Category: Collaborative Unit

We encountered many difficulties and obstacles during the course of the cooperation project, but we eventually overcame them one by one. I’d like to thank my team members in particular for their encouragement and motivation. Although the acquaintance period is brief, everyone is eager to communicate and listen to others’ perspectives.

The cooperation time is limited, but the time when the team members collaborate makes me very happy.

Despite differences of opinion during the collaboration, everyone has contributed many interesting ideas, and as long as they are reasonable and convincing, they will all be implemented. This gave me a strong sense of belonging, and the group atmosphere was very pleasant.

Sometimes I have strange ideas that take a long time to come to fruition. Because I’m not sure if it will work for our short film and whether we will be able to complete it. However, my team members are willing to accompany me to try and brainstorm ways to make it more interesting.

When I encounter problems, they are willing to actively help me and comfort me, don’t worry. For example, when I was rendering, Arnold’s rendering speed was extremely slow. It took less than ten minutes for a picture and more than half an hour for a video. As a result, even though there were many computers in the school, my rendering progress was very slow. Finally, the members assisted me in resolving this issue and locating a teacher to teach me how to render using the LCC render farm.

I learned a lot during our collaboration. Thank you once more to my teammates and teachers!

Rendering with Arnold renderer and LCC Render farm

I’ve been using the Arnold rendering tool that comes with Maya, and it’s extremely slow. A picture takes more than ten minutes if it is faster and more than half an hour if it is slower. As a result, even though there were many computers in the school, my rendering progress was very slow. Finally, the members assisted me in resolving this issue and locating a teacher to teach me how to render using the LCC render farm.

Render farm:

FX

Use MAYA particles to make water waves, snow, cloth effects

Water

You can control the size of the ball to adjust the water wave.

Snow

Animation

When the protagonist enters the room, although it is invisible to the naked eye, the cat will sense and look in the direction of the protagonist.

Light：

Using Spotlights to Make Projector Effects

Add fire to the fireplace

Light bulb effect

Although it is night, the warm light creates a warm feeling. It can arouse the protagonist’s emotions even more.

Camera：

Export camera position information and preview video

FBX and AVI formats are given to the special effects students to import into Houdini to add effects

It mainly focuses on the perspective of observing the protagonist and the protagonist’s observation of the couple, reflecting the protagonist’s curiosity about the utopian world.

Use MAYA, SP&PS

Problems encountered in modeling and solutions:

1. Turn on the adsorption
2. 2.shift + right mouse button, select create polygon tool, and draw

3.Adjust the shape, switch from point mode to object mode

4.Extrude the thickness. At this time, the extruded normal is reversed.

5.The line is messy, please smooth it

6.remesh Change the number of lines, adjust

7.retopologize

8.Adjust details with sculpting tools

Quickly make wires:

1. Create a curve

2.scan mesh

UV

Materials

Class：use MetaHuman to create your own character

Storyboard

In the fourth edition, as the protagonist falls into the world where ordinary people live, and feels the ups and downs of life, his body gradually gains color.

Final version, edited footage to make it more coherent.

Add the end：

The protagonist is drawn to a couple and wanders towards their home. When he walks in front of the movie screen, he is infected by their warm atmosphere and his entire body is covered in colour.

The screen then sucked he in, he walked through the tunnel of consciousness, and he found himself back in the laboratory. Everything that had just happened was a dream, but his brain was melting.

The protagonist realizes the beauty of life and tries to wake up other brains through neurons.

Green screen

This is my first time using a green screen. People of higher social classes use green screens to express themselves. People in the real world are the protagonist’s dream, so they are also presented using the green screen keying technique.

The warm and cold tones of the two worlds are different to reflect the concepts of utopia and dystopia.

I wanted to play a gloomy scientist who walked quickly and gestured to the screen.

And I try to use down jackets to shape the characters of different body types.

Modeling in MAYA：Quickly make a ring

Class：use Unity to build world

Representation:
In the class, everyone made a representation, reported project ideas, sketches, group allocations and any work-in-progress materials.

Feedback:

1. Will the narrative of the story be insufficient?
2. The feeling of dystopia is not very strong
3. The characters should not look too much alike, find more references. (such as the number one player, etc.)

Because the first version’s narrative was insufficient, the second version changed the lens. Initially, the brains of upper-class people were stored in laboratories, and various scientists monitored the changes in the brains. One of them had a unique brain.

I quickly realised that a main character could be added to serve as a narrative thread throughout the film. So in the third edition, the protagonist appears as the conscious body of high-ranking people, and its whole body is white.

The section about the cat has been removed since the character was born.

The change is that the protagonist is walking down the street, and no one can see or touch him.

When the protagonist collides with a pedestrian, the colour of the collision location brightens.

The protagonist is drawn to a couple and wanders towards their home. When he walks in front of the movie screen, he is infected by their warm atmosphere and his entire body is covered in colour.

The screen then sucked he in, he walked through the tunnel of consciousness, and he found himself back in the laboratory.

Visit to TATE
Download and use the LUMAAI App to scan artworks in 360 degrees

Avatar designs, digital identities and twins.

In the class, cases of avatars in different forms were shown.

Discussed:

• What are Avatars?

Avatars are graphical representations of the user

Avatars are extra-dimensional icons of your physical self

• What is your PFP?

Everyone shows their images on miro

• What is the role of avatars in digital spaces?

I think avatars are a form of self-presentation.

• ……

Shared some software that can make Avatars:

Work：

We wrote about the difficulties we encountered in group cooperation in class. I believe that time is a major issue. Because we are in different majors, it is difficult for us to meet in person. This is a significant challenge for us.

A brief summary:

During this week, our group determined the storyboard and what we each needed to do and implemented it.

Task & Challenge & Developments:

• Story board

Current plot:

The camera is pushed into the laboratory from the outside, passing through the busy virtual laboratory scientists and entering the monitored brain laboratory.

The camera pans forward and backward to reveal the laboratory.

Take a close-up of the brain after entering the room with it.

The camera reflects a utopian world on the mirrored floor.

A young couple is watching a movie in that world.

The warm and everyday life is very different from the cold laboratory.

They also raised a cute kitten, which the camera followed down the street.

The cat came across a puddle on the road, looked in, and saw the laboratory scene again.

Finally, the scene where the cat is watching is frozen, and the world is closed like a box.

• Scene mood board and model

• mood board

Design Idea:

A cosy, warm-toned interior with dim lighting. The couple huddled together to watch a warm movie projected by the projector on the wall.

• Model

Research curtain and bed fabric crafting:

• Curtain:

1. Create a plane and adjust the number of subdivisions

2. Freeze and delete history

3. Switch to fx, create cloth

4. Create a cube, resize it, and put it on top of the plane

5. Freeze delete history and add subdivision
Select the top row of points on the plane and select the cube to create a point-to-surface item

6. Repeat the operation, adding cubes in the middle and end of the plane

7. Set the self collide width scale to 0.01 to reduce the collision of the cloth model itself during the folding process.

8. Use this button to play, drag the cube during playback to adjust the shape of the curtain

Tips：

If there is no response when dragging the cube model after playing, go to the preferences and turn off the cache playback

9. Delete the curtain history, delete nCloth nodes and constraints, etc.

10. At this point, there will be an additional original plane model on the model

Delete redundant models via the shape options in the outliner

11. The curtain is finished

• Bed

1. Create a cube as a bed, adjust the size and shape

2. Create a plane, add subdivisions, and set a certain height away from the bed

3. Plane：Freeze, delete history and create nCloth

4. Bed：Freeze，delete history and create passive collider

5. Play the timeline, select the appropriate frame to pause

6. Select the object and delete the history to pause on the effect of the selected frame

7. Also delete nCloth nodes and constraints, as well as redundant models

8. Subsequent details can be adjusted

Discussion on project briefs and ideas 

We decided on the theme and group members for the cooperation meeting on Friday last week, decided to use ‘Utopia and Dystopia’ as the theme, and successfully invited special effects students to join the group.

We discussed a simple idea and storyboard of our group’s progress with the teacher in this week’s class.

We try to add more visual effects to the film through some special effects, such as green screen, glitch art, etc.

Sara provided us with some useful feedback that required further consideration.

• How does one combine 3D with the desired three renderings and two effects?
• Will the transition between styles be abrupt?
• In which world is utopia found? The audience can choose which of the two worlds they believe is utopia, but we must still determine which world is utopia when we create it.

Sara also helped us with some technical issues at the same time. If we are unable to book a green screen classroom, we can seek her assistance.

Following this discussion, I have a better idea of where the short film should be improved in the future. Simultaneously, we discussed these issues with the team members, and we unanimously decided to call the warm and everyday world behind Utopia.
Following that, the plot was revisited, and I revised and refined the storyboard.