009 - Working Title

I believe a good title is important. It's usually the first point of contact/entry for creative projects.

I knew I had to find a suitable title for this project. A title that would encapsulate the whole spectrum and scope of the project. I did some brainstorming exercises trying to come up with a suitable name, making numerous lists. In the end the title found me when I wasn't looking for it (as is so often the case).

Miasma.

I stumbled upon this word one day a few months ago whilst playing the video game Dark Souls on my PlayStation 3. A character mentioned the phrase, "A miasma of death and disease" during an opening cinematic cut-scene. I liked how the word sounded (plus it's morose connotations) so in my usual curious way I decided to research the word's meaning and history. I found the below quote from Wikipedia.

Miasma - 'In Greek mythology, a miasma is a contagious power that has an independent life of its own. Until purged by the sacrificial death of the wrongdoer, society would be chronically infected by catastrophe.'

This instantly it sent my imagination into overdrive. What could cause the Miasma? What could it represent? How could it be defeated? All these questions flowed through my mind during the initial idea and writing process. I realised I could fit my existing ideas into this title whilst developing the concept even further. The title informed the story as much as the story informed the title.

I designed a haphazard, hand-written style logo then made a few test screens (placing the logo on top of various photographs and backdrops) to see how the title could look in a visual sense at the start of the short film. I wanted to test it's impact and tone, set in the realistic space and ratio of the screen.

Initially I was not so impressed with how it looked on-screen but it has grown on me considerably since I first researched it months ago. I can't imagine calling this project by any other name.

008 - Motion Capture Software

We just recently got two copies of Qualisys Track Manager installed in our lab to process the 3D motion capture data we recorded. I've spent some time reviewing what we did and learning how to get the best output possible.

Me doing some contemporary dance movements

At first I though this was going to be a complicated process, but it's more fidgety and time-consuming than difficult. Every dot on my body that I wore during the motion capture recording is represented by a green or red dot in the program's view screen. Green dots are good because it means the software has automatically synced-up the correct positions. However if a red dot appears it means that dot has to be manually reassigned to it's proper body part.

Generating an 'AIM Model' can help in this process. Firstly you take a short piece of recorded footage from your data and correctly assign all the dot placements manually. Then you can export the model as an 'Aim Model' to apply to other raw capture data. The software uses the information saved in the Aim Model to automatically calculate and assign dot positions. It's not a perfect system as some dots lose their connections during complicated movements like turns and spins. However it does provide a good starting point to then get in there manually and fill in the blanks.

I personally like the feature of being able to add line streaks before or after the characters movement. It allows you to gauge the smoothness of limb movements and the quality of the capture. Jagged streaks would need some manual correction later on to smooth the end result.

The next stage will be taking this data into Autodesk Motion Builder and prepare it for connection to the 3ds Max character model.

007 - Aspect Ratio

I spent a long time at the beginning of this project trying to decide upon what aspect ration to output the final video. There are numerous standards to choose from. (16:9) would be the smart choice here so as to conform with most modern television sets and PC monitors.

However after researching some feature length and short films I began to appreciate a more extreme widescreen format. I find the super widescreen experience you get at the cinema to be far more theatrical and exciting. From an artistic point of view I think there are opportunities for more dramatic close-ups and creative compositions.

The aspect ratio standards for general theatrical releases is (2.39:1), more than double in length than the height of the screen. Blu-ray disk release standards are very similar at (2.40:1), at a full HD resolution of 1920x800.

One thing I've had to be constantly aware of in this project is timescales. More specifically, animation render times. Careful management of the screen output size could alleviate severe render times. So in order to make a more informed decision about screen aspect ration and potential speed of frame outputs I though I'd work out how many pixels each option contains. Here were the results in order of total pixels:

16:9 1920x1080p Full HD = 2,073,600 pixels
2.40:1 1920x800p Full HD = 1,536,000 pixels
16:9 1280x720p HD = 921,600 pixels
2.40:1 1280x533p HD = 682,240 pixels

Diagram I did to investigate the differences in size between formats

You could argue that there is an advantage to using the 2:40 ratio as less pixels will be involved in the rendering process.

Example of how the final video will look proportion-wise

So the final output I've decided on will actually conform to the 16:9 ratio but will be letter-boxed to suit the 'Panavision' format. This should aid in ease of playback with most screen sizes, formats and internet video hosting sites.

006 - Stereoscopic 3D

A significant part of this project is focused on the use of stereoscopic 3D in film, and more recently, video games. It's the same effect you see at the cinema when you don the 3D glasses.

At the inception of this project I'll admit I didn't know much at all about how 3D works in this way. It had always intrigued me, so I leapt at the chance to investigate it depth for this project.

I realised that in order for this effect to work there must be two completely separate views of the same scene/area. Each of these views represents the difference in space between the right and the left eye. Just like in real life when you focus on something in the foreground the background not only blurs out of focus but is also split in two horizontally. The same thing happens to a foreground object when focusing on the background except the horizontal split happens in the opposite direction.

This effect can then be harnessed by 3D technology to mimic the eye's natural methods. By setting up two cameras the right distance apart in a 3D modeling package like 3ds Max 2012 you can then composite the two views and create the illusion of depth. It tricks the eyes by forcing them to apply the rules of three-dimensional vision to a 2D flat surface.

First test with 2 Iphone photographs

I tried some initial experiments with this using several 3D characters I modeled. They all sit at different points on a flat surface, some closer to the camera, all of them a different size. The goal of the experiment was to see if the viewer could identify what characters were closer and what ones were in the distance. The effect works very well here with everyone I tested being able to correctly read the '3D' space.



I am hoping to do one scene or all of my final animation in stereoscopic 3D to further to further dramatise the on screen events and to push my own knowledge of using 3D systems.

(I suspect 3D will be a passing phase in general society, impressive as it is. It's a very clever gimmick, one that has been polished considerably in recent years. 3D TV sets have came right down in price yet they're still not a popular choice with today's consumers. I think this may be because people don't like wearing special glasses to watch television. I think it's the only barrier holding the technology back right now.)

005 - The Writing Process

I really wanted this project to have a solid foundation. A central idea or concept that would underpin all subsequent decisions and design choices. It should be a cohesive and 'complete' piece of work.



I therefore sought to write a screenplay-style script as though I was writing a piece for film. My thinking was that if I'm going to be creating a short film animation then I may as well get involved in the whole process from start to finish. To be the 3D Modeler, Animator, Director, Producer, Mo-Cap Choreographer etc. but also the Writer.

So I spent some time researching the conventions of writing for film. Reading over numerous guides, looking into character and plot development. I read some full-length film scripts (including one from my favorite film, Quentin Tarentino's Kill Bill Vol.1) to try and learn this whole new style of writing for the screen.

It really is a different style of writing. I'm used to creative writing in the form of essays and short stories. Even academic writing. But writing for the screen is a different beast entirely. You literally write what you want the view to see on the screen, at any given moment, no more, no less. At first I found it strange but then found it unusually liberating. It forced me to think about my project in different way. You can't write how a character feels, for example, but you can allude to how they feel by changing what we see on screen. It's that good advice 'Show, Don't Tell', but in a more literal sense. It also leaves the final work more open to interpretation.

I know my final written output from this exercise was only three pages long and definitely wont be winning any Oscars but the process itself brought out so many ideas.

The resulting script was then used to directly inform the story boarding part of this project. Some ideas have changed or had to be cut from the original scripting phase which I'm fine with. A project like this naturally evolves over time.

To be honest I probably spent far too much time on the writing. Having said that I know that there are ideas existing in this project that would not exist if it were not for me going through this deep and rigorous process. I'm glad I did it and would stress the importance of spending time with words.