Federico Marchesi: BA3

Showing posts with label BA3. Show all posts

When making the texture for the backdrop and floor I used the offset filter in photoshop to make the edges blend seemlessly.
For all my other objects I used the Polygon>snapshot tool in maya to create the outline for my texture and then used photoshop effects like.
To create the turntable movie I followed this guide (http://www.jawa9000.com/Technical/turntable/turntable.htm) and then instead of using after effects I used photoshop to compile all the rendered images into a .mov file.

When trying to render a test frame from my scene I came across an error that seems to only happen when using maya software rendering.
Some of my objects had no shaders assigned to them, I'm not entirely sure what this means but apparently it has something to do with when I assigned a material to them. I tried again with maya hardware rendering and I didn't have this problem again.
The only problem now is that I can't seem to get any real shadows to cast properly, I have varying shades on the actual object but the intensity of light behind the object doesn't change at all.

There are white lines that appear on the roots that aren't actually there on the texture, I'm not sure as to what's causing this issue.

CS - The role of robots in eastern/western culture.

Animism plays a key role in how the east has such an accepting policy on robots in their culture, this ancient belief that all objects have a spirit enables them to trust anything be it a robot, person, animal or rock to some degree.
This contrasts with the west's belief that only god can give life, so anything man-made will definitely not inherit any kind of personable features. It will be cold and lifeless, regardless of how well it behaves and how impressive it's disguise, no one will trust it as much as an easterner.
The west researches military applications for robots where as Japan researches much more heavily on the every day application of robots. The west prefer robots to be able to emotionally express themselves effectively where as the east doesn't care so much about whether they can do it realistically but care more about the actions they take and read into those for the emotional intent, despite there being none.

Having talked to people who watch anime quite avidly I rounded down my research into a few animes that feature robots and robotic themes.
I watched the entire series of Time of Eve (Ivu no Jikan) which essentially covers all bases of what he think the east and west represent when it comes to robot culture.
There are characters who don't trust or want anything to do with robots and there are people that absolutely love them and use them for companions. They have their own derogatory term for an android-holic which is Dori Kei. An android-holic will treat an android as though it were another person. Within the show there is a political group who are actively against this kind of behaviour. I think the use of androids in eastern culture is far more acceptable than in the west, because they actively research how to make androids more intelligent and lifelike in behaviour, where as in the west we aren't doing anything of the sort. The furthest we've come with any kind of human-like android application was when Disney created a robotic Einstein.
Within the show there are robots that are quite clearly robots, undisguised with metallic bodies, but there are also much more modern versions that are completely identical to a typical person appearance, the only way you know they're a robot is by the holographic halo above their heads. This plays a key role in the show as they enter places known as grey-zones where they are allowed to turn their halos off and behave as though they are humans to better their understand of us.

This series uses the 3 laws written by Isaac Asimov, that a robot must:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

These laws have been used in spirit in many productions. I, robot explores these laws in depth from a westerners point of view in a world where they are accepted by the majority. He's right to distrust the robots for the most part but one who has a mind of his own unlike any of the other robots gains the leads trust to overthrow the seemingly evil master computer that controls robots to seek out and destroy the lead as he is seen as a threat.

In both cases the laws were upheld by the robots but they took drastically different actions. One where humans would be locked away for their own good, and the other viewing that as oppression and an infringement of freedom.

No such disaster is present in Time of Eve but it certainly has very strong opinions on either side of the argument as to whether robots can be trusted, concluding with the opposite outcome to i, robot that they can be trusted and the morality circuits function perfectly well.

--Edit--

I'm now using Lee's research for the presentation, giving the research I've done to Aaron to support his part in the presentation.

This is a short clip from Time of Eve I recorded to support one of our points but didn't put in the presentation as it was quite long.

These are the sketches I've made for my metroid styled doorway.

Before these I made a few other sketches of things that I didn't carry forward into this design.

An origami like folding door would have been interesting to animate, but it just looked far too complicated and didn't keep in with the metroid style I had commited to.

The bottom image is of various door designs, I kept trying to think of different ways a door could function.
Bottom left - shutter like design
Bottom middle - swivelling panels that also shift outwards
Right - a magnetic sort of spinning door in the style of these toys

Top - opening shell, dome like for missile resistance.

Architecture research

Architecture I've found interesting in games.

Mirrors edge has some of my favourite architecture, and graphic design for that matter. It's clean, sleek and cool. Vibrant colours contrasting with the incredibly sterile environment are very refreshing breaks from the monotony of the strictly regulated city-scape.
The DLC takes the abstract side of the art works through out the game to an extreme. Entire time trial levels are made from coloured blocks floating in a crisp blue sky. The lack of a real context makes these levels incredibly surreal and some times disorientating.

Hard Reset too is set in a city but a far more grotty one. The whole mood of the game is much darker as a result of the rough weather and midnight setting. The buildings are often partly destroyed or derelict and have a distinctly old fashioned look about them. Nothing in this city is pleasant apart from the digital displays.

The Metroid Prime series have some really quite lovely level design. The ruins look incredibly old and lived in. Specifically I thought that the actual design of most doors was quite cool, but it didn't quite conform to the rest of the feel of the game, at least in my opinion any way. Playing through the games it felt odd that such a ruined place could still have incredibly clean and polished fully functioning electrical doors. I think that some of the other doors like in some of the puzzles actually felt more authentic and fitting to their environment.
I loved how a lot of the environments had glowing blobs and plant life wriggling through all the cracks of the structures. It gave the environment a life of it's own.

Painkiller has some grande buildings with wide expansive spaces to fight off hordes of enemies. The architectural style reminds me of brutalism in some buildings. It's another game with ruins, but these are of arenas and temples that are found in real life, unlike the structures in MP.

This isn't part of the task but I think I'll take some of Gaudi's ideas and try to apply them to my designs. I hope they give it some sort of intrigue and a solid feel. One of my pet peeves is things not seeming to be as strong as they are, so hopefully working with Gaudis principles of using the shapes of nature to produce a structure I can make my door at least look realistically stable.