F**K you maya

I am finding this so hard and annoying and annoying and annoying.


how to - import images from your 'sourceimages' folder into maya

making a cube and wrapping a texture around it from photoshop

heres the map of the cube (the net) then you find an image you want

also invert the colours so its black lines on a white background - it's easier to see

when you've found the images copy and paste into photoshop putting the images in the right place and make them the right size.

then you must do technical things in maya which i cant remember at the minute cause im crap, but yeah i will have to figure it out... AGAIN.

Next maya lesson - 

to scale something and wanting to keep the height or width of one side - hold ctrl and click the one you want to keep then scale

below again - extrude the polygon by hold ctrl and dragging where you like

modeling an actual object - 

open images in photoshop from where ever you saved them

would be best to make a file on the desktop.

make sure rulers are on, move rulers to around the object 

copy and paste to new doc

REMEMBER this time - save to sourceimages folder so you can find everything in your maya file.

open your image in maya it will come out like this below, you have to move it out of the

way of your object first and to work better from it.

when thats done, it should look like this on the perspective view. 

Turn cameras off so they dont get in the way of your viewing way.

REMEMBER - when creating your objects turn xray on so you can see your object better.

BELOW- one of the many ways to - insert edge loop tool

REMEMBER BELOW - when deforming something (like a sphere for example)

make sure your in animation mode, (top left hand corner)

how to deform something

this helps when deforming (not sure why)

but yeah, just do it.

select both of these by holding shift and clicking then press P (parent it)

change the factor - this changes its size etc

REMEMBER - duplicate instead of copy and paste!!

This is how far i got on the toy one. I've been on this for hours now and im just finding it too difficult.

I don't like the fact that it's coloured im finding it harder than doing a black and white image.

I'll come back to this when i feel like i have more experience with Maya.

how to bevel something

offset- makes the bevel bigger or smaller. how many regiments are in something you can change them

another way to insert edge loop tool - (then you can put in how many you want manually too)

i think this is probs the best way

TIP - double click to select all of an edge. hold shift and double click another edge to select all of that too

PPP - What is an evaluation?

Bridget took us through writing evaluations for this lecture, i made sure i wrote down everything she said cause i do think im ok at writing essays but i know that i need to use bigger words and be more professional at writing to get higher marks and get me ready for the creative industry's.

She made so very good point's like -

• DON'T ISSUME - always revert back to the brief
• Be honest
• Make comparisons  
• LANDMARKS - (main points - beginning, middle and end)
• Describe
• Quote
• Compare
• Impact

Using this small list of bullet points you can structure a very strong evaluation where everything is included and analysed.

She showed us a few diagrams too which have helped me a lot like the one below.

A simple case of thinking before you start writing.

She then moved on to talk about language and learning styles. She asked us to figure out what style you think is your's. I worked mine out as DOING (and writing a little bit.) Personally i find screen shooting very helpful - this is doing, writing and a picture.
Another few good points that she made were -

• ORGANISE YOUR THOUGHTS
• STRENGTHS, WEAKNESS'S
• DO IT ALL IN ONE GO
• USE KEY EVENTS AS HEADINGS
• UPGRADE YOUR LANGUAGE

Lastly she showed us another diagram (at the bottom of 2nd page) that told us how many words of parts we showed have to make up a 1,000 word evaluation as an example. This has really helped me to organise my thoughts and plan my essay before jumping straight into it. 

Research and planning help a lot with writing essays and i've taken a lot away from this lecture - Now i just have to apply what I've learnt to every single one. 

alfred hitchcock - film theory 1 ( the auteur)

The auteur basically means that the director has absolute control over everything. The lighting, the story, the clothes, every aspect of the film. They strive to create something absolutely original, they often start the conventions of genre, but do not follow them. For this first film theory lecture we looked at Alfred Hitchcock, he's probably the best example of an auteur, a genius in film making. Everything he does is just brilliant, he was born to do this. 

He had a great style did Hitchcock, dark and twisted, he liked to put absolute fear into every person who watched his film (even little children cause he was scared of them)

He had sort of a signature in his films where he would always have the victim as a blonde woman, even if the woman started off with brown or black hair and transformed into a woman with blonde hair, the way he did it was just amazing. I recommend watching Vertigo the special effects used in it for the time (dolly zoom, subjective camera shots etc...) 

He also used Voyeurism which is using colour to express something in the film, like in vertigo he uses the colour green to show the link between madeline and Judy. Everything the auteur does is for a reason.

Here's a video we were shown in the lecture it just shows how involved and creative the auteur is, personally i think Hitchcock knew what he was on about and created some monumental films that will never be forgotton. Film's today are just made to make money most directors just want a hit and pay day, there's not a lot of directors that care about the film over the money. 

Bring back the auteur! 

Here's my notes from the lecture- 

lecture film theory 2 - French new wave cinema

Things to do over Christmas

organisation - making a list for everyone to do stuff over christmas

montage research

So we looked around to find some good montage research and there was this video that we saw from a lecture. It gives me goosebumps. It's just that good.
It's Charlie Chaplins Speech where a guy has photo and video montages on images to it. The editing is fantastic and everything fits with the music and to what Charlie is saying. It's one of the best montages i've ever seen and the speech is not bad either.

how to video research

I looked around into how to videos and instructional videos to look at what camera angles and techniques they use. I found a few crap ones and a few ok. have a look.

my fav :)

stop motion research - i put this in here cause it's animation :)

One of my roles in the group was to make the stop motion animation so i started to research bait more into it cause i haven't done it in a few years. I found a few simple how to video's each making a few good points to the equipment you need and the lighting etc...

yeah this one below is totally basic but i just put it up to show how stop motion animation works basically.

I put this one up below cause it goes bait more into depth about lighting and making a few good points even thought the video and music is shockingly done.

Your gonna wanna mute the vid.

From these i knew the equipment i was going to need. 

• A tripod 
• An SLR
• A black cover
• 2 professional lights
• My made props, (pillars and book) 

Also see below the notes i took from Matt's powerpoint presentation on stop motion animation. He went into it in depth talking about all the different types of sep motion it was really interesting and i'm defo gonna try different styles next time i do stop motion.

viking research

So we wanted to get the research right and also have fun watching lots of viking films :) so we watched a few episodes of a game of thrones. In this it showed the costumes vikings would have worn the patterns and textures of pillars and buildings. What they sounded like. Here's a clip from youtube, it's a really good show i recommend it.

In my spare time i also watched some other movies that would help with research. Thor was a good one to watch as Odin's in it we based some of the costume of this. I also watched Outlander and the 13th warrior which are awesome and show the way they lived and what they lived in etc... Here's some clips.

Thor

Outlander

The 13th warrior

I've posted two more on the 13th warrior below because it's just a brilliant film, one of my favourites. From start to finish it's just so good, every time i see bits of it i just wanna watch the whole thing.

Here's a language scene. You tell em Antonio Bandajdbjbjnve :D

prayer scene

Also looked at a few games for research skyrim and viking proved to be useful. 

Skyrim had great sounds and music references. There is lots of norse chants and language in skyrim. Viking was good for costumes and lifestyle too. 

Here's the theatrical trailer too that bethesda created for the tv

good for our research

and lastly here's the viking game.

group work - video responses - initial ideas

Here's the poem's we chose and the lines we focused on -
1st poem -
Razia Afzal

Sulking Winds

'I see the dead man’s shadow as he speaks with the voice of Odin; as the winds ravish to chime, he splits into partial sublime.'

2nd poem - 

Zenam Bi

Simplicity

'Modernisation, politics, man-made social landscapes, with no room for nature.

No room for your thoughts to think beyond what they create.

Imagination has no open fields to play in.'

'Why can’t I enjoy the stillness, grasp this beauty,'

Ideas - 1st poem

for the first poem we found a line that we liked straight away - 'with the voice of Odin' ...
Norse mythology is awesome (well, all mythology is) :) so we knew we wanted to do something norsey. So we messed around with a few ideas, animation of odin, a story from mythology, Luca dressed as odin.
yeah! that one. So we knew we wanted Luca to dress up as Odin and we made up a storyboard to incorporate this into it. I thought we could use a book to tell the story and then pillars would come out of the book to form Odin's throne room where Luca would be sat.
So andy drafted up a storyboard of a guy finding a book, pillars come to life, guy is in the presence of odin, odin chants, pillars crumble, then the guy is back to where he was before.

Idea's - 2nd Poem

The second one we picked lines that showed that people don't stop to see the beauty anymore. We thought to do at first a photomontage of images that would show good and bad things and sights. Then we changed it to videos of things so we could edit more and the brief didn't ask for photo's really, it should be a video. So we started to research into montages and things that make people think and feel different about a certain subject by watching something pretty and how that prettiness is being destroyed.

So we thought of pretty things we could film - like clouds, stars, flowers etc...

and bad things like - people rushing, littering, bad weather etc...

I had a good idea for time lapses and a split screen effect to edit in showing the reality and expectations of things like in 500 days of summer. The time lapses would show how many people rush by too, not to mention it looks good so we put those into it and began to think of even more ideas and things we could put in.