Friday, December 31, 2010

Avata in Dance

How to conduct a stunning project 3 - Avata Design, humanbeing in motion?
What're the most important design ingredients?
I think they are nationality, culture, personality, activity, motion and environment.
I found a very good sample which can be used to prove my design thinking.
There is only one topic - "Dance" in the picture but people from different area demonstrated different behavior.

(Click on the picture to download a full-size version)

Project 3_Avata Design_Shaohua Han (ID:s0206762), CQU Melbourne

Rationale
Project: Avatar Design

Before I start to do this project I was look for the photos which from my own photo gallery. Then I choose one of photos which is my friend playing the football, and I still did a lot of research of avatar design. Make sure what is avatar design. Because the project requirement is that character's actions, I want my project to reflect the character of the actions is beautiful and energetic.

This project have three mainly colors, brown is the color of the skin, blue is the color of t-shirt, the last color is black as the shorts color.

I use pen tool to outline the photo then delete some details fill in the color. For the color I use the option to make the image’s shadow.

The requirements of this project is a human being in motion, and the camera angle is full shot, I chose football character obverse surface of posture, and the project also requires that you want to apply a different shadow effects, so I used to be expressed in two ways, one is a character in the football action by the body's shadow, the other is the reflection of the surface, I used to make the shadow color fading,

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Project 3_Avata Design_Rajendra Gurung (ID:0205271), CQU Melbourne


Design Rationale

As we are given to create our own avatar in motion. I have created my own avatar playing a guitar. My avatar is of full shot camera angle and by watching this picture anyone can recognise that somebody is playing a guitar.
 I have created this avatar by using only Adobe Illustrator CS4.  And i have only used pen tool to draw the whole design.
And i believe the background and the text I have used also justify the mood playing a guitar. The reason i chose the font i.e. Blackadder ITC is because its playable, curvy, attractive and artistic. And also the background i chose as dark blue is because it gives a perfect blend with the design and this colour is classic, peaceful and warmness.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Web Identity Design by Shaohua Han - Part 2 (ID:0206762), CQU Melbourne

S0206762_Shaohua Han_DGTL11004 Project2

Rationale

My second project is about banner design and business card design. The company name is Earthsmart media. The logo from my project one. I also choose same color for my design(green and orange)

Before I start to design my banner and business cards I did much research about banner design and business card. I need make my banner and business cards' design style must be very like logo's design so I choose orange and green as my banner’s and business cards’ color because orange is a very vibrant and energetic color. It’s often considered more friendly and inviting, and less in-your-face. Green is a very down-to-earth color. It can give you natural feeling.

I want to make the banner and business cards simple and when people saw these they can understand what is the design for which kind of company. because business card is very important for a company’s contact detail so make it simple is good to read and remained.


Monday, December 6, 2010

Web Identity Design by Rajendra Gurung (ID:0205271), CQU Melbourne

Design Rationale:


Himalaya pictures, the reason I choose this name is because it reflects nature, greatness, white and plain, height and so on. The word Himalaya is actually a short form of Himalayas, which means a mountain range in Asia. Himalaya is originally for SANSKRIT which literally means "abode of snow".


In logo you can see I have made some mountains and moon and stars in the sky. Since it’s a film studio as well as the film production company. I have designed this logo so that it can be used as both for brand and visual purpose. The logo consists of five Components Mountains, moon, stars, sky and text. But the way I designed is to give as much simplicity as possible along with providing maximum level of message and reflecting the theme.


The colours I have chosen for this logo are blue, red, yellow and green. I have used yellow colour for moon and stars. Obviously yellow is the most appropriate colour that represents moon and stars. And the reason I chose blue red and green as a sky colour is because it shows depth, nature, warmness. And this logo also looks consistent in black and white as well.

Design files (click to see big pictures)


Thursday, November 25, 2010

Web Identity Design by Shaohua Han (ID:0206762), CQU Melbourne

Web Identity Design (Basic System) by Shaohua Han 0206762 (CQU Melbourne)

Rationale:
My first project is about logo design

Name:
The company named Earthsmart Media. Now there is much pollution around our life such as air pollution, light pollution and water pollution… Then people try to solve pollution problems and making their living in the pollution-free environment. So people prefer things, which are clean and no pollution. So make the company called Earthsmart Media can feel free, fresh and natural.

Logo:
I want to make the logo simple and when people saw this logo they can understand what is the logo for which kind of company. because logo is the face of a company which dictates the first impression a client. I still want to make pictogram as my logotype pictogram is very easy to present the logo and company’s character that is why I choose the pictogram.

For this logo, the inspired come from wireless. As a media company Internet is a very important part of the company. Before I design the logo, I was thinking about element, wireless is the first one come out my mind.
I choose orange and green as my logo’s color because orange is a very vibrant and energetic color. It’s often considered more friendly and inviting, and less in-your-face. Green is a very down-to-earth color. It can give you natural feeling.

Design Portfolio:


Thursday, November 18, 2010

3D CG Gallery on Flickr



3D CG Design Projects on flickr.


Please visit : http://www.flickr.com/photos/50156364@N07/with/4687821948/

Behind the Scenes with Svetla Radivoeva

Behind the Scenes with Svetla Radivoeva

Check out this month's video, which shows a glimpse into the making of Svetla Radivoeva's renowned showcase shot. Svetla, a recent Animation Mentor graduate, explains the process of creating her catwoman shot, which was chosen as one of the select few shots featured in the 2010 student showcase.




View Video at:
http://www.animationmentor.com/newsletter/1110/student-animation.html?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonuaXBZKXonjHpfsXw4uQoWrHr08Yy0EZ5VunJEUWy2YEFWoEnZ9mMBAQZC81gzgVVG/Scc45N//tJBFM%3D

Pixar Success



Pixar Success

An Animation Mentor graduate and two mentors at Animation Mentor discuss their experiences working on the third Toy Story film
By Barbara Robertson
In 1995, Pixar Animation Studio's Toy Story, released by Walt Disney Company's Buena Vista division was the first CG feature to have worldwide distribution. It became the top grossing film and the surprise hit of the year. Fast forward to 2010. Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios release Toy Story 3, directed by Lee Unkrich, co-director of Toy Story 2 and editor of Toy Story. The story of how Woody, Buzz and the rest of Andy's toys cope with Andy leaving for college became the world's No. 1 animated film in box office history. Now, Disney/Pixar is releasing the much anticipated Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack edition of the film (see DVD Bonus Features sidebar).
We talked with three of the animators who worked on Toy Story 3, Aaron Hartline, Victor Navone and Matt Strangio, to discover how they came to Pixar to work on the top grossing animated film of all time. Hartline and Navone are mentors at Animation Mentor; Strangio is an Animation Mentor graduate. Here are their stories.

Aaron Hartline
In 1995, Aaron Hartline was living in the outskirts of Chicago. He was working at a video game company at the time.
"I stumbled into animation," he says. "In high school, a couple weeks before graduation, a guy sitting across from me in art class said he was going to Columbia College [Chicago] to learn animation. I thought cartoons were for kids. Until I saw my drawings come to life." So, he attended Columbia College, too. By the time he graduated, he was married and had a daughter, and when a local video game company offered a job, he accepted it. And then one day, on a lunch break, he went to the movies.
"I saw Toy Story, and I was blown away," he says. "I didn't know you could take computer animation to that degree." From that moment on, his life's goal was to work at Pixar. Inch by inch, year by year, he moved closer and closer toward becoming a Pixar animator.
He began his new career by taking a job as a concept artist and modeler for the Chicago-based animation studio Big Idea. "I did everything but animation," he says. He sent his work to Pixar, but received a rejection in return. However, Blue Sky Studios was interested and hired him as a rigger for Ice Age.
"I'd rig characters in the daytime," he says, "and then at night, from 5 pm to 2 am, I'd animate the faces and send them to the animation supervisors in the morning." After doing that for a year, he became an entry level animator, moved up to become lead animator on the Ice Age character Scrat, and finally became a supervising animator.
"And then I got that phone call from Pixar I'd been dreaming of," Hartline says. "And, I got to work on Toy Story 3." That was two-and-a-half years ago.
For Toy Story 3, Hartline was one of three animators who created the performance for Mr. Tortilla Head. "We had tortillas at our desk and played around with those," he says. "We also watched the first films to understand the mannerisms of Mr. Potato Head, and mixed a bit of that into the new character. But, we had to think that this was a completely new body for Mr. Potato Head, and that everything wouldn't be quite working."
Hartline also worked on the scene in which Barbie meets Ken. "Mr. Tortilla Head was all about motion, about things bending and falling apart and everything has to move," he says. "But with Barbie and Ken, there was hardly any movement because the director wanted to keep the bodies stiff. It was fun to go from extreme motion to taking away motion."
Now he's working on Cars 2, and to keep his drawing skills honed, posts a drawing a day on www.thedailypostit.com. He is also in his second year of teaching at Animation Mentor. "I really enjoy helping people get to the vision they want," he says. "And to be surrounded by students so in love with animation gets my batteries charged."

Victor Navone
Victor Navone, another Pixar animator on Toy Story 3, is also a veteran mentor at Animation Mentor. "When I saw the school Bobby [Beck] and Carlos [Baena] were developing, it seemed like such a great idea that I asked if I could be involved," he says.
Navone joined Pixar in 2000, right after Toy Story 2 was released. The leap to the top came almost accidentally. After graduating from the University of California in Irvine with a fine arts degree, he became a concept artist for an adventure game company. In 1998, after seeing Pixar's A Bug's Life, he bought Hash's Animation Master software and began teaching himself animation.
"Next thing I knew, one of my test animations turned into a viral video," he says. That was "Alien Song," an animated sequence set to Gloria Gaynor's song "I Will Survive." "Pixar called and asked if I wanted to come in for an interview," he says. "Suddenly I had people who wanted me to animate professionally. I don't think this could happen today because there is so much more competition."
Once hired, the self-taught animator began learning on the job. "For about the first five years, I was terrified that people would catch on that I didn't know what I was doing," he laughs. "But, I had good ideas and basic skills, and I am surrounded by some of the best people in the business. It was a great support system. They helped me refine my skills and perception of what animation could be."
For Toy Story 3, Navone worked primarily on human characters – Andy, his mom, and Bonnie, and he also worked on a few shots with Buzz and Woody, including the sequence in which "Spanish" Buzz first meets Jessie and drops to his knees to profess his love. "I was a little intimidated about animating Buzz and Woody," he says. "These characters have such a history and have been so well done in the past. So I started on the humans and once I built up my confidence I asked to try Buzz and Woody."
In addition to his recent work on Toy Story 3, Navone has been on the crew for Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, and Wall-E. He also co-directed some Cars toons for television. And he's had the opportunity to do storyboarding.
"My whole life, I wanted to be an artist," he says. "I was drawing dinosaurs when I was three years old. When I was four, my parents took me to see Jaws, and I must have filled 100 pages with shark drawings. Then Star Wars. I drew Star Wars until…well, I haven't really stopped yet."
Now, he's working on an unnamed production as a directing animator. "I still really enjoy being an animator," he says. "I like to try everything else, but I come back to animation."
And, teaching. "There's something about helping people take their work to the next level that's really satisfying," says Navone.

Matt Strangio
Matt Strangio, who was mentored by Navone at Animation Mentor, graduated in 2006 and joined Pixar in 2008 after working for a brief time at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and Tippett Studio. Strangio had dreamed about creating visual effects ever since he saw Star Wars as a child. But at UCLA, he studied graphic design. Until he took a class in animation. "I was hooked," he says.
After graduation, he developed flash animation for websites companies in Los Angeles and, as he says, dabbled in animation for around seven years. "I was trying to get into animation, but I hadn't done any animation," he says. When his web work turned into freelance work, and the freelance work gave him down time, he would rig and animate characters in Maya, working from books he had bought.
Then, he signed up for Animation Mentor, and in Class Four, an acting class he felt completely unprepared for, he received help from Victor Navone. "I learned so much from him about little acting tips," he says. "Things to do with the eyes that I had no experience with or even had conceived of before."
At the time, Strangio was working at Electronic Arts, and from there, he went to ILM. "That was what I had dreamed about as a kid," he says. When he finished Transformers there, he moved to Tippett for Spiderwick and Golden Compass, back to ILM for a two-month gig, and then went home to Los Angeles. And that move led to working on Toy Story 3.
"I continued working on my reel in LA," he says, "on a personal piece. And that's the one that got me into Pixar. One thing I like about Animation Mentor is that you meet a lot of people in the business. I talked to Victor [Navone] every once in a while, and when he saw the test I'd been working on, he said, ‘Hold on.' Pixar was hiring at the time and he put in a good word for me."
Both animators, the former student and teacher, worked on Toy Story 3, but not on the same sequence. Strangio helped animate the Western action in the opening sequence. "I love the physical stuff because to me it's not so intuitive," he says. "I have to work hard at it, and if I do a good job, it feels good. But I'm up for anything. Whatever the project needs. I love it here."

To Infinity and Beyond
All three animators found jobs at Pixar after doing personal work above and beyond anything asked of them by an employer. Hartline, a rigger, worked until the wee hours to convince people at Blue Sky that he was an animator. Navone created a personal animation that went viral. After graduating from Animation Mentor and working at ILM, Strangio spent eight months creating a personal film that opened the doors at Pixar.
"My advice for up and coming animators is to never give up," says Hartline.
One of the sequences Hartline worked on in Toy Story 3 was of young Andy playing with his toys. "It took me back to the first Toy Story, my inspiration," he says. "I thought, ‘Oh my lord, I can't believe I'm doing this.' When Toy Story came out, my daughter was a baby, and as long as she could remember, her dad wanted to work at Pixar. Now, she's 16. It's one thing to tell your kids they can do whatever they want. It's another thing to show them."

Toy Story 3 DVD Bonus Features

  • Day & Night – An imaginative short film from director Teddy Newton
  • Toys! – A close look at the classic toys, the Sunnyside Daycare toys, and Bonnie's toys
  • Buzz Lightyear Mission Logs: The Science of Adventure – Produced in conjunction with NASA focuses on research in zero gravity and Buzz's return to Earth.
  • Paths to Pixar – Editors at Pixar share career anecdotes
  • The Gang's All Here – Checking out the voice talent
  • A Toy's Eye View - A sneak peek at the Toy Story-themed playland at the Hong Kong Disneyland
  • Studio Stories – Anecdotes about life at Pixar include an animator finding a hidden room, a majestic and expansive Pixar cereal bar, and animators shaving their heads at the start of the film.

Blu-Ray Combo Pack

Everything on the DVD plus:
  • Toy Story Trivia Dash - Sprint to the finish with Woody, Buzz, Jessie and Rex while answering questions about all three Toy Story movies
  • Cine-Explore – Director Lee Unkrich and Producer Darla K. Anderson share their thoughts
  • Beyond the Toybox – Commentary from story supervisor Jason Katz, supervising TD Guido Quaroni, production designer Bob Pauley, and supervising animators Bobby Podesta and Michael Venturini.
  • Beginnings – Screenwriter Michael Arndt analyzes successful opening scenes in three Pixar films.
  • Bonnie's Playtime - A roundtable discussion with story artists and director Lee Unkrich
  • Roundin' Up a Western Opening – Developing the opening sequence
  • Life of a Shot – More about the western opening sequence from artists and technicians
  • Goodbye Andy – Exploring character design, acting and animation in the "goodbye Andy" sequence
  • Accidental Toymakers – Meet the toy company.
  • Day & Night – The making of.
 ref:http://www.animationmentor.com/newsletter/1110/feature.html?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonuaXBZKXonjHpfsXw4uQoWrHr08Yy0EZ5VunJEUWy2YEFWoEnZ9mMBAQZC81gzgVVG/Scc45N//tJBFM%3D

Blasphemous RGB/HSB/Hex

Blasphemous RGB/HSB/HexBy Interactive Blasphemy

ref:
http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/blasphemous-rgb-hsb-hex/id376633242?mt=8#

Version 1.1.3

Find or browse hexadecimal color values based on either RGB or HSB. An additional six colors will also be generated that may work well in conjunction with the color you create.

This application is Universal and one purchase will grant you the iPhone, iPod and iPad versions.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Should You Wait for Passive 3DTVs?

Should You Wait for Passive 3DTVs?

ref:
http://www.retrevo.com/content/blog/2010/11/should-you-wait-passive-3dtvs?cmpid=EmailB

Oakley, the company best known for high quality sunglasses was in the news recently with an announcement of their new circular polarized “passive” 3D glasses called 3D Gascans. These glasses can be used to watch movies that use the RealD (polarized) format which is currently only available in movie theaters. However, soon you might be able to use these and other "passive" glasses to watch 3DTV at home when 3DTVs that feature passive 3D technology become available from companies like Vizio and LG.


3D Glasses Format War?
Just when we thought everyone was going to play nice and move forward with one standard for 3DTV glasses in the home, we start to see a division growing between LG and Samsung the two largest LCD panel manufacturers in the world. Samsung, Sony and others have settled on active shutter glasses while LG and Vizio are about to introduce 3DTVs that use passive glasses. Nvidia, which offers 3D technology for things like 3D computer gaming has also indicated a preference for active shutter glasses.


Is There A Difference in the 3D Experience?

Active shutter glasses use an IR beam from the TV to synchronize LCD shutters in the glasses which trick the brain into thinking it’s seeing one 3D image from two alternating frames. Passive glasses, like the ones from RealD that are commonly used in movie theaters use circular polarizing filters to send different images to each eye. Dolby 3D glasses, also commonly used in theaters use a different "passive" technique. Active glasses require batteries and typically cost over $100 a pair. Passive glasses are much cheaper, lighter and don’t require batteries.
Passive 3DTV sets like those coming from Vizio and LG require a micro-polarizing filter precisely embedded in the screen so the TV can send every other line of the 1080 lines to each eye. Because of this each eye only gets 540 lines or half the pixels of a full, 1080 frame. The added polarizer filter could also add cost to the TV, at least, at first.

Most distributors of 3D programming like cable and satellite companies take a full 1920 x 1080 (HD) resolution feed and use one of several techniques to reduce the bandwidth requirements which allows them to use existing bandwidth to distribute 3D programming.


Two common techniques are side-by-side that removes half the horizontal pixels leaving 960 pixels per frame and over-under that removes half the vertical lines resulting in 540 lines for each eye. Typically, 3DTVs using active shutter glasses take the half-resolution frames, add the missing pixels through a technique like interpolation and display alternating, full HD resolution frames at high frame rates. Passive TVs will add the missing horizontal pixels if necessary but will still show only half the vertical pixels.

Whenever you remove half the pixels that originally came from the 3D camera you're going to lose some image quality even though you do get some of those pixels back through pixel-adding interpolation. Blu-ray distributed 3D material delivers the most 3D pixels but even with passive 3DTVs you're still going to lose half the vertical resolution from a 3D Blu-ray movie because it's only going to show 540 lines to each eye. To be fair, some experts maintain that your brain will compensate for the missing pixels and you'll never notice any difference. On the other hand, when you sacrifice 50% of the pixels, brightness may be reduced. Fortunately LCD TVs can generate a lot of light to compensate for some of that loss.


Cost, Interoperability and Practicality


Despite the fact that Oakley is charging over $100 for their Gascan glasses, passive glasses will most likely cost well below $50. You should even be able to put them in a dishwasher just like the movie theaters. Cheaper glasses mean less cost to equip a family or group of viewers and it would be much less costly when someone accidentally sits on a pair of them which you know is going to happen to you 3D glasses sooner or later. The other advantage is they should all work with any RealD-powered 3DTV set or movie theater. The trade off may be in a higher priced passive 3DTV set however, maybe Vizio (known for competitively-priced TVs) can deliver a low priced, passive set out of the gate.
Interoperability has been an issue with active shutter glasses. There is no standard that manufacturers have agreed on that would make one pair of active shutter glasses work with any active shutter TV. The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has said they are addressing this issue and hope to have a standard in place before too long. Meanwhile a company named XPAND announced its Universal X103 3D glasses ($129 on Amazon) that can work with a long list of 3DTVs.


Bottom Line
We haven't seen passive 3DTV with our own eyes but we are curious to see how the half resolution of 3D images compare to the full resolution possible with active shutter (from a full 3D HD source). Needless to say passive glasses have a lot of practical advantages over active shutter glasses but it remains to be seen which ones offer the superior experience. We'll also be watching to see if Dolby's passive technology makes it into 3DTV sets any time soon. Dolby could represent a third standard for 3D glasses in the home.