PROFESSIONALPRACTICE
VIDEO GAME TALK
The first of the talks we received for this module was from a guy who worked on in the local game studio Billy Goat entertainment. He was showcasing a nifty little game his studio was working for to be developed for the xbox market place.
The game, a two player experience based around a shopping cart with a goat and a human in it, was an effective quirky idea which is ideal for the indie market place.
However, the speech was a bit disheartening in a way, and a brief insight into what can be the cruel world of running your own company.
NEON/VR DEVELOPMENT TALK
This weeks talk introduced us to the works and business ventures of Deepa Mann-Kler. Starting her career in the alien world of legalistic and humanitarian organisations, Deepa is a mainly self taught artist who's previous work consists of sculpture, painting and photography - a particular note in her portfolio where a collection of neon balloon dogs which she made.
She gave some interesting suggestions for our placement year, saying why not even start up your own company, an option I doubt that anyone had thought about beforehand.
Overall, her work with VR was also very interesting. It made me realise some of the capabilities which VR can achieve, and made me consider it as a role I may continue to go down with in the future.
ENTER YES
At a surface level. Enter Yes seems like an one of my ideal companies to work for. The director, Chris Kelly, advertised himself and the company's show reel which he approaches more adult topics and mature rated content. The showreel certainly was impressive, with a lot from mainstream film i,e Good Vibrations to the likes of adding animation to various documentaries. Along with the show-reel, Chris also showed off some pretty good work featuring the Israeli comic book artist Tomer Hanuka. Stylistically, I think that their work is fantastic.If I was a year younger, I might have fallen for it. The talk went on to state that the type of people that he was looking for, were "sound people". I'm not entirely sure what that means.
When I pressed him on whether or not he pays his placement students, to which he admitted to not being square and fair about in the past and how it has came around to bite him, which was a very interesting point. He also stated that they have a fully licienced software suite featuring Autodesk Maya, Foundy's Nuke, and other large studio programmes. I also found this point interesting.
He did have some sound, and important advice towards the end of his talk: "Do not burn bridges" and if you don't like someone, do not tell them to their face. Valid points indeed,
PORTFOLIO/CV/COVER LETTER
​
This week we got a very useful lecture into how to structure and advertise ourselves to the outside world. Pryia covered a vast number of queries I had involving presentation, where to look for placement, how to present your portfolio, what types of portfolio you need, and how to create your own personal brand, an aspect of the course which is of prime importance.
NOTES ON CV:
- Has to be on a PDF
- Not many people really care about your GCSEs. But do mention that you definitely have them and went to school. Ultimately they are looking at a portfolio,
- Your cv is for animation, not graphic design - but yet is still a creative CV. Graphics must be kept as simple and not as abstracting and must not distract from the information about yourself.
- Short and sweet.
- Do not lie. It will come to bite you in the ass.
- Do adjust CV accordingly towards the job that you are going for. This includes the company, and the role.
​
​
SOME SHOWREELS I LIKE
Hugo Leick - SHOWREEL 2018
Vishal Bakhaswala - SHOWREEL
2018
Chiari 3D - VFX ShowReel 2018
Some artists websites which I really liked:
​
​
​
I am feeling myself strive towards more of the FVX and compositing route.
​
One of the key things I have noticed through researching showreels is the amount of programmes people are listing. There are seldom many people with just maya.
Nuke seems to be a program which many 3D artists are using to add that extra level of life to their work. Which brings me into my next blog post....
CHOOSING
A CAREER
PATH not that its a big deal.
From since I entered the course, I knew that I didn't want to go down the path to be a standard animator. The role within the industry I decided to look into and research the fledgling VR and AR Industries. I will look into the history of VR, the different pipelines and creative processes into developing a VR piece, and how different industries outside animation/film are utilising it.
​
According to the Virtual Reality Society, (https://www.vrs.org.uk/) VR has been borne out of the need to immerse viewers in experience. The website sites panoramic paintings, and the discovery that humans had stereoscopic sight and straight up science fiction as the base parameters of VR. Through the 30's right up to the 50's there were various technological inventions which key aims where to use and manipulate the various senses of the viewer to immerse them in a particular scenario or situation.
THE LINK TRAINER - Named after its inventor, Edward Link, the device was used by the Americans to train their pilots in WWII. Although it looks to us like some sort of fairground ride or a mechanical bull, (in fact, during the great depression early versions where indeed sold off to fairs and circuses) the Link Trainer was a huge technological advancement and an and a great step-forward for immersive experiences. Yet again we can see that this industry, like the other aspects of it, has its routes in military development - or from a strictly needs based origin.
​
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEKkVg9NqGM
​
MORTON HEILIG'S SENSORAMA - Arguably something you would see in the likes of the Fallout universe, here we can see the origin of VR through the lense of a creative need. The "theatre" would be an all encompassing sensory experience which placed the user in the seat of an arcade style cabinet, with a stereoscopic viewport, 360 audio, a vibrating chair and even SMELL. However, due to a lack of investment the Sensorama's fate seemed to be doomed from the get-go, and for the most part, the general public's interest in VR.
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
Any developments in the 60s where mostly gained in tightly-knit military and technological circles. Ivan Sutherland, a MIT graduate (considered to be the grandfather of computer generated graphics) who later would head The Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) (a division of DARPA) is considered a visionary in the field. He is famous for his quote discribing what he called "The Ultimate Display" -
​
“The ultimate display would, of course, be a room within which the computer can control the existence of matter. A chair displayed in such a room would be good enough to sit in. Handcuffs displayed in such a room would be confining, and a bullet displayed in such a room would be fatal. With appropriate programming such a display could literally be the Wonderland into which Alice walked.”
​
In 1968, Sutherland and a prime student of his developed the Sword of Damocles, the first "real time" motion tracking truly "VR" experience. The "sword" was a huge machine, where the user would need to be strapped into it, and it was incredibly uncomfortable to wear. The computer took up the size of a whole room, and was only able to throw up basic walls and shapes made out of wire frames.
​
Origins
THE 90's
Just going to leave this here.
The next time VR peaked the publics interest was in the 1990's with various triple A game companies attempting to introduce it as the new platform for gaming. The first was Sega, introducing the first VR headset (one along the lines of which we would recognise today) at the price point of $200 (1990s money - roughly about $350 today) Even though they already had four games developed for the platform, it was a complete failure for Sega and it never broke past the prototype phase. Nintendo had a similar product priced at a much more lenient $150, but due to the two tone colour of the device it was also commercially unpopular.
Where we are today
Yet again we have witnessed a resurgence with VR, with it branching out into more ways in which we could have ever imagined. Overall, there are about 7-8 different options for audience to view VR pieces, from the simplistic and accessible Google Cardboard, to the tethered, full blown HTC Vive.
Google Cardboard - in and around £25
HTC Vive pro - £1,200
The ever growing mobile market has played a large part in the realisation of a lot of mid range VR applications, with such companies such as Samsung developing products such as the Gear VR to correspond with use on their phones, and other 3rd party designers such as the Zeiss VR ONE making an appearance on the market. Yet again, we can see that triple A gaming has also started to adapt to the mid range VR market with Sony releasing their VR headset, and rumours of companies such as Valve are doing something similar.
It is clear that the market is vastly expanding and advancing, which is peaking my own personal interest. Next I will look into the type of pipelines involved to actually sit down and develop a VR Piece for myself.
MAKING VR POSSIBLE
stereoscopic video
One of the first elements which you are going to need to wrap your head around is the aspect of stereoscopic video.
"Stereoscopy, sometimes called stereoscopic imaging, is a technique used to enable a three-dimensional effect, adding an illusion of depth to a flat image."
​
So, its simple, just add two images playing side by side eachother? Not entirely. Even though we take human sight for granted, there are actually a number of processes which your eyes are internally doing to digest the information that is being beamed into them in the form of light particles. Is what you are looking at close, or far? Is it 2d, for example the text you are reading on a screen or a piece of paper, or a 3d object with volume and space?
​
This is not a biology course - how does it relate to VR?
Covered in a video originally on Lynda.com, the aspects of our sight which apply to the computerised realm can be broken down into three key aspects:
​
1.) Inter-ocular distance (how far your eyes are apart, or for this case, cameras.)
2.) Zero parallax plane (the point in which your eyes converge on each other, hold your finger up close to your eyes and bring it slowly away from you if you want to see this in process.)
3.) Different types of Stero in 3d programs (i.e converged, off axis, and parallel)
It seems that often the two, stereoscopic and just a 360 video, are mostly confused. The standard 360 video, as described by VR labs, is just a flat, "normal" video, displayed onto a sphere within the virtual world. Your head, with the help of whatever equipment you are using, are simply placed inside this sphere, and are looking at everything from the inside. Motion tracking on the headset allows you to look around, and explore the 3d scene around you.
​
SO, knowing that true stereoscopic video consists of two different images being relayed into your skull at once, this causes quite a lot of immediate problems whenever adjusting and trying to design something for VR. Chromatic Aberration can occur, or that green tinge whenever the lenses cannot gather the correct amount of information from the light. Then there are headaches - literal headaches if the images aren't lined up correctly, along with nausea and eye strain.
As when it comes to pipelines, I have already done a bit of research into this on my personal project page, found
IT'S NOT JUST ANOTHER EXCUSE NOT TO GO OUTSIDE - DIfferenT APPLICATION OF VR A CrOSS DIFFERENT Industries
from - https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/3-ways-virtual-reality-transforming-medical-care-ncna794871
The potential that this software in the realms of education, medicine, and greater technology has really been acceptant of developments of VR and utilising them across different ways.
​
In medicine:
In engineering, programs like IRIS VR are being implemented to see what buildings and structures are going to be like without them being built at all. Basically auto-cad in VR - https://irisvr.com/industry/engineering
​
The system in which architects and engineers are referring to now instead of CAD is CAVE - Computer Automated Virtual Environment
AFTER CHRISTMAS
Our Monday classes after Christmas consists of a technical class where we can run through any difficulties which we may be running into with our other modules. We started off class tasked to do a simple animation of a guy pushing a box.
TERM 2 - MONDAY CLASSES
In the first couple of weeks of classes on Monday, we were introduced back into animation. I know that on a personal level, I really should be animating more and I need something to force myself to practice that a bit more. balancing a lot at the moment, and I guess it is a bit disgraceful that I do a degree in this and can't really get the hang of it.
Pushing a heavy object:
Bouncing a ball:
The next thing which we covered was blend shapes, and an introduction to using expressions in Maya. Pretty hefty stuff to get your head around, but I can see how useful it would be.