Lifes a Pitch

For our VR cinema as part of our collective I have CG modelled and textured the cinema scene;

This includes a simple array of cloth fold up seats and some stairs.

I spent a lot of attention in getting the seats high res because with VR every fault is detected easy.

I then did some VR testing and here is the result of my tests;

It works great! I will now upload the project folder so other members of my collective can add lighting and curtains.

Leeds Young Film Festival

This easter weekend I volunteered at Leeds Young Film Festival!

I was rotared in for Friday Saturday Sunday and even Monday, the whole duration of the festival! 2 days in the VR Zone and 2 days in the Animation Central...

However that soon changed!

When put with the Tilt Brush in the VR zone on Friday because I knew so much about Vives and the programme itself I was able to be loads of help when it came to technical problems... So much help infact the co-ordinator switched me over onto VR again on the saturday instead of Animation Central, which I was very happy about because It was great being in the VR zone giving people experiences for the first ever time in VR, it was special watching peoples reactions.

It was also a brilliant social experiment seeing how people responded to the tools...

Seeing how many people changed the environment, what people drew and how many tested all the brush presets to start off with...

A common theme for people to do was just to select all the brushes in the first 5 minutes and just go mad. Then I saw people drawing rainbows, rainbows was a common theme. 

People liked fire, bright neon strips, stars, anything that glowed...

Many people created candy floss unicorn style worlds... Bright colours and all neon.

A few artists came in with an aim of what to draw and got crafting away creating great 3D sculptures.. many were just amateurs who wanted to try it out for the first time and have a laugh.

We had a wide demographic of people young to old so It was great seeing how everyone approached it.

For the sunday I was whisked away from the VR Zone to Animation Central where I got involved in a SFX workshop with David Bunting...

But I went back over to the VR Zone in my lunch break to see if all hell had broken loose without me where I got told they were inches away from ringing me in the morning because of problems, they were over the moon to have me back on the Monday !

Through being so involved with the VR, this new piece of tech no one new so much about besides a few of the co-ordinators, I built a good relationship with the co-ordinators that I hope will carry through to next year when fingers crossed I can be of aid in the VR developments once more!

I was actually sad to leave the festival!

I really really really enjoyed it, especially most of all the VR! Being so passionate about something shines through and I think thats what many of the co-ordinators saw which is why they wanted me back to help on the saturday and sunday.

We suffered a few technical glitches purely because of the fact the sensors were too close, but no one was to learn that before actually testing, it was just a shame that testing was on the day, but we have learnt now for next year! Where Debbie (the leader of the festival) discussed some bigger greater plans for the VR Zone next year with me.

With my passionate approach to the VR, even through times when people were experiencing glitches, people still were happy and left that way with a good visage of the festival.

My efforts were commended on the co-ordinator Rob Martins twitter feed afterwards;

Which I was really happy about.

I also have emailled Debbie to keep in contact as she mentioned future VR developments she would like me on the board for.

I cant express enough how great an experience this was for me. I have formed new contacts and fingers crossed even established a work connection with Ralph Shephard working on an independant CG animation film of his.

I will be applying next year for sure...

ANIMVR Beta Testing

I recently came across this app for VR which allows you to produce frame by frame animation in 3 dimentional space. I am very excited about this, this is what I have been waiting for and felt was lacking in the Tilt Brush.

I have signed up for the beta version and cant wait to start testing it out.


I also came across this other video;






I found this video really inspiring and relatable as Joe Daniels describes my exact feelings towards VR in its relation to animation through a sentimental story about his daughter who wished to join the girl on the swing.. I really loved this story as it really demonstrated the immersive nature of VR and the possibilities as a result, the tangibility of characters, their very essence and life existing infront of you, they are real and relatable.....how you can play with this as an animator. Daniels compares the fact that his daughter never asked anything like that with all his other animations, simply because she isnt as immersed, for the first time she believed that this girl was real, devaluing the immersive nature of regular animations on a flat screen.

This app also revolutionises the process of animating itself. Not only does VR have the potential to make characters tangible but it also makes the medium itself tangible, with ANIMVR your lines exist in 3D space meaning you can manipulate them in the world around you. No clicking a mouse and dragging, no creating rubber shavings, you can grab your lines and move them how you please, like scultures your drawings have a physical presence and give you a feeling of artistry omnipotence. What enthused me too about this element is how you can draw curves of motion and have them play out a motion in realtime ready for you to draw ontop of in realtime too. Drawing in realtime isnt possible with any other medium of animation, this is a game changer, get me into that headset!!!

CG Modelling for VR height map app

My partner who I partnered with to create a game app with over summer is now coding his own VR terrain height manipulator.

Using the Vive headset and controllers he has coded a game to sculpt the terrain, this could be useful for architects, builders, people who deal with geography and landscape.

VR is such a new thing that It's hard to find help for certain issues, so I think my partner has done amazing to create such a revolutionary new thing that I haven't seen any variation of ever before.

He plans to show it off at a Game Republic meeting in June!

He asked if I could potentially make some assets for him seen as I know a lot about CG modelling, I jumped at the opportunity!

He wanted both a gun and a light sabre handle, something Portal-esque;

So I got designing;

I felt it would be great if the purpose of the gun reflected its aesthetic, so I was inspired by the terrain curves, the up and down curves his gun makes upon the earth.

I also had to incorporate Vives handle for the controller seen as thats what the user will be holding and interacting with so it needs to match up of course.

Here are my final models;

He was over the moon with them !

I even created a little logo for him. He also really liked the colours, the black/grey, white and blue.

Cant wait to see them in action inside his VR!!

**EDIT 3RD MAY**

My collaborator has finished his game and here are some of the pics of my gun in action:

It looks awesome. He's gone for a nice simple lighting system which really works, it looks effective and the texture is really nice. The gun and environment coexist well. Can't wait to try it out!

Here is the app in action;

Studio Brief 3 -Lifes a Pitch

For Lifes a pitch I feel I have joined a very strong collective. 

Grace

Craig

Dan

Eleanor

Me

Between us have very different art styles, but one main goal of wanting to get our work out there, from concept to animation, from frame to frame.

As a collective we created a mission statement;

Frame to Frame provides a platform for animation students to showcase their work, both online and through physical exhibition. As a collective we believe that animation is often marginalised as an art form - Frame to Frame is passionate about educating the public and other artists about the processes of animation production and the exciting possibilities of the medium. Through playful and interactive exhibition Frame to Frame aim to gain more public and professional exposure for their work, showcasing all forms and stages of animation production, ranging from traditional concept art to virtual reality (VR).

We designed a variety of logos;

We decided to use this logo for our pitch presentation but we werent happy with using it for our final logo, we still feel it needs a little something more to make it pop.

As a collective we plan to exhibit in studio 24.

For the presentation I created a CG graphic of what we plan to showcase.

We plan to create a VR cinema with a screen showcasing 2 of our animation shorts, and a book showing some of our design work.

This exhibit shows both the process of animation from concept to final production and also the evolution of animation itself, from hand-drawn to now 360 VR. We hope the utilisation of VR will also intrigue interest in our exhibit and therefore more exposure.

OUR PRESENTATION