Chopped Tree : Zbrush

Silver Fern Tree : ZBrush

Angel Trumpet Flower : Zbrush

Wk 8: Development Workshop: Example Reports

Wk 8: Writing Workshop Development

Development Workshop: Gray Hodgkinson 

One on One:

Theory:

• Stating problem, how story telling supports (2X examples) issue, reference
• Evidence of deforestation
• Focus on area - habitat and wildlife

Method:

• Storytelling through continuous narrative, sequential 

Whakatinana:

• Use describing words instead > from brief 

Notes: People to send draft text to:
Lee, Ant, Gray, Donald, Caroline

Wk 8: Writing Workshops

Writing Workshop with Caroline Campbell

• Commentary of experience during project
• Recap of proposal -what makes you want to do this project -your context (inspiration, why are you doing this project, your perspective)
• Quotes that inspired you -credit the text
• Not too many quotations (continuous narratives are used to...)
• Central proposition -main idea (provoke, challenge, stimulate, integrate, evoke)

Design Strategy:

• Format eg experience
• Model +imagery, text, colour, digital

Design Approach: 

• How project developed though design making
• Iteration, how it changed with feedback (shift focus, change you ideas etc)

Challenges:

• Honest, be frank
• How you overcome them
• Compare to aims, where you were successful -why
• A critique of your work -what could be better, what worked

Conclusion:

• Wraps up intro
• Where could your project go after finished etc 

Physical Hand In:

• Doesn't have to be spiral bound
• Could link to your design asthetic
• Well designed like the rest of your project
• 3X printed copies (2X for internal assessors, 1X for industry)
• Suggest using sub headings
• Citations -2 max for images too
• Images must be referenced
• Remember names and ID number 

Exposure Text

• 100 words
• Past tense (can be first person or third)
• Include target audience

Short Mushrooms: Zbrush :Brown and Red Version

Foxglove : Zbrush

It's not perfect but these will be very small in my composition so I'm not worried about it too much. I still need to take the Foxglove stem into Zbrush too. Hopefully I'll finish all my texturing on Friday and finish my alphas on Saturday.

Tall Mushroom :Zbrush

I am considering having another coloured version of this mushroom but I'm not sure yet.

Exposure Text: Draft

About

Gin Sparrow is passionate about communication and informing through narratives created in 3D programs. Gin’s core skills are in 3D modeling and sculpting,texturing and image compositing. Along with these skills she is an effective team member and is able to articulate ideas clearly.

80,000 Acres

80,000 acres of forest are cleared from the earth everyday. Because of this 28,000 species are expected to become extinct by the next 25 years. 80,000 Acres aims to create empathy for the wildlife whose lives are drastically affected by deforestation through a continuous narrative of a fictitious creature and his story of his lost habitat. Along with the narrative is a handmade book that has a heavily influenced forest aesthetic. The book’s objective is to inform the audience how to avoid contributing to this devastating problem. Deforestation is the leading cause of endangerment of orangutans and majorly affects biodiversity. 80,000 Acres creates compassion for these animals and inspires people to change their damaging habits.  

Texturing Snail in Zbrush

Base model I modeled Maya a while ago for a personal project.

I still need to sculpt in some details. I was refreshing my memory/relearning thanks to Caitlin how to save my UVs etc from Zbrush to Maya.

UV Mapping Logging Vehicle IN PROGRESS

Texturing Monkey Faced Orchid

There is a bit of stretching with the texture but because the flowers will be so small in the composition, I'm not too worried about it at the moment.

UV Mapping Monkey Faced Orchard

Research Report Draft Bullet Points

Red text is what I am not sure about and have to ask a tutor. 
(1,050 words in this bullet point draft)


INTRO:
Topic, issue or contention:Deforestation and it's effects on wildlife and their habitat.

Purpose, aim, objective, significance:

• Purpose, aim, objective: To make people empathize with the wildlife whose habitats are getting destroyed and how it can hurt or kill the animals. Inform the audience of how to avoid contributing to the problem.
• Significance: Make people think about animals before their consumption habits. If we don't change our ways some animals could become endangered or extinct (link to orangutans near extinction problem).

Theory: ...

Method: Research, thumb nailing, digital art making (modeling, sculpting, texturing, lighting, rendering, compositing a final continuous narrative) and hand made bookmaking.

Design Research informing the intention and direction: Continuous narrative research from pre-renaissance, story boarding -> continuous narrative

BODY:
Reflects on the strategy developed in response to the topic, issue and applied to resolving the aims and objectives:

• Research: Took a while to figure out my direction because I didn't write a proposal. I knew I wanted to create a forest environment for my character from my Digital Media paper. I was originally going to do my project on dogs vs wildlife but my palm oil deforestation research influenced my change as I was more interested in it and felt it was more environmentally important. 
• Planning what to create from just a narrative to a booklet also: I felt like a final digital art piece wasn't enough/clear enough to inform my audience on how to make changes. I was thinking about having a 'proposal' or explanation booklet to go with my narrative. But after talking to tutors about it they thought it was to obvious. I created a handmade book > inside introduction to my creature species (encyclopedia type format) which also lightly introduces deforestation and how we can stop its devastating effects. 

Reflects on the methods used to implement the strategy: 

• Planning story / Thumb nailing: It was originally hard to come up with story lines. I realised it was better to come up with a very simple, straight to the point story. This was made more simple by thumb nailing different storys in three parts and once those were narrowed down then thumb nailed again more fleshed out with 4-5 sections of the story. Though many variations of thumb nailing and feedback from fellow students and tutors, I finalised my final composition.
• Digital Making Process: Used Maya, Zbrush and Photoshop to create my final composition. This narrative was used to visualise my ideas to my audience.
• Handmade Book: I decided to make a booklet to go with my narrative as a more obvious way to get my ideas and message across to audience. I started my bookmaking process by researching different kinds of hand made book tutorials and made my own mock ups. I wanted my book to subtly get my ideas of deforestation. My book contains a rough encyclopedic type format of my own made up creature and bought in the topic of its dangers (deforestation). Making the finalised booklet, I used brown paper and very basic "forest" materials. This was to link it closer to my forest themes and environment. 

Explains how the methods were linked to the aims and objectives:

• Planning: Making sure my ideas and themes would be communicated in a way that is interesting to my audience and makes them think and feel empathy towards the wildlife effected my deforestation. 
• Digital Art making: I used a character I designed and sculpted to portray the wildlife creatures that are effected by deforestation. I used 3D design means to create my narrative as that is not only my discipline but I feel creating a realistic as possible scene would be a major contributor to my communicating my ideas as they are realistic. 
• Handmade Booklet: Made to inform the audience of my character species information and the dangers it faces of deforestation. To inform my audience the ideas/themes and inform them how to stop contributing to the problem via less paper/wood consumption, vegetarian diet etc

Reflects on how the project developed in response to first showing, EX-CHANGE and supercrit feedback:

First Show:

• Final Output: Originally my project was going to be a single final still but I was told to consider a different format and create more work -one single wasn't enough (eg storyboard, five frames, a few GIFs, animated stills etc)
• Style: I wanted to make my environment an exact replica of NZ forests but was told to consider a more fantasy approach as my character is fantasy. 
• Topic: I was told to really consider sticking to my dog vs wildlife theme approach instead of deforestation as this is a huge NZ problem with the endangered Kiwi. 

EX-CHANGE:

Supercrit: 

• Composition: Finalise composition with a camera run though in Maya over thumb nailing and traditional drawing.
• Consider your final booklet to be a pop up book.

Reflects on the challenges encountered in the design process:

• Story line: Struggled to come up with a story that was provoking and communicated my ideas simply.
• Output: Finalizing my final output for my digital art (3 tutors said different things)
• Book: Figuring out what goes into my booklet and why
• Technical Ability: UV mapping and Pipeline: I wanted to improve my skills in Maya. Pipeline: I had to adapt my pipleline to different models and visual effects. 
• Time management

Reflects on how the project responds to the concept of Whakatinana:

CONCLUSION:

Evaluate the outcome as meeting the stated objectives:

• I feel my work has been successful in my stated objectives. It creates empathy and an understanding of deforestation and its effects on wildlife. Is visually engaging to gain people's attention and keep it while also teaching them
• Informs audience of the issue, how to stop contributing to it and how to create a positive change

State how you have developed as a designer:

• Improved skills in informative storytelling (thumb nailing, planning and final 3D execution of final narrative)
• Improved Technical Ability: Improved skills in Maya, Zbrush and Photoshop (UV mapping, layers, lighting & rendering, image compositing in PH)
• Learning how to write a suitable text to go with my narrative that is engaging and informative
• Learnt how to make books by hand

Speculative future directions: 

• Create a series of works in the same format of human actions and their effects on animals (from the meat and diary industry to dog racing) with the aim of creating empathy among humans towards animals. 

Silver Fern Tree Trunk Model

Figuring out how to model the Silver Fern trunk. Going with the model on the right. A few adjustments before I take it into Zbrush. (I won't UV map it in Maya) 

Final model before I take it into Zbrush. Testing it with the alphas. 

Old Tree Model

This is an old tree model I did for a project last year. I might be able to use it for this one. It was made with nurbs. The meshes don't fit together so I'll ask Tanya if there is any point in using it for this project.

Modeling Full Tree

I decided to keep the tree simple with not many branches because you probably won't see much of the tops of the trees anyway.

Testing how the fern alphas work with the trees. It's good that they cast shadows too (not here but in another render I did, they did). I'll be modeling a silver fern tree trunk to go with these silver fern alphas. 

Modeling Monkey Face Orchard

I won't be taking this into Zbrush because it is a smooth looking flower. It doesn't need anymore details. I am excited to texture it with the monkey face! 

To do List

This Week (WK 7):

• ✓ Finish ALL models (in Maya) -woo hoo free weekend!

Next Week (WK 8):

Monday:

• UV map ALL models in Maya

Rest of the Week:

• Texturing in Photoshop
• Detailing in Zbrush 
• GET IT ALL DOOOOOONE

A snail to keep my spirits up when stress levels are high. 

Experimenting with Water Materials

I have a little stream in my composition and I was very worried about how I would make it  look good. I did a little research and found this amazing tutorial on how to create a very simple water effect, prefect for stills! 

Tutorial:

I chose a browny water because that's the kind of water I have seen in my forest walks.

Tutorial, Experimenting with Alphas

Tutorial:

BEST tutorial ever. So easy to follow. Just quickly pop it into Maya and its done for you! Pretty happy for a first try. It also teaches you how to get rid of the fuzzy black or white border which is good. 

Foxglove Stem Modeling

Testing the stem with the flowers. I'm not sure about the stem so far... But it will be hidden by the flowers so meh.

Modeling and UV Mapping Foxglove Flower

I'll only be modeling one flower and duplicating the rest on the plant. Next is extruding the faces, UV mapping, texturing and possibly adding details in Zbrush.

Yay! I'm getting the hang of UV mapping in Maya.

Quick texture mock up.