Last Wednesday, we had a meeting concerning our EMMA Field Research. There, we had to state our field of research. Seeing that I do not yet know what field I am gonna jump into, you had to state your interests and findings. (See other posts)
So, I stepped into that meeting quite blankly, no clear view on my possible subject(s). When we discussed things, however, (I skipped TF2), the statement was quickly made that my interests were all circling around realism. This quickly became apparent when we looked at two small movies I had seen. One was the Guild Wars 2 intro, and the other was 'The Tale of How'.
When I stated my finding that the Guild Wars 2 intro was not so good; I gave the explanation I had found a year earlier: the image would've been too complex to animate properly.
But then, they gave the example of 'The Tale of How'. How come, that this animation was 'good'? It was definately a complex image, no doubt! And even a hundred times more intricately animated as well...
We wondered at that, and then Sandra came to the conclusion that it might had everything to do with 'realism'. The 'Tale of How' all moved and animated beautifully - yet absolutely not realistic. The figures had weight, allright, and a proper anatomy, but their representation was flat, and the environment continually stirred with unseen winds that moved everything that could move. The movement on screen was a magic itself.
The Guild Wars intro, however, was presented in a world more tangible and recognizable than How's. We could see and recognize mountains, monsters with human elements, flowing water (and no moving curls like How's), and a more filmic approach. The animation, however, was too cropped up - too minimal to be seen as real in comparison to the very real graphics.
All my examples, my interests and even (I realized later) my own animations evolved around realism! So - that would be it then!
And yeah, the first thing I did was typing in 'Realism' in Google. And, alas, I ended up at the Wikipedia page 'Realism (Visual Arts)'. I scanned through the article, which was not all too inspiring, except when I read the the following sentence:
"In the broadest sense, realism in a work of art exists wherever something has been well observed and accurately depicted, even if the work as a whole does not strictly conform to the conditions of realism."
If a work does not strictly conforms itself to these 'conditions', can it still be called realism, then? What are these conditions?
I scanned through the internet some more, until I came across an article from Conceptart.org, which was discussing methods of different art types/schools. 'Construction' vs. 'Realism'. Even though many different views and opinions were expressed in the article, the basis would evolve around this: should one learn to 'observe' to purely copy shape and form into the most perfect sense - or should one learn how to construct the (i.e.) anatomy, be taught the inner workings of things so that one can construct them easier/with no reference?
The most interesting question arose somewhere halfway across the page: concept artists sometimes had to draw from their imagination for their projects. Objects do not always visibly or tangibly exist to draw them from sight.
This posed the following question to me: 'Can it still be realism if one is drawing from imagination?' So, can it still be called 'realism' even though subject matter is fictional?
This I discussion was extremely interesting, (and I haven't even read 10% of it all) where definitions like artistical expression, object reality and imaginative (from memory) design were laid down for discussion. I have no clear opinion about this, myself, but I would love to know more about this 'realism', and then especially towards fiction: can fiction be called real?
This sounds a bit dangerous to me, though, as I mentioned the escapism before, I tend to have periods in which I want fiction to be real. Maybe it's time for me to figure out how real fiction really is...
February 5, 2010
EMMA - Field Research 04 (Afterthought)
Ahh, I just couldn't let this opportunity slip...
When seeing Team Fortress 2, I somehow see them perfectly fit for a 'Saturday Morning Cartoon'... I would just love to see the animations (like 'Meet the Spy') and the characters star in their own show! Only, handdrawn of course. Sounds like something I ought to try out...
Anyways, to give an example of the phenomenon: Happy Harry Toons made an intro for the 'Saturday Morning Watchmen' cartoon. Absolutely hilarious, you can just feel the series come alive!
When seeing Team Fortress 2, I somehow see them perfectly fit for a 'Saturday Morning Cartoon'... I would just love to see the animations (like 'Meet the Spy') and the characters star in their own show! Only, handdrawn of course. Sounds like something I ought to try out...
Anyways, to give an example of the phenomenon: Happy Harry Toons made an intro for the 'Saturday Morning Watchmen' cartoon. Absolutely hilarious, you can just feel the series come alive!
February 2, 2010
EMMA - Field Research 04
Ah well, I will just post things all out - you never know when you might need it.
I remember a statement made within one of our lectures, stating: 'subject matter often evolves around personal obsession'. Now, I might be too obsessed about some subjects... (*cough* Devil May Cry anyone? *cough*) but one of which I am still craving to research more thoroughly: Team Fortress 2.
Team Fortress is all about 2 opposing teams (RED vs BLU) trying to steal each others secret documents, or controlling each other's territory. Despite their almost identical fundamentals, both teams have very different visual cues.
The RED team uses a more wooden, (redneck) architecture, where BLU uses octagonal (clean) factory elements. These cues are bleeding throughout every facet of the game, especially the colouring. And this is where their colour fundamentals hop in.
Like Marthe Jonkers' paper about colour usage in games, Team Fortress uses pictorial and psychological colour effects to their advantage.
For example, one's eye is often drawn towards areas with highest contrast and complexity. Therefore they designed their characters deliberately to suit gameplay needs. Besides the obvious visual cue: friend or enemy? (Blue or red?), they placed the area of highest contrast at chest level. This way, you could immediately see what weapon your enemy is carrying. Secondly, the 9 classes in the game were designed in such a way, that even without lighting (silhouettes) you would be able to identify them.
And finally, their definition and rendering of the meaning 'character' in games is truly awesome. They each give the character a distinct silhouette, a stereotypical element (often based upon a country's prejudices), and extremely well done animations. One of the creators at Valve stated once that, the word 'classes' was being more and more replaced by the term 'character'. And if a character truly has blended in with his gameplay-wise self, then I think you have struck gold.
And lastly, the voice acting deserves to be mentioned, as I often find the various sentences (which so adequately describe the character's personality) hilarious at times.
I remember a statement made within one of our lectures, stating: 'subject matter often evolves around personal obsession'. Now, I might be too obsessed about some subjects... (*cough* Devil May Cry anyone? *cough*) but one of which I am still craving to research more thoroughly: Team Fortress 2.
Team Fortress is all about 2 opposing teams (RED vs BLU) trying to steal each others secret documents, or controlling each other's territory. Despite their almost identical fundamentals, both teams have very different visual cues.
The RED team uses a more wooden, (redneck) architecture, where BLU uses octagonal (clean) factory elements. These cues are bleeding throughout every facet of the game, especially the colouring. And this is where their colour fundamentals hop in.
Like Marthe Jonkers' paper about colour usage in games, Team Fortress uses pictorial and psychological colour effects to their advantage.
For example, one's eye is often drawn towards areas with highest contrast and complexity. Therefore they designed their characters deliberately to suit gameplay needs. Besides the obvious visual cue: friend or enemy? (Blue or red?), they placed the area of highest contrast at chest level. This way, you could immediately see what weapon your enemy is carrying. Secondly, the 9 classes in the game were designed in such a way, that even without lighting (silhouettes) you would be able to identify them.
And finally, their definition and rendering of the meaning 'character' in games is truly awesome. They each give the character a distinct silhouette, a stereotypical element (often based upon a country's prejudices), and extremely well done animations. One of the creators at Valve stated once that, the word 'classes' was being more and more replaced by the term 'character'. And if a character truly has blended in with his gameplay-wise self, then I think you have struck gold.
And lastly, the voice acting deserves to be mentioned, as I often find the various sentences (which so adequately describe the character's personality) hilarious at times.
EMMA - Field Research 03
To further expand my first post about Concept Art, I would like to talk about the term I have been using for myself to describe this phenomenon: Concept Art Animation. In my second year, I already researched this subject quite a lot. It came from a more simple point of view: I wanted to translate the designs I love the most into motion. I made a few experiments with this, and quickly came to the conclusion that drawing individual frames would greatly distort the viewing experience. The painted frames would often differ too much to provide any visual clue about what was happening on screen. So, I translated this into an easier concept: multiplane images. All the images I loved (usually movie and game concept art) all had enormous depth and atmospheric perspective. So, I began translating known concept art into multiplane animations: pans. To experiment a bit with the possibilities, I also made a few zooms, but they were a bit harder to execute.
What I found was quite beautiful! I found that the translation of 2D artwork into a moving image enhaced the image's initial feel of depth and immersion. This was due partially to the fact that digital images make use of transparency more often and more easy than the traditional glass panes. This transparency fades the clear defined layers of perspective, and blends them into an almost single view. Secondly, the addition of 'time' to a still frame really gives the work a heart. So when I finished my paper about that subject, I left it at that. How horribly shocked I was when I found out that games started to use this method with their own concept art! They used it in cinematic scenes, where their art was even animated! It hardly took time to find out their trick: After Effects' Puppet Tool. A classmate of mine uses it often, and sometimes with surprising results. I used it for a couple experiments in my group project, and was awed by the possibilities. (I think I even talked Ronimo into using this..! Hah!;)
Now, more and more games try to use their enormous source of (unused) concept art, and translate it into fast and useable animations to enhance their product. And, in my opinion, with great success. The liveliness of the images and the graphic quality truly marvel from your screen.
Above, the intro trailer from the game Anno 1404 (truly beautiful graphics, by the way, and I believe the art is even made by the company from an ex-HKU-student (Floris Didden)). And below the intro from Guild Wars 2.
Where Anno would not need more elaborate animation, the Guild Wars' animation is at times truly poor. Sigh. Game industry still has a lot to learn...
What I found was quite beautiful! I found that the translation of 2D artwork into a moving image enhaced the image's initial feel of depth and immersion. This was due partially to the fact that digital images make use of transparency more often and more easy than the traditional glass panes. This transparency fades the clear defined layers of perspective, and blends them into an almost single view. Secondly, the addition of 'time' to a still frame really gives the work a heart. So when I finished my paper about that subject, I left it at that. How horribly shocked I was when I found out that games started to use this method with their own concept art! They used it in cinematic scenes, where their art was even animated! It hardly took time to find out their trick: After Effects' Puppet Tool. A classmate of mine uses it often, and sometimes with surprising results. I used it for a couple experiments in my group project, and was awed by the possibilities. (I think I even talked Ronimo into using this..! Hah!;)
Now, more and more games try to use their enormous source of (unused) concept art, and translate it into fast and useable animations to enhance their product. And, in my opinion, with great success. The liveliness of the images and the graphic quality truly marvel from your screen.
Above, the intro trailer from the game Anno 1404 (truly beautiful graphics, by the way, and I believe the art is even made by the company from an ex-HKU-student (Floris Didden)). And below the intro from Guild Wars 2.
Where Anno would not need more elaborate animation, the Guild Wars' animation is at times truly poor. Sigh. Game industry still has a lot to learn...
EMMA - Field Research 02
Currently I feel a bit down these days - and often when this happens, I find myself longing for escape. I often find this in movies (or animations) where you can dream away into their worlds without a care. This escapism, as I would probably describe it, is something that has intrigued me. More personal than as of why people would want to escape from this world (I can think of enough reasons why).
What intrigues me most is the flight into a fictional world. How come we truly can dream away in a world filled with fantasy and non-existent creatures? If we would see an immense castle or wizard's tower - how do we decide to believe in its existence?
So: how come that we define the visuals in those world as 'real'? When is a fictional design believable? Especially the visual part is what interests me - the translation from visual fiction (often also impossibility) to (human) belief.
I have an example which I want to state here. It is, cliche but still true, the Lord of the Rings. I truly dreamt away at the movies. Of course I did not believe that Middle Earth existed, or that any of such place could be reached in our current world. It was the immense depth with which this new world was presented to me, that made me believe and especially: understand.
Above you see two pictures of the same statue presented in the third and final movie the Return of the King. There, Sam and Frodo pass a large statue of once a human king, whose head has cruelly been chopped off and replaced by a crude version of the head of Sauron. This visual cue, horribly over-dramatized, speaks volumes. Not only about the (political) message, but also the visual signatures of the cultures involved. It is a rough yet carefully detailed statue, presenting a stately king and radiating the familiar human authority. The eye, crudely made from scrap material shows with what methods these creatures rise to power.
These visual cues all contribute to world called the Lord of the Rings.
I find it intriguing to find hundreds upon hundreds of these small cues, each telling a story of their own and thus all telling the story of the world they represent. I love searching out visual cues for design choices that enhance the world they are placed in - rather than leaving visual design purely as visual entertainment.
What intrigues me most is the flight into a fictional world. How come we truly can dream away in a world filled with fantasy and non-existent creatures? If we would see an immense castle or wizard's tower - how do we decide to believe in its existence?
So: how come that we define the visuals in those world as 'real'? When is a fictional design believable? Especially the visual part is what interests me - the translation from visual fiction (often also impossibility) to (human) belief.
I have an example which I want to state here. It is, cliche but still true, the Lord of the Rings. I truly dreamt away at the movies. Of course I did not believe that Middle Earth existed, or that any of such place could be reached in our current world. It was the immense depth with which this new world was presented to me, that made me believe and especially: understand.
Above you see two pictures of the same statue presented in the third and final movie the Return of the King. There, Sam and Frodo pass a large statue of once a human king, whose head has cruelly been chopped off and replaced by a crude version of the head of Sauron. This visual cue, horribly over-dramatized, speaks volumes. Not only about the (political) message, but also the visual signatures of the cultures involved. It is a rough yet carefully detailed statue, presenting a stately king and radiating the familiar human authority. The eye, crudely made from scrap material shows with what methods these creatures rise to power.
These visual cues all contribute to world called the Lord of the Rings.
I find it intriguing to find hundreds upon hundreds of these small cues, each telling a story of their own and thus all telling the story of the world they represent. I love searching out visual cues for design choices that enhance the world they are placed in - rather than leaving visual design purely as visual entertainment.
EMMA - Field Research 01
So, what would be the first term that'd come to mind when talking about my interests? Right: Concept Art. It is a wide and varying term, used throughout many different visual projects.
Below you can see some random examples from my image folder, each showing different designs.
The topmost is from the latest 3D Disney movie Scrooge (A Christmas' Carol), then a picture from the game Guild Wars, another Disney design from Sleeping Beauty and finally some concept sketches from Disney's Mulan. (Truly, I've chosen too many Disney movies...)
These images all represent work made in the conceptual phase, where the first visuals are made to finally converge into a single (coherent) style. However, within these hundreds upon hundreds of sketches, I often find a few outstanding ones that capture all essence of the movie/game in a single frame! And very very often, the style that is chosen for that single frame, often differs greatly from the style that will become the 'final style' of the project! One of the most striking examples is the Pixar movie Ratatouille.
Above you can see the concept art that has been made. Very lively, scribbly, but an extremely direct visual style. Below, you can see a render from the final movie. There is nothing scribbly! I find the often 'clean' end results very disappointing.
I have discussed this subject with quite a few people, and even though I haven't done extensive research as of yet, many came to the conclusion that the concept art would've been undoable to translate into a moving image. (Which would also communicatie to a large audience, and keep their attention for 90 mins). This is definately a possibility.
However: Pixar went a step further with their concept art to prove that their translation into a moving image would be no problem at all. The end credits. My jaw just dropped when seeing these immensely characteristic mice, which personalities did not translate on the 'clean renderings' as good as these cute little animations. These credits were a joy in itself, showing that the very essence, the very core of the ideas that have been (especially) present in the very first sketches - could be brought to live!
In my personal view, Concept Art is regarded as a blueprint for the final product. If there are such capturing and different (!) sketches in the beginning, what is the influence of them on the final product? So what does Concept Art say about the final product?
Seeing that I also enjoy the ever-expanding field of videogames, I can ask the very same question here as well.
However - both animation and videogames' concept art need to undergo a certain translation before it can be used in the final product. It is this change, and this translation that I am currently interested in. Both the translation from idea to concept - or from concept to final product.
Below you can see some random examples from my image folder, each showing different designs.
The topmost is from the latest 3D Disney movie Scrooge (A Christmas' Carol), then a picture from the game Guild Wars, another Disney design from Sleeping Beauty and finally some concept sketches from Disney's Mulan. (Truly, I've chosen too many Disney movies...)
These images all represent work made in the conceptual phase, where the first visuals are made to finally converge into a single (coherent) style. However, within these hundreds upon hundreds of sketches, I often find a few outstanding ones that capture all essence of the movie/game in a single frame! And very very often, the style that is chosen for that single frame, often differs greatly from the style that will become the 'final style' of the project! One of the most striking examples is the Pixar movie Ratatouille.
Above you can see the concept art that has been made. Very lively, scribbly, but an extremely direct visual style. Below, you can see a render from the final movie. There is nothing scribbly! I find the often 'clean' end results very disappointing.
I have discussed this subject with quite a few people, and even though I haven't done extensive research as of yet, many came to the conclusion that the concept art would've been undoable to translate into a moving image. (Which would also communicatie to a large audience, and keep their attention for 90 mins). This is definately a possibility.
However: Pixar went a step further with their concept art to prove that their translation into a moving image would be no problem at all. The end credits. My jaw just dropped when seeing these immensely characteristic mice, which personalities did not translate on the 'clean renderings' as good as these cute little animations. These credits were a joy in itself, showing that the very essence, the very core of the ideas that have been (especially) present in the very first sketches - could be brought to live!
In my personal view, Concept Art is regarded as a blueprint for the final product. If there are such capturing and different (!) sketches in the beginning, what is the influence of them on the final product? So what does Concept Art say about the final product?
Seeing that I also enjoy the ever-expanding field of videogames, I can ask the very same question here as well.
However - both animation and videogames' concept art need to undergo a certain translation before it can be used in the final product. It is this change, and this translation that I am currently interested in. Both the translation from idea to concept - or from concept to final product.
EMMA Graduation Project - Field Research
For our upcoming final Graduation Project, we need to do various kinds of research to establish a final research question. With this question, we write the so-called Supportive Narrative, which will litterally 'support' your final project.
It was advised to keep track of your findings through a blog, and that is what I am going to do from now on. This Works of Heart Blog will be the stage where I will record my research and findings. I will try to work from both an objective academic standpoint and a personal view, hoping to combine both elements in a final statement.
So, let's get on with it.
For the first couple of weeks (4) we have to present a proposal in which we state our field of research. In my case, this means a broad view to establish my final research question. This broad view needs to extend your current field of vision, and lets you discover the world around you. A personal connection to the subject is always favorited, so therefore my personal opinion and interests will be present in almost every subject. I hope I will be able to express my thoughts on certain matters, and let them guide me to really express my Heart in my Work.
It was advised to keep track of your findings through a blog, and that is what I am going to do from now on. This Works of Heart Blog will be the stage where I will record my research and findings. I will try to work from both an objective academic standpoint and a personal view, hoping to combine both elements in a final statement.
So, let's get on with it.
For the first couple of weeks (4) we have to present a proposal in which we state our field of research. In my case, this means a broad view to establish my final research question. This broad view needs to extend your current field of vision, and lets you discover the world around you. A personal connection to the subject is always favorited, so therefore my personal opinion and interests will be present in almost every subject. I hope I will be able to express my thoughts on certain matters, and let them guide me to really express my Heart in my Work.
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