Maya train running around track

Little scene playblast :)

Minor Project collage inspiration

So, I finally decided to have a look at how other people make collages to help me get unstuck and I found a nice amount of inspiration! I will use some of the examples displayed below to help me with design decisions.

Random Placement Maya Tutorial

I did some MEL, it worked :)

Interim Crit

Interim Crit Mailin by MailinatCAA on Scribd

Minor Project Script Idea/Draft

Jim Script Idea

Lock unlocks and ‘doors’ open, revealing the word JIM. The letters blur and turn into a window, rain beating against the glass. Voice recording starts playing. Sweet appears in upper left corner, boy walks in with hands stretched towards the sweet. His body morphs into that of an adult but keeps the head of the child, now stretching his arms up to plead for help, then clasps them over his head while head zooms towards camera, there is a thunderstorm visible through the window, child’s lips are opening and closing as if to talk. Head sinks out of the frame and causes a hurricane of rain and leaves with shoes running across the frame, keys dancing along and jackets hurrying. Everything speeds up until the rain drowns out everything else and washes clear (every single item could be on a separate “cardboard” and animated individually, could look really good?).

Dirty dishes and cutlery appear, dancing with each other, huge nose appears from the side, sniffing, paws appearing and turning into a little puppy that plays with the cutlery, man appears from below and picks puppy up, cutlery and dishes vanish and puppy head morphs into baby head while man’s head morphs into boy’s head. Man strokes puppy, whole room flips off the page.

Pots and pans fall from the ceiling onto counter in kitchen, oven slots in from the side, oven mitts put a big box with a chicken painted on the sides into the oven and it all explodes into tiny little pieces covering the screen.

Room with a window has a girl in it now, she’s looking at photo albums of her dad doing activities he used to do but can’t anymore (skiing, mountain climbing, playing sports, leaving for work e.g.) flicking pages slowly, letting every memory settle in. Room falls through the side.

The same girl with sits on the floor with man, he’s trying to put wooden blocks together, first upright which topples over, then lying down which works, girl cheers him on and pats him on the head, his head gets bigger and little viruses jump in and start munching on his brain, his head turns into the child’s head as big chunks of brain disappear into the virus’s mouths.

Minor Project first draft storyboard part 1

As discussed with Phil on Monday, it is high time for me to decide on a style for my animation and what the outcome should look like, so I started on my storyboard. It consists of collage like images that are not final by any means but that show what direction my style could go into.

This is only the first paragraph of the story.

I can see my animation being a mix of Maya and After Effects, with many of the objects being modelled in Maya and then brought together with the background in After Effects. 

I will upload a version later paired with the audio to see how it works out!

@Phil Recording edited

Possible names for the project:
"Like a Child"
"Something to Care for" --> like the puppy he's holding, not sure about that one though (sounds like a terrible pop song xD)
"Cardboard Box Chicken"
"Returning to a Child"

I have not found the dad's name out yet but will put it on here when I do!

Edit: Father's name is Jim!
 And Kayliegh suggested "Return to Childhood", will definitely consider that one as well :)

minor project sound draft

After testing the sound on  my speakers at home I decided that the quality is pretty good (it's much more static on headphones) and cut the whole interview down from 8 minutes to 2:30. I've also tried to tell a story with a beginning, middle and end but I'm not sure how successful I was with that yet, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Minor Project Interview with my friend about her dad and dementia a transcript

My friend about her dad and dementia, an interview

The main thing I noticed is that I begin to treat him like a child, more like a child than an adult so he needs a lot of help with everything, for example I took him out for lunch for his birthday last week and he couldn’t read the menu at all so I had to like point out everything, as you would a child, and then he couldn’t cut his food properly, because he’s got so much slower now, like really slow, even walking, walking, talking, anything, he’s just really really slow now, so I kind of gave him, you know like a steak knife, I gave him one of them and then kind of helped him, but you don’t want to help too much cause you don’t want, they don’t feel like a child so you don’t want to treat them like that too much because they are still an adult, so that’s hard because your natural instinct is just to help, but they want to do it by their self.

Yeah, he’s very slow now, he gets very frustrated when there’s thing going around him that are fast, so say if you’re in a rush one morning for work and you’re running around the house getting ready getting the keys, he won’t like that, it will really stress him out and he will get really panicky in a way and really anxious so if you’re tidying up the house and things like that he doesn’t like that, he doesn’t like mess at all now, like at all he gets really really angry about it sometimes if there is just a glass on the table, it will have a little bit of water or whatever in it still and then he’ll be like “what’s that doing there, that needs to go in the kitchen” and I still got drink in it but yeah, that he doesn’t like…

He still kept his sense of humour, he tries to make jokes out of everything, which I think helps because, you either laugh or cry about because things are getting worse and if you do cry about it you’re just going to be sad and become depressed almost, if you think about it. But if you laugh I think it kind of keeps the mood up, which is a bit helpful.

I think for my mum and brother who are there all the time, I think they find it more difficult, because they probably think he’s nagging at them, especially about the whole mess and things but I don’t think they understand that it’s not him, it’s the illness, so he can’t control it, so they find it hard and might react in a way they shouldn’t, but telling them that he’s not moaning, that he’s not really moaning it’s just the illness coming out.

He likes animals and, so he likes animals so my mum got a new puppy the other week and we all thought he wouldn’t like it because like the mess they’re going to make, but because it’s new, it’s kind of like a baby, like it’s something to care for and like look after so he really like took to it and really likes looking after it and he holds it, he will like literally cuddle it all day and hold it like a baby and all sorts so, that’s quite nice and he talks to it so I think it’s a way of getting his like emotions out, to the puppy. But I’ve heard a lot of people use like baby dolls and do the same thing in like care homes, they have dolls and things and they get like really overprotective because they like their new, like possession kind of thing that makes them feel comfortable, so that’s good… I’m trying to think of what other things have changed…

(Does he do any tasks at home?)

Yeah he yeah. So, he does cook, but he will make mistakes, so he put like a, my mum told him to cook like a chicken or something, but he put the whole like card board box or something in the oven, like things like that and he might not turn the oven off and things, he might forget, so he can do it, but he needs more supervision now, because… he will make mistakes. He still washes up and does the washing, doesn’t iron, that might be a bit dangerous, because actually, my mum asked him to fill up the iron when she, while she went to the shop and I was around, and he filled up the pot of water to pour it in and he literally completely missed the whole hole, and it went all over my dog but luckily it was cold water, or it could have burned him, but yeah he’s not very good with fiddly things, bout the same as a child, really. I think it’s more like, you see them returning to a child in a way, because dementia eats at your brain, I suppose it is kind of going backwards, so, in the end… because my nan had dementia as well so I’ve kind of seen the worst stages too, and in the end she couldn’t speak, eat, she didn’t know who we were, so, he’s at a stage where it’s not too bad at the moment, which is good, but I don’t know how fast it will be till it gets a lot worse, so I try not to think about it.

Some days it gets to me, like I really think about it, but like I said I try to laugh at the mistakes he does, rather than getting really upset and moaning about it because I know it’s not his fault, so I’m just like oh don’t worry about it, or do this instead, and I think that makes it easier to cope with. Last year while I was working at H&M, I think that was around when he first got diagnosed, I didn’t realise it but I think it must have really gotten to me because I got… not depressed but really really low and it like affected me at work and stuff, so that wasn’t good, but now, cause I’ve lived with it for a while, I kind of begin to cope more okay, and I’m not there every day now, where I live at Dan’s, so… it’s easier… but I can see my mum get stressed a lot and a bit frustrated, which isn’t nice to see, but you can’t do anything about it so… you just have to live with it.

We have to help him read, he used to be really good at writing and spelling and things, so that is a big change. He wears glasses, so I think if it’s really big words, like I don’t know, he could probably read that, but where the menu obviously they have the headline and then there is smaller writing, he couldn’t read all that…

His appetite hasn’t changed, he says, he always says to me he can’t eat a lot, so I took him out for lunch he’s like “I won’t be able to eat all that” and then I’m like okay, and then he had a starter, a main, and desert and ate it all and I was like see? You can eat everything! So yeah things like that, he can eat fine at the moment but yeah, it’s like funny some things he says, and we have to laugh…

Minor Project Mind map

Yesterday I created a mind map for the words knitting, memory loss and dementia/ Alzheimer, as Phil suggested that I should look into the synonyms and different meanings of the words. I have looked up their definitions and also associations, combined with what I personally connect with them, I have also read personal stories about dealing with memory loss diseases and have added those views to my mind map.

  

Minor Project I have a personal story!

 In my tutorial with Phil on Monday we talked about me using a personal story about memory loss, so I asked a friend of mine if she would be willing to talk about her dad having dementia, and she immediately said yes! So in addition to the style for my world (knitted) I also have a story now :).

 So, yesterday I had the amazing opportunity to interview my friend, let's call her Sophie, about her dad's dementia. She is 20, her dad is in his early 60's and was diagnosed last year, and Sophie told me about her feelings and daily struggles that she, her mum and brother face caring for him, like him having slowed down in motoric abilities, that he needs his food cut, he can't read well anymore and detests a messy household, but also his newfound love for dogs, especially puppies and generally himself almost reverting back into a child.

 I have recorded the 8-minute interview and will now focus on extracting the visuals, as for example one time Sophie's dad was supposed to fill the iron with water, but accidentally completely missed the hole and splashed all the water on the dog (it was cold water, luckily). Or him nagging at his family for a half full glass still standing on the dining table, as he sees it as untidy and can't bear to see it now.

I loved listening to her story, even though it made me very sad as there is nothing anyone can do against the brain deteriorating like that, and it is also hereditary so Sophie is very likely to suffer from dementia herself some day, as her Nan did before her dad. But Sophie herself said that joking and keeping in good humour is essential, as the only alternative to laughing is crying.

I would love to transform her words into an animation that does her story justice and inspires.

Minor Project update

 After my tutorial with Phil yesterday, we decided that my minor project will be presented in a knitted style, as an animation with a relatable, personal story with the basis of the whole world being 'knitting', or 'knit together'.

 The story will be personal, likely about memory loss, amnesia, knitting memories back together, or maybe loss of a family heirloom with a rich history.

 I will try and talk to someone who has suffered some sort of memory loss or someone who is close to them is suffering this fate.

 I want to create an animation where the viewer can feel the loss as the story unravels, and I have looked into personal blogs that have memory loss stories, most seem very interesting and contain material that I could easily use for this project, but I want to have a voice over of a person speaking freely rather than someone reading someone else's writing (which can be nice too, but maybe not for this project).

 So far I have learned a bunch about coping techniques (that might or might not work, mostly not in older people), that in most cases family and friends of the affected person are most disgusted by a person's loss of morals, and that real cases of amnesia are very rare and severely romanticized in films.

 If possible, I want to find a story of a person who has slowly regained their memory as I would love to go for the "knitting the world back together" theme, but that is probably just as hopelessly romantic as the films, so ideally something I should stay away from. I will have to think about this.

Minor Project first ideas

For my minor project I intend to create an animated environment or object(s).

My first idea is to create a witch's hut which combines the classic but also modern definitions, for example black and white magic, knowledge of herbs and plants, dipping into paganism and new age witches. I would like to animate it in an app game style, where the player moves around the hut and clicks on the various objects to learn about and interact with them, possibly with mini games as well (for example: brew your own potion) and quizzes.

My next idea was to put the style first and create a world that is entirely knitted, with inspiration from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

but the characters (if any present) would be more in a stick man style with influence from Shrek's gingerbread man:

 

But in a more simplistic style like Snow White here:

 This time I was not asking what topics I like, but what history my family has, which they have told me about.

 The first thing that came to mind was one of the big floods in Hamburg, as my grandad used to have a fuel station for boats in the Harbour in Hamburg, so he was affected first hand by the North Sea flood in 1962 and I thought it might be interesting to have knitted waves crushing into a knitted city, possibly destroying landmarks on the way. The animation could be presented with a "My grandad once told me about..." voice over which dips into the history of the city I was born in but also my own.

 The next idea is about my nan's history, as she was deported from Poland into a refugee camp on Fehmarn (a German island in the Baltic sea) at the age of 10 in 1945 and lived there for 5 years with her mother and brother before moving to Hamburg. I've interviewed her once for a school project, so I have a recording of her telling me what the camp looked like, what the general living situation had been like and how they dealt with daily life and not so daily diseases and injuries (my nan had Tuberculosis while living there). I think this could be an interesting animation if it's paired with a crackly voice over in German with subtitles and maybe a time lapse effect with everything moving very fast but then slowing down if something is described in more detail. I would use the same knitted style as described above, but with muted colours or entirely in black and white.

 Some other knitted objects I've though about were a motorbike and a Buddhist temple, but I haven't thought about the animation aspect of both of them yet.

 One idea was to have the lifelines as threads coming out of the people as they go about their day to day business, they have the yarn behind them intertwining and throughout the day knitting a grand pattern, which vanishes overnight, but it reminded me a lot of one of the invisible cities the first years are working on (collaboration with a first year? :p why not!)

 And the last idea was that a person gets up in the morning and absorbs everything they consume,creating the character from toes to head, for example the coffee turns into socks, the apple builds the hem of the trousers, the pages of the newspaper turn into trousers/skirt, the shower water turns into a t-shirt and so on. It would be in a first person perspective with sounds creating a lot of the story, person gets up in the morning, yawns, looks down and sees nothing, grunts maybe, gets up and drinks coffee, looks down and sees socks! Accompanied by a happy sound, eats apple, looks down to find hem, reads the newspaper and watches the trousers climb up the legs and so on.

 I love knitting, I've only learned it fairly recently and would like to explore the opportunities it gives me.

Maya Tutorials Masterpost

Dynamics:
http://mailinbergatuca.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/dynamics-part-1-sketching-particles.html
http://mailinbergatuca.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/dynamics-part-12-instancing-objects.html
http://mailinbergatuca.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/maya-tutorial-butterfly-goal-weights.html

Pipeline 2:
http://mailinbergatuca.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/maya-tutorial-pipeline-2-low-res.html
http://mailinbergatuca.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/maya-tutorial-pipeline-2-uv-layout.html
http://mailinbergatuca.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/maya-tutorial-pipelien-2-high-resolution.html
http://mailinbergatuca.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/maya-tutorial-pipeline-2-base-normal.html
http://mailinbergatuca.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/maya-tutorial-pipeline-2-rope-normal-map.html

Shader FX:
http://mailinbergatuca.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/shader-fx-part-2-displacement.html

Sculpting Classes

Sculpting was really fun but because Alan took mine apart in the third lesson (out of 4) I didn't have a lot of time to add plenty of detail, but I tried my best, took it home and in the last lesson I went from this:

to this:

Acting Classes all Photos

These are photos from the acting classes on 9th of March and 16th of March, I tried to include everyone and take nice pictures (against the light so that part didn't work).