Steps Completed

Hooray, finished modelling the steps which will be Stella's 'territory'. Still need to texture it. I've tried to reduce to polygon count to the minimum so as to hopefully reduce rendering time =S

Finished two books today as well; 'The Reel World' and 'A Primer to Visual Literacy', so I've got a few more quotes to work into my dissertation.

I'm still working away at Vick the Chick's model - getting there, but this is her so far...not too sure about the beak...kinda makes her look like a puffin so may have to experiment against initial designs...

henpen

Today I learnt how to alpha map, so I've completed modelling Vick's pen and I've started to texture it. I've used alpha mapping for the chicken wire which obviously saves a mountain of time.

It doesn't really show up all that well in this image as its all grey but...its done :) I've just got to finish Stella's environment now and also refine Vicky's model before rigging n stuff.

Dissertation is going ok as well, I've got about a third of it blocked out now. Total waffle which I'm going to have to refine, but all in all its getting there. I'm really panicing about getting everything finished in time to a decent enough quality, but the most I can do is chug away and try just now.

Uber sigh and a half!!!

Thank god!!! Just had a meeting with Paul and after last week's panic attack I'm feeling a LOT better and heaps more focused! After all those failed questions, we fiiiinally agree on one:

"In an ever globalised market where advertisers and entertainment industries and constantly aiming to successfully maximise their target audience, is it possible to communicate inclusively on a global scale through narrative animation?"

I've completed the very rough structure of my dissertation with starter paragraphs for each section, just to get it blocked out so it's not so daunting to work at now.

On the practical side of things I've been working on solely the characters, so recently I've been looking into environment design. I've mainly been looking at Disney examples where the majority of the animations show that the background is much more simplistic so that the viewers attention isn't stolen away from the action however in Sleeping Beauty it shows that the background is actually a lot more intricately detailed than the characters, however despite this the characters do still stand out more as their design is very plain and simplistic. As my character designs are rather simplistic this approach may be the one to follow however I'm going to experiment around to see which looks better.

10 weeks to go =( chug chug chug!

abstract 1st draft - rough rough rough

Just had another meeting with Paul today as yesterdays didn't go too well and I feel I'd taken 2 steps back in my project. However after todays meeting I'm feeling a lot better and much more focused on the project. I showed him a new but very very rough abstract to try and describe what the project is about as it was hard to visualise yesterday:

"Research has shown that by simplifying a character's design to it's most minimilistic form it is possible for it to appeal to a global audience despite cultural differences.
Is it then possible to further develop these principles to produce a narrative animation which would result in having the same response and united understanding? If so what fundamental attributes would be used to do so?"

Now I just need to refine my question to suit this abstract as its currently in the form of:

"Is it possible to establish fundamental principles of expressing both character and narrative through the use of abstracted aural and visual imagery within the context of globally consumed animation?"

Instead of focusing too much on the question just now, Paul has advised me to use the rough abstract as my blue print and to produce a rough layout of my dissertation, perhaps with a few starter paragraphs for each section.

Question...

The amount of research questions I've gone through isn't even funny... however the latest task I've been working on (with a great deal of help from my supervisor) is refining my question. It's weird. I know what I want to say but I'm utterly crap with words, however it is currently in the form of:

"What are the fundamental attributes in conveying a character for a narrative animation to be effective for global distribution?"

....my moogle of a mate Searra suggested furthering my question for more clarity.....so perhaps I could add something liiiike:

"Is it possible to communicate to a worldwide audience using a combination of abstract language such as music, colour, paralanguage etc which would enable anyone to receive a clear, shared understanding of a particular message despite cultural difference, religious beliefs or language barriers."

ponder ponder....comments?

Stella

These are some pics of the initial model for my character 'Stella'. Stella's character is a transvestite peacock, and from these pics you'll see that his design is very stylised and quite abstract. The visuals are following a minimilistic approach and I'm aiming to keep the style as unique as possible as to avoid comparisons to any other work etc.

The conflict I'm having at the moment is determining whether or not Stella's design is too abstract or not abstract enough? I'll have to round up some fresh eyes to see whether it is obvious that he is a peacock or not.

Debut Blog!

As part of my honours project, I've decided to set up my own blog for one way of recording my progress. For my project I'm creating a 3 minute animation and with this I'll be looking into communicating to a global scale audience using minilimist form within visual art as well as music. The reasoning behind this is basically because ideally the most obvious thing to do with my finished animation at the end of the year is to post it online to try and get as many people as possible to view it. The internet is of course the most successful way to communicate to just about anybody and also at an extremely fast rate. So if I'm looking into communicating with the widest range of people, I'm going to have to make sure that they all understand the content despite language barriers, cultural differences, religion etc. I still have to refine my research question as I feel its still a bit hazy and not quite directly on the mark. Currently my question is: "What are the fundamental attributes in conveying a character for a narrative animation to be effective on a global audience?"

I feel this area of research is a rather valuable topic to look into as the majority if not all companys in the advertising and entertainment industries are continualy looking into communicating/appealing to the biggest target audience possible as this would be more cost efficient, and the more understanding they gain as to how to communicate to a global audience, the response should be more successful.

Wafflewafflewaffle...that is all for now I think... =)