Monday 30 January 2017

Adaptation A - Tropeopoly Board

I have created my own monopoly board with different monopoly mono-tropes listed around the board. When landed on these tropes will be briefly explain what they mean and how to avoid it or avoid players that fit the tropes. 

Proof Of Concept Presentation

Saturday 28 January 2017

Adaptation A - Idea Explained

For adaptation A I am doing 'How to survive a game of Monopoly'
To convey this idea into a infomercial I am going to have a 3d monopoly board with two pieces on it. These pieces will represent two players who are going round the board. The dice will roll and the pieces will land on different properties. Each property will have a different monopoly mono-trope instead of the property name. These tropes will be different types of players or annoying features of the game that can cause the usual monopoly arguments. The tropes will be places around the board on properties which fit the placement of the property on the board, such as the more expensive the property the more annoying and higher the impact trope. When a piece lands on the property there will be a few points which explain the trope and how to watch out for it, therefore, survive it. 

For the mono-tropes that will go onto the board I have a list of different ideas:
  • Money Tennis - The act of two players having to give money back and forth to each other.
  • Forgetful Tanker - The banker that forgets to give you your £200 for passing 'Go'
  • Property Mogul - The player that buys all of the properties and has at least one of most colours.
  • Bargain Hunters - The players who always try to haggle and offer terrible deals for your properties.
  • The Survivor - The player who has minimal properties but always seem to have just enough to pay rent and stay in the game for as long as possible.
  • The Slum Lord - The player who ends up with just the brown properties.
  • No Deal Danny - The one player who has all the properties people need to make a monopoly but they'll never make a deal to trade them.
  • Mr Moneybags - The player who ends up with stacks of cash in front of them.
  • The Conductor - The player who ends up with all of the railroads making you pay 4x the normal price.
  • The Utilities man - The player who ends up with the electric and water company which will make you pay 10x the amount of the dice.
  • The Rule follower - The person who makes sure no one is cheating and all the rules are done by the book.
  • The Rule breaker -  The player who tries to get out of landing or paying for properties by cheating
  • The Developer - The person who gets the early monopoly and goes straight for the hotels.
  • The sore looser - The player who just hates having to pay out and loosing, usually kicking up a fuss.

I still need to work on the placement for the mono-tropes, putting them in the most suiting places for the trope, also including chance and community chest.

Image result for monopoly pieces
Monopoly Pieces
For the design of the monopoly board I was thinking of going with one of the original, classic designs, as it would be one that everyone easily recognises.
Monopoly board 1
Monopoly board 2

Monopoly board 3


Tuesday 17 January 2017

Friday 13 January 2017

CG Toolkit Submision

Maya

Maya Poses 1 - 5:

Second and third poses:

Cleaned up pose

2d Character rigging

Lip Sync

Head Modelling






Film Reviews

Hero's Journey


Archetypes and Hero's Journey - 

Archetypes & Hero's Journey - The Matrix

Image result for the matrix




The Matrix ,(1999), Directed by ' Lana and Lily Wachowski' is a sci-fi film that is based around a main character Neo, played by 'Keanu Reeves' . In the matrix the world that we live at the moment, is a computer simulated programme that we are put into when we are born. This changes our perception of the real world  which is being hidden by the matrix due to it being years in the future and pretty much all of civilisation has been destroyed. Neo is taken on by Morpheus, Laurence Fishburne' and his team as Neo is seen as the 'chosen one'. He then has to try and help the team destroy the matrix and revel the real world behind it.

Throughout the film we can see different character fitting different archetypes. These are the roles of the character and how they help to build the story and fit into it.

The first archetype we see if Neo who is clearly the hero of the story. The story follows Neo and how he is told about the matrix and then comes to master it. When first found by Morpheus and his team we see that they see Neo as 'the chosen one', a person who will be able to destroy the Matrix.
Image result for the matrix
The shadow of the film is the sentinel program and the agents. These are programs from the future that act almost as a computer virus being able to jump in and out of the Matrix and into any role or person who is within the Matrix. They act as protectors for the Matrix but as we find out early on the Matrix is seen to be the villain, making the sentinels and the agents to be the shadow, or the bad guy, in other terms.

The Herald of the story is an online chat room in which Neo meets Morpheus and this is where everything starts and where Neo is discovered for his talents. Neo is a credited hacker who has committed cyber crimes so in these hidden online chat rooms he is discovered by Morpheus who then talks Neo into arranging to meet him after saving him from his first encounter with Agents.

The threshold guardian is when Neo is being trained to manipulate the Matrix to make him stronger and faster, as it is only a computer programme it means that he is not restricted to the limitations of the real world. Learning to manipulate this is the guardian from Neo entering one world to the other and being able to master it.

The Trickster of the story is the character Cypher. We can see him plotting behind the scenes against Morpheus' group, even though Cypher is within the group. Cypher makes a deal with the agents to provide them with Morpheus as he knows information that they wanted. In return Cypher is told he can enter back into the Matrix as a rich person with no prior memory to what had previously happened involving Morpheus and his team.

The obvious mentor of this film is Morpheus. Morpheus teaches Neo about the Matrix and then trains him on how to master it. He also takes Neo under his wing as he see's Neo as the chosen one. Morpheus has complete faith in Neo, as he risks his life to save Neo's, sacrificing himself to the agents as he knows he cannot beat them in hand to hand combat, so Neo can get away.

The allies of the story are Morpheus' team members, Switch, Tank, Mouse, Dozer and Apoc. Throughout the film we see that these people are devoted members to Morpheus' team and they do their best to assist Morpheus and in hand Neo as he is seen to be the 'chosen one'.

The mother figure of the story is 'The Orical' she is an old, wise woman who can seemingly predict the future, she knows what actions are going to unfold and warns Neo that there will be a time that it is either him or Morpheus who will be killed. This then takes later in the film and we can see the truth behind the Orical's prediction.

The father is again Morpheus. He takes Neo under his wing, teaches him, and protects him, like a father figure would. From the first time that they meet Morpheus has complete and utter faith in Neo and will do anything to protect him.
Image result for the matrix morpheus team
The Child of this film is Mouse. His is the youngest member of Morpheus group and you can tell just by the way he looks, looking significantly younger then any other member of the team. He is also very shy and timid, which is where he got the name 'Mouse' from.

The Maiden of this story and also possible the Herald is Trinity. Trinity is seemed to be Morpheus' right hand woman as she is very skilled within the Matrix. Not only that but we can see her help to train Neo and also protect him. Along with that we can see attraction building between Neo and Trinity, to a point where they actually kiss near the end of the film.

Thursday 12 January 2017

Narrative Structure & Hollywood Formula:Big

Image result for big 1988



"Big"(1988), directed by 'Penny Marshall', is a film about a boy, Josh, who makes a wish on a Zoltar machine that he was big. With surprise Josh's wish comes true and he wakes up as his older self, played by 'Tom Hanks'. Josh, a 13 year old kid, has to go into the real world and find a job and fend for himself while him and his best friend 'Billy' try to find the Zoltar machine to wish he was young again.

The exposition on this film is at the start Josh goes to get on a roller coaster with a girl that he likes, but it turns out that he is too short to ride. This then means the girl goes on the ride with another boy and Josh's frustration grows. This is the main action that causes Josh to go to the Zoltar machine and wish to be big. So this is the start of the events to unfold throughout the film.

Image result for big 1988

The inciting incident is the moment where Josh wakes up and he realises that he is now 'big'. Waking up in his small bunk bed with his mum calling him from downstairs a confused Josh stumbles to the bathroom, where he looks in a mirror and is shocked by what he see's. From not knowing what to do it results in his mother thinking that he has been kidnapped by his older self, only she thinks he is a random man.

The first plot point of the film is Josh and his friend Billy trying to find the Zoltar machine for Josh to wish that he can be young again. When trying to locate the machine they discover that it will take up to six weeks for them to hear back about the location. This then opens up the second plot point as Josh now needs to get a job to afford living costs. Josh ends up getting a job at a toy company but at first he is just working in a computer department and has no connection to the toys.

The rising actions and obstacles take place at Josh's job. As Josh is at his job for longer he ends up getting into the bosses good books. This happens by Josh, still being a kid, loves to play with toys and has a better knowledge on what is fun then the other senior staff members. Josh is then promoted but this causes issues with the senior members who start to dislike Josh and one of them, Paul, actually ends up punching Josh when he gets aggravated by him in a game of squash.

The twist in the film is that Josh actually starts enjoying living as an adult and more or less turning into an adult. Not doing the same activities and playing the games he would when he first became big, but instead more focused on work and even becomes distant with his best friend Billy. Not only that but he starts for fall for a woman, Susan, who also falls for him. They start to have a relationship but Josh knows that he wont be able to last and avoids telling her his secret.




The resolution in this film is that first of all Josh tells Susan his secret and how he is actually a child. At around the same time Billy received the location of the Zoltar machine as it had been the 6 weeks. Josh ends up explaining everything to Susan and the he goes to the machine to wish he was young again. Later returning home to his mother, who still thought he had been kidnapped.

The ending of this film is a closed ending as the story is over and there are no cliff hangers or easy ways to continue with the story. The plot type is an arc plot as Josh goes through a journey which involves different obstacles which change the outcome of the story, but in the end he finishes where he started.

Maya Tutorial - Head Modelling - Part 7

Modelling the brow.

Maya Tutorial - Head Modelling - Part 6

Modelling the nose.

Maya Tutorial - Lip Sync


Character: In class development

Adaptation: How To Survive....Pitch


Wednesday 11 January 2017

Maya Tutorial - 2d Rigging - Parts 1 - 5

Part 2

Part 5

Part 5

Part 5

Part 5
Even though I am yet to finish the zombie tutorials, I have still worked through all of the tutorial videos for the narrative project. For this I had to create aliens into 2D models and rig them. This work can be seen in the narrative project, final video, "Giant Steps" on the D4C Studios blog. There are also some images below of the rigged characters.


Maya Tutorial - Head Modelling - Part 5


Maya Tutorial - Head Modelling - Part 4


Maya Tutorial - Head Modelling - Part 3


Maya Tutorial - Head Modelling - Part 1 + 2


Character - Reflective Statement

Overall I felt as if this project could have gone better, but at the same time I feel as if it helped improve on my drawing and character designing skills dramatically. When coming up with the initial idea for the project from the sound clip and the environment I did this rather quickly and was set on my idea. From this I had an idea of what I wanted my characters to look like from early on. I think this held me back a bit as I ended up limiting myself as rather then trying new ideas for the character design I kept trying to improve on what I already had. From looking at my initial designs compared to my final I do see a dramatic change in not only the appearance but also the quality. I have previously struggled with drawing characters digitally but found after the work within Justin's lessons, drawing in my sketchbook, this helped me get a better feel of how to draw my characters structurally. I do still wish I could have had my characters developed slightly more but at the same time I feel as if I can see the improvement in my work. With the story boarding I found it difficult to try and keep it to a short amount of frames, as my idea involved a lot of build up. This restricted the amount of detail I could put into it within the limited number of shots. If I was to re do the story board I feel as if I would make better decisions of where to have the camera and what shot to use.