James Cameron's Animation through the ages

A director whose filmography I have thoroughly enjoyed the few films I have seen, ranging from his earliest feature film, Terminator, through to his highest grossing film of all time Avatar, almost every single film has involved some form of Animation, the original Terminator using Stop-motion for the final chase scene with the robot, his later films including Terminator 2 and Avatar using CGI to some degree.

Terminator 1 Stopmotion:


Terminator 2 CGI:
Because Embedding was disabled, this scene can be  viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULcbSE6tcQw&feature=related

as you can see from these two clips, James cameron has updated and improved his animation technology with each film, with the Abyss, Terminator 2 and Avatar being regarded as landmarks in CGI film technology.

SLEDGEHAMMER

Yesterday in class we looked at various forms of stop-motion animation, each using the same basic principles but different mediums, allowing the animator to achieve different effects. What I then realised was that the fantastic video to Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer actually used many of these techniques, in particular Claymation and Pixilation.

What also makes the video impressive is the fact that Peter Gabriel was filmed frame by frame in each scene and considering how long stop-motion films take to make, Aardman managed to produce the film within 3 days with a team of animators working on each scene, the list also includes Nick Park who animated the scene with the dancing oven ready chickens.

Moving Image analysis: Corporate Cannibal

Grace Jones' song Corporate Cannibal is an abstract and subtle metaphorical criticism of the greed of large multi-national corporations and thoughtless consumerism. The accompanying video by Nick Hooker greatly supports the message put forward by the song. The video simply consists of Grace Jones wearing a suit throughout the video against a harsh white background, however he image has been greatly distorted into harsh abstract shapes making her look only vaguely human.

The video is also coloured in a harsh black and white with very few shades of grey, this gives the feeling of digitalisation as though Grace Jones is merely a computer personified, reminiscent of cyberpunk literature, such as the corporate sentient A.I known as Neuromancer in the novel of the same name by William Gibson. The cyberpunk themes are also supported by the line Digital Criminal, with mega-corporations as an entity being the antagonist of the story. This is further supported by the imagery of Jones, because although her body and forehead are distorted, her face remains recognisable and unchanged, perhaps representing the company logo of a corporation. The idea of the corporate world is also suggested through Jones' body shape with her shoulders curved like exaggerated shoulder pads and a harsh strip of white against the black of her body going down the centre of her torso suggesting she is wearing a suit.

The use of the harsh and disturbing imagery alongside the industrial sound of the song suggests the cold and inhuman aspects of the corporate world, her eyes are often fixated on the camera, as though the corporation is watching you, knowing everything you do, and her mouth is often the focal point of the image on screen, constantly whispering to the consumer, telling them what they want, and telling them what to buy. Criticism against corporatism is also a common theme in the industrial music theme, with the band Throbbing Gristle forming the industrial music record label as a form of rebellion against the mainstream music industry, with other industrial band such as Ministry being for notorious for criticising consumerism and right-wing politics.

The fact that Jones is the only subject throughout the entire video. with no other props or actors being present, seems to represent a kind of market dominance and superiority, with the corporation having complete control over not only the market but the consumers as well, slowly consuming them for its own survival. Her presence in the video is also almost predatory, as though she is there to feed upon the consumer, but with her looking straight at the camera and her massive stature against the stark white background it is almost as if she is ready to reach out of the screen and consume the viewer.

Bioshock Infinite: Following Development

Hey y'all, when I started the DFGA course I was mainly interested in the video games aspects of the course, and as such I've been eagerly following the development of Bioshock Infinite, the latest game in the Bioshock series.



It was actually Infinte that piqued my interest in the Bioshock series, although I'd heard about and had an interest in the first two games I never played them until Bioshock Infinite's announcement. I was instantly taken away by the flying city, a common theme in steampunk stories, and just how crazy it was.

I immediately went online to find out what I could about the game, but my first true insight into the game was an article in PC Gamer and shortly after that I read a more in depth article in Edge and looked up videos to see if there was any game play footage available, and indeed there was. I'd already had some idea of how a bioshock game played out, but what I saw really set me off, the vibrant American patriotic colours and architechture set against strange scenarios such as a mechanical horse pulling a cart with its wheels missing, one of the gas bags the floating platforms of the city of Columbia igniting then exploding causing the bell tower on the platform to collapse with chunks of debris being strewn across the platform the player was stood on, after this the player then rounds the corner and sees a burning building with a woman stood in the entrance simply sweeping up the ash, seemingly oblivious to the raging fire behind her. All of these images, although nowhere near as obviously as crazy as Rapture in the first game, tell the player that this city is gradually losing its orignal image and becoming a nightmare. This showed to me that the developers at Irrational put a lot of thought into creating a rich world with its own history, identity and emotions.




But what struck me the most was the relationship between the characters of Booker DeWitt (the player character) and Elizabeth. Booker is sent to the flying city of Columbia in order to rescue Elizabeth and begins a raging battle across the city in order to gain her freedom, but what strikes me about the two characters is the fact that they frequently interact and it is obvious from even the earliest gameplay demo that the developers have put a lot of work into making the relationship between the two believable, and this is also shown by the fact that Booker is not a silent protagonist like in not only the original Bioshock games, but in almost every available 1st person shooter game.

After watching developer interviews of the game, I found out that quite early on they tried to distance the look and feel of Columbia from the city of Rapture in the first game. This can be seen in the colour scheme, while rapture contained dark, cool colours reminiscent of the bottom of the ocean, Columbia's colour scheme contains a large amount of bright and warm colours as well as a stark red, white and blue theme that reminds the player of the american flag, setting the game apart from the art deco world of Rapture with the the patriotic and neoclassical world of Columbia.

Roughly 6 months after I finished the second game I discovered the latest gameplay trailer, this trailer totally blew my mind, with the vast improvements to both the art direction and the general flow of the gameplay. This felt a lot less like a tech demonstration like the first gameplay trailer and more like a segment of the actual game.

What really surprised me about the video is that I later learned that very little of the footage was actually scripted, which is hard to believe with the way Elizabeth interacts with the environment, another example of this is a member of the Vox Populi reacting to Booker DeWitt aiming his gun at them in response to threats against Elizabeth.

The only part of the footage that I can tell was completely scripted was the scene with Songbird, the 30 foot tall mechanical bird created to both imprison and protect Elizabeth. The Songbird is a constant threat to Booker DeWitt and Elizabeth as they fight across Columbia. The final scene in the gameplay footage shows Songbird recapturing Elizabeth and nearly killing Booker DeWitt, only to be stopped by Elizabeth begging for the Songbird to let Booker go in return for taking her back. The song bird responds by first looking away from her, as though to suggest distrust in a similar manner to an abusive husband, and then its eyes turning green before leaving with her, Elizabeth reaching out to Booker with tears in her eyes.

OUDF403 Evaluation

Throughout the fundamental skills module I have gained and developed skills and knowledge relating to concept art, in particular character design. To begin the module we were tasked with visiting the Leeds City Museum and the Royal Armouries with the objective of collecting a range of images that would serve as inspiration to develop a character, with this in mind I came up with 5 alternative characters and began looking for exhibits at the museum that would relate to these ideas. The trip to the royal armouries helped me finalise which character idea I would develop the furthest, with that character being the Taiwanese Tribal Warrior.

The next task was called archetype, which was to develop our character to fit an archetype of our choosing, because I was going for a cyberpunk theme, it was fairly simple for me to choose the archetype of Reluctant Hero, which has been one of the longest running staples of cyberpunk stories.

We then had to create a short flipbook animation showing an action relating to our character. From the start of this mini-brief I knew exactly what action my character would perform, she would cut a log in half with her sword. I had worked with simple animation techniques in the past, so although it was fairly easy for me to produce, the animation was time consuming. I also had issues regarding digitising the animation, but I figured out what I was doing wrong and corrected it.

The final mini-brief was to produce an environment for our character to reside in, again I found this fairly simple as I had been producing environmental sketches as I’d been going along, and understood the character’s environment as I am a fan of traditional oriental architecture and styles. My original idea was going to be a Dojo in a building similar to a Zen temple however while working on the environment I went to the hospital with an eye wound. This inspired me to update both the environment and the character’s back story; the character would reside in a medical area of the temple, due to it being a modernised version of Zen Buddhism, with her sustaining injuries that take into account her being there. I found the floor pan quick and easy to create however I struggled on the perspective drawings as there was only so much of the room I could show in each.

In this module I have learned that using moodboards I can quickly figure out a solid idea for an aspect of my character, as even though I may be working on a unique theme, I can find images that can help to consolidate my ideas for things such as colour and environment. Despite this I have only just begun to scratch the surface of drawing digitally and I really need to expand on my colour work, despite the meagre work I have done with colour, I understand how to improve with colour, and I also have found the use of moodboards can help to identify key colour schemes within certain themes, with cyberpunk works using a lot more greens, blues and purples than blacks and reds, than I first expected.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this module and it has helped me to highlight skills I could greatly improve, and has allowed me to begin working with skills I would love to advance further.

Concept Artist: Yoshito ABe

Hey folks, this time I decided to look at Japanese graphic designer Yoshito ABe.
Yoshito is an important artist to look at within the theme of Japanese/Oriental Cyberpunk because he was the character designer behind the highly influential and very early cyberpunk anime Serial Experiments Lain.

I have decided to look at the character Lain, the primary protagonist of the anime. She is unique as a character because she fits two archetypes, The Child and The Reluctant Hero. The Reluctant Hero is, as the name suggest, a variation on the traditional Hero archetype found in most works. The Reluctant Hero is one of the core themes to Cyberpunk and has been a part of the genre since its beginnings.

Lain's character design and aesthetics greatly follow her personality and character. She is a child new to the world of technology at the start of the anime, and her appearance initially shows her as a quiet, small and shy person, with her expressions often showing timidness or at times absent mindedness. As the series progresses, she becomes more and more assertive and strong as she is dragged into the world of technology, with her appearance reflecting this, her expressions shift from timidness to confidence and knowledge, and from absent mindedness to boredom.

I have tried to acheive this with my own character, showing her characterisation and history through her appearance.

Concept Artist: Matt Codd

Hey guys! Recently, while browsing http://fuckyeahconceptart.tumblr.com/ I cam across the concept artist Matt Codd. I was instantly taken away by his style, and the amount of intricate details he put into his futuristic works that in some cases have an almost familiar and contemporary feel.

Unfortunately due to the copyright protections on his website I was only able to obtain these two images:

These were the first images of his works that I cam across, and show an interior and an exterior location. Both are fantastic images, packed with details that tell a story even though there is very little action going on inside. The top image suggests an experiment in a high tech lab involving the person stood on the pillar in the centre, while the bottom image shows the slum area of a large and advanced but old city, with a person walking down the road being the only person in the image.

It is works such as these which will provide great inspiration and ideas for my own environment designs.

The rest of Matt Codd's works me be found at: http://www.mattcodd.com/Matt_Codd/Home.html

Concept Artist: John Liberto

Recently I presented my work to my peers, and during this presentation I was introduced to John Liberto, a concept artist whose works fit almost perfectly to my own themes of Oriental Cyberpunk.

John Liberto's rich paintings show a wide variety of themes, however they all contain similar elements that add subtle oriental and cyberpunk flavours to the works. This can be seen most in the image below of a flooded chinatown.

As you can see, this image depicts a flooded oriental city, however the city also has futuristic elements to it, such as many elevated walkways reaching high into the skies, something not seen in most modern cities. Also many of the materials used to build the city are in fact simple, such as sheet metal and wood, suggesting that the city has been built in a ramshackle and hasty fashion to escape the floods. This feel is what I was attempting to achieve with the look of the tribal village of my character, Jenny Heun.

How personal injury inspires

Okay, I know, weird blog post title, but the thing is, as some of my readers will know, last thursday I went to A&E from a head injury, nothing major, yet still enough damage to warrant a trip to the hospital anyway.

Now my experience at the hospital, I place I rarely visit due to rarely suffering injury, inspired developments to my character design, the first of which being a scar or dressing beneath the right eyebrow to mirror my own injury, of course, Jenny's injury would be far more impressive than my own injury of smacking my head on a desk, due to her being a warrior instead of an art student. This has also influenced the environment she will be staying in. My original intentions were to feature her in a martial arts style dojo, but now I think I will use a futuristic medical room crossed with a Zen temple, due to my intentions of having her being saved by the followers of the New Zen religion. I am also going to give Jenny drastically shorter hair, to represent her "rebirth" by the hands of New Zen after the death of her tribe and family.

This picture is my latest drawing of Jenny, as you can see, I've given her shorter hair and and a dressing above her right eye. This was also an attempt to draw an Asian face, as Jenny is Taiwanese. I don't think I was very successful, but I'll let you decide for yourself.

Here is the floor plan for the New Zen medical room,  on the left hand drawing is the surgery, and on the right hand drawing is the temple section and entrance to the Zen garden, both sections are part of the same room.

Concept Artist: Thierry Doizon

Hey Y'all, In my search for concept artists, I have been looking for two main themes. Traditional Oriental and Cyberpunk. I spoke to my friend about this, and he suggested I look at the game Deus Ex: Revolution, which is a cyberpunk game with a level set in a city in Hong Kong.

Because of this, I came across the concept artist Thierry Doizon, whose works are a godsend. Thierry Doizon has produced concept art for many different films and games, including Deus Ex and Tron Legacy.

(clicking on the pictures allows you to view them larger)

As you can see from these images Thierry Doizon looks at both oriental and cyberpunk themes with his work, which is the ideal inspiration for my own works.

Concept Artist: Shawn Robertson

Hey guys, been a little while since I last looked at a concept artist, and I really need to look at these guys more often, anyway, in this blog post I'm gonna look at Shawn Robertson, the lead artist and concept artist at Irrational Games, and the man behind the visual ideas of the Bioshock Games.

Below is a sample of his work from the first Bioshock:

As you can see, Shawn Robertson has looked at objects that would be found in an underwater, late 1940's style city when designing the characters and environments. With the grenade launcher and ammunition being made from household objects. The guardians of the little sisters and the city of rapture known as the "Big Daddies" are designed upon the old style diving suits in use at the time. Their weaponry is based upon tools that would be used in an underwater city, such as pulleys and rivet guns, showing the the "Big Daddies" also perform manual labour as well as their body guard duties.

The image of the turret being mounted on an office chair also shows the state of Rapture during and after the civil war. The chair has been fitted with scavenged motors, weaponry and sensors to transform it into a security device. Naturally the turret has been fitted with a miniaturised steam engine due to the abundance of water in the underwater city.

I like the way Shawn Robertson has used the environment and the background story behind the environment to influence the look and feel of his characters, giving it a unique feel that isn't found in most games that involve a war or the aftermath of a war.

Tales from Columbia

Hey people, this blog post is all about a game I am highly anticipating, and that is Bioshoch Infinite!
Today I watched a  "director's commentary" of the game's latest gameplay demo trailer.

First I want you to watch the original gameplay trailer:



As you can see, the gameplay combines highly stylised victorian influenced fantastical environments with a level of gameplay that allows rich interaction with the NPCs and Environment, as well as other interesting gameplay elements.



Now, as you can see from listening to the commentary just how much has gone into making the demo a fantastic experience, and it gives us little insights into how the world of Columbia is taking shape, as well as the challenges that went into conveying the emotion between the characters, and perhaps most amazing of all from a gameplay standpoint, just how little of the demo was scripted, with most of the interactions being generated by the player taking a certain action, such as when Booker DeWitt threatens the Vox Populi soldier with his pistol in order to keep Elizabeth safe.

I believe that watching behind the scenes footage and listening to ingame and commentaries is an invaluable resource for information to someone, like myself, who is interested in computer games production and artwork, as the gameplay and artwork both have a massive effect upon each other.

Character Concept: Taiwanese Warrior [part 3: Character Environment]

Heya guys, here's another update on my character development of the Taiwanese Warrior.

One of the most important and influential aspects of a character's identity isn't even part of them physically. I am in fact, talking about the character's environment. A character's environment really shapes the character in many ways, it shapes how they live, what they wear, what they look like, for example some one living in the desert would be darker skinned and wear cooler clothing than someone who lives in a frozen wasteland.

So onto my character. The biggest challenge I've been faced with is combining the futuristic worlds of cyberpunk with the ancient traditional oriental style settlements.

 Above there is a selection of images taken from cyberpunk media and pictures of traditional oriental and mostly Taiwanese buildings. I have tried to identify similarities between the two in order to give my own environments a cyberpunk feel without losing the oriental aesthetics.

This image is a perfect example of what I was looking for. It has an obvious far eastern aesthetic while at the same time having a futuristic look and feel to it. Especially the building on the right. The whole image suggests a market on the coast, while in the background is an industrial sector. Also, little details like generators, ventilation and waste disposal units add to the futuristic details.

When I came up with the idea of the Taiwanese Tribal warrior, this was one of the first drawings I did. A simple building found in a Zen-style garden. This drawing simply focussed upon the traditional oriental elements of the architecture.

When I started looking into the more cyberpunk aspects of my work I came up with these drawings. 

The drawing on the left is a design for a New Zen temple, although this cannot be seen without colour, the prayer lanterns and columns would be enhanced with neon lights instead of paints and naked flames.

The drawing on the right is a basic design for one of the taller buildings in the Tribal settlement. Being set in the future, I imagine the tribal people to build their houses out of scrap metal and concrete instead of bamboo and stone.

Next up in the character development is a look at the weapons and equipment used by the character.

Character Concept: Taiwanese Warrior [part 2]

Hey guys, I thought I'd share my initial developments for my Taiwanese Tribal Warrior.

I have collected a selection of inspirational images to help with the development of my character, looking at both Asian tribal apparel and weapons, as well as cyberpunk items and weapons.

Because the concept is set in the future, I am looking into ways of marrying traditional Taiwanese and Far Eastern elements with Cyberpunk settings and technologies.

Below is a selection of images that served as inspiration to the tradition Asian elements of the character.

 As seen here I have looked at samurai armour and weapons, as well as modern clothing that has been influenced by ancient and traditional oriental designs. The reason I have been looking at Japanese inspired designs is because not only is Japan a major influential power today, but also ruled Taiwan from the feudal eras until the end of World War 2, when as part of Japanese surrender, Taiwan was given "Administrative Rule" by China.

Another major influence to my character design is the Taiwanese Heavy Metal band Chthonic. Both their stage outfits and music combine modern Heavy Metal and the Heavy Metal Subculture with Traditional Taiwanese culture and music. The band is also political in nature, strongly supporting Taiwanese independence from Chinese rule, regarding the oppression Taiwan has suffered throughout its history at the hands of Chinese and Japanese oppressors.

 These are my three initial drawing of my character. The one on the left was my very first drawing of her, whilst the one on the right is a slightly more recent and more detailed version. The centre drawing is a brainstorm of ideas for the equipment she will most likely be using. I was originally considering giving her shoulder pads, but as she is an archer, these would only be restrictive, both when using the bow, and in hand to hand combat with the knife and sword. One aspect of her armour I will keep is the plates on her waist that also acts as a tool belt. The plates are based on samurai plate armour and give an obvious traditional oriental element to the character, as does the loose fabric sleeveless shirt she wears.