Canon 7D

I recently bought a canon 7D with an 18-135mm lens + a 50mm lens. I will be using this camera for external projects outside of Uni, I want to experiment both with film and photography. I want to mostly focus on VFX both in film and photo, so I will be using a lot of photoshop and after effects, I will also look into experimenting with magic bullet. I watched a few videos that have been shot using the 7D and I was really impressed with the quality to say it is coming from a DSLR! I believe it is the second best in it's category, being beaten by the Canon 5D. I've research some artsy videos on Vimeo and YouTube and also looked a the quality of it's stills on Tumblr.


Below is a Video shot with a Canon 7D 

F.E.A.R. 2 Project Origin

Recently I've been playing a game called Fear 2 On the ps3 console. In my point of view I reckon it's series is one of the scariest games in the market right now.  
The plot to this sequel of the first F.E.A.R. continues the supernatural suspense story of the supernatural girl called Alma, whose rage against those who wronged her causes an escalating paranormal crisis that threatens to devour and replace reality with her own. Instead of playing as the Point Man, the game's protagonist is Michael Becket, a Delta Force operator whose squad is sent in to take Genevieve Aristide into protective custody approximately thirty minutes before the ending of F.E.A.R.
Through out the game you're puzzled with Alma's presence, even playing the game at broad daylight causes me to pause it and check my surroundings. I would not recommend anyone to play this alone at night unless you've got the heart and guts for it. Some people say the game is actually scarier than paranormal activity. The suspense and the horror is immense, the gameplay is solid and the controls feel responsive. It is not as repetitive as most FPS games because I always find myself enjoy the shoot outs with the enemy. After I finish this game i'm looking forward to playing the third installment. 


Below is the trailer to the game

Video Game High School (VGHS)

Video Game High School is a brand new feature length episode that shows on YouTube produced and directed by Freddy Wong & his film partner Brandon. It is a higher budget project than what they usually do. Freddiew are an amazing free lance VFX crew, they have received over £400,000,000 views on you tube, if you couldn't read that properly its four hundred million views, they are a you tube partner so therefore an estimate of how much they've earned from those views alone is just below £500,000. They mentioned on an interview with Jimmy Kimmel that they use the money to increase the budget on new projects, thus bringing out VGHS.
VGHS has received over 2 million views in a week of it's release date and the trailer receiving 3 million, proving to be already doing well and earning lot of fans, I myself being one of them.


Below is the trailer to the episode & the actual episode. Enjoy

PPP Presentation

This is the presentation I had to present at the lecture theater, basically it breaks down what I liked and disliked during the 1st year of my studies, I managed to narrow it down to just under a minute and a half. Enjoy

Copyright Issues/Copyright Matters

What is intellectual property?

• Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of your mind: 
• inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce. 
• Films, games, paintings, photographs, fashion designs, recipes even.

In order for a third person to use IP, permission has to be requested, some IP owners would let you use it for an amount of fee, some let you use it for free, depending on how their property will be perceived by the viewers. 

What are IPs?

• Patents
• Trade marks
• Registered designs
• Copyright

How long do patents last?

• Patents - max 20 years 
• Trademarks and Logos – for ever – 
• Renew every 10 years 
• Design Rights 
• Up to 25 years 
• Renew every 5 years 
• Copyright 
• Until 70 years after death

This lecture was an eye opener because infringing a copyrighted property can lend you into a lot of trouble, some people have been fined up to £250 000 and some have even faced imprisonment. The owner of Mega-upload is on an ongoing trial and it is thought that he may get 20 years in prison, for uploading tones of blockbusters movies and tv shows all for free of charge. He's made money over the years through advertisement, as his site was one of the most popular in the world.

Social Media Success

This lecture was about how social networking is desperately important and how it could help a person get recognised. 


Social Media platforms help people network.

• Facebook can be used for finding friends 
• Finding like minded creatives 
• Communicating with friends and colleagues
• Organising events 

What is Twitter?

Twitter is like an open platform text messaging service, more of an information network rather than a social network. It lets you tell your followers about stuff that interests you 140 characters at a time.

What is Linked In?

• Platform
• For Business
• Directory & links
• Skills, services and expertise
• Testimonials and recommendations

What is MySpace?

• Social entertainment
• Connecting people to the music, celebrities, TV, movies and games that they love
• Nowadays its more for musicians

What is Flickr?

• Photographer
• Subject
• Groups

What is Slide-share?

• Host and share presentations
• Synchronies an MP3 audio file (podcast) to create a slide cast
• Resource site of presentations

This lecture helped me create a typography about Social Networking, I researched more of this information Online

The link to the typography I made is below

Comics to Movies

I'm currently subscribed to to a You Tube channel called 'ThnkAboutTheInk', this channel uploads a lot of webisodes about comics before they became movies. They critically analyse major character that we now enjoy on our cinema screen. What I enjoy about it is that you find information you never new about the character development and the story what exactly happened to most characters we think we know. The people on this channel know the character bio's from the 1st issue of the comic books


The following video explores and analyses Anne Hathaway as Cat woman on The Dark Knight Rises







This one explores and analyses Tom Hardy as Bain on The Dark Knight Rises

Network (Motion Graphics)

I recently watched a video on vimeo called 'Network', this is a combination of animation and voice acting. The animation was done using software called Cinema 4D and the colour grading was done on Adobe AE. This video could easily be converted into a 3D video as the motion graphics move towards the screen in a 3D motion, I enjoyed this a lot, this is something I'm willing to look more into. Enjoy the video

Cyriak (Animator)

During one of our lectures, we were told an animator was invited to come and have a talk with us. The animator is known as Cyriak and yes that is his real name. He has a weird style in animation, most professionals in the industry would judge him as not being that much of a serious animator but he's taken his individuality to to a place where he is now noticed. He has a large number of viewers on you tube and his clientele is always full. He's shown us some of his work and these are the ones i enjoyed.

3 PlayStation 2 Games You should Play!

This below is the list of the 3 PlayStation games you should play, personally these are my favorite games I enjoyed during the PS2 era and the list is in no apparent order.

• Grand Theft Auto San Andreas - anyone who has played this games, knows that they're time was awesome. It has a vast amount of environment to explore, the story line is gripping and the game-play is amazing, i don't think they'll ever be another like this one. Plenty of game developers have tried to replicate what was done here and none has come even close

• Shadow of the Colossus -  The game's storyline focuses on a young man named Wander who enters a forbidden land. Wander must travel across a vast expanse on horseback and defeat sixteen massive beings, simply known as colossi, in order to restore the life of a girl named Mono. The game was re-released as a HD classic, to be played on the PS3 systems.

• Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - The story is set in the Cold War-era Soviet Union, the story centers on FOX operative Naked Snake as he attempts to rescue a weapons designer and sabotage an experimental super-weapon. The game was highly rated and it is one of my favorites. 

Presentations

On this lecture, we learnt 5 steps to creating perfect presentations. Presentations are different from evaluations, there are important step to creating one.


What is a presentation? Is it about

• A communication
• Tell them
• Introduce a new idea to them
• Show them
• Explain it to them
• Share a problem & ask the audience what they think
• Explain the research & reveal your opinion
• A documentary with evaluation

It isn't, a presentation is about the people you're presenting to. 90% of presentations are bad because they too much information to read. The text on the screen should be as little as possible, clip art and low res images are also a no no as they give an impression that you do not know what you're doing or you did not put enough time into your work. Bullet points can be very boring, so instead a video can capture a lot of attention and it is the best way to get the message across. 

Keeping the presentation as simple as possible is important, the simpler the better, but not too simple. Keep your slides at a maximum of 10, people get easily bored. Do quality research and prepare.

Creative Sectors & Services

The three industry sectors

• The primary sector, extraction and harvesting of natural resources 
• The secondary sector, processing, manufacturing and construction 
• The tertiary sector, knowledge and services

There are also these sectors

1st sector
public sector = publically owned or state owned; example = local government, NHS etc 

2nd Sector
private sector = privately owned and usually run for profit

3rd sector
voluntary, charity, community owned businesses not for profit distribution. Examples include RSPCA, NSPCC, etc 

The creative Industries 

•  Advertising
•  Architecture
•  Arts and Antique markets
•  Crafts
•  Design
•  Designer Fashion
•  Film Video and photography
•  Software, computer games and electronic publishing
•  Music and the visual and performing arts
•  Publishing
•  Television
•  Radio

Software, computer games and electronic publishing and  Film Video and photography usually fall under 2nd sector, which is known as the private sector. These can be companies such as Future publishing, Red sharkTV, Sony Playstation etc

•TSOs  are the third sectors

•It includes voluntary and community organisations
•Professional associations
•self-help groups and community groups
•social enterprises,
•mutuals and co-operatives.

How Do The Creative Industries Work?

There are 6 sectors in the creative industry and these consist of

• Games, Software development & online publishing 
• Advertising & Marketing
• Television, film, radio & Photography
• Visual Arts 
• Architecture 
• Design
• Publishing
• Music & Performing Arts 

The amount of people in the whole of UK who work in these sectors are as follows

Games, Software Development & Online Publishing has 723, 000, this is a sector in which I am very interested in, though it is a good feeling to know that it has a broad sector, it also has a lot of competition, you have to be good and very creative at what you do in order for you to acquire a job. It's always a wise choice to start your own business. 

Video, Photography & Film has 60, 000 all across the U.K, this is a surprising figure as I expected much more. Film and Photography based media is something we see everyday, therefore I'd suspect that it is much bigger in this sector.

The amounts of businesses in these sectors in the U.K are as follows

Games, Software Development & Online Publishing has 75,000

Video, Photography & Film has 11,000

The best way to find these companies is to search through Google maps.

Cannes Film Festival

Cannes is a great platform for launching European art house films as the American type blockbusters are the most dominant in the box office. Due to it's popularity with it's celebrity audience, it brings attention to the films that win their awards, it's prestigious and well respected awards solidify or can make a film and bring it to the general public. it has become a place for celebrities can announce new projects or resignations for example in this year's festival Jackie Chan announced he will quit acting and concentrate on new ventures

It has a huge impact and I see it as a critic's choice of venue, for people who are well informed and know a lot about independent films and take it seriously.

Who Are You?

On this lecture we learnt about who we are as a professional and casual individuals.


Carl Jung suggested that each individual has 4 personal archetypes, these include the self, the shadow, the anima or animus and the persona.

The Self
The self is an archetype that represents the unification of the unconsciousness and consciousness of an individual. The creation of the self occurs through a process known as individuation, in which the various aspects of personality are integrated. Jung often represented the self as a circle, square or mandala.

The Shadow
The shadow is an archetype that consists of the sex and life instincts. The shadow exists as part of the unconscious mind and is composed of repressed ideas, weaknesses, desires, instincts and shortcomings. This archetype is often described as the darker side of the psyche, representing wildness, chaos and the unknown. These latent dispositions are present in all of us, Jung believed, although people sometimes deny this element of their own psyche and instead project it onto others.

The Anima or Animus
The anima is a feminine image in the male psyche and the animus is a male image in the female psyche. The anima/animus represents the "true self" rather than the image we present to others and serves as the primary source of communication with the collective unconscious. 

The combination of the anima and animus is known as the syzygy, or the divine couple. The syzygy represents completion, unification and wholeness.

The Persona
The persona is how we present ourselves to the world. The word "persona" is derived from a Latin word that literally means "mask." It is not a literal mask, however. The persona represents all of the different social masks that we where among different groups and situations. It acts as a mask to shield the ego from negative images. According to Jung, the persona may appear in dreams and take a number of different forms. 

We took this social experiment known as the big personality test and my results are as follows:

(I)(N)(F)(P)

INFP
Idealistic, loyal to their values and to people who are important to them. Want an external life that is congruent with their
values. Curious, quick to see possibilities, can be catalysts for implementing ideas. Seek to understand people and to help
them fulfill their potential. Adaptable, flexible, and accepting unless a value is threatened.

I'm more of a introverted, intuitive, feeling and feeling character.

PPP Presentation Notes

Below are the notes I used for preparation of my presentation.

What Is An Evaluation?

During this lecture by Bridget, i knew this would come in handy since it is mandatory for me to do an evaluation on all my modules. I needed to learn some useful tips on how to go about writing an evaluation. I've written many evaluation throughout my academic studies but now I am learning at a much higher level therefore using the right terminology is very important.


An evaluation Involves accessing the strengths and weaknesses of programs, policies, people, products and organizations to improve their performances.


Important areas to write about:

• Write about progress of your work
• Quality of your work/Solution
• Performance during the module
• Ability
• Professionalism

What not to do:

• "I think I made good progress"
• "I am pleased with my work"
• "I worked very hard"

What does an Evaluation involve?

• Asking questions
• Answering questions
• Analysis
• Reflecting on judging the evidence
• Doing something to act on the learning
•  MAKE CHANGES (Action plan)

Organize your thoughts: areas of practice

• Use key events as heading
• From less complex to more complex
• from inner thoughts to what other people think.

Use signposts

• Draw attention to certain points
• "Equally important"
• "Furthermore"
• "In particular"

Since I've had this lecture, I've used these points to achieve a close to professional evaluation, I occasionally refer to my notes. 

Future Publishing

Future Publishing is one of the best and 6th largest media companies in Britain. Future plc publishes more than 150 magazines in multimedia fields such as video games, technology, automotive, cycling, films and photography.


They're publications that I read frequently and/or occasionally are as follows:

• Total Film Magazine - its published 13 times a year, breaking it down to 1 issue every 4 weeks. It was launched back in 1997 and it offers film news, reviews and features. It is available to read through the traditional paperback magazine or the iPhone and iPad apps, you can also get extra information through the website or join forums through Facebook, twitter and tumblr. It is the second biggest selling film magazine in Britain, after Empire. what I enjoy about this magazine is that it features guest editors every month for their input on the magazine. 

•  PlayStation Official Magazine - This was a launch created back in 2006 as it primarily covers PlayStation 3 games and material, it also covers PSP games . It's big brother before that was the Official UK PlayStation 2 Magazine which was launched in 2000. What drew to me keep buying and reading this magazine was the fact that the editors had so much freedom to write what they pleased on the magazine, the articles were entertaining, the reviews were insightful and it also came with a playable disk which offered at least 10 of the latest playable demos at that time, the disk also featured game trailers and cheat codes.

'Drive' Soundtrack

The film 'Drive' has quickly reached cult status and it's soundtrack is not far behind. The film cleverly uses music to subtly provide dialogues to its audience and is used to identify different characters within the film.

The atmospheric electronic score by Cliff Martinez (former drummer of Red Hot Chilli Peppers) captures the emotion which cannot be on film, with its blatantly titled music , such as ‘Skull Crushing’ or ‘Rubber Head’, if you have seen the film you know what I mean. But even with the music’s directness, while watching the film you forget it’s there and its only when you listen to the soundtrack again on its own, you clearly remember the scenes and what your exact emotion at the time where. The film has a tonal cohesion that is perfect that as an audience I feel as though I’m tapping into the character mindset. An example being, 




the situation is a tense and stressful one but the music is calm, cool and collected very much like The Driver himself.

Another thing that the music did in the film was blatantly tell the audience what to feel what in the absence of dialogue which was a large amount of the time when considering that The Driver is a silent loner, who let only his actions do the talking.

The music married perfectly to the characters, the story and the emanated the mood of the film in such a way that fans of the movie flocked to get the soundtrack to further elongate their experience of the film.

Sound (Unity 3D)

Sound is a very important feature in any media platform, it controls the emotion and the mood. On my environment I wanted to keep the sound really simple, so I was advised on going to 'Findsounds.com' for royalty free sounds. I found that this website had really low quality sounds and it was really hard to find exactly what i wanted, maybe they're library isn't all that big. I then went to a different source 'Freesound.org', this site is more reliable and it's like a file sharing site for sounds and samples from real people to other people, therefore they're library of sounds is very huge. The sounds were all high quality and I found what I needed straight away. 


Before taking the sound effects to unity, I edited them on Adobe Audition 1.5, I cut the sounds so they could have seamless loops. I also bumped up the amplitude and reduced the hiss and normalized the clips to 80%. The sounds became even much clearer and when i imported them to Unity they sounded very clear and crisp.


Below is an image of Adobe audition

Unity has an amazing feature that allows you to add the sound as a 3D sound, so when the character on the game moves around the sound stays or pans to where it's supposed to be. You can increase or reduce the max distance on a feature called the doppler level, so the further the character on the game moves the more the sound fades out and vise versa. 


The sound effects I ended up adding where bird tweets, days time summer atmospheric effect and the waterfall sounds.

Final Crit

Annabeth organised a Crit session a week before the actual deadline  of the project. I found this really useful as it gives you time to tweak what you have done after receiving feedback from fellow colleagues. We played each other's games that we created and wrote down what we thought was good and bad.


The criticism I received during the session was 

• Bump-mapping is too much.
• Controller is not on the ground and was too big for the stairs.
• I needed colliders and sliders.
• Environment is a bit too big.
• Back face culling was showing, player could see through the walls.

I immediately took action to all this feedback and fixed all that was wrong. I also had the chance to add ambient sound and effects. I found that this Crit session was very useful as no one was shy to say what they really meant as we were not talking in front of the entire group. I think this type of Crit would be very useful on future modules.

Tree-house Development

Developing my tree house was very exciting, it took me a little longer than two weeks as I kept changing and advancing my ideas, most of the time went on texturing. I kept keeping an eye on my poly count as my aim was to keep the geometry low poly. I deleted all the unneeded faces under the steps and inside the hut and tried not to bevel a lot . I found that texturing was very important and time consuming, so i tryed to model the geometry as fast i could and spent more time texturing. Photoshop played a huge role when it came to manipulating my textures. 
I took a few screen shots to show the progression of my work.

Above: The steps, poles and decks significantly increased the number of faces as I did a lot of 'duplicate specials'.

 Above: The hut increased the faces to just above 2000.

Above: I brought in the UV snapshot to Photoshop to start adding textures.

Above: After I added the textures, I brought them back to Maya and assigned them to my geometry.

Above: I added a green wood texture to the steps, poles and deck.

Current Trends (Apple iPad 3)

The new 3rd generation iPad is well known for it's amazing retina display which is even better than the current iPhone 4S, no other electronic portable devise contain the same number of pixels in one screen as does the iPad 3.

This means that it has a really high resolution screen which is even better than any current 1920x1080p HDTV. This of course will spark a lot of interest to new and current game developers to step they're game up in terms of gaming graphics.

The top 3 games on the latest iPad right now I believe are, not in any particular order:

• Grand Theft Auto 3 - Its a 10 year anniversary game and released to the iOS market by Rock-star games. The graphics are amazing as they've been optimized for retina display and the damage to the vehicles looks very realistic. It's an action packed games with loads of missions and free roaming too. 

• Modern Combat 3 - Although this has been in the app store for a while this game has also been optimized for the  2048x1536 graphics. Its created by Game-loft and it's a fps just like the Call of Duty franchise or Battlefield. Its has console level graphics and the apple A5x processor inside of the iPad 3 handles it well.

• Infinity Blade II - It's a games that's proved to be a popular release and Epic-games's second installment was released not more than two months ago. It's also been optimized for the full retina display and it is a joy to play. 

The iPad 3 is bringing small portable games into the mainstream industry and now the apple iOS games compete with the PlayStation and the XBOX platforms. The only difference is the pricing in games, for example you could get Infinity Blade for £6.99 where as on PlayStation console the games start from £49.99.

Floorplans

This floor plan shows the entire map of the environment measuring LxW = 600m x 600m. It includes the hills that are going to surround the compound, the floating rocks, tree-house and the trees. This is not the final floor-plans as I may tweak and advance my ideas, this is just a basic view of what the game would look like. Floor plans are important guidelines for building/modeling a scene.