realtime3D: November 2011

Monday, November 28, 2011

Seasonal SL

For the finale of this class, I'm going to create twelve high quality images, using one avatar in different formations, a vast variety of found objects and in-word created ones. The imagery will follow the theme of the seasons, influenced by the idea of a themed calendar, each month using historical elements and weather related ideas to make the best possible outcome. The avatar itself will be chosen on ascetic principles and depending on the environment chosen, each physical characteristic will be warped and played with until perfection in sake of the portrait.

Presentation will be that of a printed out, handheld booklet, able to lay on any solid surface and be held by those in distance enough to handle it. This form of presentation will give the physical element of actually holding the portraits in the hands of the viewer, and taking small sparks out of the virtual life realm back into the world of its creator.

The images will be used in more then just this printed format, placing them in second life for a limited time, or using them as the display on a real time calendar will be a good experimentation in seeing where the idea of these images originated from. Of course the possibilities and lives of a group of images deserve to be played with and handled in a variety of ways. The prints will be what I present in the final of this class, and will be critiqued in the form of the usual way of art school. Below is a little sample of an image I might possibly be using, as you can see the avatar isn't the main focus, but just like in the real world, surrounded by nature objects and land and sky.

Planet of Sound

My final project idea is more about sensory deprivation than a real experience. Imagine a tower (possibly turned on its side due to prim limits) that is completely black on the inside. The "viewer" as it were, will board some sort of elevator or cart, which will take them through the pitch black and audio overload. I've decided that the simplest way to do this would be to create localized sound objects, that loop a clip of audio rather than a live stream of a radio station or something. While the live stream would add an ever-changing touch that might add a lot to the project and make it more relevant as time goes on, the logistics of planning this, with space and prims limited as they are, become needlessly hard.

I have been thinking of the design so far as a sort of spacial Tower of Babel. I have been studying old illustrations and art about the tower and may decide to loosely base the design off of these elements. From an idea standpoint the Tower of Babel summarizes my thoughts extremely well. I want all of these sound clips of people talking to be overwhelming, lack of sight enforcing the heightening of sound. The final presentation of it will be as a ride, something the "viewer" will sit in, and will take them at my speed past these objects. This may change however, as a ride would only offer the same combination of sound objects in the same order every time. Allowing the user to walk through the darkness past these objects of their own volition and seemingly randomly would make the experience a bit more interactive and open format.

Thoughts for now.

DaDonBot

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Maze Final Project

What Jason and I are going to do is a maze with interactive structure and full of interactive objects. He is designing the basic structure of the maze with tubes and spaces he built in maya, and I’m working more on designing the objects and modifying scripts. We had thought about how to build and define our project so it wouldn’t be just “a game” rather than an art piece. We agree that both of us will have different opinions about it and it is actually great to have multiple concepts on the same project.

I myself am more like a “definition-after-design” person, and I see the idea behind things after I made them in most cases. (Or sometimes it was the others who saw them). Therefore I don’t have any fixed concept about this piece at this point, but what I am sure I will do is that I would like to make an interactive environment that the people, or avatars, basically, who come in wouldn’t be able to predict what might happens. There will be certain instructions given at the starting point, giving the challenger a goal or a mission to complete, and the challenger will experience things in the maze while trying to achieve the goal.

Since I’m interested in scripts, I’ll look at different scripts to make going into this maze a more interesting experience. Here are a couple of snapshots of the maze at this point.

I’m going to keep what I had done to some objects a secret since it would effect people’s expectation to the maze. By the way, the maze would have 2 floors.

A very metallic final project.

Robots, I’m going to make a mechanical garden of robots that I’m going to then make a video in, and then I’m going to put together a soundtrack using max/msp and live and edit the video to reflect the sound track.

I’ll design all the costumes and surroundings myself in maya, I plan on making not just a few things, but an entire environment to interact with and to make a stronger video. Each object will be a piece of work in itself, working together as a graveyard or garden of non functioning robots as architecture.

The sound will be mostly FM synthesis, rhythmically driven, and will be derived from a piece I did back in the spring semester of 2011. I’ll most likely compose it “live” and re mix it and add other post processing later to give it a more professional sound.

As for the video, I'm going to have some sort of narrative I believe... I haven't decided though, I just know I want to make robots, big robots, small robots, creepy robots, anthropomorphic robots, arachnid robots, stuff like that.

The rest is TBD

Because robots are cool.

-Please Stand By