redtop2000-workshops

[redtop2000-workshops]

Summary

Overall, I found some of the workshops interesting and relevant to the group project tasks especially the 3D Mapping.  I didn't fully understand what the brief requested at first but it became more understandable when we started doing our future room project because I could see how they were connected and I used of the skills I’ve used to produce elements for the future room project. Without some of the workshops, I may not have created what I created for the Future Room project because I needed to use ideas from the workshop to create it.   It was fun and I would do some of the workshops again such as the VFX one.  I’m glad we had a great team for the 3d Future Room project and it was fun and I may do that again too. 

[redtop2000-workshops]

Psychogeography Maps

In this workshop, we learnt about what PsychoGeography is. It is a method that includes a diversity of activities that raise awarenesses of the natural and cultural environment around you, including emotions and sometimes political and critical context.  We were tasked to create our psychogeography map, so we got into teams and we created one that was around the Salford area. It was a difficult task because you had to be very visual of the surroundings and creative but this one of things that wasn’t so straightforward and simple to do. We observed a few examples but creating it was different because your mind was over the place. We could have done better if we planned on how we should have created it, it was okay but not that much fun to my preference. Other students had great examples and interesting concepts. 

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3D Printing & Scanning

In this workshop, we learnt about 3D printing. 3D Printing has many purposes such as prototyping, Manufacturing and it is quicker a process on creating 3D elements on mass production.  There are many different types of plastics that can be used such as ABS, PETG, Nylon, PVA Flexible. Also metals like composites, steel, aluminium, brass and many other materials such as carbon fibre to built racing performance parts for high-performance cars. 

PLA is one of the common plastics that has many advantages, it is a  thermoplastic polymer type. It has been created by natural sources so that means it is biodegradable which helps the environment because some plastics are very toxic. It is easy to print with and it flows nicely and it doesn't warp so you can more availability in creating 3d objects. It prints in low temperatures so that means the room doesn't need any big changes when printing, all you need is a cool room. It does well in detailing meaning because it lacks in stringing which is an advantage. 

Some animation film producers use 3D printing to produce models for production.  There are different types of processes. 

CONSUMER PROCESSES - Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF), where you can 3D print projects at home. 

PROSUMER PROCESSES - Stereolithography (SLA)

PROFESSIONAL PROCESSES - Selective Laser Sintering (SLS)

The SLS process is a very expensive method to print ultra-accurate models for businesses who manufacture 3D models that has many purposes or even for medical purposes such as handicap arms etc. 

The 3D printing has a 3 simple step process, first, you design the model on 3D Softwares such as TinkerCAD, secondly, you prepare it by checking if the 3D model is actually printable, check the 3D printer is in the correct settings and is fully functional and then you send the information to 3D printer to print. 

The scary thing I learnt from this workshop and is interesting is that finding out cloning is a possibility of becoming a reality. It’s not a trend at the moment but there are medical professions who produce teeth for people who have a lot of wealth and produce skin, yes skin for healing, such as damaged skin that could not heal itself so you use the 3D printer to heal it but comes with a huge cost. 

[redtop2000-workshops]

Digital Futures Lecture

In this, we learnt how to present information better, how to write good evaluations and using the SWOT analysis to help us to produce better ideas and things. This is very useful for the group project because we can use some analysis methods to improve ideas.  It was very to know and something to be aware of and I could use some of the knowledge to illustrate ideas for projects for businesses etc. 

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TinkerCAD

In this workshop, we were introduced to TinkerCAD. TinkerCad is a software that is very easy to use, even a child can use it to create 3D models. The tutorial was straightforward, we were tasked to design a 3D model that could be created for 3D printing. Before we began, the tutor told us a few things about the 3D printing process and a few things to be aware of. One of the things he told us was very important to know when designing a 3D model, was that there is a maximum on how many millimetres you have on the gaps between the sides of the objects. Why? If the gaps are too wide, the object could potentially break part during the 3D printing process. It’s best to ensure the design is to design the model flat for better results for the 3D printing process like I have, the image above shows that I have designed it flat. It’s about how the weight is distributed, you have to make sure it is balanced.  Since I’m new to TinkerCad, I aimed to make the design simple and not complex, so it is easier to 3D print. It was good to know I could do this at home, all I need is a 3D printer, a computer and a memory card like an SD card and start. 

[redtop2000-workshops]

Digital Puppets

In this workshop we were introduced to Adobe Character, this software uses a camera to track your face movements for facial expressions. Adobe Character is great software to create detailed animations with facial expressions. You can use existing presents to create animations or even to create your own. We were encouraged to create our own characters, so we opened Photoshop to started creating our own avatars, I used my Snapchat bitmoji as a template because we didn’t have a lot of time so that is why I decide to draw over it. It was a challenging task because you had to insert elements into sperate folders and ensure they’re in the correct order to work in Adobe Character correctly. Mine wasn’t fully in the right order, so I thought I give it a shot and what happens on Adobe Character. I managed to get the mouth moving but it was still over the place. 

It was cool knowing that Adobe Character exists because I have done small animations in the past and it is time-consuming, even though I haven't done any proper facial animations but doing them manually would take ages to produce.  Having a tracking system can help you make facial animation accurate and save a lot of time. If I had more time, I would have spent more time on getting the facial animation system working properly so I could make animations with it.  It was challenging and fun, I probably should have taken the process steadier for a better result. 

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Project Mapping

In the workshop, we were learning about the basics of projection mapping. Projecting mapping is similar to virtual reality and spatial augmented reality but instead, it’s a projection technique that turns objects, mostly irregular shapes into a display surface for video projection. Like a Flat tv but a tv with different dimensions.  People can use project mapping on large complex buildings and used for artistic illustrations.  

Madmapper is a software you can use to implement project mapping, however, you’ll need a projector, a computer to use the software on and objects with various surfaces to experiment on.

I have seen and how projections are used in my daily life such as school, projecting a presentation on board but I was unaware of projection mapping and now knowing what projecting mapping is a thing.  I could get creative on displaying information and explore effective methods to present information with projection mapping.

[redtop2000-workshops]

VFX + Demo

In this workshop, we were introduced to Adobe Premiere Pro. Premiere Pro is an editing software by Adobe, similar to After Effects, however, After Effects is more focused on special effects, for creating 2D & 3D animations etc.  I have used Premiere Pro in the past when I was in college editing video for college projects and I also learnt how to use it from many Youtube tutorials but I was more of an After Effects guy. I haven’t really fully used green screen feature properly until I came to this workshop.  We were given a task to create a scene from a source we were given. The source was a montage of Jean-Claude Van Damme implementing a few action scenes in front of the green scene to use. It was a 3-minute long video with many action scenes so before I started to edit, I looked at the 3-minute long video and thought about what scene should I use and what I should I edit it with. There was a scene where Jean jumps out of a corner and starts shooting, I decided to use this scene because I had a good idea on how I could use it and it is relatively simple.  The idea was to do a scene where Jean comes from a corner in a hallway and does a surprise attack. I searched on Google for a good image to use, found a good image and put in the timeline in Premiere Pro.  Below the Shooting clip and used the Ultra Key effect on the shooting clip to turn the green screen transparent so the image could appear behind it.  I made a few adjustments to make it more realistic by downsizing the shooting clip and adjusting the position. I used the masking tool to editing the shooting clip to make it look like he’s actually jumping out of the door. Then I wanted to improve the scene so I thought I to apply a code that was used in After Effects to make the movements shaky and it was known as the ‘wiggle’, this is where I found out that this doesn't work on Premiere Pro so I had to move the frame manually. I made the frame shaky when Jean fired the shots to give a more dramatic effect, so you could to pretend to be shot by Jean.  

Overall, this workshop was fun and it was in my interests. I learnt how to use the green screen effect properly which is valuable to know when using green/blue (chroma key) screen in future projects. 

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Chroma Key Workshop

In this workshop, we were in this cool green screen studio where people use it for filming production purposes.  Chroma key is a technique used in special effects and post-production for compositing (layering) two images or video steams together.  We were learning how to use a green screen correctly and how lighting has a big impact on green screen and using the correct materials because some materials don’t work as others such reflective because it’ll confuse the software causing to miss spots. Good lighting can make green unnoticeable in the result. It was a fun and good workshop it was valuable because it gave me awareness on what things to be aware of when I next use green screen in future productions. 

[redtop2000-workshops]

Prototyping Workshop

“The Game of Life”

Introduction to Creative Play

We were put into groups and tasked to create a playable board game that represented the following…

1. Drinking/Going to the pub

2. First day at Salford Uni

3. Cheating in an important exam

4. Getting late to work due to oversleeping

The board game project had to represent one of the themes effectively, you have to translate some of the key aspects that define the situation such as the rules, narrative, emotions to ‘procedural rhetorics’ meaning that it had to be persuasive and expressive by using processes.  The board game had to have to be developed along with the necessary components to play the game such as counters, cards, dices and other necessary components. Include easy to follow rules. The main priority is that the game needs to be fun. We only had a window of 45 minutes so we had to think quick.

Obviously, there’s teamwork involved and the advantage is that you can express ideas and can expand the idea by discussing, plus there’s more productivity.

The project seems straight forward at first, however, it’s not so straight forward. Deciding what theme we wanted to go with was a struggle because we were unsure what theme to start with. We started to talk about films for some reason such as the ‘World’s End’ because of the word ‘pub‘ got us thinking that way. We looked on classic board games like Monopoly and how we can use the classic board game concepts and how we can improvise them or use them as part of the development. I thought about the classic ‘Snake & Ladders’ board game and the ‘Monopoly’ game.  I thought we could do a collaboration or something similar.

The Game: Pub Crawl

The rules

You start at ‘the tent’.

Your endpoint is at ‘the fort’.

You roll the dice, the number represents how many steps you can take on the blocks.

If your counter lands on the ‘?’ you pick out the ‘?’ marked cards and you follow the instructions the card gives you for example ‘ you get thrown out by the bouncer, you take 2 steps back’. However, on some cards, you are given a choice. For example, ‘ Take 4 steps forward or everyone 2 steps forward’.

When you land at the gates, you pick up a special card for the gates. The card will say ‘ If your dice lands on an even number, you go through the gates. If your number is odd, you stay. ’ the gates is a shortcut to get ahead. On the next round, you roll the dice on how many steps you take.

The spot 3 steps before ‘the fort’ block 24, this is called the slope, you pick a special card if you land on an even number you can go a step forward, if you land on an odd number, you have to go down the slope which is block 10.

After playing the created game a few times, from my point of view. There could have been some improvements made, the game was a bit short, lack of decisions to be made in the game and there weren’t enough strategies involved to make it more challenging.  To be fair, I wish there was a more interesting topic rather than the listed ones. Historic topics such as the WW1 and WW2 where you make decisions on what steps to take on the frontlines of Normandy and take over to win. Furthermore, in the historic wars topics, you could have hidden items that allow taking alternative routes.   On the other hand, a similar topic to the pub crawl where you’re stranded on an island where you have to make tough decisions such as saving yourself or save everyone. The reason why I think Historic topics would have been more fun is that you could learn a bit about history. Involving life or death decisions would have made the game intense or brutal.

[redtop2000-workshops]

Sound Workshop

Key Components of sound

Sound Effects - Impact sounds such as clicks, explosions, gunshots, breaking glass, punches, kung-fu kicks and many examples. These sounds are sounds used for expression of an action/movement.

Atmos - Ambient locations sound such as busy office environment, factory sounds, woodland, seaside etc. For example, for a busy office environment, you would expect to hear a lot of background chatter, keyboard clicking, paper rustling, phones ringing etc.

Foley - This is normally recorded in a foley studio, recreating/creating picture sounds that would normally be expected, for example, footsteps, clothes rustling, stirring a teacup, doors, switches, zips, keys and many more. Foley Sound can be life-saving in situations when the filmmaker struggles to record sounds in the production, whereas foley can add sounds to the scene by recreating it.

Dialogue - Any dialogue spoken on the screen.

Narration - Someone telling the story off-screen.

Music - Music in general.

Sound Design - Syntheically composited sounds such as dino sounds, laser guns, space ships, teleportation, lightsaber etc.  Star Wars has various sounds that were created through sound design such as the lightsaber hum was developed by an old motor on a projector at the USC Cinema Department.

We did a bit of experimenting with sound foley, we learnt that how sound is connected with animation and the process of how it’s developed. We used Adobe Audition which is a sound editor software, we understood the difficulties and the importance of accuracy with the sound and the timing in animation. Moreover, we learnt how to use the equipment to record the sound and what materials or sources of sound can be used for the recording.

The image above is a room that is used for sound foley, it has many materials that are used for sound foley and there is a back room where there are other various materials such as different types of shoes, walking boots, slippers, trainers etc for a realistic sound effect.