mood boards

Here are the rest of the mood boards.

I know that the shop is a little inappropriate but it fits with the area and the book.
Now its onto the pre production document, which I'm not looking forward to but I still have to do.

Speak to you all soon
cx

Pre production document pre produced!

Hi all.
Here is the front cover and page template that I have made to be used in my pre production document.

I have re-created the front cover of the book as the front cover of the document.

For the page template I will be using the neon sign on the right (that says contents) as the title holder of the current section. I will also be using the miso soup bowl in the bottom right as the page number holder. 
Let me know what you think.

cx

moody blues

Here are a couple of mood boards.

I'll do the rest tomorrow as I am quite tired now.
cx

Frankly maddam, I dont give a damn

Ok so here's frank in his shaded glory!!

Hopefully that is it for the concept of frank apart from the fact that I need to make the colour swatch all nice. So now I'm going to make the blueprints that I will use to model him.

I am also going to make mood boards for the locations as Dean thinks that this will be the best way to represent them and I agree.

I also now have to work on my Pre-production document and get it all purdy looking. I think that I may struggle to reach the 3000 word mark but lets just see how that goes. I think that going into detail about Frank should help.

I have a presentation to give on thursday, introducing my dissertation idea to everybody. hopefully it will go ok.

I'll let you know.

Let me know what you think of Frank.

cx

UPDATE
Here is the concept with swatches

Frank sans the beans.

Hi guys. I've been working hard today, mainly on my dissertation.
Here is my (almost) finished concept of frank.

After this I think I'm going to make my blueprints so I can start the basic Frank mesh to work into later on.
I also need to do a couple of location concepts so that you can get a better feel for mood and lighting etc than my blockout has to offer.
I suppose I could try doing some nicely lit renders of my block out but I'm not sure yet.
What do you think?

cx

Who is frank?

Dean has pointed out in comments that I need to mention some exerts from the book describing frank so that you can get a better feel for who he is and what he looks like so here you go.

"overweight American" p9

"He'd described himself as white and stocky and looking a bit like Ed Harris in profile, and said he'd be wearing a necktie with a pattern of white swans" "studying his face and not finding the least resemblance to Ed Harris from any angle." p11

" Frank certainly didn't remind me of the soldiers or astronauts or whatever that Ed Harris portrays - he looked more like a stockbroker or something." "I just mean he struck me as sort of drab and nondescript." p12

"I'm 35" p12

"It was an average sort of face, but you couldn't have judged his age from it. Depending on the angle of the light, one moment he looked like he could be in his twenties, and the next in his forties or fifties." p12

"never seen a face quite like this one." p12

"The skin. It looked almost almost artificial, as if he'd been horribly burned and the doctors had resurfaced his face with a fairly realistic man-made material. For some reason these thoughts stirred up the unpleasant memory of that newspaper article, the murdered schoolgirl." p12

"There was nothing appealing about Frank's grin, though. Unmoving is more like it. The artificial-looking skin of his face twisted into a whorl of wrinkles, making him look almost disfigured." p14

"Frank took the Tokyo pink guide out of a dark-brown shoulder bag beside his chair" p15

"It was freezing out there, but he wasn't even wearing an overcoat. With his short, lumpy frame wrapped in that tacky suit, Frank was no treat the eyes, but he blended right in with the streets and crowds of Kabuki-cho." p16

"He may have had a certain reaction to Frank being white" p17

" The artificial-looking skin of his cheeks twitched and quivered, and his eyes lost any  recognition of human quality, as if someone had turned out the light behind them. They might have been beads of smoked glass." p17

"Something ugly had reared its head for a second and then vanished again" p17

"From where I sat I could clearly see the vinyl-like skin on his cheeks twitching and the capillaries appearing , his face going like a watercolour wash from pink to red." p24

"Frank was shuffling along with his collar turned u and his hands stuffed in his pockets. The tip of his nose was red. He had no coat of muffler" p30

"I looked over at him as we walked past the Toyota lot, and a chill trickled down my spine. It was something about his posture in silhouette. He gave off this overpowering, almost tangible loneliness." p30

"His cheap clothing and slovenly appearance had something to do with it: shorter then even than my 172 centimeters, he was fat, his hair was combed forward and thinning, and right now he looked very old for his age. But it wasn't just that. There was a falseness about him, as if his whole existence was somehow made up." p30

"I'm not saying Frank revolted me, but I wasn't about to press my cheek against his. Just the fact that he was a man made it bad enough, but Frank also had that weird skin. No wrinkles, though he was supposedly in his mid-thirties, but his face wasn't what you'd call smooth, either-- it was shiny and flabby and artificial looking." p33

"His fingernails were longish and jagged and not overly clean." p50

""your a liar," I said.
Sure enough, this summoned up the Face. Little blue and red capillaries appeared on his cheeks, the light went out of his pupils, and the corners of his eyes and nose and lips began to quiver." p52

"He looked like he was either very, very angry or very, very frightened." p52


Murakami, Ryu. In the miso soup (1997), Kodansha International LTD (translated by McCarthy, R for Bloomsbury, London

I'm aware that some of the description in these references are slightly different from the concept I have done, but that concept is unfinished so I am still working on it.

Frankie says relax!

Here is the first basic concept of Frank.
Hope you like it.

Heeeeeeeeeres FRANKIE!!!

Now that I have finished blocking out my scene i will spend the next 2 weeks doing my concept work.
Im going to start with the concept of Frank because I know that this will take me the longest. Then when I'm done with him I will do some concept sketches of my scene.

Today I have created a little photofit of what I think frank should look like.
This is what I will use to create my concept sketches.

Now I will start on the sketching.
See you soon.

P.S. Final fantasy 8 soundtrack whilst working = bliss!

finished basic blockout

OK so now I have finished the basic blocking out of the scene.
The renders are only rough at the moment because I haven't finished yet. I still need to add rough versions of assets, or at least boxes to show where assets will go and then I am done with the blocking out. I have already done this in some places but that is just because I felt at the time that they were important features to show.

I plan on adding the assets placeholders tomorrow but I may work on my dissertation first, I'm not sure yet.
I'm quite happy with my work so far and am looking forward to seeing the final outcome.

gnite cx

Blockout

After spending many hair pulling hours I have finally found a way to convert the basic blockout from sketchup into 3ds max. I used a piece of software called meshlab. After chatting to Dean and Stas I have prioritised parts of my scene by importance. This way I can model the scene and if I start to run out of time I can leave out some assets.

Now that I have got the model into 3ds max I have remodelled everything to the grid and have added 2 more of the buildings. I will be done with the blockout soon and can then move on to designing Frank.

The reason for blocking out the level is so that I can have a little bit of pre-viz work to see what the camera will see when the trailer is made.

I have tried to model as much as possible as modular pieces as I've never done this before and it is something that I need to learn to do.
Dean was unsure about whether I would have enough time to model everything but after I explained about the modular pieces he seemed a lot more relaxed about my workload.

More blocking out and new idea!

I've been doing some more blockinjg out and I am slowly but surely getting to grips with sketchup. Here is what I have so far

Whilst I was blocking in the vending machine section I realised that this would allow too much background to be seen so I came up with an idea.....Love hotel. In this area of Tokyo love hotels are really popular. Some of them are very obvious but most of them are fairly understated so I think I will have the love hotel ontop of the area I have allocated for the vending machines. I will have the entrance to the hotel next to the machines.
Here are some reference images that I have for the hotel.

The design of this building is fairly straightforward, but extremely typical of a love hotel. This is good because alot of this building will be modular and thus quicker to build.

Blocking out

I started to block my scene out in google Sketchup today, and here is what I have so far.

I am currently trying to get to grips with the sketchup software as I haven't used it properly before, but it does feel pretty intuitive. I think I would rather be creating the block out in 3ds max , but this is only because I feel much more comfortable in that software. I'm sure this feeling will go away, the more I used sketchup.
Before I go any further I need to look into demensions of the building that I am creating. This is important to do now as this blockout will be used as reference when I model the real thing.

Shop ideas

Here are some pictures that I will be using for reference for the shops etc in this scene.

After looking around on google street view I think that I may have actually found the location that is described in the book. Murakami has used artistic license in the scene, which is fine and allows me to be more creative as opposed to just modelling what I see.

I will label the images according to their labels on the floor plan.

Koma theatre
Arcade

Shop


Noodle shop


Food bar / club




Bar auge

(not sure yet)

I'm thinking of doing bar auge as a host / hostess bar.

Updated layout

Hello all,
This is just a quick one to show you my updated floor plan of the scene.
Ive included doors and pillars etc.
I think that I may have some of the designs for the shops etc almost finalised, but I haven't started any concept sketches for them yet. That will be in a couple of weeks when I have alloted 2 weeks for concept sketches.
I may do a couple of sketches for shops and things before this time, so that I can use those 2 weeks to focus mainly on Creating Frank's image.

Layout plan

Here is a quick plan of the are that I will be modeling.
Its not much but it gives me a good idea of where things will go.


I've not figured out dimensions yet but this is something for me to do tomorrow.

Officially started

I have now started my 3rd year project.

This year I will be doing two things, a 3d scene with trailer and a 6000 word dissertation.

for my 3d scene I will be re creating a scene from the Ryu Murakami novel "in the miso soup".
The scene will be set in a back alley of Kabukicho in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. The scene will be set in the rain and it will have one of the main characters from the book, Frank, standing outside of an arcade. The reason for this is that in the book this scene is the first point where the main character, Kenji, starts to have doubts about whether Frank could be a killer or not. Frank is a white and stocky overweight American who is wearing a suit and has unusual skin, like he has synthetic skin or severe scars. I think that this scene will be good to capture the sense of unease that is prominent throughout the book. I decided that if it was set in the rain the lights from the arcade would be more dramatic and this would give better results for the scene. My idea for the trailer is to start behind Frank with quotes from the book appearing and disappearing, voicing kenji’s concern. I may have audio clips of a voice saying the quotes as well but I am not sure of this yet. The camera will zoom into frank from behind with a dramatic silhouette and it will then come around in from of Frank to show a murderous glare on his face. This is a reference from the book because Frank gets a deadly glare on his face and looks like he’s ready to murder. This is one of the main things that makes Kenji think that he is a Killer. The book is filled with tension and uncertainty and these are the emotions that I am hoping to re create in my scene.

For my dissertation I will be continuing my research from last year on "why people create bonds with fictional characters." This title may change depending on what research I can do. I may include why people create bonds with fictional environments as well but I'm not sure yet.

For my research I have got into contact with a guy in Japan called Patrick Galbraith ( of otaku2.com) and he spends his days dressed as Goku from Dragonball Z, and shows people around the popular "geek district" in Japan called Akihabara.

He has agreed to do an interview with me and hopefully this will give some good results. I am glad he has agreed to this becuase I would like to know more about him and why he does it.

This year should be fun and I hope you enjoy reading what I will be doing.

3rd year

Hey guys, I've left it waaaaaaaaay too long since I last posted on here.
I'm looking forward to starting the third year and I can't wait to get tucked in to the work.
I decided that I might as well make a generic asset that I know I will use so I am making a vending machine.
The reason for this is because I am making a scene from Kabukicho in Tokyo, Japan and they are VERY common there.

Here is what I have so far.



I want to start messing with high poly normals on lower poly models so I'm going to look into that. Hopefully we will be shown this in class when we go over mudbox.

at the moment I am on a rather high, 1,430 poly's but I haven't even started cleaning it up yet.
I don't think that this is that many considering that I am going for detail, but I'm sure that the comments on this thread will probably change my mind lol.

Speak to you soon.

Chico x

hand in part 1 complete!

Today I handed in the first part of this project, including the production diary and the project evaluation. Now I have to work on the 15 minute presentation that I have to give next monday.
Good times.

cx

Weekly overview – week 6

This week I worked on getting the stables / pigsty done. I want to texture this model next week, but time is running out. I found out that we don’t actually have to finish the level, because we are being marked on the teamwork, paperwork, and general involvement in the project, as opposed to the actual quality of the work that we are producing. I have to spend the next week getting the paperwork done, then hopefully I will still have time to get the stables finished. I need to have this diary, and a 2000 work evaluation done by Tuesday the 4^th may, and I have to have a 15 min presentation ready to present on mon 10^th may. This week will not be fun, but I can’t wait to finish it and texture the stables.

Mini post 20 – continued working on the stables

I have finished modelling the stables / pigsty now and they are now unwrapped. I now need to create the uvw templates and texture it.

Mini post 19 – started to model the stables

I started work on the stables today. I had a chat to Adam about what the stables should look like, and we looked at the layout of the level. We saw that it would work bests if we had the pigsty attached to the stables so that is what I did. I looked at the reference images that I have and decided to merge some of them together.

Here is what I have so far.

Weekly overview – week 5

I think that this week was rather productive. I managed to learn how to use the pelt unwrapping tool to unwrap my pickup truck nicely, which was a nice morale booster at this stage of the project. I then created my texture in photoshop, only to re-do it when I didn’t like the original. Once I had finished the textures I started work on the research for the stables / pigsty that I need to make. I am looking forward to this because I want to make a nice big asset in the level.

Mini post 18 – started research on the stables

Ok, so now that I have finished the cellar doors, the cow and pickup truck, I am moving on to create a larger asset, the stables/pigsty.

I’ve been looking forward to doing something like this, because I wanted to create larger assets. I gathered some research into what the barn/stables should look like, and here is a sample of the results.

Mini post 17 – altered the pickup texture

I didn’t like how my texture turned out so I decided to change it. Here are the results.

I also textured the wheels, and added licence plates to the model.

Mini post 16 – Started pickup texturing

I started on the texture for the pickup truck today. I wanted to give the truck an old dilapidated feel with rust and scratched metal, so I made this texture to put on it.

Mini post 15 – Started pickup unwrap

I unwrapped the pickup truck today. I decided to try an unwrapping technique I have never used before called pelt. This technique worked really well and was easy to use.

Weekly overview – week 4

This week was spent working on the pickup truck and getting it ready for texturing. I included features like windscreen wipers, side mirrors, windows and door handles. I also added the wheels.

Mini post 14 – Finished pickup truck

I finished modelling my pickup truck today. I have added wheels and windows. I had originally intended to model the interior of the car, but Adam suggested that I just put windows in and have them shaded.