Feng's Thesis Blog. It's Awesome.

some drawings and 2 renders.

2008-06-04T11:22:00.000-07:00

Werd.

Heres a Render of the jelly flower.

heres a screen cap from a particle test.. its about 70% of there way there.

*Update! I came out with a new particle test using dynamic expressions.
Enjoy.

Proposals for the future:

FFT python code > Mel

Of that I’ll also need python code written to load wav/mp3 files
make proper connections to control particle rates and “sound wave bed”

Flock animation script for the jellyfish instances(make it where jellies can transform.)

Start mel script research for fluids and adapt it to communicate with python code.

Finish Elephant rig(dynamic curves for ears, trunk and tail)

Finish modeling jelly flower and rig.

Why the new idea.

2008-06-01T22:19:00.000-07:00

I decided to come full circle to something I abandoned almost a decade ago. Computer programming, more specifically generated animation.

I'm opting for something more appealing to the motion graphics industry, music derived animation.

I am hoping to use Fast Fourier Transformations to create informational arrays from music, to create a bed on which my animation is driven in MEL, now there is no FFT/DSP analytical code with in MEL, so I have to turn to Maya's integrated Python shell system. So... meaning aside from just learning MEL which I only just started learning this quarter, I now also have to learn how to code in Python. Yeesh, I know... Good news is it's extremely close to Java, which I took freshman year in college, bad news is this was at San Diego State University so I never really paid attention, skipping class is the campus's favorite pastime. Worst yet it's been years since, so what little morsels of knowledge I did retain.. is buried underneath years of drawing and painting and sculpting... not easy to dig out. So its back to square one, worst yet.. Fast Fourier Transformations on principle I know what it does, but how it works remains a mysterious black box, and any explanations have required Linear Calculus and Algebra knowledge.. stuff I haven't given a thought about(thank god) since 10th grade..

But please allow me the pleasure of explaining the basic premise of the visual elements, the screen starts off black and weird optical abstractions(almost dust like) come to obscure the screen, from which as the music comes to play reveals a dancing bed of light which of course is driven by the music, then particles flow through the screen and warp around an invisible object, at first the shots are close ups and done in obscuring angles as the music becomes more full more particles are flowing revealing a sillouette of an elephant walking along this bed of light creating a wake in the particles passing over its body. At some point some of these particles cling to the sky and hold as everything else begins to fade away, these particles one by one grow into bell flower buds, then blossoms then bloom into full bell flowers, to which they evolve even further into flower shaped jellyfish. The music obviously takes off in another direction and the jellies begin to swim towards the sky, they pass by the elephant shilouette revealing their giant nature of their size. The Jelly's keep swiming and speed up as the music once again intensifies to the point where they once again evolve into speeding comets towards what appears to be a blackhole(this could change at some point) they burst through the black hole like a jet though clouds and emerge into this colorful nebula like place(the music really goes crazy at this point) where it gets really intense and visually abstract(this part will be done in fluids and will have the least amount of generated animation) and the movie intensifies to white with the music, and goes to credits.

I guess one can think of it as 2008's version of Fantasia only without the racist undertones.

I'm currently working with an experimental band Pain Plane based in San Diego to help create some music specifically for this piece.

I also found several libraries for use in python which helps provide FFT code and MP3/Wav class functions, learning to use them is gonna take some time tho, and learning to get that to work with MEL, might take longer. Worst Case scenario I have methods of doing it without code.
I'll complete a few more concept paintings to help illustrate my ideas.

New concept!

2008-05-19T17:13:00.000-07:00

It's official I pulled a Gantz!

New project, new idea, new direction!

It's generated animation art meaning its heavily based on scripting in MEL and the python shell system.

I'll explain more later, but here are a few concept drawings I've done to help others see what I hope to achieve.

NANA LIVES!!!!

2008-05-05T14:49:00.000-07:00

well except for her shoes.. I have no idea what kind of shoe the women of the day wore... I'll get that done ASAP.

She still has legs underneath to help collide with the N cloth tho I might just replace that with simple cylinders to speed things up.

sky's the limit.

2008-05-05T13:29:00.001-07:00

I've been busy thumbing away at the "matte" background elements, I have a panoramic shot of Paris which I am going to modify with more Anachronistic building designs... Heres two examples.

They may look the same but they're two different buildings, the one based off of SF's city hall will be modified to look less towerish. My hope is to use various older buildings around SF to act as a base to build towers of glass and steel on top of(all in CG/photoshop of course).

I've also been drawing away at some of the moving matte pieces, aka steam airships etc, I've also been playing with fluid dynamics to simulate smoke and cooling exhausts throughout the city's matte

I need to finalize the clock design and the steam apparatus as soon as possible.

Nana update

2008-05-04T21:06:00.000-07:00

her face is pretty much done, I'm currently shaping her torso, which will become her dress and the legs that help move the dress(ncloth)

characters yet again

2008-05-04T18:36:00.000-07:00

here are the finalized(although maybe not polished) revisions of the characters.

and heres a rendered version of the gears in action!

what the MEL is going on?

2008-05-01T13:07:00.000-07:00

Tacky title I know.

But I decided to post up my first real MEL script.

I don't have an offcial title for it as of yet, but for now lets just call it "Feng's Round em Up"

basically its takes all shaders the user selects evaluates what bump map if any is plugged in creates an mia round corners node, attaches the bump to the node, which in turn is plugged into the shader's bump channel.

"What? Is that some fancy Altaic language you speakin?"

no.. lemme just show you some pictures..

it takes things that look like this!

into this!

So those interested in the script it's free to use and modify.

SCRIPT!

///author David Feng
///name of script Round Em UP!
///
///

string $daWindow = `window -title "Feng's Round Em Up!"
-widthHeight 470 190`;

columnLayout;
text "Welcome to Feng's mia_roundcorner application script\n";
text "*Ensure that Mental Ray plugin is loaded shader only works with Mental Ray.";
text "Please select the shaders you with to apply roundness to and then use the button below";
text "\n";
button -label "round em up!" -command "roundEmUp";
text "\n";
button -label "close" -command ("deleteUI -window " + $daWindow);

showWindow $daWindow;

global proc roundEmUp()
{
string $selectedShader[] =`ls -selection`;
string $selected;
//print $selectedShader;

for ($selected in $selectedShader) {
//create roundcorners and rename it as subchild of shader//
mrCreateCustomNode -asTexture "" mia_roundcorners;
select -r mia_roundcorners1 ;
string $newName= $selected + "_mia_roundcorners";
rename mia_roundcorners1 $newName;
//get name of attribiute bump and connect to roundcorners
string $zeebump = `connectionInfo -sourceFromDestination ($selected + ".normalCamera")`;
connectAttr -force $zeebump ($newName+".bump_vector");
//connect roundcorners into shader bump node//
setAttr ($newName+".bump_mode") 5;
setAttr ($newName+".radius") 1;
connectAttr -force ($newName+".outValue") ($selected + ".normalCamera");
print ($selected + " has been rounded! TADOW!\n");
};
}

2008-04-28T17:07:00.000-07:00

Quick showing of what I have so far of Nana's head... I still need to get the defining features in.(mostly the shape of the eyes).

TINMAN LIVES!!

2008-04-26T20:08:00.000-07:00

UPDATE!!!

2008-04-24T11:22:00.000-07:00

*Update

torso is updated and I changed both Nana and Tinman's Costumes

Tinman's Outfit is more mechanical looking

Where as Nana's is softer and more organic

Very much a work in progress, but I just need to finish the jacket and shoes UV and he'll be ready for Z brush

I hope to finish him up within the next two days and move onto Nana who I hope to have finished by Tuesday of next week, if not sooner.

Tinman update now with torso!

2008-04-21T16:33:00.000-07:00

sneak peak of Tinman!?

2008-04-14T18:26:00.000-07:00

First of the new character Drafts

2008-04-05T22:17:00.001-07:00

To the world I present Nana.

And Tinman

character research

2008-04-01T16:50:00.001-07:00

Alain Delon, for inspiration for my Tinman character.Anna Karina for my Nana character

My grand plan for the next 3 months!

2008-04-01T16:36:00.000-07:00

Here goes,(actual plan will change at my own discretion through the week, I'll post a more "written in stone" version at the end of the week)

1. Week 1 -Research, design and conceptualize my two main characters(well, they're the only characters actually.)
  Tinman= probably someone like Alain Delon(Le Samourai)
  Nana= inspired by the gorgeous Anna Karina (Bande De Parte)
2. Rough storyboard and Animatics.
Weeks 2-4 Model, texture said characters(sans sub surface)
Weeks 3-4 wrap up modeling/texturing my environment/set
1. Weeks 4-11(on going) design so called glass and steel structures for matte
2. design, conceptualize, model, rig props(steam apparatuses)
3. create matte painting of background of "Paris"
4. create moving back ground elements(airships etc)
Weeks 5-6 Refining subsurface "skin" shader network and applying it to characters
Weeks 7-11 rig Characters
time permitting, dynamics- cloth, particle effects(dust, steam, etc).
wrapping up preproduction for the most part.

If all goes well and I complete storyboards, preproduction bibles, I can hopefully start animatic/previz, "hire" voice actors, and be prepared to start animation by the end of this quarter.

Sketch contest!

2008-04-01T14:31:00.000-07:00

So I'll also be putting up my entries into these little ego clashes my friends and I like to call sketch competitions as they occur.

So far I've done two, one samurai concept, and another is a vampire, both took around 3 hours to complete, tho I must admit, the digital attempt looks more polished than the colored pencil drawing, granted the vampire was my second one. Still I'd like to improve my work with real life mediums, I'll try and do the next one in gauche.... maybe.

I'll post them up.

Hello world.

2008-04-01T14:08:00.000-07:00

Bounjour, Boungiorno, Buenos Dias, Zdravstvuite, Guten Tag, Hello!

So here is my obligatory introduction to my new grand spanking new blog I'll be using to let you the crazy cool kids out there keep track of my progress with my thesis film, which was dubbed L'homme De Bidon, but since the majority of folks aren't too familiar with French, I simply translated it back to English as "the Tinman".

So to start things off I'll put up some preliminary renders of my set which is very much a work in progress.

I'll be putting up an informal schedule of things I'd love to complete by the quarter, and refining it as the week passes.

Till then,

Cheers.