FMP1equalsPaigeFullilove @fmp1equalspaigefullilove - Tumblr Blog

Breaking down my poster - what inspiration and references I used.

I looked at a lot of posters for games and movies I liked to come up with my own, lots of them being fan-made by artists in communities that I like.

My main inspiration for the colour scheming was definitely art created for Cyberpunk, the contrasting bright colours and use of blues and purples was heavily influenced by the future-punk design and choices of the posters made for Cyberpunk and it's show. Having such contrasting, bright colours in a poster emphasises that neon sci-fi feel I think, a lot of these posters and locations in game (and show) have bright signs and advertisements that clash with their surroundings. To me, it gives off a sort of really dystopian vibe, as if these signs, lights, posters and advertisements are trying to distract you from he depressing and violent reality around them.

For the idea of copying my helmet and overlaying them atop each other came from a piece of fan-art I saw for Hotline Miami. Hotline Miami art also emphasises the Cyberpunk colour-scheme with all its rich and vibrant colours, especially pinks and purples. I decided on doing something like this because I ended up realising how well it fit into my story - my character is obviously losing his mind, so it could both relate to his sensory overload of his findings and his loss of self. I find details like these incredibly interesting. Leading back to Cyberpunk, they do exactly this in the animated show. When the main protagonist, David Martinez, is "losing his shit" while going cyberpsycho (overloading yourself with cybernetics) the artists use arrays of his face splaying across the screen and violently shaking. I love how much this emphasises David's rage and hatred, it brings out so much more emotion than it would if he was shaking on his own, and this is why I chose to do something similar.

For the fonts and text, I decided to both take inspiration from Wes Anderson and basic blueprint scrawling. I used a specific font for the title and supporting text because it gave a foreign and militaristic feel with its harsh edges and capitalisation. I chose to overlay Korean text underneath the title in homage to Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs movie, where he puts Japanese text under English text because of where the movie takes place. I found this really cool and wanted to do something similar because both of our settings are in Asian countries. For the scrawling, I used a handwritten font. I would have written the text on my own, but none of the drawing tablets worked the computer I was using - and quite frankly, doing handwriting with a mouse makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon and eat my own hands. I believe the font is made quite well, though, and at a glance you could maybe come to the conclusion it's handwritten.

Blender tutorials I could take notes from, a review

This blog post will review blender tutorials for fantasy sci-fi helmets. I will look at each one and point out what I could and would not follow personally.

This first tutorial focuses on exterior detailing. The helmet is originally sculpted, giving a good point of reference for where to put details and creases, etc. All, or most, of the exterior detailing is created with subdivided planes that have been extruded, scaled and positioned with each other on top of the rough-sculpt of the helmet. I loosely followed this for my own project to add extra details to my own helmet, but for other models this is definitely very important to do. Sculpting the helmet on its own is suitable - but if you want better topology and general smoothness it's better to do this method of using groups of subdivided planes to do it. Though my model was low-poly, I still used the subdivision surface modifier to automatically add topology while I still worked with my simple shape, I set the modifier to the lowest (one) so it wouldn't completely smooth out the model I'm making. I find this tutorial incredibly helpful, honestly showing that adding protruding details to models like this is quite a simple task.

The next tutorial I'd like to review and talk over recreates the visor of Master Chief's helmet from the Halo franchise. I've noticed a lot of toying with the topology, plentiful using loop cuts and the knife tool to keep the topology limited to quads and tris (squares and triangles.) Any face with more than 4 sides is called an "n-gon," which is very bad to have as it can cause all sorts of lighting artefacts and issues further along the modelling process. For my model my topology was a priority, I wanted to keep it as neat as possible for the UV-mapping stage so I wouldn't have to tear my hair out, and this video pretty much identically shows how I handled it. Most of my model (especially for the more rounded and shapely curves) had awful topology to begin with, which I disregarded because I wanted to get the shape done before anything else - once I was finished, I used loop cuts and the knife tool like in the video to add or connect vertices to limit my faces to quads and tris. This tutorial also shows use of merging vertices, which I had to do on the flaps on my cap somewhere near the bottom because of the way it was shaped - it didn't allow me to use a quad without warping the model in a weird way, so I had to merge two points of it into one so it'd round out the way I wanted to.

The final tutorial I'd like to go over is one reconstructing the Iron Man helmet. This tutorial is essentially the same as the last two - but I would like to use it to point out something common amongst them. They all use image references to model on top of. I certainly did this, but instead of using them to model on top of I kept my references on a separate tab, more-so looking at them every now and then so I had my general shapes correct. For other personal projects I've made, I have definitely used references like in these tutorials to model from, it's very helpful especially if you're trying to directly translate 2D to 3D! Having multiple angles of your object - especially in a reference sheet like these tutorials have - is a godsend for modelling and is an incredibly common practice. I used references for nearly every part of my helmet. I even used them for the smaller details, like the plug dangling off the side. This tutorial is just as helpful as the previous two, and having it in one hour long video really shows just how quickly you can get something like this done when you prepare yourself and become more confident in modelling. The thumbnail definitely portrays how I feel about 3D modelling, it's really not as hard as it seems.

#Youtube

The last current page of my workbook

I used this page to elaborate and plan out the story I had for my project if I ever got to turn it into something more.

I had lots of fun coming up with how to plan out the events that lead to the creation of my protagonist's helmet, being able to make small illustrations to accompany my ideas was a blast too.

I ended up scribbling a lot of my stuff out because I'm not the greatest artist (or at paying attention to what I'm doing) but I feel as though that doesn't negatively impact this page as much as I'd think it would.

If this were a real movie, I'd probably advertise it in really cryptic ways or via word of mouth. The celebrities playing this movie could also be cryptic about it, mentioning random things regarding it and stuff.

A sequel for this could probably be made if I ever decide to, but at the moment my conclusion is either a cliff hanger or having my protagonist arrested or shot dead.

Netrunners - My thoughts and how they connect to The Matrix.

Netrunners are individuals in the world of Cyberpunk. They're essentially hackers with interface implants that allow them to roam the internet as if they're actually in it.

I feel like this is quite similar to The Matrix, the way netrunners hook into the internet is by sitting in large expensive chairs that plug them in, or by taking ice baths with a long cable in their nape. These both are very similar to the pod system the AI uses in The Matrix, both are designed to keep the user submerged in their digital worlds.

Because of the cybernetics and intensive power usage of netrunning, they need to keep their body cool by submerging themselves in ice baths or using special seats to keep their temperature regulated. The seats remind me of the pods a lot because of their usage, which I explained in the previous paragraph. The higher-end seats these netrunners can own essentially hug their bodies, keeping them locked in place and cooled so there aren't any interruptions. The design of these seats is often quite simplistic, just being a big chair to keep the user comfortable and cool, but I find that really cool. In a world where over-the-top cybernetics and equipment is used having a simple seat for something as delicate as netrunning seems so contradictory in an almost poetic way.

The Matrix - My thoughts on the art direction and world

This post may contain spoilers for The Matrix.

In The Matrix, humanity is trapped in a fake world called... a matrix. They are held in large arrays of pods, made by intelligent machines to harvest their 'bioelectric energy.'

The pods in The Matrix are very bio-punk in design, looking more fleshy and gooey than robotic and futuristic as you'd assume them to be in a movie about AI and matrixes. They don't inherently have any biological components (to my knowledge) but the wiring and excess of cables, chutes and tubes along with the curved design and veiny aesthetic really sells that.

These pods connect directly to the individuals inside to project them into The Matrix. This idea is incredibly popular - especially after the movie's release - and appeals to me. The idea of being hooked up to something so grand and living a fake life without knowing so is terrifying. I originally thought of doing something similar for my story, where my protagonist's helmet ends up opening his eyes to a true world, I ended up scrapping this in favour of there not being any answers at all. Regardless, I would definitely take notes and inspiration from this movie if I wanted to go down that path.

A small talk about Substance Painter.

This post will be going over my thoughts on Substance Painter and what it's used for.

Substance Painter is an Adobe product that allows you to directly paint your 3D assets. It's quite advanced in doing so, allowing you to use an array of different materials to texture your model with, you can even use images and whatnot to add onto your texture.

I could have used Substance Painter for my project, but decided against it considering the low amount of detail I really needed - I also didn't really think I'd like to learn an entire program in the short time I had left with my project. Substance painter does have a plethora of tools I could have used to make my work look stunning while keeping the visual style I wanted, and honestly I kind of really wanted to, so I might in my own time try my hand at it.

Just about every 3D artist and game developer I've heard of uses Substance Painter to texture their models, I even have a close friend who uses a copy for himself for fun. It's very rare to see a 3D model that hasn't been textured in Substance Painter in large production media, the ease of use and tools provided in the application make things very straightforward for the artists working on these projects.

Another page of my workbook

This page details things I decided to research and look into to further my idea for my project. I also explain how some of the things I write lead back to my project, alongside some other small tidbits of information.

I ended up playing psychonauts (barely, I couldn't get much to work but still enjoyed what I had played) and further fell in love with the art direction and themeing, wanting to incorporate more of those psychic elementes into what I was making almost immediately.

Another game I played was Hypnospace Outlaw, this would be my second time playing it. I always loved the art direction in this game, being able to sit and properly look at it for a playthrough was a blast and really motivated me for when I'd start working on the texturing for my work! I'm far from getting anything similar, but I feel if I practice and experiment some more I'll eventually nail what I'm trying to go for.

More helmet talk

I'll be talking more about the stuff about my helmet and how I'd imagine it works.

I thought a lot about net running from Cyberpunk surprisingly during the "coming up with" process of my helmet. The hanging plug off the side was originally meant for charging, since having to carry around batteries like you're playing with an xbox 360 controller didn't sound as cool. I thought about it then and I'm thinking about it now - what if the helmet could be plugged in and connected to some sort of software? I'm unsure of what the software could do at the moment, but I'm thinking of maybe a decoder/translator application to convert the received frequencies into audio.

On the topic of audio, I think using the same morse/speech generator they use in the number stations I talked about in my previous post. This would be super cool, I'd think, because using the technology he's actively trying to get answers from himself sounds like a cool hint of irony I could add.

Coming back to the first paragraph, I think this could lead to the helmet's unfiltered audio sounding a lot like the radios used in Silent Hill. This would give Foxtrot a clear indication of how close he is to his target, how strong the frequencies are, and determining hostility (lower/higher frequencies could be the factor.)

This is all really cool to talk about because none of this would actually work - Foxtrot is a radio operator with a lost mind, not a scientist.

Images sourced from Google images.

Number stations - I think they're kind of cool

In this blog I'll discuss what I find cool about number stations and my very vague understanding of them.

Number stations are a shortwave radio station that transmits exclusively strings of numbers. These numbers are believed to be addressed to people high in command in foreign countries, or behind enemy lines. These numbers are often vocalized with an artificial voice. These stations have been used all the way back in the first World War, peaking in popularity during the Cold War. Examples of number stations being used to transmit instructions to agents would be: the conviction of the "Cuban Five" and members of the Russian Illegals Program. These codes use "one time pads" (OTPs) that make decoding them theoretically impossible because of the nature of these keys, only one is sent out per message to the individual meant to receive the frequency and string of numbers.

Something I find fascinating about these stations is that you can very easily find live feeds of them online. Of course, you can't decode them, but listening to them gives me an eerie tingle that I enjoy. I find the usage of one time codes in this specific fashion incredibly interesting, being able to hide a message in such a plain and obvious manner is super cool. I find great interest in hiding in plain sight, often times squirming in my seat when I see a game I play has similar stealth mechanics. I felt as though incorporating these stations into my story would not only push the narrative into a mysterious direction, but that it'd also be quite easy to with how you can tap into these frequencies with a simple google search.

Here is the Sprach-Morse-Generator, the machine that synthesized the speech for many well known number stations, sourced from Wikipedia.

Knowing - My thoughts at face value.

This blog post will detail my thoughts and minimal understanding of the film Knowing, released in 2009 and featuring Nicholas Cage.

This blog post features spoilers for the film Knowing.

Knowing is a film about the future and predicting it. It begins with a girl in an elementary school being asked, along with her class, to draw what they think would happen in the future. This girl winds up writing an incredibly long string of numbers, guided by whispering voices, but is interrupted once their time was up - the girl ends up etching the remaining numbers into a closet door. The drawings are all put into time capsules and opened 50 years later, where the son of an MIT astrophysics professor receives it and gives it to his father. The father eventually decodes the numbers, realizing that they are all dates, death tolls, and coordinates to tragedies.

I find the premise of this movie very, very interesting and find that it holds similarities to the plot of my final project (regarding the numbers and whatnot.) I find that the explanation for why these numbers were written quite disappointing though, the entire movie ends up being about aliens. Regardless, the use of long strings of numbers to tell information in a vague and mysterious way is something I wanted to incorporate into my project, and finding out about this movie helped me discover how much potential a concept like this could hold.

Here are screencaps from the movie, sourced from IMDb. Pardon the poor image quality, IDMb doesn't let you copy images for whatever reason and I really don't feel like crawling around inspect element for them.

Thoughts on vigilantism - Watch_Dogs

In this blog post I'll talk about one of the best games I've ever played, Watch_Dogs - Published by Ubisoft.

This post contains spoilers for the game Watch_Dogs, I highly recommend you play it for yourself.

Watch_Dogs is a game where you play as a vigilante named Aiden Pearce, a man who turned to vigilantism after a failed heist, where his car was crashed by a group of (pardon if I'm incorrect) fixers and mercenaries. I find the vigilantism aspect of the game very interesting, it explores a reputation system I haven't seen in other games I've played where your actions actually impact how the game plays. If your reputation is negative, you're labelled a villain, and your vigilantism will be reported to the police - on the other hand, if you're on the positive end of the spectrum, your actions will often receive cheer and the police will not be called if you are caught doing something illegal (that doesn't harm the public.)

Watch_Dogs was actually where I got the idea for my protagonist's name, one of Aiden's vigilante names is "The Fox", which I took inspiration from and used a similar name. I used F (for FOXTROT) in the phonetic alphabet, which was very fitting considering my protagonist was in military service. This also reminded me of one of the names for the protagonist of Cruelty Squad, which I directly referenced in one of my worksheet pages.

I find vigilantism a very morally grey area to discuss or think about, in the case of Aiden Pearce it all seems quite selfish. Sure, he is taking down criminals, but he's doing it all for a very selfish cause - to find out who caused the car crash that killed his niece. His sister begs him to stop, and throughout the game you realise how much more harm Aiden is causing than good. One of the first missions in the game is one where you track down a crank-caller that threatened Aiden's sister, you eventually find out it was conducted by his partner during his heist that called all this. Forgive me if I'm incorrect again, but I feel as though Aiden's actions after the car crash and turn to vigilantism has put his family in much more danger than it would have been if he learnt to move on healthily. This seems like the case for most vigilantes - again, they are fighting crime and putting an end (or attempting) to organisations and harmful people, but in the end it ultimately causes more harm than good. As much as I'm a cheerleader for people who do good for the world, sometimes it's better to not take matters into your own hands.

Here is a promotional picture of the mentioned game, Watch_Dogs. Sourced from images I found on Google - and also one of the songs from the unreleased soundtrack that I like a lot. (Crime Detected, Act 5+)

On the topic of the soundtrack - I find this specific soundtrack encapsulates Aiden's actions as morally-grey very well. Most police chase themes in video games are exciting and thrilling, yet this game does it differently. This song seems almost somber, much more serious and slowed down, glorifying the chase a lot less and refusing to paint Aiden in a heroic or anti-heroic light.

Formal proposal talk

This post will detail what went wrong and correctly with my scheduled plan for my FMP in my formal proposal.

A lot went wrong with my schedule, quite frankly. I've been having a lot of bad moments and personal issues that have hindered my progress, which is very unfortunate. I detailed modelling my protagonist here, but ended up not doing so due to time constraints and my roadblocks. I'm happy to say that I at least created my helmet and poster, along with some art of my character at least. This has also hindered my blog progress as well, which I'm steadily catching up to I hope.

I also really wanted to look into PBR, it probably wouldn't have done much but be an extra little flair to show off with the art style I chose but it kind of sucks that I wasn't able to get to it. Now that I think of it, I could have probably made a very simple bump map and stuff in blender to accompany my model, oops.

As I mentioned, a lot of my blog work was hindered. I meant to research a lot more things like movies and whatnot, but I haven't had the time to watch them - during the time of this project I was working part time, so I only had the weekends free - and even then I spent a lot of my time mentally preparing myself for the next week or doing chores.

I'm quite upset about the things I struggled with that hindered my work, I really wanted to get the model of my protagonist done but I can't really complain about it now that I don't have any time to - besides, I should have treated myself better and stopped sulking over things. Regardless, I'm very proud of my outcome despite my inconveniences.

Here are images of the schedule I had planned out, sourced by me.

More worksheet things

In this blog I'll be showing off a page in my workbook that shows the living environment of my benevolent and charitable protagonist.

I thought a lot about how I should make him live after his meltdown and descent. I decided on a nigh-abandoned storage facility to give him an isolated, yet public space to live in. I originally considered an apartment, but then I thought about how quickly he'd be investigated for the way I wanted his living space to be laid out. He lives in one of the rear storage rooms, far away from the entrance/front to make sure his work is quiet and far. He has a singular window high up on his wall, often covering it with a blanket if it's not too hot inside of his room. On the topic of temperature - his room does get very hot from all his equipment and unnecessary clutter, there's a lot of fans and cooling liquid all over the place to make sure his completely needed server stacks and radio equipment. I illustrated how his room would be laid out, along with some other fun things and doodles.

Here is a picture of the worksheet.

Final poster results

In this blog I'll be showing off the poster I've created to show off my FMP.

I've been looking at a lot of movie and game posters as of recent, particularly older media, to give myself a general idea of what I could have made for my poster. I took a lot of inspiration from Wes Anderson for the typography for the title, having a foreign language under English text is something I saw him do in Isle of Dogs and thought it looked very cool. I ended up pixelating a few too many things on this, my tutor ended up having to give me a little lecture on how to make ugly things look deliberate instead of demonstrating lack of effort or skill. Once I had this chat, I did notice that a lot more often and I'm very glad I was able to have that pointed out to me! I believe my favourite part of this poster is the title I came up with. I always liked titles that were made up, jumbled or mashed together words because wordplay in general is something I already love. I ended up taking maybe 45 minutes straight of sitting and thinking of words that correlated to my project that also could be put together. I ended up with freak and frequency - freak, because my protagonist would be considered one by his peers, and frequency to link back to him being a radio operator) - merging the two into freakuency. I think this was a very clever name, and I'm giving myself way too much credit for it, but I can have a little pride every now and then as a treat.

Here are pictures of my process, miscellaneous screenshots used for it, and the final outcome.

Please do forgive the low resolution in the final image - Tumblr file size restrictions are a cruel mistress.

Ethical considerations regarding my work and its themes

In this blog, I'll talk about certain ethics and themes that I've explored in my work.

A big thing regarding my project is how ethical governments and privacy breaching technology are. I decided to come to the conclusion that I have with my project because I thought about something: Would it really be okay if we could read peoples minds? Technology as of recent has borderline been doing this, collecting enough data from you to almost predict what you're thinking and drag you into websites and shopping links you wouldn't even think of going to. I've come up with my own theory - specifically regarding Spotify's shuffle feature - that the data Spotify collects for your wraps, DJ, etcetera, is also kept to prioritise certain songs when you shuffle or tap play on a list. I've thought about this for a while because of how coincidental it is that I can be thinking of a specific song, tap play, and that specific song comes on.

Of course, we're not actually on the verge of mind reading yet (I hope.)

Another thing I was surprised to consider about my project is terrorism and freedom fighting. While having a chat with my tutor regarding things I could scrawl down for my project, she brought up Ted Kaczynski. The more we talked, the more I realised that the character I've built up in my head shares some striking familiarities regarding Kaczynski's view and motives. Despite knowing little to nothing about him besides the fact he lived in a shed, opening my eyes to this new information made me think a lot. I understand wanting to do right, and I understand that sometimes people feel like needing to take things into their own hands, and I certainly get that there are some really evil people that need something awful to happen to them, but at what point will you cause more damage than your opposition? Ever since around 2020, there was a line that really stuck with me regarding these topics: 'One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.' On the side you're supporting, acts of terrorism seem like martyrdom for your cause, even rebranding to 'freedom fighter' seems like a copout to justify things. In the end, acts of terrorism are still acts of terrorism no matter how badly you sugarcoat them, and I find that the extents some people will go for some ideology or breakthrough reflects upon my project well.

Here are pictures of Ted Kaczynski and his shed, sourced from his Wikipedia page.

Helmet completion (semi-confident) + poster planning

This blog will show my finished model and a small render.

I finished the helmet yesterday, unfortunately I don't think I'd have the time to model and texture my protagonist but that's okay. I'm planning on turning this render (or one with improved lighting) into a movie poster.

I didn't particularly enjoy texturing this, using my college's poor computer equipment didn't make it very easy to me. I made a habit of saving after every minor change to make sure these Macs didn't blow up in my face over nothing, I'm surprised they even got past the rendering process. Despite this, I do think I did pretty okay for both not being able to draw very well and never having done anything like this.

I had a blast modelling this, though! I really enjoyed working with limited topology and getting around it, making sure I limited the topology to tris and quads while trying to cram in the things I wanted to was quite fun. This is also one of the more shapely models I've ever made so far. I limited myself to trying to make everything from one object, though this plan soon began waning when I realised that it's really difficult.

For the poster, I'm planning on making a blueprint of this helmet for a background with a render overlayed. I want to add dithering and mosaic blurs to hopefully mimic how older games used CRT screens to cover up their lack of detail. I'm not sure of the name yet, but I've been thinking a lot about the font I'll be using and how I'll lay this poster out.

Here are pictures of my finished product.

Modelling progress + Scary true campfire story

This post will go into detail regarding my progress on modelling and texturing the helmet I'm making. This post will also present a retelling of a tragic transpiring of events leading to broken hearts and fatigue.

My helmet's shape is currently finished! I've transitioned into adding doohickeys and gizmos to its silhouette now, along with the texturing process. I decided to stick with keeping things low-poly for aesthetic purposes along with ease-of-making. Despite this, it was still quite difficult to get things to look correct - and unfortunately due to my poor understanding of what makes decent topology, it isn't the most to be proud of. I still managed to keep the tri/face count quite low, which is something I don't usually pay attention to!

For the clutter of the helmet, I'm planning on adding:

exposed and fraying wires, plates of metal/tin foil(?), tears in the helmet's leather, and more antennae.

Some of the components I'm planning to add will be painted on, or be flat textures on planes. This is not only to save time and effort, but to weave in the low-poly aesthetic I'm doing. In older games and surprisingly in modern ones too, a lot of details on models are either just textured on or are flat textures protruding from the model. A great example of flat textures on planes would be things like hair, grass and tree leaves.

Unfortunately, around an hour and forty five minutes into my texturing process, Blender decided to stick some iron in its mouth and pull the trigger. I've got no clue what caused this - I wasn't doing anything performance heavy and was only hiding parts of my model for easier texture painting. I couldn't have closed the program myself, Blender has a warning telling you to save your work if you try to. Blender also has an auto-save feature, but this doesn't save painted textures tragically. Although this set me back a bit, especially because I loved the work I had done so far, I feel like this gives me an opportunity to look at my texturing work in a different light. I learnt how to use the painting tools a lot during my first run, and now that I've got that stored in my memory bank I should have an easier and more efficient time now.

Though this predicament isn't particularly a problem to me, the texturing currently was only a test to see if I could make things look pretty in the style I chose. It isn't particularly original either.

Here are pictures of my progress, sourced by me. These show off the model, topology, UV mapping and texturing work.

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