Fritz's POV

[fritz-bct]

Week12 - Brief Reflection

By having the trailer as my main assignment which I’m heavily depended on the completion of the assets and textures made of my teammates. I’m once again running parallel along my group’s pipeline. And this is when I realize how horrible this can be. The problem of being in a team but not taking the part of contributing work to push the project along the way is a very disengaging experience. And with the pressure of having to produce what’s promised by the very end of the pipeline is not a pleasant experience. On the way to the project, I have hopped in and did a very small amount of 3D modeling work to try and get the level design finish as I realize it’s behind schedule. During this period, I went through Cinematic tutorials in UnReal about conducting shots and basic translate animating the assets. With the clear plan of our main ship launching from the hanger entering the arena with scattered asteroids, after dodging all the unexpected missile through the tunnel that leads to a spectacular ending. I was certain my vision will come true. Fast forward to the end of the semester. It didn't come true. The level design we're done later than I anticipated and I wasn't entirely ready to compile trailer in UnReal

 Throughout the semester, I had a messed up workflow while researching into different topics in interview and trailers. Also hopping in and out of different roles was not an ideal situation to be in. Looking back into my university experience I have always a clear clue in what to do and how to do it, when I’m self-managing my own personal projects, and it has alway been tricky when it comes to collaboration especially with such a big group. To ensure my personal contribution would deliver in a group working context in the future, I think to reevaluate if the working outcome of one is constantly in relation to the rest of the group is a great indication for organized workflows in the future.

[fritz-bct]

Week11

Week11: Got the unfinished project imported into Unreal and started some rough demo, running animations by manually setting translations and rotations. It was a lot more challenging than I expected due to the scale of the map is so big; every second the ship and the camera are both traveling in such a long distance, it is very hard to keep the motion natural, so I have decided on using the spline blueprint created by Thomas. With the splines, I’m able to customize a trail or multiple trails for the ship and the camera to follow. And that should be able to make the trailer happen.

[fritz-bct]

Week10

Week10: Tried to run another rough demo on Maya to plan out some more shots. Though I have decided to run the cinematics in unreal engine, I figured unreal is a lot more complex than I expected, it seems like the cinematic tool still has some slight quirks that I need time to get through. With the amount of time left, the pressure really is on and made me wonder if I should make the animation in Maya, but with the failure attempt of creating particle trails, I decided to stick with unreal.

[fritz-bct]

Week9

Week9: Learning cinematic tools. Shooting a test demo along the tutorial with the infinity blade assets. Learning in connecting the cinematic viewport into the shots under the master sequence. Basic translation animation in Unreal. Apply presets animations and particle effects to characters.

[fritz-bct]

Week 8 & 9

Watching through the brief introduction of basics of Unreal engine by Virtus Learning Huband. Then got into the tutorial of cinematic tools run by the official Unreal Engine youtube channel. I do figure the tools are slightly buggy at times since in every now and then the tutor of the sequencer from Epic Games would address some bugs from here and there.

[fritz-bct]

Week 7

The main objective of my roll changed from documenting the project to sell the game into creating a trailer for the game since weeks before the break. Reasoning behind is that it is quite difficult to create a piece of video that’s tightly composed and professional looking every week to bring the reputation of a mature gaming studio; instead of producing a series of semi-professional video that lasts minutes, I reckon a well polished trailer that last a minute will do a much better job at selling the game. So...First week back.

Situation of our project, we are very far behind. My plan in creating the trailer is to run it using the Unreal Engine 4 Cinematic Tool. But that’s underneath the condition that we have completed all the modeling, texturing, environment, animation of the pilot extra…Which we haven’t completely finish modeling all the ships and only one’s been textured so far; since my job couldn't be done without all the textured models I decided to hop into 3D modeling and do some work to help Ryan out by finish modeling the 4th and the last ship.

[fritz-bct]

Week6

Storyboarding. Looked into films such as Interstellar, Star Wars. Also camera dynamic in action visual pictures such as Micheal Bay. Starting with planning out the kinds of shots I’m gonna have according to the audio score then hand drawing the draft and rough storyboards, then run a rough framing test in Maya to play around with different focal length.

The overall layout of the environment and the rough overview of the music.

Rough storyboard.

Assets and scenes.

Experiencing with how different focal length of the lens influences the size of objects, composition, and dynamics.

[fritz-bct]

Week5

Putting the wall up full with images was harder than I expected. Problems I have is the image that’s provided by my teammates are usually quite small so the wall would still feel quite empty even if I've printed them, the solution to this is probably by putting up timeline documents and try to do bigger prints to fill up space. Also, people rearranging the was has become mildly annoying over time...

Trailer planning has started. One of the games that are the closest to what our team's developing would be No Man Sky, although it's not a successful game after release, the advertisement of the game was done exceptionally well. Although most of the trailer of this specific game was showed through a first person point of view. I do figure that there's lots of details and sensations that could be shown better though different focal length, and point of view. So the idea behind our trailer would be focusing on delivering the experience of piloting the spacecraft in the first-person point of view with a combination of third-person shots to establish and to examine the detail of the environment & assets.

A rough outline of the trailer was sculpted by our audio designer Joachim!

[fritz-bct]

Studio IV

Week 1 & 2 Setting up and looking for the clear group and project goals.

Week 3 Start looking at different format in video documentation and come up with the idea of documenting one day per person throughout the week. I have worked out a brief format for our short video docs. Each person should be around 2 to 3 min. Start with what their specialties and background, why they’re here, and what they’re hoping to create. Some mildly personal details to get the audience to feel a bit more connected to the crew.

What I want the audience to be seeing? From my perspective to question the work my team is doing. To research in asking good question. (“Did You Ask a Good Question Today? Alternative Cognitive and Metacognitive Strategies on JSTOR,” n.d.) By phrasing the questions in a more positive and limitless way, you would allow the interviewer to do their talking in a more relaxed psychological state. (Eg: “What can we do to make it better” instead of “What should we do to make it better”)

Started off with filming myself in week 4, did a short and quick edit and figured my plan didn’t work out as I expected. I struggled to create the flow in words and keep the momentum of the video going so...I came up with giving a title(it maybe a question) to give the video a direction instead of just shooting and recording people talking and hoping I’ll be able to put them together by the end of the day.

I do struggle when it comes to chatting up with people so this project is quite challenging to me...So far it’s about being more interested and curious about what’s happening in front of me and ask better questions; open questions, from a documentation point of view. (“How to Interview ‘Almost’ Anyone | Mike Dronkers | TEDxHumboldtBay - YouTube,” n.d.)

Week5 started documenting works and making our studio place a more documentable space, putting up artworks or images that relate to our team members.

Did You Ask a Good Question Today? Alternative Cognitive and Metacognitive Strategies on JSTOR. (n.d.). Retrieved March 19, 2017, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40014681?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents 

How to Interview “Almost” Anyone | Mike Dronkers | TEDxHumboldtBay - YouTube. (n.d.). Retrieved March 21, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDOQBPYEaNs&t=6s&ab_channel=TEDxTalks

[fritz-bct]

Integrative Practice:  Interrogation Outline

This is Fritz. Reporting a micro organic environment was founded 5 weeks ago; The difference between land and sea was formed in the last 3 weeks, Reason of how it's formed was unsure and needs further investigation.

So, What do we have here?

For my integrative practice of interrogating an inanimate object I decided to choose the bottle of green tea that lied in my room for 5 weeks time now, and what caught my interest was what’s happening inside. The sea and land was basically the tea itself and the mold was growing up on the surface of the liquid.

So, the idea of questioning?

Why did land appear in my flavor tea drink?

           (Further research: interaction between food ingredients and air)

What is the ingredient of the land?

           (Further research: Types of mold, and how they grow)

Why is the land forming in a interesting pattern?

           (Further research: Pattern of mold)

What is that fluffy thing underneath the pattern?

           (Further research: Structure of mold)

Is these land flammable?

           (Practical research)

Is this environment liveable for any living creatures?

           (“Maybe” Practical research)

and so on…

Through structuring the investigation, what I see as the purpose behind this assignment at this stage, was having the ability to “question”, and start up with the most ordinary objects around us. Think like a 4 years old to have the ability to create infinite question of what I’m seeing is what I discovered that will really help at this stage.

Time line:

20/07~23/07 Can’t make up decision of what inanimate object to interrogate. (eg: Camera, Slice of pizza, online AI or Google)

24/07 The vampire stopped by my room pointed out that the bottle can be a great object.

24/07~27/07 Starting to build on the ideas & questions.

[fritz-bct]

OASIS

the projection mapping spheres has been completed.

Totally impressed by group mates overcoming the technical issues of projection mapping with pvt7 in less then a week and made this amazing installation for people to enjoy. Ambient sounds from the space, Japanese landscapes, bean bags with soft and comfy blankets and cushions. 

Big thanks to Patricia, Kento, Kryten, Jenny and Yonathon gives me great inspirations and supports to make this motion picture complete.

[fritz-bct]

Project 3: Moving Image

Reflective Statement:

No pain to gain, I suppose I’m still under my comfort zone during this project.

Considering through the project I’m doing sketching and filming. Shooting video is kind of a casual thing to me, but making the ideas of draw through 60 frames of a couple dancing or shooting environment in Hamilton become reality can be quite an improvement, since most of the time I would consider these kind of idea as too much of a hassle. By think of a idea and “Just do it”. Knowing what I want might be a bit ridiculous but having the courage to make it happen is probably the greatest gain in this project.

2015/05/07

Starts with the flip book, I always have this idea of implanting drawings into photos. When it comes to the task of continues image I thought of this straight the way, to make the background layer more alive, instead of using a still image I decide to use hyperlapse to add in movements.

Idea of joining tango into my hyperlapse comes with two reason

I’ve been requested to make a video for tango community in Auckland,

This will be a good chance to manipulate the structure of the dance of my favourite couple frame by frame by tracing them.

Facing trouble of matching up the movement of the couple with hyperlapse, and draw though every frame took lots more time than I expected. Silly mistake was made by skipping changing background or mixing up the movement of the couple. Ends up that I handed in 3/4 of the final product with pretty poor print quality. And the final complete product was finished 3hrs after the deadline of 5pm.

Reference: Murat and Michelle in Purdue with Poema

2015/05/11

Group started up of me Patricia and Kento are joined by Kryten, Jenny  and Yonathan later on. After the brainstorming we decide the sensation of calm and serenity. The process including ideas of making a silent chamber and Oculus rift and set-ups to isolate people from the surroundings. Conclusion for the day will be sorting out the works for every group member. Patricia and Kento are in charge of projection mapping, Kryten, Jenny and Yonathen are setting up the chamber, and I’m in charge of the moving film, the moving image.

2015/05/14

Proposal are finalized and handed in today.

For the moving image that I’m in charge with, tasks I received from my group are:

3 films that makes peaceful sensation to the viewer.

Seamless loops for every film.

Boarder of the films needs to be circular and rounded.

Finish filming before the 18th (Monday) so than the projection mapping group can work on it till Thursday.

2015/05/15~16

Filming ideas has been inspired by the installation of the projection mapping with 3 circular paper lanterns, which brings my mind of serenity into a picture of meditation in the nature. “Japan it is” I told myself, beautiful gardening in the bamboo forest. but where to find Japan? Only place I can thought of finding that sensation is Hamilton garden.

Problem appeared: If filming during weekend in Hamilton garden, Feeling of serenity and peace can’t be well generated if being surrounded by tourist taking selfies. Hamilton garden will not do a good filming location during weekend, only chance of film there will be Wednesday (Considering there will be lectures on Monday and Tuesday.)

Instead of sit and wait till Wednesday and finish up the “planed” last minute film. I decided to ride around Auckland Domain & one tree hill, got some footage of trees in day time and night time. Tested out the visual effects of hyperlapsing with my camera facing up 90 degrees, having the comparison to the previous shot I had I discovered that different angle of camera setup have effects of lanterns spinning in different angle

2015/05/18

Returned to school and handed in two of the films that I made during the weekend to my crew and let them work on projection mapping. Problem appeared: While running two video at once, frame-rate of the video have significant drop. Solution I came up with was run the projection through my computer(since my computer can probably have better performance) But while running pvt7 through my computer the mapped video wasn’t able to export(preview). According to experience of second year senior this problem can probably be the software pvt7 wasn’t supported by my graphics card. Hance the solution changed to lowing down the quality of the video from 1920*1080 into 1280*720.

2015/05/20

Wednesday Shooting in Hamilton. Bus leave at 7:15 am and return at 9:30pm. Beside it’s a slightly tired trip, biggest challenge can be the tourist running into my hyperlapse. This is when I learn the importance of prioritise the sequence while shooting, for instance the 360 degree surroundings is the hardest to keep people out of frame. and the facing up 90 degree shot will be the easiest since the camera’s facing the sky. So for the surrounding shot, the time from 12:00~ 2:00pm will be a nice choice since the tourists should be having lunch (group of people walking by decrease from 2min per group(11am) down to 10min(1pm) per group.) Well, I didn't thought of that so I shot the 360 degree surroundings at 10:40am, which took me some extra effort to process out the tourists by doing digital zoom(better way will be photoshop, but since it’s time consuming) and caused a insignificant problem of uneven rotation speed indirectly.

Prioritising the sequence of scene while shooting was learnt the hard way.

2015/05/21

Today was the final day before presentation, glad to see our crew’s happy with what I did with the footage, hope the rest of the people will be happy with them as well. Busy helping setting up the installation and be ready for tomorrow.

[fritz-bct]

Today morning while walking into the building of AUT, I just noticed that I'm made into my ideal course around 10 days ago. Sound over exaggerated but my status by the end of high school was quite worrying, and what I'm doing right now seems unreachable back in the days.

Lectures are fun, friends around are very nice and weird, but weird turns into unique as long as people aren't afraid to show themselves and always try to understand the others. So me being weird shouldn't be a problem at all!(maybe?

Knowing better with my weaknesses of "uncarefulness and bad concentration". They got much more significant when it comes to coding. Silly mistakes keep showing up while going through work sheets. (ex: took me half an hour to figure the difference between " \ " and " / "Bright side can be seeing the potential of decrease the time of working down to around a quarter after fixing these weaknesses.

Pleased with the assignments! For card games I had an awesome group to work with. Film making got tricky cause I've done a video for application that's pretty close to the theme of our assignment, and interesting part is to intergreat what I thought was the best idea or start from scratch.

Looking forward to see how March turns out.