Project Brief - From Group Blog

Project Brief
For this project you will be working in teams of four of five students. You will all be working towards a final collaborative short film but will have the opportunity to fulfil clear and separate roles within the team.

- You will be working to create an animated environment
- You will be collaborating with the other animators in your team, but research, and your drawn responses to that research.
- Your research will form the starting point for your work.

This environment will be modelled in 3D, UV mapped, textured, and lit based upon the research of materials, architectural and aesthetic motifs, in order to create a visually consistent and coherent digital environment that will contain animated elements as well as providing an arena to support animation and interaction by characters.

Your environments by virtue of their virtuality are unreal, they will be designed from a starting point of real world research and drawing. You will be expected to provide visual and contextual evidence to support the development of your designs. This research will consist of practical site visits such as the drawing trips to London based venues and associated drawing and photography, as well as academic research via the web and the LRC.

This environment must demonstrate integral animation, it could be mechanical such as machinery, doors, windows, windmills etc, or it could be more organic, and atmospheric, such as the effects of wind on plants, weather conditions, etc. It could be a much more long term animation to show the effect of years passing, rather than minutes. For those of you who can focus upon contextualising the designed environment by populating it with characters using that environment, it may be that the environment is being used in an unintended or unexpected way that has evolved through public interaction with the space.

Animations- Changes over time
- Changes in weather or lighting
- Changes in use of the environment

Visual Aesthetic- A historical period
- An artistic movement
- A geographic or cultural idiom

Blogged design journal is needed.

Things to focus on

-Understand how lighting and colour affect the appearance and mood of an environment.
-Reflection upon, and analysis of, individual performance in a group context.
- Analysis and replication of a real environment of implementation of a designed environment using 3D visualisation software.
-Build a computer generated environment, using modelling texturing, lighting and character interaction to a consistent visual aesthetic.
-Contribute successfully to a collaborative visual aesthetic.

Assessment criteria
- Evidence of the identification and analysis of the aspects of colour, shape and light that contribute to the successful simulation of a particular environment.

Colour - Self explanatory. Why are the colours we're using there in the first place? What relevance do they have to the scene. What effects do they have on the environment, as well as the mood and atmosphere of the environment. How will colour help us to convey specific mood changes / atmospheric effects as well as how it could be used to indirectly link symbolism.

- Evidence of reflection on the student’s personal contribution to the project.

GUYS. SPECIFICALLY AS THIS SAYS. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTION. MAKE SURE EVERYONE IS AWARE OF WHAT THEY CONTRIBUTE TOWARDS THE GROUP AS IT WILL CONTRIBUTE TOWARDS YOUR FINAL GRADE. BEING SAID, DO NOT TRY TO STEAL OR CLAIM SHARED IDEAS AS ONES OWN. THIS IS AN ASSESSMENT CRITERIA!

- The degree to which the CGI environment represents a successful replication of a real environment or implantation of a designed environment.

How awesome is the final project going to be? We will be sort of replicating a real place so it should have a feel of the place we're going to replicate. How will that actually affect our final outcome? How well is this going to be pulled off? What is the final finished detail of the project going to be?

- The consistency of the styling of the environment.

How correct is the environment that we're making? Remember, no mindfucks. Make sure that all this stuff has / currently exists, or is at the VERY least extremely feasible to create. How well does this fit into the theme of what we're doing?

- The degree to which the lighting of the environment is appropriate.

What is the purpose of light? Both literally and how it affects an environment / mood of a character / environment. How can we use light to correctly convey various viewpoints of the audience? How can we use light to portray a sense of isolation / suspense / power / beauty?

- The degree to which the environment is used to successfully demonstrate appropriate animation.

What is appropriate animation? Simply put, neccessary animation. Why animate anything that the camera is not going to see? Why make a bird do a backflip followed by a running jump if the original intention was for it to just fly away? Random? Yes, but there are contexts for these things. It's all appropriate if it fits with what is required.