End of Marking Period 2 Blogpost

Intention Definition & Exploration of Ideas: I started developing this video idea last marking period (and we discussed it in class--at length). I had learned about post-modernism and modernism, and my main question from that was whether our personality/self was an abstract concept or an actual, definable thing. I started experimenting last marking period and then switched to blender 2.8 just as I was about to begin the real work. I also worked on creating 3D models of letters for the Carlisle Theater with Vivian, which is honestly an interesting sort-of-glimpse into what free-lancing looks like (except we don't get paid).

Planning: I already had the concept down, as well as the look I wanted to go for, so it was just a question of developing it. My idea was to show a general, average human, and then show him from different people's perspectives to show that personality/self varies depending on who's looking. I wanted everything to be blank/grey, including the background: I wanted to keep everything neutral so that the color would stand out much more when passing behind the glasses and so that I could avoid answering my own question of whether or not anything was defined outside of our perspective. I also wanted the main character to be shown from different perspectives first and then have him look in a mirror and see a changed view of himself to. Then the camera would turn around to show him wearing glasses as well, because I think we often consider ourselves unbiased, and that's not true. I also wanted to experiment with camera movements a little more since I hadn't in the past. Additionally, I had to think of a clearer way to convey the message since For the theater letters, our idea was to experiment a bit and see how it went. I got the measurements of the letters, and we started. We were planning to print out P and I, make sure they printed out correctly, then accordingly modify the rest of the letters and send them off to get printed.  

Producing: Essence was actually fairly easy-ish to make. I only really faced a couple of problems: I switched to 2.8, so I had to get used to that. It is pretty similar to 2.79 with just a couple of differences that got on my nerves sometimes. I do, however, greatly admire the upgrades made to the rendering systems as well as speeds. I tried doing it in eevee, but it wasn't really working out. Since I had already figured out the setup in cycles, I decided to make the animation in that instead; it only took me 3 days to render! I used my generic human figures for the character and my master armature, that saved me a lot of time.  The way the whole filter thing works is that there are two other meshes (that I made by duplicating the human mesh and then applying a remedy modifier to it), which have a mix shader on them. One of which is transparent, and the other is velvet and a specific color. Then, the glasses have a transmission ray effect on them, which shows the hidden meshes. This worked well until the mirror, for which I just animated the velvet material to appear and disappear when needed. I had wanted only one mesh to appear for each filter, but my only idea on how to do that was shrink that specific armature when then time was right and that messes with the rest of the animation. My lighting system for this was also different than usual: I used three planes that I faded in and out as needed, almost like lighting for a play. For the camera, I included jump cuts when shifting to filter view to show a quick switch in perspective.
For the letters, we tried curve modeling but that gave us too many vertices. So we found the requested font online and then made it using the text option. We then had to do a lot of math that I over complicated to figure out the slits in the letters that would be used to hang them. We also had to convert them to blender proportions. We made a mesh based on those proportions and then used a bool tool to cut them out of the letters.

 

Evaluating: Essence was conceptually complex but it's lacking artistically. There's nothing beautiful about it. So while I am pleased with the result, I acknowledge that it could've been better. The presence of both the meshes during the filter moments detracts from the idea of different perception; there's also not much contrast with the colors. I didn't really want the other people and buildings and characters to be visible during the mirror part but the lighting was a bit too strong for that. I also should have given all the side characters glasses because that makes much more sense conceptually but I just forgot about it. I ended up adding a voice over to explain the concept, since it would be harder to grasp otherwise. I probably should have tried to speak with a deeper voice but oh well. For the letters, I don't know what the printed result is yet so I can't say if it is successful or not but I am really happy with our progress so far.

Integrating: I think the experimenting phase really helped me with both of my projects this marking period, it also helped having the master armature and my human meshes to draw from. I had all the pieces for essence and all I has to do was put them together. For the future, I aim to maintain the same amount of preparedness and then use that extra time to pay more attention to detail and aesthetic.

Work log:
Wasn't here, so I didn't really do much. I did make this really creepy 5 second animation though.