Honours Blog - Sophie Brennan

Tuesday, 18 October 2011

Pitch Presentation

Feedback:

Overall project looks promising and there is a lot in it.
Research question and objectives well-laid out and give good direction.
Needs to be narrowed down a lot to a specific research field.
Shaders could be an interesting and unexplored technical angle.
Wording in the aim and objectives needs refining.
"Character" too loose a term and needs to be defined.
Industry unsure - games or production?

Pitch presentation last week went well overall and I have a good start to my honours project. I need to understand and define and little more in my aim and objectives, as well as choose my words wisely. I agree with this and hopefully over the course of the next term this will all be amended.

I have uploaded the presentation and provided a link below:

Pitch Presentation (download link)

The two videos referenced in it are listed below.

Aims and Objectives

Took me a while to get there, but here is my aims and objectives 1.0

Project Aim:

To investigate how character design affects the creation of convincing characters and examine the role of the technical artist in realising these credible characters.

Objectives:

◦1. Research existing characters and deconstruct and identify the traits which aid in realising them.

◦2. Explore current industry skills and tools in technical art and examine and compare their uses.

◦3. Conduct a series of experiments utilising current technical art & animation skills to aid in the creation of convincing characters.

◦4. Develop and create a small range of characters using these techniques and analyse their success considering the role of a technical artist.

Tuesday, 11 October 2011

Pitch Week - Supervision

So today I had to supervise a group of Computer Arts students from years two to three with another fourth year student. We had a total of six students to get through in a two hour period.

The first thing I noticed is that it's sometimes hard to give feedback or even give a word in edge ways. People are often quite passionate and enthusiastic about their ideas, and perhaps may approach pitch as more of a presentation than a feedback session. It is also hard to encourage feedback from the group as a whole. Most ideas are presented, and although feedback is given at point throughout, there is little reflection.

Perhaps an error on my part, I also felt that I knew very little of the briefs they were presenting. This made it hard to judge and give critique as I wasn't sure what they should have achieved in a module. Next time, it may be best to check what the briefs are for each module so feedback can be given that is relevant.

Presentation format was another issue. While people mostly found it easier to present the work they had done straight from a sketchbook, I often found it difficult to keep track of the idea or even module with no visual or textual guide to what they were achieving. From a personal viewpoint, I felt that I might have been able to give more advice had they presented their modules in a structured format that made it a little easier for me to understand. Then again, I understand that presenting your own work is a very personal task and structuring it may for me - but not for the individuals themselves.

Honest feedback was very hard to give. In one instance I highly suspected that a student had not done the work required of them up for their course, and presented very little in the end. I should have enquired to why this was and perhaps offered feedback on the stop - but it was very difficult to single out a student in a group of eight and it felt like it would be an overall negative and embarrassing experience - perhaps putting them off their studies. This was not something I wanted to do.
Another case was where it was very obvious that a student was very focused on their personal work and had many sketches to present, but had not done any exploration or research and was missing out on vital experience the module offered and required. It was hard to approach a student and dissuade them from being so focused and to investigate other ideas or concepts.

At the beginning, I thought that time management would be an issue and closely watched the clock so that each student would get their allocated 20 minute slot. The first student had his ideas possibly cut short due to time constraints. In the end however, the session finished 30 minutes earlier than anticipated due to other students not presenting as much. This is a lesson on my part, but also on their so that they are able to focus their presentations and allow time for feedback. Perhaps approaching them beforehand and giving them 18 minutes to present and 2 minutes for feedback (or some similar structure) might have helped.

Overall, I did not feel that the students got enough advice on their own individual work, either due to time constraints, ignorance of their modules or fear of outting their work in front of peers. Advice that was offered was not immediate and more consideration of the future, although in some instances students were advised to scale back an idea for being too over ambitious. While I did not want to stunt the concepting stage, I wanted to make students aware that their ambitions DO have to be realised and having a small polished product is better than an ambitious unrealised project (in terms of portfolio and skillsets). I feel that I did succeed somewhat in some more generalist advice, regarding their projects.

Monday, 10 October 2011

Personal Statement

As part of our module we are to fill out and complete a personal statement. The personal statement is good for listing our personal goals and aims throughout our project and to serve as a reminder as to what our original goals were.

Personal Statement

Inspiration and Interests

I am mostly inspired by other art and artists, in either film and animation - old and new, other traditional and digital artists, video games, books etc...

However, I also draw inspiration from the world around me, creatures, history, culture, music, technology and life experiences.

I would like to be able to produce something that showcases my technical abilities and understanding, as well as my interest in character design and visual styles - perhaps some sort of showcase piece with little to no animation.

Career and Creative Aims

Personally, a role with requires an advanced knowledge of technical skills and understanding with some creative input.

Knowing this, a technical artist/animator is ideal with regards to my interests, skills and mindsets. I would preferably like to work within games, but film and production are not being ruled out.

Other roles that could be suitable are character modeller, or character artist in general. Generalist roles such as 3D artist or 2D artist are also considered considering the scope of the company and/or game.

Current Skills and Abilities

3D modelling for games and production with an understanding of topology, edge flow and efficiency in models, UV texture mapping, efficient texture maps from scratch and photo resource, basic digital sculpting, basic character & prop rigging, basic animation for production and games, traditional art skills such as life drawing, painting and sketching - from concept art to character design.

Programs capable with:

Autodesk Maya
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Pixologic ZBrush
3D Coat

Skill Gaps

Technical Art & Animation - Rigging beyond bipedal rigging (quadrupedal rigging, non-standard rigging, advanced rigging), custom GUI, scripting (Python and MELscript), shaders, cloth, fur, hair, muscle systems, dynamics, etc...

Modelling & Texturing- Sculpting, maps other than AO, diffuse, spec, transparent, normal, inorganic modelling,

In other news this week is Pitch Week. Later on in the week I will be posting a summary of my supervised pitch.

I will be presenting my own project towards the end of the week. Hopefully this will supply me with some helpful and interesting feedback.

Friday, 7 October 2011

Planet Dinosaur

I have recently been watching Planet Dinosaur.

Although it's obvious that Planet Dinosaur does not have the budget of many of today's CGI's productions - the art and cinematography behind it is something very interesting! Earlier on in my blog I spoke of Rango and how it applied cinematography techniques to the animation process to create a blend between the two - I find that Planet Dinosaur is trying to do the same. Camera angles and scenes are set up to look dramatic, but also as though they have been filmed - like a modern day documentary. This emulating of the documentary film format - but in an entirely constructed 3D environment and scenario is an intriguing use of the techniques I spoke about earlier.

Even though I know the basic process behind the creation of productions like Planet Dinosaur, it's always nice to hear a little bit of input from the artist's themselves. Here's a couple of links to interesting videos on behind the scenes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00kb1rf
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00kf292

Inspire me! v2.0

As well as many 2D concept artists who inspire me - inspiration comes from other places.
Here's a quick compilation of the stuff that inspires me outside art itself.

Music:

Orchestral music & video game soundtracks are a large part of my inspiration when it comes to working and creating work. Sometimes it's nice to just drown out the noise without concentrating too hard, and sweeping orchestral tracks without much vocalisation is a perfect way for me to relax without loosing too much focus on the music itself. Richard Williams (author of the Animator's Survival Kit) mentioned that music is a distraction from the art itself, and I do agree - but personally I do like to have it to level the background sounds and inspire me. Maybe this isn't the best practise overall, but I feel it helps me do the best work.

Animation

Animation has been a large part of my childhood and adulthood for inspiration and creativity. From the Disney classics to modern CGI blockbusters like Toy Story 3, animation has always convinced me that there is no age limit on creativity and expression - that topics both serious and silly can be conveyed through something that is entirely created through the hands of talented individuals. The discipline itself has some of the toughest and most driven people leading it - an attitude to life I very much respect. Masters like Don Bluth, Hayao Miyazaki, Tim Burton, Brad Bird and John Lasseter are a testament to the art of animation.

Games

A love later discovered in my life, but always there - is my passion for video games.

People

Hayao Miyazaki
Don Bluth
Tim Schafer
Fumito Ueda
Hans Zimmer
Bobby Chu
John Lasseter
Brad Bird
Amy Henning
David Cage
John Williams
Walt Stanchfield

Inspire me!

Here's a big bunch of my 2D artist inspirations for this project - all neatly packed into one place. Thought I might elaborate on why these people inspire me as an artist more than any other form of art. I personally feel it takes a great deal of strength, spirit, determination and talent to be a pure 2D artist - especially considering how high the stakes are and how tough the competition is these days.
Although I know I do not have what it takes to be a 2D concept artist or illustrator, I truly respect the people who have so much passion that they live and breathe their art and study it in what I consider one of the purest forms.
Not only do they study from life, but they have the expertise to take that knowledge and apply it to create fantastic imaginery worlds and characters.
This is why I respect these people so much - as an artist - and I hope I show as much passion for whatever I follow in my life.

Andree Wallin - http://andreewallin.com/

A brilliant matte-painter and concept artist, it's Wallin's pure technical skills and amazing rendering that inspire me.

Baron Tieri - http://www.barontieri.com/

Another brilliant artist with phenomonial design and speed painting skills.

Bobby Chiu and Kei Acedera - http://www.imaginismstudios.com/

Not only does Imaginism Studios draw and paint very well, but they are often giving out sound and honest advice for life in the arts in general.