Concept Development

PROJECT BRIEF: Space and Environment

MOTIVE:

Space and environment are some of the defining elements of digital and interactive media. Spatiality is a particularly significant issue in the 3D worlds of contemporary computer games and multi-user platforms, however it also plays an important role in the design of 2D animation and interactive systems. Space can be used to indicate changes in mood, time, and setting, and be an important narrative element in its own right. Film has always exploited the potential of space to tell stories, establish context, and add depth and meaning to the narratives that take place within it. The advent of new interactive technologies, however, has opened up our understanding of on-screen space; we are no longer limited to what we see on the screen but are able to move freely into different spaces, choose different paths, and explore screen worlds from all sorts of different angles at our leisure. This new type of space has implications for how we understand narrative on screen; single linear narratives have given way to divergent spaces, in which users generate their own experience by moving through virtual space. These spaces may be evocative, they may explicitly tell a story or establish an open ended situation, they may be contested spaces or spaces for exploration, battle, socializing, creativity or game play. An understanding of the potential of space and environment is essential to our ability, as animators and game designers, to create worlds, communities, and ideas outside of our own.

MEANS:

You are to create an environment which may be navigated by a single user, either in a 3D game engine or as a 2D image which can be navigated through devices such as scrolling and zooming. The world you create should contain at least TWO distinct environments. Consider how the space you create may function to suggest narrative, obscure or reveal information, convey thematic or emotional content, or suggest changes in time and place. The environment you create can be as abstract or as concrete as you desire; it may be logical and realistic, or it may be surreal, bizarre and imaginary. Consider how factors such as lighting, composition, colour, scale, texture and motion can be used to convey meaning within this space. You might choose to use the screen as a type of window into a virtual world, or as an entry point to an ‘infinite canvas’. Consider in particular how your choice of layout, sequence, and composition, can strengthen the communication of your ideas. You should also give some thought to how the user should interact with the space you have created. Is it a narrative space? A space for exploration or puzzle-solving? A space for relaxation or a space for challenges or battles? The type of interaction you wish to provoke in the user should be reflected in your design.

MEDIA:

The chosen media is up to you.

Linear submissions need to be quicktime movies at 25 fps, 1280x720, audio at 44.100 kHz.

Interactive submissions will have varying formats/technologies, but if possible use 1280x720.

Submissions need to be submitted to the AIM server, clearly named and titled. Each project submission requires a completed RMIT submission form.

Submission Date: April 27^th 2011

Works in progress

Time and Perspective

I decided to try and kill two birds with one stone by frantically trying to finish the Mumbai video clip I've been asked to make in time to submit it as my Time and Perspective Brief. I've been using loops to animate things like the falling rain and the movement of the waves, though I'm finding that collage animation is not really the best medium for looping. I had only done less than 30 seconds of the clip, so this week has been a crazy crazy mission to try and animate the remaining 3 long minutes (total insanity I know). What has become very clear is the difference between what we're learning in class, the kind of professional standards we are or will be subject to, and what I'm used to in my own creative community, which is much more relaxed and D.I.Y. My clunky collages look terrible alongside smooth professional-looking Flash animations and 3D character rigs! But on the other hand, the type of animations that I admire the most, and what really got me into animating in the first place, is not this slick professional look but the more hands-on aesthetic, like the work of Martha Colburn or William Kentridge. Here's some polar bears I made yesterday:

TV on the Radio

Whoa, this Tv on the Radio video clip is amazing! I can hardly tell whats digital and whats handmade. I love the colours and patterns so much, and the combination of abstract and figurative elements. I wish I'd seen this before I started the Time and Perspective Brief, it makes such good use of loops and repetition. Follow the link above or find it here, since YouTube won't let me embed this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv0G5ibi3VY&playnext=1&list=PL02C9F9696C0D49A9

World's smallest stop-motion animation!

I love this tiny tiny little stop-motion animation. It was shot using a Nokia N8 smart phone equipped with a CellScope, a diagnostic-quality microscope that was invented by Daniel Fletcher at the University of California, Berkeley. The CellScope allows a doctor working anywhere there is a phone service to capture and transmit images of blood samples anywhere in the world. The technology could help diagnose disease in developing countries where it can be difficult to access doctors and laboratories.

The film tells the story of Dot, a girl who just 9 millimeters tall. She wakes up in a world that seems to be unraveling. Fleeing an encroaching wave of loose threads, Dot runs across coins, pins, nuts and bolts and jumps on a bumblebee to fly away. Finally she saves herself by knitting the threads into a sleeping bag. Because Dot is so tiny, her body was cast using 3D printing in a variety of different positions, which were then used to animate her movement.

Form and Image

Here is my final submission for the Form and Image Brief. I don't know the first thing about creating generative artworks so I really struggled with this one. The final result is a drawing generator which creates 196 different possible outcomes from 14 original drawings, arranged to form a circular image. Here are some of the different patterns you can create by clicking through the different drawings:

Agents and Behaviour Project