Video Blogg on You Tube

I have set up a preliminary video blogg on the YOU TUBE website. Its simple and is only the old renders from when I was rendering in Quick Time.

Go here to have a look here

Starting up with finishing the project

Since I got the computer to my adress here in Norway I have had disturbing problems related to the same issues I had before. Some of the scenes are very difficult to create in a manner that looks like the same level of quality as the other scenes. Movement is another issue that requires more details and movabilleties in the scelegons of the characters. But I managed quite well to create walkpath for the characters now than last time. After resizing the characters so they could show their expressions again all the scenes set up with old setups is not usable anymore so I have to set up all scenes again. This is alot of extrawork and I am getting a bit bored of the whole thing. The very strange difference with MACs and PCs here is the rendering process. On the G5s it was smoothely easy to render in Quick Time MOV format while on the PC I have now its much more safer with Windows MediaPlayer AVI format. It seems to have a kernel secret in both the operative systems leaning agains a OSX based for the .MOV or WXP based for the .AVI render for each format. Since I now now alot about how to create a 3D film and how to model in Lightwave I feel I personally have accomplished what I was mostly after. I have managed to create a storyboard, created the characters and modelled the characters in 3D made facial expressions with Morphing. I have also put my mind into how to create a 3D scelegon for the movement of the character and know the most of the problems with making a good animation. I also found that animation and scelegon creation is not my kind of work its abit to tideous and is something I would make others do. Another thing is that I dont really have the goal of becoming ananimator out of this but more a designer/illustrator with a deep knowledge about animation and 3D modelling. It will guaranteed come to use later and it will only be a benefit. What I see making in the future is probably 3D character animation for TV ads and WEB ads and maybe some short films in 3D for another animation festival. After I am finished with this MA I will still work on this project from time to time and eventually get finished. But if I do so I will do it in a way where things look more like a proper animationfilm as in The Incredibles, Hoodwinle, Polar Express and many others. There will be more details about all this in my dissertation that will be submitted in September.

Changing the characters

When I created the characters for the Amazoon City Project I modelled the characters in different sizes unfortunately. I also set Morphs on the facial expressions on all the characters. When importing the characters to the animation mode the charcters has different sizes. I tried to scale them to the same size but the characters just scaled back again to the original scale again! This lead me to going back to the modeller and change the scales of the characters there. So when importing them into the layout mode they where the same size. But another problem came up instead. I wasnt aware of this until may 2006 about this. When using the morphs in the layout so the animation couøld be rendered. The Morphs exploded and became unusable. I found about this and was told that I could just scale back the characters in Modeler.

Writing the dissertation

I found some books about color and another one about fiber optic transmittion of light and power. There are several colorsystems. Mainly german and american colorsystems has been in the development since the beginning of the 19th century. And this has developed into the digital age and the making of visual systems today. One main difference from traditional surface colorsystem to digital colorsystems is that the digital systems makes all the colors from any of the traditional systems in the monitorstandard called RGB (Read Green and Blue)

Not feeling good about my visual status

I have now struggled and worked with alot of problems around and with 3D modelling and animation this 10 months since september 2005. But I feel I havent accomplished as I wanted. David Holmes refferred to me that the movment in the animations needed to be better. I agree with David about that. But movement is a complex task in it self. It is an issue that only has references outside the 3D technology itself. I as an animator has to do all movement properly or at least better in order to feel better about this animation. But this is not all. There are also issues in relation to the software itself. For example the plasma liquid ball scene is a good scene as long as all the scenes had had a similar outlook on the plasma liquid ball. But it doesnt it looks different in each scene. I have done all texture settings and test with texture settings as similar as possible in all the scenes wich regards to the plasma liquid ball but its still different. Another issue is the movement of the characters. I have used some weightmaps but also have had problems with morphing. Luckily John Fox informed me that the reason for the missform of the facial morphings is because I had resized the characters after putting the morphings on. Morphing uses as we know points to value the movement from and those point are exactly the same even if you resize the model. So I am now able to fix that without the biggest problem. But I feel I have alot left. Rendering is another issue I also want to issue. I may call you from Norway ans maybe will ask some of you to help me render on my selected workstation if thats OK. I have set up a Video Blogg on Google Video
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=antonsen
That is my first upload to Google

The contents of the dissertation

I have been informed to not have a to wide issued dissertation but a more deep going dissertation this time. I will specialice within texturing, color and modelling. This means on the traditional scale as well as on the modern digital scale! The 16 point 7 million colors that is the digital range of the rainbow the human eye can see is the issuer of themes feelings and also change in the way we see the model. The amount of light that give the color more or less power when directed on an object/model is also aport of in what range we will assosiate this model to. In it self it tells something when color and light hits an object with different range of strength and colors. The shape is another issue but shape also gets different associations in different lightintensity and colors.

First ref to the dissertation

I have just started to find references for the dissertation. Some of the basics of my research will refere back to my childhood and what kind of inspiration I have had since I was 4 years old. I was taken to the movie by my father on my birthday in 1975 to see the Pinchcliffe Grand Prix (Flaaklypa Grand Prix) This is a film written and storyboarded by Kjell Aukrust and modelled by the Italian Ivo Caprino. Kjell Aukrust and Ivo Caprino was an animation team from all the way back to 1948. They where mainly making animation films for the Norweigian Broadcasting NRK and has been and still are a main inspirator for children on childrens TV and radio. They used mostly stories based on old mythical stories from Asbjornsen og Moe. The stories from Asbjornsen og Moe is the hart of Norway since the early middle ages. Asbjoernsen og Moe went to different farmers and counts to hear about different hymns and stories that the parent usually told their children. (Around in the 18th century) Or stories that maybe also where of an more adult nature. Asbjornsen og Moe has been filtered and are today seen as the adventourous stoies of Espen Askeladden (Espen the Ashtrayrubbler). All of those stories was always about Espen Askeladden and his path to get the princess and the half of the kingdom. And it always ended well in a strange way. The evil always lost and Espen always won by using peacful tricks and using his head instead of being violent. But it was with alot of fantasy.
Go to these two websites for more information about that
www.caprino.no
www.aukrust.no
http://www.av-senteret.no/nettskolen/kurs/eventyr/asb_moe.htm
This should be alot of information to use sa a begginging of the research for the dissertation.