24. A world of rendering

This is going to be a big update! Ive been rendering and skiddeling with Ndynamics for so many many hours  its easy to get lost in it all. Over all i think i am getting a lot closer to a continental feel. At first it was really hard to get generalized brushes of how the particles should act. This is all in an aim to get the look of the visuals to emulate something that is relate-able it needs to be a visual que that evokes something planetary and yet fluid enough to draw upon movement of lava in a lava lamp. The goal is to make something that will create a connection between the two objects revealing a commonality in how they are heated, how they move and cause the viewer to reflect on the fact that its all happening beneath their feet in slow motion.

the first few renders resembled rain drops in a blender but altering the conserve, blobby scale radius, incompressibility, mass, threshold and an array of other attributes in the particles and attraction / dispersion of the emitter, it started to look more continental and like mass covering a something spherical. 

I thought this is too compact, and too risen to be continents.

This iteration is more promising, I like the connections between the lumps and want to follow that though and see if I can get then even thinner or even more connected .

At this point i started to play with the self attract and getting the particles to draw towards each other creating a lot better looking masses, with the potential to animate the self attract pull to get them to move around like continents joining together and coming apart.

Playing some more with the settings I managed to get the particles to reflect a more lava type effect, i will compare this to other more solid results and see what is more visually conducive to the core ideas of flowing movement and viscosity

This is far more continental, I realy want to see if i can get the particles in this iteration to animate how i would like, though reality problem is that despite my laptop being very good, its struggling with some of the models and simulations im making. I am considering getting a new desktop to combat this as the uni computers are even worse. Especially since this is out-with any scenes or other assets and its just going to get more taxing.

More work on animating the particles that have an attraction to each other, they are very unruly and hard to get control of . One of the the issues that i have encountered is that the surface emitter means that the volume field effectors wont interact with the particles, meaning that i cant coheres them into shapes that i want using them. Just another hurdle to find a new way around, i am determined that they can be used for what i need, I think i am close, just need to keep experimenting and learning the system. I am thoroughly enjoying using the particles so far and think its a great new feather to my cap.

Here I started adding some planetary lighting to this iteration of the particles to see how they would look. its using a volume sphere that has white on one side of the colour shader and back in the other, then set it to Y gradient and rotate till it faces the right way. I Like it and think it gives more depth to the image, its another way that i could connect the abstract image to something more planetary ensuring the visual language is being clear as possible.

Jumping between the 3/4 different particle iterations i am leaning a lot and trying to combine them in to something that can embody or rather em-continent the world. I get a little closer each time but its such a slow process and I seem to lose hours to entering different values and sliding blobby scale radius bars etc to get there. 

I made a mood board to tr and convey what kind of feeling i want from the lighting and the 'atmosphere' surrounding the particles, this will again help enforce a context to the visuals enabling the viewer to better grasp the concept. Though the important bit would be that they take away from the imagery what they can glean, its an individual process that has merit within the true movement of particles yet is loose enough that it can allow for imagination and the real seed of learning. 

Above and below are some more of the planetary lighting tests that i have been doing, i really like the middle one as the blue tint to the effect makes it seem more like the blue haze if the atmosphere that encompass the planet .

For my personal development id say Ive learnt so much about dynamics since attending lynns Dynamics class, it may just be a small spectrum in the dynamics field but i now feel a lot more confident, and in the weeks ahead ill be looking into more interesting ways to see if i cant get these particles moving more like continents. 

23. Shevles of development

The DNA concept has been hampered by some uv mapping issues that took a while to remedy, however once fixed I was able to start work on a first pass texture to see how the rig would look / react.
For the look of the 'chromosome' books i wanted them to reflect their absolute nature, so I looked to something to communicate this idea. What I arrived at was law books as they are held in high regard, and also connects to the laws of nature and how genetics and DNA follow this law of nature  The contents of the book are what needs to be followed by the book to create something balanced. The flat with the comparison is that law is very subjective and can be argued either way, however, I think the commonalities of genetics/law of nature vs doing something by the book or law is stronger than the links to the justice systems ambiguities   

To carry this across to the book rig im playing with getting the colours and layout similar, but work still needs to be done to iterate on this. The DNA library is running in tandem with another concept so balancing the time on both is proving hard.The ground work is done, with the mapping of all the pages and mesh complete. below is a first pass of the texturing. Its also a struggle to understand all this and putting into practice, I never took biology in high-school so the majority of this is all new to me, but looking further and trying to break down the new information gives me a fresh look at how to best show how to learn it. Ive googled more things than I even fathom looking for as many answers as i can to burning questions that the project throws up - such as are the chromosome in pairs in the cell, how does the DNA fit in there, are the positions of the information within the chromosomes binary with set places for eye colour, what are the letters for the amino acids that the DNA requires to make a human. All of these inform me on how bes to present the work and if in fact still on the right tracks.

There will be 46 books reflecting the 46 chromosomes that are within a single fertalised cell, even the design is still in the process of being developed as i may play around with the look of the spine of the book to reflect  actual looks of chromosomes 

Above are actual chromosomes, while looking at them i wondered that to improve the visual connection between the books and the chromosomes that they are meant to represent - to combat this I thought about putting an image of the chromosome on the spine of the book, like a title. Then when looking at the 'library' you will see 46 chromosomes, some on red books (mother) some on blue (father). By doing this i hope to strengthen the connection that by licking up a red book from the bookcase, you are in fact selecting one of the mothers 23 chromosomes. 

Then when opening the book and turning to say chapter 6 , you find out that its where all the information  the body needs on how to make blue eyes. If you were to select the same volume of book from the blue fathers books and turn to the same chapter you would find how to make brown eyes. The body would then take the most dominant gene and use it in the baby's creation. However, because it still has both volumes the genetic material for both colours will be passed on. 

Below is a shot of the rigged book Ive sourced mid animation which i intend to use in the final piece. Its a great find despite having a lot of issues putting textures on it. However it is just a working book that with its fairly dynamic poses can showcase my idea. 

Demo reel of the book:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZOu2477PWs

And also the link to where you can download the rig

http://www.redesigndavid.com/single/2011/5/5/book-rig-for-download

And Davids contact info redesigndavid@gmail.com

Last Pitch Feedback

Feed back on pitch was primarily that i needed to step up the amount of production and practical testing. So now that I know that I have two main projects that are A reflection on Continental Drift and Embryo bookcase, I can focus in on those and helpfully get something that really builds a case for my dissertation.

Another constructing thing I was told to maybe reflect on is the transition between the embryo and the book case, at the moment it is using a blend shape to make it look more bookcasy. But to build a better visual connection would serve to improving the metaphor itself and its memorability.

On a more positive note the lecturers seem happy that I have a strong idea and research domain that has the potential to turn out some interesting final pieces. Another plus is that the thought that the visuals were a lot stronger than they were the previous semester, so I think putting in the time to attend Lynns Dynamics class really paid off in the end.

So constructively my main goals for the next few weeks are to:

- really focus on the iterations of practical material and work on making the Ndynamics animated!
- see if there is a better way to texture the dynamics to create a more lava lampy feel.
- keep looking at my frame work - it seems to be constantly growing with new parts and additions.
- take the bookcase metaphor back to basics and think of how better to convey the transition of embryo to bookcase.