Experimenting with Shapes in Blender

Gary showed a way to create a face without needing two edges to join them up using F. If I press E it makes a face from the edge I begin at.

 I began with just a crazy mess of different angles and faces. I quite liked the craziness of it but I didn't feel like it was going anywhere. For about a week I didn't touch Blender as I was focused on other projects. I was however watching George Clarke's Amazing Spaces. While watching I came across the Hive Haus. Hexagons and honeycomb patterns became my new obsession which I made myself use as inspiration and it helped to begin my project with some direction other than make something.

Bunker Tutorials2 in Blender

The finished floor plan.

Finished the tutorial and the plan of the rooms too. Above shows a screenshot of the plan. All that needed to be done to this now is to add a ceiling and create the controls for the character.


Update:

Added the ceiling which I found simple enough. I found added the player and camera and the controls to make it move more difficult. It took me three attempts following the video tutorials for Bunker. The first attempt was from scratch, I thought everything was fine but the player character would jump up and down and rotate rapidly. (almost as if being exorcised, which most certainly was not the plan.) I  didn't know what went wrong but I followed the tutorial again checking my screen against the tutorial in case I hadn't ticked something important (or ticked something I shouldn't have). Again, nothing seemed different but I deleted the player character and camera and tried again. I still don't know what was different but third time was indeed the charm!

Ceiling Added.

Bunker Tutorial in Blender

So my blog has lacked an update for a while. As the internet went down over half term at home I never managed to update my blog... not to mention the fact I forgot what I was going to say too. So update...

Last week I started using blender and I was following a tutorial by Gary that he'd made previously to teach people how to create a "horror" game using blender. After a bit of hassle I figured out how to play the videos without using quick time (my laptop didn't like using quick time, kept lagging and freezing and stuttering the image and audio making it impossible to understand anything.) Unfortunately I was being a bit silly (possibly an understatement) and forgot about the "open with" function.

So far in Blender I've animated the door, made the floor plan for the Bunker rooms and added the lights. I now need to follow the tutorial videos 4 and 5 to complete it. I think I have to add the ceiling, the door and then alter settings so the character wont walk through walls and so the door will open when the character is near.

Above: a screen shot of the Bunker before adding the rest of the floor plans.

Ideas and useful links

Last week we were given an tutorial video on how to create an animation in Photoshop, I've yet to try it out but I think I ought to at some point, especially as I'm fairly confident using photoshop.

Also got a list of things I out to get down in my book too, such as what I want the market hall to include and what I thought it would be. Started getting some more research done too so need to annotate it all.

Below are the videos to what was shown to me about techniques I could use.

Ed - although its not what I'm going to do, it does have to make you gasp at how much detail we're able to include. Notice how there is no hair? Hair is still tricky to get right... I find hard enough to draw it.. let alone attempt to try make a realistic body part move.

The Vein Magma - when I saw this the first time there was no sound, so watching this a second time I can understand why the faces gasped out like they do. Amazing CGI, and evident when you pause it at points and can see areas of the face where it starts to blend into the inks and paint, creating a smooth face rather than the dramatic crinkling paint peeling face.

Whilst looking for all the videos i got a bit sidetracked...
But it does hold relevance, in a way. Last year I created several paper stop motions and I came across one called zero.
Video = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOMbySJTKpg
Behind the scenes = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhLSZBCn1p4
I  loved the little characters made out of yarn, reminded me of the comical voodoo doll key rings(i think i had a santa/theif one a few years back).

Anyway, back on track, Tilt shift photography. I love the look of this because at first I genuinely thought it was all little models. How wrong I was.

Other Techniques to Consider:
Foley, the name given to the method of adding in the sounds after the footage is filmed, such as clothes rustling, footsteps and wind ect ect, that recordings the first time might not have picked up.

Colour grading is anther aspect to consider, which can be seen clearly if you loo at The Matrix films. In real life the lighting has a blue tinge, but in the matrix the lighting has a green colour to it. Not only do colours effect peoples moods but it also allows the viewer to clearly identify where the characters are without being so blatant to say it out loud.

Research

After getting a bit of information on what used to be in the market hall, i decided that I don't want to do an informative history theme. Instead I would rather create something that shows what I had been expecting and/or what potential I can actually see in this building.

To begin with I am going to get examples of other creative place, such as the slide in face books and red bulls headquarters, or Pixar headquarters.

Brain Storming

Okay, so the brief for Here/Now or here and now as I put it is to create an short film that is between 1.5 and 5 minutes. Not too bad, I just need to get some ideas down. Luckily I can use a digital log book as well as a physical book (saves printing off lots of paper, in theory).

Compared to what concepts I was shown for the Market Hall space, it is not at all what was expected. Currently it is cold with no heating or equipment, apart from chairs and some tables. Organisation seems to have lacked greatly here, much like the inspiration for this brief. At least I can definitely tick the "outside my comfort zone" box with the use of video. Going to start brain storming ideas into my log book I think.