Since I was aiming for a Sci-fi/space opera feel, I felt it would be best to have the title appear in a typing effect. This is one of the most common effects seen in every space film. It was also used in Kids Next Door as a title card, before the start of every episode.
When added with the rest of the intro sequence, the video has started to look much richer and a cinematic.
This week was dedicated to frame-by-frame animation for the opening scenes. The initial ones were a bit easier to do as compared to the helmet scene, where I had to even draw the reflections frame-by-frame. The frame rate was set at 12 fps and increased the speed in premiere pro.
At first, it seemed a nightmare to go in an colour each frame as well as do shading, but I discovered that all I needed to do was to create a clipping mask, copy and paste it onto each layer and warp it according to the frame.
The most time consuming scene was creating the reflections on the helmet visor. Even if the character movement was created, I had to go back in to match the background movement.
After adding in the backgrounds and lighting, I am quite happy with the way the project is turning out. Below is the very first render of the finalized opening scene.
Using the theories of extended reality, I will break apart my own work and analyze it through the lens of Extended reality to see if it becomes more effective, what could be gained from using the medium and are there any risks.
Below is a project I worked on for IAPex (architectural design conference). We were required to create a sculpture that was a combination of; Futuristic, Continuity and Boldness. After various ideation, I realised an abstract way would be much suited and it did not need to be grounded in reality.
3D RenderArchitecural Sheet of the Project – Child’s Play
A breakdown of the aspects;
Continuity
In this spiral form, I have showed continuity through different volumes at different levels to portray complexity through continuous form and ideation. I wanted it be a somewhat linear as that is what I wanted it to be associated with
Boldness
I wanted to show boldness through this form as to me boldness usually strikes when there is a uniqueness within similar forms. I showed boldness though using a sphere as my focal point within cubical forms.
Futuristic
In this form I have showed a futuristic form through not taking its structural capability and gravity as elements affecting it.
The final form looked somewhat like this. I achieved my final architectural form by combing all three of my forms and using the push and pool tool to create planes and different levels so that I could obtain apertures and play of lights and shadows. If one would observe the design is similar to a child’s play house and inspired by the animated series KIDS NEXT DOOR.
Final Form
Kids Next Door Treehouse Hideouts
How it is related to my work?
My work is mostly palyfull and ambitious. In the sense that, I try to empathise with children, their imaginations and traits.
How it could be enhanced with VR/AR/MR. What would it gain from extended reality?
When using ER, Baudrillard’s 4 phases of the image come into play and are key factors. Those being: Phase 1: Images as a reflection of reality Phase 2: Images as masking or perverting reality Phase 3: Images as masking the absence of reality Phase 4: The image “bears no relation to any reality whatever”
Architects now days are relying on Extended reality to give the clients and spectators a more feel of what they are trying to create and with a rapid advancement in technology it is only going to get better. Since my project is mostly theoretical, Extended reality would help me in pitching the idea and give the audience a much better feel of it inside and out. Not only that, if they get a sense of warmth with it, for sure the idea would be hot and people would want to invest and could the start of an artistic movement. The work could be “total work of art”.
Another thing that could be gained is when for example it goes into production, the team/labour can be trained. A production outline can be achieved. It wiuld offers a safe and realistic training environment. Where the technology costs, risks of injury, and costly damages to equipment can be eliminated. Extended Reality training provides trainees with safe experiences of scenarios.
What is the risk?
The biggest risk is that, the actual thing might not play out as similar to the simulation. The technology is not budget friendly and in its current stage it might be not that convincing.
Final Thoughts Sure ER could be used as complementary tool to just sell the idea, and to run simulations as to how the materials would work out and play off each other but nothing more.
References
Baudrillard, J. (1983) Simulations. New York: Semiotext(e).
Today I worked on the character animation for the child in the last frame. The child is a caricature of me. The charcter style is a disney-esqued style and the colours of his costume innterplay throuhgout the video. In reality the child is wearing a home made paper bag helmet. At first I wanted to make a more polished version of it with a foli cover sphere and a visor attached but opted for a much simplistic paper bag version, as I belived the gave the character more innocence.
After basic animation was set, I worked on the background for the last scenes and after a bit of compositing I am happy with the final result.
At first I thought I would hand draw the whole warp speed effect frame by frame, but It would have been much time consuming and a hassle. After some research I founf it is much easier to do it after effects and after some tweeking I was able to achieve the desired effect.
After effects tutorial
Take _1
I followed the tutorial scene by scene. Added some colour and glow to the effect and created the sun in the middle.
Take 2
I have added the craft in the scene and things are falling into place quite nicely
Once this was all set and done, I incorporated the drawings into it, added a fast blur, glows and motionn tracking and stood closer to a finalized scene.
The jet itself is an essential character to the story. As you can see above I have tried to find a common ground between a jet and a rocket while the core design should resemble what a paper airplane should look it. The above paper airplanes are inspired by the ones I used to in school e.g. the straight basic one was a standard template and we used to fold the wings edges to give more of speed and used to see how far it would go. Another memory which gave me inspiration while changing the concept.
The front and back images are a work in progress of the launching scene itself. Here I am working out the colour pallette of the craft itself.
This is a more finalised concept of what the craft boosters would look like. I have added a glow and some rusted metallic texture to which has given the whole thing a finesse.
While making this animatic I realised that since the rocket sequence was a dream sequence, it needs to be cinematic, should have a glow in it with black bars on top and bottom. While the reality part needs to be full screen.
the final animatic
A thing I should point out before hand, the instrumental used in it copyrighted and I have left it like this for now, just to convey the overall concept, look and feel of the project. When developing the final producting I will produce orginal music.
Using the theories, we learned about Affect; in this blog I will try to analyse how Sesame Street and Puppetry revolutionised children’s educational learning.
Everything began with the contentious wager that young children might truly learn from television. Episodes devoted to the letter n or the number 5 in its first seasons demonstrated the fervour of its instructional mission and its laser-like emphasis on pedagogy. Sesame Street, however, had more ambitious goals from the moment it was initially conceptualised in a 1967 report delivered by its inventor, Joan Ganz Cooney.
The world created by Sesame Street, which made its debut at the end of the 1960s, was founded on an audacious, if not utopian, vision. The show was proud to be ethnically diverse, big city urban, gritty, and unafraid of controversy. It was also occasionally psychedelic and most scary to some of its early listeners.
If you think about it although the show is targeted at 4-year-olds, and in between its charming, mainstream skits on literacy and numeracy, Sesame Street felt by turns avant-garde, iconoclastic, and revolutionary.
It speaks to a much older audience as well. For example, the primary audience are adolescents, while the secondary or tertiary audience are their parents. Imagine a child watching it with their parent, some of the jokes might be subliminal but a parent would instantly get it. If they approve, they would let their child watch it and in turn encourage other parents to watch it their kids. So, in a way it has an effect on promoting educational viewing.
watchmojo lists down the top 10 moments when sesame street got real
There is no disputing that the programme redefined the role puppets may play in your upbringing and deserves praise for addressing issues that affect kids (which are also still prevalent). Initially starting off as just a tv show largely funded by Children’s Education Theatre, has expanded into a billion-dollar franchise with multiple tv series, films, video games, musical videos and an ever-expanding merchandise to become self-funded.
Puppets are safe, entertaining, and a logical development from the instructional cartoons that kids probably see at home, puppets are ideal for attracting their (children’s) attention. Puppets encourage children’s imaginations to flourish as they mature and improve their social skills while also boosting the creative avenues that are already available to them.
For example, puppets can be of various colours, sizes and faces and these abstract features lead to characters being more empathetic. Child would instantly associate with such. For them puppets would be like another toy or plush toy. Even in therapy e.g., children how have become voluntarily mute are seen to share their feeling and thoughts only to puppets rather than a being. The best thing about puppets is that you send all kinds of messages through them to every age group and no one would mind. The visuals of the puppets create a sense of relatability and that is what has made sesame street so effective.
The impact that it had is enormous. It was not only translated into different adaptations but every country or so has its own localized version of Sesame street with some of the same principal characters.
It tackled on topics from divorce and school bullying up to sexual harassment and racism. They created emotional engagement not only through their script but characters designed are what sold it. The characters designed are mostly animals, caricatures or similar to child’s crayon drawing. No matter the audience, this revolutionary program is able to appeal to all ages and genders, as each viewer can see him or herself in at least one, if not all, of the characters and that is the beauty of it.
I took time with this, as I wanted to lock every frame and compostiton with this one storyboard. A lot of revisions were made and if you comapre this to my last storyboards, I have made this one is much greater detail.
I am pretty sasified with how the story has come together and in the next post I will try to cover the animatic
It took a while to come up with something new. The research although did not take me far and wide, all I had to do was think about why someone would fanntasize about being a astronaut. Then it hit me, Toy story and Top Gun Maverick were a good example of this. After discussion with my teacher, we worked on the new concept a bit and realised mid way that this would be much more relatable. My only fear is that, whenever we think of a space ranger we immediately associate it Buzz Lightyear.
THE NEW CONCEPT
Scene 1
Montage of an space ranger/astronaut suitinng up.
He puts on his suit.
His locks his pads
Wears his gloves.
Picks up his helmet (in the reflection we see the character for the first time).
Scene 2
The rocket, (which is an amalgamation of a space rocket and a F-18 jet) is getting into place.
Voicer over on radio
Ready for launch
Engine fire up and rocket takes off.
Scene 3
We blast through the ozone layer and sound barrier innto space
Voicer over on radio
Ready for hyperspeed/hyperlaunch
the space ranger, pushes buttons, heats up the engine, closes his visor. As the rocket starts up pick up speed. He presses the hyperspeed buttons and the rock blasts off into warp speed.
Scene 4
high pitched sound almost deafening of being in the warp speed vaccum.
Scene 5
Voicer over on radio
40% hyperspeed achieved
He pushes the lever for more speed.
Voicer over on radio
60% hyper……. and it starts to glitch.
Scene 6
The rocket jet is going haywire and catches fire.
It is about to crash.
Voicer over on radio (glitching)
Warning! Warning!Warning!
The radio is is picking up some frequency.
The rocket flies towards the screen
cut to:
a paper airplane, crashing into a tree.
We track out to show we are in a park and it was a kid trying different paper airplanes.
I’m quite happy with the story and it all depends on the execution. In the next couple of blogs I will try to post the storyboard, animatic and concept arts.
Arsalan Awais 