I tend to live in the past because most of my life is there. - Herb Caen

Now, in the last thread I posted some of my views regarding the past in a whole, but I cannot escape my own past, so today, I did a little digging. Now, here are some representatives from my past.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhTRRJdroSs&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fonceuponawin.com%2Fpage%2F7%2F&feature=player_embedded

Remember ducktales? Sure you do, it was the shit back in the day. I have to get my hands on the ducktale movie again, it was awesome, the animation was sweet and the design was refreshing on every turn. The characters are all well made and well represented, and the story carries on with something that granted a certain awe in my much younger days.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-rYDTMiDoA&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fonceuponawin.com%2F&feature=player_embedded

If you are one of the lucky ones that were born into the talespin era, then consider yourselves blessed. If you saw the movie and remember some of it, consider yourself sacred. One of the highlights of my youth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2UFFzPsSsg

Darkwing duck needs no introduction. I still remember some of the episodes, I had my own 30 hour tape back in the day, that was like a sacred ark for me back in the day, watched it until the poor thing got worn out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQO2VtV1PNg

Gotten alot of disney here now? Remember super mario 3? Of course you do, it is still an amazing game to play today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K783SDTBKmg

One of my all time favorite commercials. It had an unrivaled hilarity for us Nintendo druggies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JntHVUp7m4E&feature=related

My favorite game of all time which is presented in a wonderful way on this commercial. Design, game mechanics and story all hits a home run on this game. If you have not finished this game, shame on yourself. You need to do so, and quickly. It's an amazing game even by today’s standards.

Sometimes I forget my past, in all truth I did not have the easiest past, but these where some of the better highlights. It is source material now as much as it was back then. All this gets my approval since I do think they had a better level of entertainment back then than what they do now. There are plenty of other things I could mention, but for now, this here serves as a monument to my younger days.

And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. -Bible, Samuel xii. 7.

Ages ago, in a civilization. The idea of racial segregation and mass slavery was introduced to the ancient civilization of Egypt. With this unrivaled workforce great monuments which humbles the most of the other monuments the world has to offer. The pyramid of course comes on top of all this.



Now, even though the pyramids and the anicent Egyptian civilization are old and much of it is forgotten. Even though racial segregation and slavery is not in a posetive light today. The question remains, can what we have learned from that civilization, the culture they have left behind which relies heavily on mysticism be of use to a modern design?

Of course it can. *Picture taken from 3dtotal.com*



Steampunk, sci fi and fiction. All of these tend to borrow heavily on designs from ancient civilizations as well as concepts of tomorrow. It is vital that mankind does not forget the past, if not their mistakes will be repeated, however, at the same time if we forget the past, there is a good chance whatever cultural environment any 3d director is trying to create will fail miserably, or, at the very least. Not look as good as it could have been.

The Stonehenge - http://www.aboutstonehenge.info/images/education/stonehenge-wallpaper-1.jpg

The statue of the colossus - http://www.7wonders.info/colossus.jpg

The great wall of China - http://www.destination360.com/asia/china/images/s/china-great-wall-of-china.jpg

The tower of babylon - http://www.turclubmai.ru/heading/papers/364/babylon_tower1.jpg

Cathedral of Saint John the Divine - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/St_John_the_Divine_NYC.jpg

La Sagrada Familia - http://www.eflalt.bravepages.com/images/A%20Sagrada%20Familia1.jpg

Angkor wat - http://www.tropicalisland.de/REP_Siem_Reap_Angkor_Wat_with_monks.jpg

St. Peter's Basilica - http://www.dl.ket.org/humanities/arch/images/basilica_.jpg

Selimiye Mosque - http://www.feztravel.com/resources/images/tour_pics/Edirne_Selimiye_1.jpg

Eugene Tsui - http://www.inhabitat.com/wp-content/uploads/mile-high-ultima-tower.jpg

Berlin victory column - http://image30.webshots.com/31/6/29/22/335462922omrKxc_fs.jpg

Now, I could go on and on about the amazing detail of these buildings. However, I cannot recall watching any animated movie who paid such a devotion to detail as whoever designed these monuments. I will probably devote sometime in the near future to architectural design since this is a vital field to make any appeal out of visual 3d, just like VFX.

The old can be used or remade into something new. It is up to us how we take the design, their daily environment, their structure of civil class, their daily devotions, their bread and water, their way of warfare and their day of life and remake it into a complete package.

A still, small voice. - Bible, Kings xix. 12.

It all lies in the details.

Sketching has it's own level of detail in it's imperfection. The right type of imperfection is something which should be embraced in 3d. Lineart is largely dependant on detail to create volume and perspective. Where does one want to set the detail in 3d? Cartoony films have a less attention to detail than your average realistic 3d film, but the detail has to lie in the story/events going on for it to have the volume which is needed to generate inntrest whereas the more intense 3d movies can survive on detail without any paticullary brilliant plot. If something catches the eye and the inntrest enough, then the job is done. However there one has to remember that where there is smoke, there also is fire.

On youtube there is a collection of slow motion movies, it is vitally important to look at those not just to copy them, but to also create ones own idea of an enviorment. Not all has to be copied, some parts of it can also be altered to create an alternative physhiqe for that paticular element.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0-TbUUXDtM

Now, after watching that I really want to create an alternative mechanism for the development of such things.

I have just returned to basic unwrapping, now the pelting still does not work properly on characters, at least not on my computers, but I am trying to fix that problem, in the mean time, here is some work I am doing for a group, random clips here and there in other words. I try to focus a great deal on the artistic/realistic value of things, since it is hard to judge what the group wants from time to time, but it is part of the challenge to be embraced since quite a few of them have been very helpful in throwing out various guidelines for me. I think I might have struck a fair balance for the time being.

You don't get anything clean without getting something else dirty. - Cecil Baxter

In terms of complexity, there is little which is better to use than dirt. It symbolizes age, ruin and imperfection which makes it perfect for the world of 3d. There are many different types of dirt as dirt can be found nearly anywhere. In a clean store, in a dark cellar or in the very air we breathe at times. Dirt is nearly impossible to escape, so in this market it should be embraced.





All of these pictures are fairly new. Now that the unwrap is at least partially working again which means that I will be going crazy in the next comming days with textures. Been alot of work for hire now and it is sure to multiply in the comming days.

Back to the dirt, when I create dirt I usually have a variety of brushes and textures I like to use. Filters such as note paper and graphic pen added on a textured leafs brush can do wonders when it comes to complexity. Adding rust is a simple brushing and blending mechanism which I very often use. Blending and filtering can work, but the problem with unwrapping is that the borders are to be as identical as possible which is why I tend to have the base color controlling that area.

This is only the textured bit, to make something real out of it, one might have to add some environment to it as well.

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity - George Orwell

When it comes to modern shows and their characters, I find it all too often that some of the characters seem inserted into the movie rather than a being sort of living through his/her/its experience with the combination of well timed plot acts. From how a character acts, we place our level of trust on them accordingly to how act on at most times what they are. I find parts of the regular infrastructure of movies mind boggling that they do not thoroughly challenge our trust and more importantly, don't succeed at fooling us.

I have probably gone through a four digit amount of movies and games and I find it fascinating to reflect on them from time to time. Now, what do I like most in the best of these two worlds? Here are some points that I find somewhat overlooked at times. We all have seen the knight slay the dragon and we all know what is going to happen, so how do we spice up the base structure a bit more?

The culture of the movie - Real life can get a bit generic at times so it is nice to see a refreshing break of either breathtaking monumental cities or the very lowest slums of a despot empire. What you want is something new, and it does not have to be a golden city with the highest reflection level imaginable. Destruction has its own beauty, I don't know about you, but explosions are in my mind some of the most beautiful visual effects imaginable. Both when they are active and when they are old. On textures, small details, stains and such can contribute to something that has a remarkable volume in it. So can a beautiful, spot free monumental building have, but trying to create an own culture is surprisingly fun while making a movie or story idea.

http://www.hokutonoken.it/film/yuria/film/218.jpg

http://tasmania.globat.com/~archibase.net/dl/articles/spider/3.jpg

Design - Now, of course, when it comes to creating a design the culture as I just mentioned plays a key part. Reason I mentioned it is that it is overlooked at times. The design covers the visual aspect of whatever idea you have in mind. This covers the entire volume of the movie. Now, 3d cannot challenge real life on its own terms and I'd be sad if that ever was to happen, because the essence of 3d as it stands now is more than capable of creating its own art that has not been too well pursued. I have not yet seen a really dark 3d animated movie, and what a shame that is, because it offers so many limitless possibilities. In terms of character design I will present two of my all time favorite characters which are not made by me, but are incredibly powerful in the dark essence of 3d. Images picked up from 3dtotal character gallery and tons of credit to whoever made them.




Character plot placement - There are two major kinds of character plot placements that come to mind at this moment as frequently used. The first one is extremely common for a reason. Why did Scar stand above Simba's dad and push him off the cliff? Well, it is because Scar is the arch rival of Simba. It would not necessarily be logical that he, rather than his army of minions stand above Simba's father and push him to his grave. However, it creates an epic turn of events that is suitable for many movies. The second ones are the less important characters that find themselves in no particular highlight whatsoever. The disposables which have no real place in the story.

The problem with this is that you come to expect it. We really have been seeing the same thing over and over again a few hundred times. Some hybrids have been attempted, but most of them ultimately fail. However, do betray our trust and try to do so unexpectedly. If a major protagonist who had been with a hero through thick and thin would suddenly and unexpectedly turn against one of their own, and have an agenda to do so. Then it would be spectacular, it would leave the viewer with so many hundred questions and more importantly only some of them would be answered. The character would need to have an agenda; this is the most important element. A character turning against someone they seem to be allied with for no reason would be a waste. Complex personalities, which do not render their mobility for solving their own problems, would be key to make me really enjoy a movie. I want something new and innovative on the basis of character realism. So, stab my expectations in the back, but be smart about it. The character needs to also not be in the center of attention all the time something important occurs, having pointers towards what might have occured may be a way to reconstruct the way around a direct scene in a way that highlights anticipation. Flashbacks are cheap, we all know this, so pointers are the only way around this. Oh, and make some of the character achievements realistic as well, in the world of character creation, any character can swing a sword killing a legion of enemies. However only a real genius could make a seemingly harmless character become the arch enemy by at the right time committing an act of atrocity. The worst animal 98% of the time is just like you and me.

Unintentional insincerity kills. It really murders any potential feel behind any production. If you are going to make something big that does not border on the concept of our own world, then the worst thing you can do is being insincere about it. Putting dragon heads on top of characters in order to make them look stronger simply is not enough to re-invigorate interest and commercial cowardism can really kill a legendary design. We know what works, but we have not dared to try to recreate much in the last century.

Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet. - Bob Dylan

Alright, I have been out researching regarding textures, but also how they react to elements. So in short I grabbed my camera and a bottle of water, and went out to document how ceartain elements react to water. Here you can see the fruit of my work.



I have always related spesific parts of the water to the specular levels. They just seem to add that additional feel of volume when it comes to light. Water of course reacts different to each elements, some are harder to see than others. Still, it gives me plenty of ideas on how to animate textures after something interfers with them. Textures never remain fully the same after an element has interacted with them.

I guess I will be working a bit on how to compose the elements of front, that what happens directly in front of the camera. The middle, which is the entire enviorment. And the back, which is what is going to happen on the textures themselves. I am sure I might be able to add some level of dept towards it.

Oh, and I should also upload this for giggles, not that it relates to any of this. I wish I had the explotion test I did with Pete Draper to add on the shadowexpansion. This is just a test of videopost and mentalray motion blur.

Alas! must it ever be so? Do we stand in our own light, wherever we go, And fight our own shadows forever? Edward B-L

Alright, so today, I am going to be going through how I made this sketchy rain effect using Aftereffects and Photoshop.

The first stage is the aftereffects.




Now, the entire theory was behind this was to create a sort of sketch-like rainy texture that would work well on a single wall scene. I decided to go with a black layer as the bottom, that layer is just a black plane covering the entire region. The first layer is the matte-like painting, I decided to go with the particle system in order to make a particle that sorta rained down, I had to transform it a bit, but it is fairly easy to act with the parameters. CC toner and matte painter had just a few slight touches too it. Nothing made on this is frame animated, it is just from the start parameters all the way. I wanted to make it black and white and add a slight shadow effect too it. Which would become more visible during the max stages.

The second layer focused a bit more on the hard lighting that would help with the specular levels. Nearly the same thing, only not the matte choker elements and stuff of that nature. A radial blur element added a sort of distort towards it which was wanted, since I wanted the rain to be unequal. This was mainly done for the specular level. As the previous point, I wanted to make it black and white.

Now for the max part.



Composite layer fun indeed. The specular levels where fairly straight forward with the second layer I made in aftereffects and rendered out as an AVI. Both specular color and level where gifted with this. I found a generic texture wall where I simply copied it, even on the bump layer and pasted it. Now pay attention to that I actually slightly bumped the rain itself a bit, it creates a slight distortion effect that is hard to see, but adds a bit to the image itself. Also pay attention to the opacity levels and blending modes. The reason I made the bump like this is that it creates a nice feel of volume from this particular perspective.

The bitmap had several maps. The first is the generic texture itself unedited. The second map with 25% opacity is a map which has a subtract blending mode. This is the rendered version from aftereffects with both the specular rain and the matte color. The second layer is a multiply layer with only the matte on it. This basically made the scene dark and gave this radical shadow effect all around that makes it more artistic than in any way realistic.

It should be noted that aside from all this I placed an omni to the top right corner. Nothing too big or worth going through, just a standard omni.

Hope this gave you all a few ideas, remember, if you use auto key or set key for that matter you can animate the opacity of these layers, which in turn can produce some really interesting effects. Animate the omni and I am sure you can create a radical lighting effect.

The art of living easily as to money is to pitch your scale of living one degree below your means. - Sir Henry Taylor

Another hour of desperate pitching!

Goal - To get at least one idea which inspires comedic excellence.



Time - 19:15

A multicultural meeting which involves warlords from all over the world has encounters some rather troubling factors as the English Gentleman and the German dictator can't find a solution to their differences.

At a restaurant a French and an Italian chef engage in a prestige battle at a famous restaurant where they engage in acts which involves sabotage, lies and miscommunication.

At a national security meeting a secretary general who is goofing around accidently sends a series of emails not to his wife, but to an alien group in a bunker near Earth.

A monkey tribe becomes mighty confused when they stumble across an alien artifact.

A boy which does not enjoy life at school accidently finds a copy of 3ds max, where he recreates the environment around him to fit his needs.

A teacher resorts to her commonly used means of drinking in class while listening to the younger students idiotic ideas.

At the military academy office a young cadet who is being forced to participate in the main battle finds himself in trouble as he in chaos shot and killed the officer which commanded him to do so, and now has resorted to trying to cover up by taking his place.

A bat gets inspired by the human idea of sunglasses.

A master painter shows his work to nobles from far and beyond, yet his masterpiece is ruined as a young child finally manages to pour a huge amount of various paint colors across his classical masterpiece. However it turns out to become the first piece of modern art which the nobles then admire greatly.

A talking parrot which is a master merchant reacts violently when he sees his own kind being bought and sold, declaring it a form of evil slave trade.

3 bullies, all who are equally dumb face their first physics lesson when they all try to drag over a school wall.

A rather fat female Viking warlord who sits at a table with many Vikings is the first to discover opera-like song among her clan, as she sits down on a sharp object.

A dog becomes increasingly frustrated at the birds which sing at the top of the tree near him. He then plots how to cunningly dispose of them.

An amature poet who writes his song becomes frustrated on small events which disturbs his search for the harmony of nature, and which each frustrative moment it adds a frustrative tone to what is supposed to be a beautiful song.

A police station acts with despair as they are ordered to shut down their favorite doughnut station, and goes together in a conspiracy to somehow make it stay open.

A very creepy person on the street finds great pleasure in freaking random people out in different ways.

End - 19:56

Conclusion - Food came around so I had to quit early, had a very lively 20 minutes with some decent ideas, but faded away after that. Overall

Santa Claus wears a Red Suit, He must be a communist. And a beard and long hair, Must be a pacifist. What's in that pipe that he's smoking? - Arlo G

The subject of this day is horrification.

I mentioned earlier in one of my posts that it is in human nature to love to corrupt things. The attraction of making something turn against its current values has been proven time and time again, and the free limit for artistic expression is increasing by each day. Still, there is no denying the beauty of the following example.



As most times, none of these concepts are mine, I just hunted them down over Google. Credit to the original designers of these. However as you can see the original version is kind, yet crazy. What I really like with it is that even the horrified versions of it look kind. Only difference is that crazy turned closer towards insanity and child appealing looks converted to something aimed at higher ages. That is real horrification in my opinion. For whatever reason I cannot say it became evil, or more malicious for that reason. It just looks darker in it's own way.

These are some of my all time favorite concept art though. Particularly the top one which is from Mcgee's Alice in wonderland. In order to create a dark concept a character does not necessarily have to be mean, bloodthirsty or in any way evil. Dark will suffice in most occasions. It seems to me that it has just matured in a way, and it even did add to the character, and who does not love the original Cheshire cat? Imagine the horrified Cheshire cat speaking somewhat metaphorically as it kind of did in the books or the early cartoon. What more could you ask for?

Art has its dark side, but some of that can be beautiful in my opinion. Take destruction for example. Has there ever been a more beautiful visual device than a nuclear blast? Have you ever seen the tzar bomb go off before? It looks stunningly beautiful in terms of the visual, however that's not it primary purpose. Its primary purpose at the time was to scare the states into thinking that they had more advanced technology, but that's beside the point. Arguably the most dangerous weapon of all time is also the most beautiful one in its sense. Sure, we have seen ornamental weapons in the past which has their own special sense of beauty, but the shock and awe of a nuclear blast never stops to amaze me.

I guess that danger and destruction has its own sense of

A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends - Baltasar Gracian

Ok, my mind boils right now. I guess one really should hammer the iron when it is glowing hot. That aside, my mind really, really hurts now.

There is no doubt in my mind that even collecting inspiration is a hard job as long as you put enough effort into it. I wanted to recreate some of the armor to my neo crusader, at least ending up with a fresh draft for it. Well, I searched for armor. From the early Persian times to sci-fi cyborg armor. Reality to fantasy and light to heavy armor. I spent alot of time on this one picture which I raided using livesearch and google.



I wanted the armor all around to not look TOO heavy, generic or simple. I wanted a fresh design inspired by the best of the cultured warfare through the ages themselves. Now, I am not the best in terms of drawing in the class, however I think I have managed to get a fair first draft of the armor, although it took me some time. Well, here are the sketches.



Now, it might not look like much, and alot of the concepts are sorta altered to a degree. However it is hard work solving some of these problems. It makes your mind spin rapidly since it has to include a level of jointing. Not to mention you cannot leave too many regions looking generic or boring. Now, the helmet will glow from the cross like shape just like before. However I made a few modifications by use of various types of scales like on the legging, while also embracing the roman idea of extended scales for mobility. The renaissance idea of cutting the armor in the middle of the torso was also partially used as it presents the mix beetwen metal and fiber on the torso.

So some of these armors that was looked at in terms of inspiration all present some level of culture and dread. Even the 'antagonists' just as the heroes in history has a use in the creative. So why not use the best of both worlds?