Our Findings are Inconclusive

What I Hope it Will Look Like and Some Explainations About Other Things

Howdy.
This is a poorly photoshoped image of what I hope my projection mapping project will look like (at some point in my animation.) I imagine the piece to take place sometime in the future (in a museum exhibit?) where humans will look back at history of the Apollo Lunar missions. BUT! instead of an "accurate" retelling, the truth becomes befuddled with images of science fiction where distinctions between reality and media images is blurred.

Many believe the NASA moon landings to be a hoax, with many conspiracy theorist citing the footage of the Apollo missions as evidence.

It looks like a movie set! 
Where are the stars?
Why is the flag waving when there's no wind?

etc. & etc.

(So they say: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories)

These claims (and many more) have been debunked by NASA and outside organizations, and yet what I find interesting is that the only information the public receives of the moon landings is through a type of media (video/photography) that is in itself steeped in questions over its objectiveness. Both sides claim truth in the footage but of different truths. Unless seen from first-hand experience, all that is filtered through the lens of the media is subjected to some level of manipulation, whether it be news footage, of film. The only difference is how much.

3D projection mapping examples (Must---resist---crumbling---buildings)

After watching sooo many crumbling buildings, here are some examples of 3D projection mapping that I thought used the space really well.

Seaside

Please accuse terrible concept and lack of match moving.

Ajoined Bodies (part II)

Now titled All Together Now.

At the last minute, I made changes to the color and the design of the "structure." I felt that it needed a more geometric look over and the refined look in the smoothness of the joints (triangles?). Looked too much like candy.  

Ajoined Bodies (part I)

Here's a render of a "structure" for my current animation project. Everything is on pretty much the same plane but it's okay because I might have to rig the thing(?)

Yes, I have rudimentary knowledge of physics, but I want to try to mimic the feeling of a kinetic sculpture with this structure in that the movements of one "limb" might influence the movements of another.

Unfortunately, it seems that my structure won't be as elaborate as these beauties:

George Rhoads, Odyssey of the Spheres (2009)

Arthur Ganson, Machine with Cat Whiskers (2008)

Smooth Moves, Two-Legs

A quickie animation. For now, it would appear I can only animate graceless movements. Perhaps time will tell.

On Flatlands

Image from Flatland: The Movie (2007)

Ah! Those Victorians and their . . .  ways.

As a product of its time, "Flatlands" is as much a critique of social class as it is representation of another world in which the means of communication and recognition is dictated by the forms of the inhabitants. By using logic found in mathematics, a shape can deduce another shape's form (is it a triangle, a square, etc.) upon noticing a shape's depth of field and clarity of their side points. It seems everyone in Flatland live in constant fear of either being unable to recognize different shapes of beings--for fear of mingling with an inferior shape or tricked into marrying an irregular--or being impaled by sharp corners. It would not be surprising if they have a hard time telling part a polygonal "man" form a polygonal house.

Apart from fears of sharp corners, there are explicit negative views placed upon the women of Flatland who happen to be sharp dangerous lines. Every fault, every possible overthrow of society, every moment of destruction has the potential to be invoked by a crazy hysterical "line women" and so laws must be made to control them. Why there are no women squares or polygon is beyond comprehension, as does the evolution of the inhabitants of Flatland. Why are there still triangle in Flatland if every generation acquires an additional side to further their rise up the social ladder? Is it possible for a circle to have a triangle for a son?

With the hierarchy of Flatland based of the number of sides a shape (i.e. the more sides one has the higher its class) mirroring the social class structure of the 19th century based on wealth, it can also be noted that preference for the more complex shape and soon the organic and sublime nature of the curve has similarities to preferences developed over the course of western art history. Simple lines used to draw a figure maybe deemed primitive and as art passes though the renaissance and into the 19th century, knowledge of geometry to render a figure accurately gives rise to realism and soon becomes the standard to how art is judged by the masses. Lines were hidden or were secondary. Complex shapes or forms were not. There were even instances where painters were opposition of one another over the use of color with the question that should a painting have its merit be based in its architectural rendering, or the atmosphere and passion evoked by its use of color.

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Odalisque with a Slave 

 

Eugène Delacroix, Death of Sardanapalus

It's Neoclassicism vs. Romanticism, Ingres vs. Delacroix. As in Flatlands, the architectural perfection complies to the austere tastes of the elite during much of the early 1800s.

Goat Does a Flip

It took me a while to get the swing of things, with animating in Blender and it being my second attempt and all. What I found the most time consuming was the fine tuning I had to do to achieve a sense of gravity during the flip and wobbly bits. Looking at it now, I think the goat's head swings forward too far in some parts, making the goat have a weird little hump around the neck area. It both looks sort of natural and overly exaggerated at the same time (sigh).


Thank you, Muybridge for this:

I could never do a flip myself, so this was very helpful.

On Fantasia

Assignment for ARTD472 in response to the film Fantasia (1940):

• What are FIVE of the most timeless, effective and purely artistic uses of animation that you have seen in this work?

1) The synchronicity movement of the image in relation to sound
2) Portrayal of concepts through abstraction
3) A conveyance of depth space through transformation and distortion
4) The manipulation of with color fields through time.
5) Visibility of given medium (ie: painterly qualities)



• Name three aspects to the animation that are LEAST relevant, useful or effective in light of today's animation techniques/tools.

1) The use of the multiplane camera for zooms and illusion of a 3-d effect. (as seen in the Ave Maria sequence . . . we have computers now)
2) Panning through one large background when tracking a character (it saves time but the scene can end up feeling half static)
3) Magnification of one portion of a larger scene to achieve zoom (again another time saver but detail  do not change as the "camera" zooms in or out)


To be honest, I feel that all techniques of animation's past are still relevant. It just depends on the concept and intention of the creator.

In terms of practicality, now that's another matter . . .