One More Week!

Cross Collaboration Complete

By James Ball

This week has been a little hectic, but in a good way. My cross collaboration is complete and all I have left is to fix up some textures on London Court. The final assets can be downloaded from the #15t3-gds210 group on slack.

Boing, Boing, Kangaroo, Boing, Boing!!!

Thank you for reading and as always, this is Ballzy247 signing out.

London Court Texturing.

By James Ball.

This week has been full on. I have managed to finish off 15 Diffuse, Normal and Specular texture maps created for my London Court Model.

Since I only have a limited amount of file space for the final model I used the ancient art of Cheating to cut as many corners as possible. I positioned the window uvs maps as follows meaning I only needed to make 1 texture map for all 3 Windows. I done a similar thing for most of the Roofs as well, with having the top ¾ of the texture be tiles and last ¼ be wood texture.

When it came time to do a texture test in sketchfab I was presented with this error message.

Pretty simple fix . . . Save out my textures as targa file . . . It’s never that simple. Went to do File Save as and . . .

No targa option available.

so after about an hour of searching online I found that all I had to do was this.

 I was very pissed at the fact that I wasted an hour of time to find out that the Image has to be in rgb and an 8 bits/Channel but you know what, I freaking worked. so I took a break and it was back to work converting all 45 tiff files into targa files.

The final hurdle I had to sleep on and figure out unwrapping the cone shaped roof with minimal warpage. sfjhbvisdbcliasbvlksb. Breathe in, calm down. I eventually went online to a forum on polycount http://polycount.com/discussion/61005/how-do-you-unwrap-a-cone-for-squar-tile-texture and I found my answers there. So after countless hour I finally had something I was happy with.

Lastly If you want to see the current version of London Court you can view it here.

https://skfb.ly/IOWp

as always this is Ballzy247 signing out.

Cross Collaboration Begins

By James Ball

Not going to be a big post this week. I have officially made a start an the scenery assets for the Tri 3 Game students. and have a few more assets to go. Then I'll UV Unwrap the models and they are then read to be handed off to the games student's.

Thanks For reading and as always.

This is Ballzy247 Signing out

It’s The Post Week 7 KPI Reflection Blog Post!

By James Ball.

Sorry for the Lack of Posts this Fortnight. There have been some family issues I’ve had to deal with like funerals and what have you., and I’ve kinda lost the motivation to get motivated. Great start to a KPI Reflection.

The last couple of days or so the same thing has been happening. I’ve gotten to the computer brought up my work to do and make an attempt to start. As I begun I would just stop and stare blankly at the screen for me what seemed like a couple of minutes. But I would then snap out of it and get back to my work I was doing and look at the time to see that 2 or 3 hours had gone by without me doing any any work. This has happened about 4 times Last week and it happened gain on the way home from Uni today. Was it aliens or just my Mental state right now . . . Who knows!?

In my KPI Interview with my lecturer There were 2 KPI’s that could really do with changing. For STRONG WORK ETHIC. I put down Room For Significant Improvement, how ever after the discussion with my lecturer I realized the I actually had a Successful Application of a Strong Work Ethic Due to getting stuff done on time and to a higher quality the the brief needed, so that was cool.

The Second CPI The my Lecturer and I talked about was ACTING AS A TEAM PLAYER. I put down Successful Application for this But My Lecturer Believes that there is Room For Significant Improvement. My Lecturer Went on to tell my That I need to participate more in group discussions than sitting, listening and observing on the sidelines so to speak.

There were a few others we discussed but they were the most important ones that could be changed or have room for significant improvement for.

As always, This is Ballzy247 Signing Out!

My top 10 movies for October 2015 over on Newgrounds!

By James Ball

So recently I was asked to participate in monthly voting for the top 10 Movies for the month of October over on Newgrounds. 

These animations I feel have earned their place on this list.

Please enjoy the Creepiness!



1 – Another

2 - The Finger Eater: Contract

3 - Jumo x Dopize – Quest

4 - NWAR: Left Standing

5 - Still Spineless: Crows

6 - Hopkins & Delaney LLP

7- Texting Short

8 - Fallen Angel: Trailer

9 - The Scarecrow

10 - Halloween Ghost House


As Always, This is Ballzy247 Signing out.

London Court Previs Model

By James Ball

When our group went to scout out our locations for the pre-vis stage of our group project we worked out that the London Court Model could be broken down into simple blocks.

The list is a follows.

• North Tower
• South Tower
• LC Upper Left
• LC Upper Right
• LC Lower Left
• LC Lower Right
• Floor Plane
• Left Fence
• Right Fence

By organising the model in this way it cut down  on the modeling time and it allows for more dynamic camera angles for we can simply  hide all of the buildings on the right side and to shoot from the right and the same goes for the left.

To start out I first modeled up just one building section. This could then be copied across and moved down to match up with the existing ground plane then the left side could be copied over and mirrored for the right side. I repeated the same process for the fence and the Towers as well.

I finished it off and it didn’t quite feel right. So I took a little bit of artistic license and stretched all of the buildings upward and this gave me the creepy, claustrophobic vibe I was going for and below you see the final result. 

As always, this is Ballzy247 signing out.

BITEY!

By James Ball

This weeks blog Post is going to be a little briefer than usual. I got to go to another talk by Susan Erokan on Monday. This time organised by my UNI, so that was cool. Got to learn the manual mode on the Canon 600D’s and do a bit of photography. Our class also got an introduction the the program Mudbox. For CIU this week we learnt all about Semiotics and we also got placed into the teams we would be in for our final CIU task.

Image 1: Bitey

On the homework face of things, I haven't gotten much done due to some pressing close to home family issues. So I’m sorry to say this but no coloured in 3D Face mask this week. Although I did find this interesting site called Bitey.com which is the home site for ex Disney animator Adam Philips located in the Blue Mountains near Sydney. He is the is the Person behind the Flash animation classic The Last of the Dashkin with the first episode airing in 2004 on Newgrounds.com. in my research on this guy I also found an Artist Interview by Draw With Jazza  and you can view it here.

Also this crazy shit came out this week . . . ENJOY!

As always, this is Ballzy247 signing out!

   

Reference

Image 1: Bitey, Retrieved on 11/10/2015 from - http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/brackenwood/images/2/2e/Bitey.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20091229182337

Mingling with “SHIENCE”!

By James Ball

SO how do I start this week's Blog Post? . . . Yes That Will Work . . .  BLAM! Shiny Creepy Hollow Face!

https://skfb.ly/HzpH

Next week Blog post will will been even more creepier when I have an actual texture on.

So . . . Quixle. A bit of advice to anyone buying this piece of lovely software in Australia the pricing they have on their site is in American Dollars and not Australian Dollars. so the final price ended up being about $74 Australian. This is also a software that is still in development and still has a couple of bugs that need fixing but that aside, this is a powerful program for what it is and how fast you can ic tan produce a PBR Rendered object. I still have a whole lot more to learn about this program and in the not too distant future it look like there is a massive up update coming. Speaking of Massive, I would also love to try out and play around with that software one day, you know, MASSIVE the software they used to create the armies in Lord of the Rings. 

 Image 1: Massive Rendered Crowd

For the last week it has been fixing up and correcting documentation and getting down to creating concept art for our group assignment in ANI210 and getting it all compiled together for monday. Also  I’m sorry but we’ve unofficially decided to keep a veil of secrecy on this artwork and anything associated with “Project Bunri” under wraps till further notice. Like a real Game or Design Company would. Give it a couple of weeks maybe.

On Thursday evening I went along to a Q&A Session with Robert Stephenson one of my class mate’s and listened to Dreamworks Studio Rep Susan Erokan (previously Production Supervisor for Character Animation at Dreamworks Animation for 12 years) that was a very informative evening and what was great about it was afterwards talking and mingling with not only Susan but also Aaron Welch of Red Bird Creative Perth and friends from the Trimester ahead of me.

About a hour after I posted my Blog post last week I went to see the Ridley Scott Film adaptation of The Martian. Great movie, and they really Science the Shit out of it. If you haven’t read the book then go listen to the audio copy illegally here and remember you didn’t see this from me.

So this is some NASA news that they really didn’t make a BIG announcement for like they did with the Flowing Water on  Mars thing.  Red Water Ice and Blue Atmosphere on Pluto. NASA, Never A Straight Answer. in their defence however they did have an article about it on the front page of there website, so yeh.

 Image 2: global mosaic of pluto in true colour

Finally if you’re one of the few regular reader I have on my blog you may have noticed a layout change. I’m going to roll with it for a little while I think but do let me know what you think. Also a shameless Plug must also go to my website which I have recently given a facelift and Mobile interactivity you can view it here. http://jaegerfruit.com/

And no I’m not going to make anyone else a website I’ve already spent too long making it look the way it is. But that’s enough ranting for one blog post.

So as always, this is Ballzy247 signing out.

References

Image 1: Massive Rendered Crowd, Retrieved on 11/10/2015 from - http://massivesoftware.com/images/wcm-rtr-agents.jpg

Image 2: global mosaic of pluto in true colour Retrieved on 11/10/2015 from - https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/global-mosaic-of-pluto-in-true-color.jpg

A “Foody” Opinion!

By Jame Ball

Right now as I type this, I am sitting down at my computer munching away at an obligatory Grand Final Day Aussie Sausage Sizzle. As I do this, I’m thinking “I don’t even like AFL that much at all I don’t get why this is SO much more important than say issues like where is all of the funding for creative Australian industries gone to?” but that’s another topic for a different time and a different place. On second thoughts however, they were some really darn nice sausages. I just pulled the packaging out of the bin and apparently they are Ground Beef and Caramelized Onion flavour. See, I’m an Omnivore! 

Image 1 - Sausage

Since I’m on this tangent of Food and not yet on a tangent of what I learnt this week let’s talk about Mince Meat. The type you get from Coles or Woolies. I remember a time when the Mince Meat you got from the shops was in fact minced down into thousands of tiny little pieces. But no, now when you get minced meat and you may as well call it meat Spaghetti because when you take that stuff out of its pack you better remember to break it thoroughly apart because if you don’t then you're getting Mexican style Beef Spaghetti Nachos, which now I’ve said that doesn’t actually sound to bad.

Continuing on, this week I found out that I do not like doing Documentation. I can do it and I did do it but I still hate it. The 2 pieces of documentation that I was assigned were the Work Breakdown Structure and the Essential Milestones document. Both were describing and detailing a summary of our work flow for the next 13 weeks. I am probably going to sound silly but Is it just me, or is nearly every single piece of documentation our team has written up for this project just summarizing our work process for the next 13 weeks but in just a slightly different way each time? I think I want to cry now.

Image 2 - PBR Example

In class we got a very detailed tutorial session on how to think about edge loops when it came to organic modeling and an introduction to Physics Based Rendering or PBR and how to Incorporate it into a design workflow using a program called Quixel SUITE which is a Plugin for Photoshop CC specifically designed for a PBR workflow. This coming monday when I get paid, I will buying the academic version of the plugin and experimenting like hell to get to grips and get familiar with the software. You can learn more about it HERE!

Finally in My CIU this week, we went deeper into digital media. Our main in class discussion topic was “THE MEDIUM IS THE MEDIA”. The way I see this discussion topic is like this “what kind of response do I want to evoke with the chosen medium” and I going to be sticking with this for a while to come.

Lastly in a couple of hours I’m going out to the cinemas to go and see the new Ridley Scott Film The Martian. If it’s good enough I may even do a review but who knows.

As always, this is Ballzy247 signing out!

References

Image 1 ‐ Sausage ‐ Retrieved 03/10/2015 from ‐ http://junkee.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/sausage.jpg

Image 2 ‐ PBR Example ‐ Retrieved 03/10/2015 from ‐ http://www.marmoset.co/wp-content/uploads/header01.jpg

A New Trimester Begins

By James Ball

So what’s it been? Like 2 months? Well expect more regular content from me for at least the next 13 weeks and maybe even more.

So a lot has happened since my last blog post, I’ve Passed my Second Trimester of UNI, got my Driver’s License and RSA Certificate.  I was also a SGL on camp down in Bunbury but that’s for another time.

So get back on track, on Monday I started my third trimester of Bachelor of animation at SAE Institute Perth and commenced work on our first Studio Unit. To say our class hit the ground running would be about accurate. Not only are we at a brand new campus, with a stylized rundown industrial feel, but there are also only 6 people left in my class after the first 2 Trimesters which could be called a Trial by Fire.

 Image 1 - Trial by Fire

Our brief is that we are to create assets for a new game By VALVE and the story is as follows . . .

The story of the game broadly focuses on a character who wakes up one day to find themselves alone and seemingly abandoned, and follows their journey as they set out to search for answers. Along the way they encounter dangerous foes and a hidden world of mystery. The setting will be initially in a contemporary modern city and then transition into a dark and brooding landscape. The visual style is to be somewhat dark and gritty with an underlying level of cartoon feel (similar to Papo & Yo).

Our tasks for the assignment is to create to Dioramas that represent key points and events in this fictional game. Hand off assets to the game development students and the design students and to eventually host this all on Sketchfab for the whole world to see.

The current working title so far is “ANI 210 - Bunri Project (ぶんり プロジェクト)”. Bunri (Boon-Ree) is the Japanese word for Isolation and is the main premise our team is going for in the game. The Main Character will be unambiguous and genderless. They will wake up in a rundown postapocalyptic city (Basing the Design on Perth) that’s been taken back by nature. The only signs of life are the graffiti on the walls that every now and then seemingly follow you as you pass by or blink or do something to make the viewer uneasy and try to work out just what the hell is going on, which leads to the next point, what caused this apocalypse will not be specified and be left to the viewer's imagination. Also we decided to have no guns or weapons, Similar to the concept of Journey Where in you have to sneak passed the enemy and preserve energy or run and get drained.

Besides this, we also had an animation lecturer come in and give us a refresher of the basics of timing and spacing and implement them in a pendulum swing using 3DS Max. I think one of the pluses of Now having such as small class is that now the lecturer can go around to each individual person and give them a lot more one on one tutoring time and help us to improve at a faster rate.

This Trimester is going to be a blast I really can not wait to see what the final outcome will look like when it is complete. Will have another post on Friday so stay tuned for more.

As always, This is Ballzy247 Signing Out!

References

Image 1 - Trial by Fire - Retrieved 23/09/2015 from - http://www.theschoolforheroes.com/questlog/154/trial-by-fire-reborn/ 

How Kung Fury Became Such a Hit

By James Ball

 

Image 1

Our lecture for this week was on the subject of Social Media & Our Careers. So to keep with recent trends, I’m going to talk about how I feel  David Sandberg’s short film “Kung Fury” became such a massive hit on this thing we call the interwebs.

They knew there target audience.

Kung Fury is about a Kung Fu cop from 1985 who goes back in time to find Thor who then helps him go forward in time to fight Hitler and the Nazis. Now mix in street fighter, Lazar Raptors and so many one liner’s that you could make a drinking game. Does that make any sense? NO?! Good, now you're starting to get it. This is a collection of 80's clichés and culture but the dial was turned up to 11 and just broke.

Marketing campaign

Kung Fury was funded through Kickstarter and because of this, its creation seems to have followed the same logic as a band in high school: make cool T-shirts first, then worry about music later. Only in this case the T-shirt was the completely insane trailer used to promote the short's Kickstarter campaign

With Kung Fury shot and ready for release, Sandberg wanted to inject new energy into the project and raise awareness. Back in April, (still going with the high school band theme here) Sandberg made the equivalent of some really amazing stickers. He decided to make a music video to promote the film. And who better to star in it than '80s TV star David Hasselhoff 

Next, to really get the crowds riled up and exited, Sandburg made the equivalent soda pop and free T-shirts to through out to the audience before the main show. This was in the form of “HACKERMAN'S HACKING TUTORIALS - How to Hack Time” a short Video on how to hack time 80’s style with a Power glove and all. At the end of the video Hacker Man gets hacked back in time by mistake and the video directs you to a competition page. The competition which is now over was the following. Using the stock images of Hack Man provided, hack Hacker man back in time using Photoshop and your imagination. The best images received a Kung Fury T-shirt.

Finally they had the equivalent of an after party with the release of their side scrolling 2D 8-Bit platformer game with releases on Both Apple, Android and Steam.

The trailer was enough to help the film's Kickstarter campaign rack up over $630,000, which let David Sandberg, finish his shoot and hire visual effects artists to build the virtual locations for nearly every shot in the movie. The finished product made it into this year's Cannes Film Festival, and Sandberg is currently shopping a feature-length version of the project as well. So without further due, if you haven’t seen it yet . . . KUNG FURY.

As always, this is Ballzy247 Signing out

References

Image 1 - Retrieved on 13/07/2015 from - http://www.ew.com/sites/default/files/i/2015/06/03/kung-fury.jpg

Hacker Man Competition - Retrieved on 13/07/2015 from - https://www.vhx.tv/kungfury/packages/kung-fury-official-short-film

General Infomation - Retrieved on 13/07/2015 from - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3472226/?ref_=tttr_tr_tt

History of Kung Fury - Retrieved on 13/07/2015 from - http://www.fastcocreate.com/3045812/how-kung-fury-went-from-a-career-hail-mary-to-kickstarter-sensation-cannes-entry-and-hollywo

General infomation - Retrieved on 13/07/2015 from - http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/21/8636195/kung-fury-movie-robert-rodriguez-tv-release-date

The High School Band Analogy - Retrieved on 13/07/2015 from - http://www.vox.com/2015/6/2/8712471/kung-fury