of Tuesday afternoons in the screenful room. Messed around a little, made a slightly scarier jelly man hehe, more just trying to work from memory so that I get used to the tools I've used.. tried a few more morph target poses and checked out some of the modifiers.

Starting to think a bit more 3D laterally, getting good ideas from little passing thoughts that I might be able to use in something either for a course project or just for fun sometime when I pick up a few more skills in the third dimension.. anyway, here's a little screeny of Bitey.

Reversible Research.. We have what you want, almost.

So we've been discussing a few of the methods that people get ideas for new products. Out of the four I'm looking in detail at Market Research and Reverse Engineering and how they might be used together to get a more accurate product for what people want and so be more effective as such.

Market Research:


This is basically what it says on the tin, checking the market by either running surveys or asking individual people what they believe is needed in a product in a specific field and if an idea is repeated from a number of different people and there isn't anything else that covers it already then there is a gap in the market for it. Another method is to simply think of what isn't in the market so far and then make it for yourself and let other people decide whether or not it's necessary.


An example of this is an idea brought to the popular TV show 'Dragon's Den' back in 2007. An inventor of a device that plates metal objects with gold had brought his idea to the 'den' and requested an investment in exchange for a stake in the potential business (as the show dictates). This particular request to invest culminated in an offer from one of the business tycoons 'James Caan' investing £60,000. Since then the business has sky rocketed and is one of the biggest gold plating suppliers in the UK. I believe this is a good example of good risk assessment in the field of using market research and determining what isn't already available and making it available.

Caan and Roomes, a new business deal.

Reverse Engineering:

 This is the method through which a final product that is similar to a target product is taken and de-constructed in order to figure out how it works and what methods can be used to remake the same product with the new aspects to make the new final product. Although this is a fairly simple concept, this method of construction and design development is illegal in many places, especially in the USA. In an example taken from the Defcon 9 computer safety conference in Las Vegas, a developer of ebook security from Russia named Sklyarov was arrested by the FBI just after explaining his research as it included references to the use of reverse engineering to make one of his own designs more workable due to the addition of something from Adobe. After a long legal battle between the American DMCA and Elcomsoft (Sklyarov's company), the Russian company was exonerated on a technicality due to not actually using the accused portions of software.

 The DMCA approach to reverse engineering is that it supports the use of material that would compromise copyright laws and hence make reverse engineering illegal.

Connecting The Dots:

 Given reverse engineering is not illegal in some countries due to it's usefulness despite copyright issues, it could be used alongside market research to create products that consumers already have that are missing aspects that the original manufacturer won't add to it. This creates a viable gap in the market that someone combining Market Research with Reverse Engineering can exploit, given that their country doesn't consider it as copyright breach or any other kind of illegal mumbo-jumbo.

-ZH-

Dimensional Design, is it just a metaphor?

Okay so in response to a comment by Jools I understand some people (if any of you read) won't understand the principle of this 'Dimensional Design' process. I personally see it as more than a metaphor and it helps me consider how to go from idea to final product, whereas it can also be used to simply describe and explain any method of design.

This is what I mean by advancing from One-Dimension to Three-Dimension in terms of a design process..

Here we have a brainstorm to come up with an idea of what to use as the basis for a product, in this case I'm using my animation project to make things easier for me to explain. So in the brainstorm there are lots of individual 'points' or 'ideas', I consider these the One-Dimensional part of the process. So below is circled one of these 1-D ideas, the 'Jelly' from the BBC Three advert.

Next we have a slightly more in depth study of this single idea, at this point we have a base knowledge of the idea that's being developed, not a complete study of the idea but at least a concept of the final product, like a flat picture or the 2-D part of my adaptation stages.

At this point the idea has taken on an actual form that may be used in the final product, apart from the fact that this is a 3-D image, I also consider it the 3-D part of the design process because it can be approached and changed from all angles, whether it be a complete remodel or just a touch up of a certain area. As this is using the final program to create the final product it makes the point that this is where the idea can be seen as more than just a flat design.

I hope this answers or makes more sense to any queries about my idea from before.

And hooray for Jellies, we like them, they go BOIOIOIOIOINGGGGGG. ¬_¬

-ZH-

Mm indeed, quite the jellident..

First practice for my Animation ident, was just messing around with the lighting so ignore that bit, I think with a bit of a moving camera and some more smooth animating (better movement) and a couple of scenes it could work really nicely

-ZH-

Design, yes that too.. but what of 3D?

The design process is the method through which end products are defined through the means of their creative development, simply put this means how a final idea comes together from the first few sparks of imagination. Coming across an original idea is probably best done through a brainstorm where the objectives of the specific design are portrayed and approached by the individual or team assigned to the project. Once an idea is chosen to be put through the design process it is approached from a number of critical pointers to determine whether or not it is suitable as it is for a final product and if not how it can be modified to fulfil project parameters. Following this the idea is then put through a number of tests to reflect the changes made by any critical and aesthetic changes important to the final product. If at any point along the design process an idea is not feasible to work with then it can be scrapped and the design process resumed from the brain storming from before or right from the beginning to re-assess whether or not the approach being used for the project is the correct.

A concept for the design process that I have thought through and tried to make understandable is the 'Dimensional Approach' an idea the came to me while considering how to complete the process of designing around a project that required 3D development. It starts with the brainstorming session in which a 'One-Dimensional' idea is considered for development, one-dimensional being just a single point with no assessable detail. From here it can be expanded to a 'Two-Dimensional' idea through which the single point is expanded and approached from the front and has a basic overview of something but no real detail on any of the functionality or inner workings of the idea. Once the '2D' model has been assessed of its merit and prospect towards the projects final design it can then be engineered into a 'Three-Dimensional' end idea in which every angle of the idea can be approached and the inner workings can be perceived and modified if necessary to make this final concept of an idea completely accessible to any critique or requested modifications for it's final implication.


375 words.... F*** ^_^


-ZH-

Best Friends Forever..

So since I started my multimedia course I've been trying to look at my games from a different angle, I thought that a really good point that I'd like to approach in a little more detail is the physics behind the building design of Red Faction:Guerilla. More specifically the game design based around the architecture of the buildings and their 'logic' towards damage and decay.

I was really interested in the way that they've used real architectural stimulus in regards to the collapse of a building, in another video on this by the crew they actually talk about bringing in real architects to design the buildings because all of the programming around the materials that make up a building actually correspond near enough to real world materials, as such if the materials don't support a particular building design then once it's inserted into the game it'll fall down because of it's own lack of physics. In a context like this it would be really important to actually be careful when creating something that depends on a certain realism to actually persist in game, and of course.. the more realistic a game is the more believable it is, and this leads to a much better playing experience.


One of the things I want to work towards is designing things for games, as such I want to use this maxim that everything has to have a certain realism towards the physics given by the constraints of the game, even if the constraints are 'unrealistic', an object should still abide by the rules given by the physics of a game.


And with the title of this post, it's the achievement given for killing 100 guys with the sledgehammer.. In case you were wondering <3..


-ZH-

Making Jelly..

In our multimedia seminar today on Animation we were given a tutorial on some basic animation for the word 'Jelly'. We ran through the method of creating an actual visible piece of text on top of a flat plane (for the floor) and then used modifiers and movement over a number of key frames to develop a moving piece of text that acted in a style to jelly using the idea that everything that moves uses anticipation before execution, as such it moves before it makes an action in direct correlation to preparing for that action.

This was a good way to start as it covered all the small pieces of devices that can be used to develop a living and breathing piece of animation eventually, given enough time and effort.. but of course I know I'll be doing this next year so I'm glad to have got started as early as this. 

After I'd had a go at the original tutorial for the piece I decided to experiment with 'lighting'. I set up a targeted light and centered it at the centre of the plane and created a sphere in the centre, I then animated 4 frames of the light source so that I could watch the effect on the default texture applied to the plane and sphere as it moved around the edge of my perspective.

After a little experimentation I had some small success but nothing huge, s'good to be creating stuff in 3d though, even it is just a ball and some jelly..

A touch of the mesmer..

Okay so it's a normal Sunday, I'm plugging away at my computer with whatever and I feel like making a scene and mirroring a character design from one of my games.


The Guild Wars Mesmer, a creature of trickery and deception. Always masked and dangerous...


I'll be honest though, I just felt like taking a picture of something..

And then there's me..

Hooray <3

If anything its a brief insight to what I want to be doing at some point, character design and such.. Guild Wars is a prime source of inspiration for me on various points of what I hope to be my future career of 3d design and animation. Got to get ideas from somewhere.. Anyway, something about playing around with masks..

Other stuff later today >>

That's all for now.. more to come soon I'm sure x

-ZH-