Progress

So it's been a week and a bit of neglection for my blog, sorry this tends to happen around a month before hand in dates, anyway just a quick sum up of where I am with my projects, what they're going to be and why:

Up Above Down Below

Back to the beginning of modelling, Simon told me to change my idea slightly, unfortuantly that 'slight' change is where I had done all my modelling, so many wasted hours there.

The Idea - 'Space Elevator', the cart shoots into space, exploring planets and moons, but it also passes by thiins you might want to see in space but never experience, i.e. a black hole, comet close up, an exploding planet and a giant space invader.

Of Bots And Bananas

Modelling the robot, in a few days modelling the scenery. The robot is nothing spectacular as it doesn't have to be, for the time being I'm going to concentrate on the animation. The scenery consists of two mountains, with a rope bridge attacthing them.

The Idea - 'The Bridge', a robot falls from the sky and lands on a mountain side, he wants to get across to the other side so crosses a bridge, he sees a plank missing and steps over it only to slip on a banana peel, he falls continuesly hitting off of the mountain. When he lands it's back to the start of the animation, so it can loop.

Card Game

Designed second prototype, with all cards designed and a clear rule set. Still space for changes to be made if there needs to be any, currently play testing the game and have been for two weeks nearly.

The Idea - Each player has to save their victims and scores points for doing so, it's long winded to explain properly so feel free to find the rule set on here, it's tagged under 'Card Game'.

Card Game: Victim Themes

I've been doing a little research into bizzare and odd illnesses to create more interisting 'Victim' cards, here they are:

1. Dr. Strangelove Syndrome - Officially known as Alien Hand Syndrome, this bizarre neurological illness affects thousands of people. It is caused by damage to certain parts of the brain, and causes one of a person’s hands to act independently of the other and of its owner’s wishes. For example, the misbehaving hand may do the opposite of what the normal one is doing: if a person is trying to button a shirt with one hand, the other will follow along and undo the buttons. If one hand pulls up trousers, the other will pull them down. Sometimes the hand may become aggressive – pinching, slapping, or punching the patient. In at least one case, it tried to strangle its owner. Says neurologist Rachelle Doody, ‘Often a patient will sit on the hand, but eventually it gets loose and starts doing everything again.”

Refeference: DR. STRANGELOVE SYNDROME

 2. Latah - This disease is mainly found in adult women. The sufferer may lose control of their behavior; mimic the speech and actions of the people around them. They obey the commands given to them. For example if they are given a command to hit anybody they will obey it instantly. They actually don’t know what they are doing.

Reference: LATAH

3. Pica - This disease creates an urge to eat things other than food. Sufferers eat substances such as paper, clay, dirt, glue, coal, even feces and lint. Some Researchers believe that it is due to mineral deficiency, but others say real cause and cure is yet to find.

Reference: PICA  

4. Capgras Delusion - In this disease, the sufferer becomes convinced that a family member usually spouse has been replaced by an identical looking imposter. He or she refuses to sleep with the imposter. Some victims even second guess their own reflections in the mirror.

Reference: CAPGRAS DELUSION

5. Kleptomania - The sufferer of this disease is forced to steal things, from paper clips to toilet rolls. They steal anything even things with no value. In some cases they aren’t even ware that it is a theft. At the time of theft the patient feels pleasure or relief. The afflicted may be women in most cases. Evidences show that the abnormalities in the brain chemical serotonin may cause this disease.

Reference: KLEPTOMANIA

6. Werewolf Syndrome - Two year-old Abys DeJesus grew dark, hairy patches on her face. Doctors said she has a condition known as Human Werewolf Syndrome. The disease is called werewolf syndrome because people with it look like werewolves - except without the sharp teeth and claws. In Mexico, a large family of men had hair that covered their whole face and body. Two brothers were even offered a role in the X-Files TV series, but they turned the offer down.

Reference: WEREWOLF SYNDROME 

7. Blue Skin Disorder - A large family simply known as the "blue people" lived in the hills around Troublesome Creek in Kentucky until the 1960s. They were the blue Fugates. Most of them lived past the age of 80, with no serious illness - just blue skin. The trait was passed on from generation to generation. People with this condition have blue, plum, indigo or almost purple skin.

Reference: BLUE SKIN DISORDER 

8. Boanthropy - Boanthropy is an illness in which sufferers take to the belief that they are cattle. Some Christians consider the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar to have suffered from this disorder. "He was driven away from people and ate grass like cattle." (Daniel 4:33)

Reference: BOANTHROPY

9. Cotard Delusion - The Cotard delusion or Cotard's syndrome, also known as nihilistic or negation delusion, is a rare neuropsychiatric disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that he or she is dead, does not exist, is putrefying or has lost his/her blood or internal organs. Rarely, it can include delusions of immortality.

Reference: COTARD DELUSION

10. Apotemnophilia - Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), also known as Amputee Identity Disorder or Apotemnophilia is the overwhelming desire to amputate one or more healthy limbs or other parts of the body. Although it most commonly refers to people who wish to amputate limbs, BIID also applies to those who wish to alter their bodily integrity.

Reference: APOTEMNOPHILI

Seeing as I have 12 victim cards these alone will not be enough to use, also it may be a bit contraversial because these afterall are real illnesses.

If these arent ok to use then I can either make up diseases that are humerous, or find diseases that have been pandemics over the course of history.

Card Game: A&E

Over the past week or so I have been developing the A&E idea, it seems to be going well as participants are enjoying gameplay and are full of feedback. I know I havn't outlined what the game was in terms of rules on here yet, but it seems irrelevant to now as the game has changed slightly, however there have been some changes worth mentioning:

• The game is now played in rounds so that the players can have the game go on for as long as they want.
• The amount of 'DEADICAL' cards has decreased as it seemed very easy to kill of victims.
• The amount of medical cards needed to save a victim has increased per victim to make victory harder.

Rules and Setup:

1.  There are 3 decks, the Victim deck, the Game deck and the Discard deck.
   
2. At the start of each round each player draws 3 cards from the Victim deck face up so the other players can see them, and 3 cards from the Game deck face down (if a Deadical or Shuffle card is drawn at the start of the round it goes straight into the discard pile and the players keep drawing cards until they have 3 Medical ones, then the round can begin).
3. Each player can have a maximum of 5 cards at hand at one time (excluding victim cards), they can only draw a new card from the Game deck if they discard a card into the Discard deck. Players can hold the 5 cards they have until the end of the round.
4. A round is ended by either a player saving or losing all of their victim cards.
   

Scoring:

1. Players can both gain and lose points. To gain points the player must save a victim by holding all of the Medical cards that meet the 'save' conditions on the victim card. To lose points the player would draw or recieve a Deadical card that only has to meet one 'die' condition on the victim card.

Special Cards and Rules:

1. Shuffle Cards 'mess' the game up and provide different ways to play. They can be group (every player) or singular (the player that draws the card) orientated. If a player draws a group card then they must play the card as it will effect every player in the game. If a player draws a singular card then they can play it at any point of the round as it will only effect them and one other player.
2. Any player can revive a dead victim once per round unless that victim has been killed by a shuffle card. The victim also must have been the last one to have been killed or saved. A victim is revived by a player saving a new victim; the victim that is saved in turn stays a part of the players pile. If a victim is revived then the player regains the points they lost for the victims death and gains the points for saving both victims (the saved and revived).
3. Any player can 'refresh' their entire pile once in the game at the beginning of any round of their choice, however, it comes at a cost of 3 points.

Okay so that's it for rules so far, here's the list of 60 game cards:

12x Victim Cards

35x Medical Cards

8x Deadical cards

5x Shuffle Cards

Modelling: Lighting

Here's a few renders of a bit of my city scene at different lighting settings, I based it in London, varying it up by changing the time of year and day:

Should have uploaded these things a few days ago, unfortuantly the wireless device on my laptop has broken so it's been a bit of a delay. If any of you guys have vista and you download SP2 let me know if it breaks your wireless please? Cheers.

'Up Above Down Below' Concept

There's going to be 3 separate environments, an EARTH environment, SPACE and WATER.

In a nutshell here's what I have planned to happen:

The scene starts in the earth environment with a man boarding the rollercoaster, the camera then switches perspective form 3rd point to 1st allowing the audience to sit in the seat of the man, essentially to be him. The rollercoaster then kicks into gear going through both rural and urban areas, showing off the extremes of both, as it becomes more rural the track begins to travel up a mountain-side, and because it's at the depth of the rural environment it looses power, the rollercoaster is then launched up the track at a tremendous speed only to reveal that the track ends.

The cart is launched into space (second environment) and travels around various stars, planets and extra terrestrial lifeforms. As well as the journey on the track there will be cuts of environments and maybe the man, to show him astounded.

The cart will eventually lose power from being in space and begin to fall to a new planet that is coated in water. The cart falls onto a track on the water planet and begins to go round on it, it passes through corals and fish filled areas, but as the journey goes on the terrains and creatures became less familiar and more alien like, again with this there are cuts off the track to the environment and the astounded look on the mans face. After passing through this area the rollercoaster will stop in an alien station.

Elements and Theme:

• The rollercoaster will be a rocket cart with huge thrusters.
• When the cart looses power the thrusters boom with fire and launch the cart into space.
• There is no dominant theme, I want the clip to show variety in environments.
  
• The track is important, it will start off stable but as it travels through the environments there will be loops, corkscrews, jumps - just generally getting more exciting as it goes on.
  
• Im going to try and put in dominant features throughout, so in the urban areas there will be huge buildings, cracked roads, tramps etc. in the rural trees, mountains, rivers and wildlife. In space shooting stars, comets, floating chuncks of rock, black holes and on the water planet there will be corals, deep and shallow water, sunken ships, caves, flurries of fish and sea creatures etc.
  

Card Game: Initial Ideas

I started to think about humorous or interesting events that could be transferred from real life to a card game format, I have had 4 initial ideas which are:

1. Walk of Shame - It's a race home against the other players, you've been a dirty stop out and you now have to make your way home as quick as possible before you get caught by your mum. The first player home wins and it is a point based race.

There would be 3 types of cards, CHARACTERISTIC CARDS which add traits to you as you try to get home which affect how the other two types of cards score when you pick them up. An example of a characteristic card would be 'Fancy Dress' which would put your character into fancy dress and most likely slow down their journey.

The other two card types are DRAWBACK cards and ADVANTAGE cards which basically do what they say, the drawbacks take away points from your journey and evidently slow you down. The advantage cards do the opposite.

2. Passing of Wind - Just by the title you can guess it's a silly game. The aim is to build up the biggest gas release that you can (in as many forms i.e. burps, farts) and release it when the time is right, once you do there is a turn limit for the remaining players to release their own, which if they want to win must be bigger than yours.

There will be various types of gas, and various factors within each - smell, noise, warmth etc. - that affect how the players score. Gas cards will be seperate to Factor cards.

3. Accident and Emergency - Each player represents their own hospital who compete to save as many VICTIMS as they can, the scenario? The board of medical health are going to give extra funding to the hospital that saves the most victims.. or something like that :).

The game has 4 types of cards and 2 decks, one deck is the Victim deck thats is filled with VICTIM cards and the other is a mixed Game deck that includes MEDICAL, DEADICAL and SHUFFLE cards. You win by saving 2 out of 3 of your victims, 1 is allowed to die, 2 and you lose.

The game starts with each player having 3 victim cards and drawing 3 cards from the mixed game deck each. On each victim card there is a unique set of conditions which show which cards will save the victim, and which will kill them. To save a victim all the medical cards listed to save them must be drawn, to kill them only one of the deadical cards has to be.

A forced card rota will take place at the end of every turn where each player shifts 1 card they do not want to the player to their left, it's not a negotiation the card must be accepted.

SHUFFLE cards mix the game up a little bit, they are unique cards that state conditions to make the game more unpredictable i.e. change all your cards at hand.

4. Infection - Each player represents a faction and determines which one they are with the first card that they draw, but keeps it hidden from the other players. Once they know the aim is to engineer a virus, bacteria or parasite and infect the other players decks.

There will be specific cards in a mixed deck to determine what each player gets, i.e. INFECTION cards; some virus, bacteria and parasite cards, but once you have one you cannot change it. once a player has their infection type they can draw cards from the deck but can only keep those relevent to their infection.

Modelling: A Room With No View

Here's the room that I modelled last tuesday in Simons session. As he requested I have put in a chair and a table, resting the train set from previous weeks on top of the table. The room is yet to be placed in a building from my city. I completed this last week after applying some textures, but havn't been able to upload the images due to Microsofts SP2 for Vista breaking my internet somehow. Anyway, hope you like:

And yet again blogger has decided not to let me upload photos, this time halfway through the bloody process. Here's links to the other two:

http://i398.photobucket.com/albums/pp65/EhGoonieGoogoo/room5.jpg

http://i398.photobucket.com/albums/pp65/EhGoonieGoogoo/room6.jpg

Animation: Robot Legs

Here's the animation from Andy's seminar on Monday, few problems with this one. It's my animation but Andy's model from the NOW. My model has a problem with it I can't seem to figure out for the time being, whenever I try to animate it the knees spaz like mad, I've probably forgotten to link something. Anyway, here it is:

Of Bots and Bananas: Initial Ideas

Just so you know, there aren't going to be any more city scape renders, why? Because like a prat I applied a Shell modifier to the city halfway through adding details to the buildings to raise the city slightly to create a curb, this however seems to have doubled up all the walls of the buildings, so I can't add windows. At least not without a lot of un-needed hastle anyway.

Oh well, you learn from your mistakes.

Anyway in other news, here's some initial ideas for the 'Of Bots and Bananas' project:

1. Killer Banana - Starts with the robot casually standing around, zooms to his face when he suddenly becomes shocked, the camera changed to a wide shot and then a giant man sized killer banana chases the robot from end to end of the screen, in a Scooby-Doo fashion. Can't think of the name of the music but it's the cheesiest chase music ever, and that's what will be played during this period. The robot eventually looses the banana, so the camera zooms into his face as he look around, he assures himself that everything is back to normal, then it switches back to a wide shot of the robot happily strolling off and slipping on a banana peel (which is the killer banana idle) at which point it springs up and devours him.

2. Robot Dispute - A robot is in his home, reading the paper when he hears a loud noise coming from the front garden, so he goes out to investigate and sees his neighbour on his lawn running around in a circle going crazy, setting of the sprinkler and generally causing destruction, at which point he confronts him and the neighbour returns to his own lawn. The two exchange a few words over the dividing fence, the robot then turns and slips on a banana. The neighbour sniggers and returns to causing havoc on his neighbours lawn.

3. Testing Facility - The scene establishes with two scientists standing outside of a mirrored window, looking in at a robot in a blank room, one scientist is holding a pad saying collateral, the other saying natural (these are the things the robot is being tested against), there is a vent in the room which starts to disperse various objects, such as sofas, pitchforks and generally heavy things which hit off the robot without causing much damage, then wind, snow fire and other natural forces occur to which the robot also withstands; as he does the scientists tick off objects from their pads. Eventually a banana makes its way out from the vents and absolutely destroys the robot, blowing it to smithereens, Leaving the scientists with blacked faces, pads and pencils.

4. Techin' It - Starts with an old low tech robot (similar in style to Bender from Futurama) walking along a street, he pauses and looks across the street to see another robot which is new and high tech showing off his gadgets to passers by who are all very impressed. The gadgets would appear from various hidden spots on the robots design, i.e. from shoulders, chest etc. The old tech robot walks over also to admire, and in an attempt to embarrass him the more high tech robot points to him as if to say 'your turn'. All the low-tech robot can do is open up his chest compartment to reveal nothing more than a lunchbox at which point everyone begins to laugh at him. He gets mad, takes out the lunchbox and removes a banana from it and hits the high tech robot in the face then drops the banana on the floor and walks away 'humphing'. The high tech robots head spins; he then rolls up his robot sleeves, begins to pursue but falls on the banana and breaks.

5. Big Bad Bot - The robot in this scene would be huge and intimidating, its shell armored and plastered in various weapons, as well as being covered in blood splatters and possibly having some bones hanging from sections of its armor. The mis-en-scene of the scene would reflect the robots appearance, the weather being overcast with dark storm clouds and the whole colour of the scene at a tint of red. For the actual animation; the robot would be on a foreword path of destruction, blowing up buildings, slaughtering anything in its path and having missiles and trajectories simply bounce off of it. Off course as with all of these ideas, the robot comes to fatality when it slips on a banana peel - maybe to a man dropping it as he flees.

6. Robiana Jones - Based loosely on a famous Indiana Jones scene where he picks up a treasure, replaces it with a bag of the same weight and sets of a whole bunch of boobie traps. The robots attire would be similar to that of Indiana's, the hat and the whip would be essentials, not so sure about the rest of the costume just yet. I plan to give the robot more of a role than just running from the boobie traps, for example there will be a gigantic boulder going towards him which instead of outrunning he could destroy with a high tech gadget. Obviously after getting past all of these difficult obstacles the robot will slip on a banana, not hurting himself but loosing the treasure he captures at the start of the scene by dropping it into an abyss.

7. The Good, The Bot, The Ugly - The theme is a wild west shoot out, but instead of cowboys with guns its robots with bananas. The setting would be a typical wild west street, with rows of buildings either side, horses roped up and of course there has to be a big water tower. The scene starts with the main robot walking out of a tavern, the half sized doors swinging behind him and his hat shadowing his face, then there's a pan of the street revealing two dozen robots all waiting to start trouble with the main one. The scene is slow to start, with various pans establishing it, showing both the setting and the props (panning past the holsters packed with bananas). A huge shoot out then takes place with the main robot killing off all of the bad guys, he spins his remaining banana and places it in the holster, then gets on a horse and rides off into the sun, as he does the horse slips, but this should appear as a silhouette.

8. Oops! - The scene starts with a man talking to a robot, who he then offers a banana to, the robot is amusingly offended (as robots do not eat bananas) and hits the banana out of the mans hand, it shoots out of its skin at a ridiculous speed and starts a wave of destruction at which point the camera changes to a rear tracking view of the banana and the trail of destruction it is leaving. It would fly through buildings leaving holes 20x the size it should and through various other objects. Maybe also leaving a trail of fire to represent the speed it is travelling at. The camera switches back to the robot and the man, still with the bananas destruction in view (blurred perspective behind the characters) at which point the robot has an 'oops' like expression on its face, then turns to walk away and slips on the peel, possible down a manhole. The moral of the story? You give what you get.

9. Banana Convention - This idea isn't the best, I'm only putting it on here because it randomly sprang to mind and made me giggle. A man takes his robot friend to what turns out to be a banana convention, the two quarrel and then the robot freaks out as he starts seeing all the bananas. The camera starts zooming into banana objects, i.e. billboards and logo's for stands etc. the camera then zooms to the robots face, his pupils dilate or something similar (head spins) and he then runs off screaming, as he gets towards the exit the camera cuts to being the man looking at him and he slips on a banana.

Modelling: City Scape

Here's the very first rendered images of the city I managed to get done during Simon's lecture. I have only created details on a few buildings, but I will add more over the next few days and then upload more detailed renders.

For the time being either Photobucket or Blogger is being a complete ass and wont let me input the images, so here's the links for now:

http://i398.photobucket.com/albums/pp65/EhGoonieGoogoo/city1.jpg
http://i398.photobucket.com/albums/pp65/EhGoonieGoogoo/city2.jpg
http://i398.photobucket.com/albums/pp65/EhGoonieGoogoo/city3.jpg
http://i398.photobucket.com/albums/pp65/EhGoonieGoogoo/city4.jpg
http://i398.photobucket.com/albums/pp65/EhGoonieGoogoo/city5.jpg

Animation: Robot Arm

Here's the animation from Andy's seminar on Monday, just had to do a bit of tweaking before i uploaded it, i.e. textures to make it look pretty. I've tried to get the humor going as soon as possible so if you're easily offended by this, my apologies :D.

In The Media

I am officially a published artist, you can buy KISMETIK's album which features my artwork throughout on amazon.com, eMusic, iTunes and some odd punkrock sites.

I also now have an established professional relationship with a London based publishing company called KRess Europe Limited.

Modelling: Train Set

Heres what I managed to get done in Simon's seminar on tuesday. I never got the image for the train so I made it up as I went along. Hoping to create train tracks and an environment for at some point, no promises though. It looks prettier than it is as I used mentalRay and applied a glass texture to the entire train.

Before the texture:

After the texture:

Animation: Solar System

This is the initial animation I have created from Andy's first seminar, give it a few days and I'll upload one with a texture on the planets.

A New Year. A New Blog.

First thing's first, my blog last year was far from what it should have been. This year is going to be different, with constant updates of work and pretty contextual analysis.

Work to be produced by christmas:

Modelling - Rollercoaster.

Animation - Robot slipping on a banana peal.

Game Design - Card Game.