SHOT NAMES - overview

just to remind me to use the right grammar - I'll update my script...

About Character Design

I thought about the physical aspect of character design. Of course there is also a nonvisible side that covers why a character acts like it does, who inspired and influenced him and a lot more...
Maybe I will think about it an other time.

01: General

• We define peoples personalities from the visual clues they give us -> attach attributes to person's character
• Express the personality of a character through the design

02: the name

• Triggers always connotation, but very different in each culture and for each person
• gives hints for gender, ethic, social status

03: the hair

• the character himself has a choice how to wear his hair
• how does he see himself, projection of wannabes

04: the skin

• Not so easy to influence by the character
• depends on the circumstances he lives in
• ethical
• scares, freckles, tatoos & wounds -> hint a background story

05: the fashion

• chosen by the character himself
• clothing is very essential to Character Design, because it covers big areas of the body
• indicates culture, time period, gender, age, occupation, income, social standing
• in harmony with its place in the society (words from above) or rebelling against it by dressing unusual
• uniforms -> characters are forced to wear them
• ad details to make cloth look convincing -> researches!

06: the accessories

• little details that give the character deepness
• can set one character apart from a similar looking

07: the body language

• persons body language is dictated by how comfortable they are with both themselves and the world around them
• extrovert have open body position, relaxed arms, open legs, eyes ready to make contact
• introverts have closed body positions, crossed armes, closed legs, eyes down

creating the fish - part 2

This is I suppose the final body for my fish - SillyBilly



He looks much sillier without teeth in the upper jaw. I just added more details like the backfin, a small bellyfin, the lantern and the barb.

I haven't decided yet if I should first finish the cat's body or rigging the fish...
May be modelling the cat is better as I am right now in the flow.

Nature and Engineering

"There is an eternal competition between nature and engineering:

The engineeres try to build more foolproof systems,
Nature tries to build better fools.

So far nature wins ;-) "


I was inspired by the last weeks spp and this weeks spp tutorial. OK - the relation is very vague but I can explain myself.
The scientific point of view tries to find constants and absolut values - right know you can even buy books about interface design and related stuff, where they claim to have found the absolute "Who it has to be done". I don't say there are no principles in Art and Design and the whole content of this books is rubbish, the point I try to make is, that the human being can and does evolve. The quote's "better fools", means evolved fools, are the worst enemy of thatone how tries to remain static and does only look for absolutes.

A sarcastic video I found about music downloading made by Weird Al Yankovic and the RIAA,
Recording Industry Association of America.

creating the fish - part 1

So far the modeling of SillyBilly, one character for my short.
The fin on the back is still missing and maybe I ad some teeth in the upper jaw.

It's all made in 3dsMax, but I really wanna try Zbrush to do some refinement...
Who will count the faces...la la la...
( isn't there somewhere under the building in the caves a renderfarm hidden?)

It took a bit of time to walk around the whole box.



The walker isn't moving very well but I will ad a little more shakieness during the weekend.

A bunch of questions arose while animating.
For Example:

- Why ,when I nearly finish the animation and copy frame 0 to the late frame (f256), does the "head" and the feet have the funny feeling to make a 360 degree turn?
- Who do I keep the feet in place? (Ev. moving pivot point for rotation?)
- Why do the legs in the rendered file sometimes disappeare?
- Are there something like "Sheets" or "Animating Sheets" in Max where I could plan the animation or have I just to start animating?
(It would be usefull to have something like a breakdown for the walkcycle.
For Example: 1. move right leg 2. rotate right heel joint 3. ajust toe rotation 4. move upper body a.s.o.)

- More knowlegde about the whole snaping function stuff required!
- Think about a better workflow so my body (the BACK & the eyes) doesn't feel like a pain after several hours of work -> considerings to start yoga and go to a fitnesstudio!? (Oh my God!)

...more light...

here I used a skylight and 3 omnis (without casting shadow)
It took its time to render and the globe seems to float in the air.
Arrrghhh... not so easy this stuff!

To be or not to be - the truth

When we spoke about the perception of truth in both the modernism and the postmodernism I had to think about a picture that shows Friedrich King of Preussen with his fellows of the Tabakkollegium.
The painter (Georg Lisiewski) choose a perspective with vanishing point, but the persons appearing in the picture aren't painted in a realistic way. For example the servants are very small. The king sits in the lower middle of the picture. If I had painted the picture I would have made him bigger, but maybe he wouldn't like to disgrace his fellows...




So the truth is, as quite often, only a question of the point of view and the knowledge a person has.

An other approach to this topic is the modern fashion photografie.

Nearly anybody can be changed in to a supermodel within a few hours spent on its pictures in photoshop. Does this mean that we will look at everyday life people and are bored about them because they look too ugly or do not fit in to the ideal proportions and cleanness of the artificial made poeples? At my opinion it isn't so. I still prefer real humans with some mistakes and some personality to the more and more androgyneus human beings in the ads. But nevertheless I have to admit that creating such ideal bodies shifts the perception of what's considered to be normal. Some may run in to a trap in following unfollowable ideals.

more lights

7 photometrical arealights


6 omni lights + targeted light


1 skylight + targeted light


The shot with the skylight in it looks obvously better... but took 10min to render the other two shots only 30sek...

and it still doesn't look like I wanted it to look like.

there shall be light... ääähhm...hm... where is the switch?

I played around with lights and tryed to remember what Andy tols me...
Basicelly:
Skylight = bad -> takes long to render, but looks good
any other playing around with lots of "normal" lights = better, faster... ähm what ever.

The stair is enlighted only with one targeted area light with raytraced shadows. I'm not so happy with the shadows and the walls are supposed to be white not gray.
How did the POCOYO guys lighten their scenes? I want a white space (that dosn't just look overexposed) with a light shadow an the edge where wall and floor met.

CHESHIRE CAT

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.

"I don't much care where –" said Alice.

"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.

"– so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.

"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

I love John Tenniels carefully made artwork for "Alice in the Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass". In my opinion the Disney movie ( last time seen when I was a little boy...) Hasn't reached the book as well as Tenniels artwork. Disney, as much as I like them, is too sweet for the whole Alice topic... so I am looking forward to the Tim Burton interpretation of it... will be like Chrismas, Easter and Birthday for me at one time ;-)

ERASMUS

It's so fun to be on an ERASMUS exchange - but honestly the balance between sleeping, dancing, drinking, reading, writing, taking pictures, drawing, modeling and animating is hard to keep up. People here in Nottingham are to friendly to ignore them and their invitations!

Script Draft02

INT.introduction.STUDENTS ROOM.AFTERNOON

A human being (me) sits at his desk working. The camera slips into his his head either through a ear, the nose or an eye.

CGi.the buzzcat.INSIDE THE HEAD

Wide shots of the landscape to introduce the plot.

Close of the cats weaving paws and a purring sound over two ends of synapses. He is stimulating them to create thoughts. Small electric jolts emit from the synapses back to the cat who is aware of its danger.

The cat jumps around, is excited and astonished about the processes going on in the brain. He likes his work. Several close shots of the cat. (head, tail, blinking eyes a.s.o.)

INT.Cat in the eye.STUDENTS ROOM.AFTERNOON

black

the eyelid opens

In a very close shot of an eye the cat can be seen in the reflection of a pupil.

(later on ev. an other shot with fish and cat in comic like chase with two eyes)

the eyelid closes

black

CGi.the problem.INSIDE THE HEAD

Suddenly something goes wrong. The firing of the synapses reduces dramatically so the former electric storm is down to a minimum. The Audience gets glimpses of parts of SillyBillyFish who turns synapses of with his lantern. The sound changes to a threatening humming combined with the sound of electronic power switched off.

The Buzzcat gets irritated and sets up to locate the source of this incident.

INT.knock out.STUDENTS ROOM.AFTERNOON

A daized and confused person still sitting on a chair in front of a laptop slightly swinging from one side to an other. It isn't capable of doing anything.

CGi.the hunt.INSIDE THE HEAD

(short fast moving takes. Those of the cat bright and shiny and those of the fish dark and threatening)

The Buzzcat hunts the fish of whom only glimpses can be seen. The two of them are never in the same picture. As the hunt goes on they pass a dark tunnel down into the deeper areas of the brain.

(find metaphor for deeper brain to help visualising)

The fish slips with a deep blowwwwph soung through a barrier in to his lair. The cat stops worried in front of the barrier.

CGI.the metaphysical cat.INSIDE THE HEAD

The buzzcat overthrows (transcends) the barrier by moving his paws and rotating like a twister, so he becomes after the whirling a transparent cat that reflects the rainbowcolors. Like this the cat can slip through the mental cellular wall.

A black wall remains, or alternatively the camera folows the cat through the barrier.

CGI.the lair of sillybilly.INSIDE THE HEAD

Now the Buzzcat is inside the hiding place of SillyBilly. For the first time the fish can be seen in total. He is floating in the space.

(first a close up of the fish, then the camera moves backwards tho show the cat and the fish on opposite sides of the picture)

The cat growls, hisses and spits at the fish. The fish answers with a deep tone that sounds chuntering, droning and humming. Both of them move in the beginning only slightly but more and more faster while the sound gains volume and around the cat buzzing starts.

Finally the fish gets thrown (ev. without being touched) between two synapses endings and stays stocked there.

The Buzzcat approaches while gesticulating with its paws and grinning madly. The synapses enlighten and fire a thought so that the fish explodes into thousands of pieces.

int.the end.STUDENTS ROOM.night

The human being awakes from his paralysed state, shakes his head and blows his nose. The remainings of the fish are flushed out of the brain. The Buzzcat glimpses triumphantly up in one eye.

changed scenes

CGI.the problem.INSIDE THE HEAD

Suddenly something goes wrong. The firing of the synapses reduces dramatically so the former electric storm is down to a minimum. The Audience gets glimpses of parts of SillyBillyFish who turns synapses of with his lantern. The sound changes to a threatening humming combined with the sound of electronic power switched off.

The Buzzcat gets irritated and sets up to locate the source of this incident.

INT.knock out.STUDENTS ROOM.AFTERNOON

A daized and confused person still sitting on a chair in front of a laptop slightly swinging from one side to an other. It isn't capable of doing anything.

CGI.the hunt.INSIDE THE HEAD

(short fast moving takes. Those of the cat bright and shiny and those of the fish dark and threatening)

The Buzzcat hunts the fish of whom only glimpses can be seen. The two of them are never in the same picture. As the hunt goes on they pass a dark tunnel down into the deeper areas of the brain.

(find metaphor for deeper brain to help visualising)

The fish slips with a deep blowwwwph soung through a barrier in to his lair. The cat stops worried in front of the barrier.

Script Draft 01

Parts Of My Brain

Story Outline

Draft 1

14/2/08

thomASKunz

STUDENTS ROOM 1

(live action footage)

A human being (me) sits at his desk working. The camera slips into his his head either through a ear, the nose or an eye.

INSIDE THE HEAD 1

(CGI 3D footage)

Just inside the skull the buzzcat is active. Actually the cat is visible through the eyes of the human being from the outside world but not every time and only if he wants to.

Buzzcat is excited and astonished about the proccesses going on in the brain even though he lives there since he started living. It's good never to lose the ability to get astonished. So as more active the brain is and as more the synapsis are fireing/ buzzing because of the thoughts passing as more the cat likes the landscape or should it be called brainscape ;-)

INSIDE THE HEAD 2

(CGI 3D footage)

Suddenly something goes wrong. The fireing of the synapsis reduces dramatically so the former electric storm is reduced to a minimum. Only occasionally a flash lighting up. The Buzzcat decides to set up to locate the source of this incident.

STUDENTS ROOM 2

(live action footage)

A daized and confused person still sitting on a chair in front of a Laptop slightly swinging from one side to an other. It isn't capable to do anything.

INSIDE THE HEAD 3

(CGI 3D footage)

The Buzzcat is wandering around still in search of the problems source. Where ever he crosses the synapses fire a little bit because of the cats stimulation. As the cat passes a dark tunnel downwards to the inner regions he finds himself near the deeply hidden areas of the subconscious mind. Actually this isn't a physically locatable region, it lies in the metaphysical parts of the brain. As the Buzzcat isn't a physical cat either he can reach every region imaginable. Here the incident of the lower synapsis activity seems to has it's source because as the cat approaches the region no fireing at all starts.

INSIDE THE HEAD 4

(CGI 3D footage)

The Buzzcat slips through the cellular wall and faces a quite huge latern fish who claims to be SillyBilly and has arrived just some years ago as a little grain of some seed. The fish prefers a low level of brain activity and tries to catch with his forehead latern precious thoughts to destroy and devour them.

A confrontation between them is inevitable.

INSIDE THE HEAD 5

(CGI 3D footage)

The Buzzcat and SillyBilly fight against each other. In the end of the fight the fish is thrown away and gets stuck between two ends of some synapses. As they fire for a new thought, the fish explodes in to thousands of pieces.

STUDENTS ROOM 3

(live action footage)

The human being awakes from his stand down status, shakes his head and blows his nose. The remainings of the fish are flushed out of the brain and the subconscious mind is free at last.

my chinese flatmates food

AS my flatmates not clean up their food very often - let's say once a week - I tried to deal creatively with this problem. My education was very pacifistic and diplomatic so I didn't want to shout at them but give a little visual hint that I think our flat is so dirty that the food gathers together to strange living beings...



I think this will not be the last of my chinese food pictures - as I live together with them till the end of the 3rd term. So look forward to more ;-)

a bit more story

I just phantasized around my two characters.

So I saw the Buzzcat as somekind of an aktive part of my consciousness that dwells deeper in my mind. He passes a synaptical sourrounding where thoughts as flashes are transmitted by neurotransmitters from one end of a synapsis to an other. As he went on in to the innerst there can not be found boundaries between the phisical brain that can be seen by cutting open a skull or the mind of thoughts or the subconscious mind that has no physical location.
The Buzzcat is kind of physical but also metaphysical so he can slip in to any real or imagined surrrounding he wants to.


The picture is located in the subconscious mind of me where the Buzzcat finally mets a fish called SillyBilly. At first it looks like a nice little fish to lock at and to gesture with (he doesn't intend to eat the fish) but then it turns out that the fish is a mind torturing monster, that should be eliminated. After a short fight the SillyBilly gets thrown between two ends of synapses where he got stuck. As they flash up for the next thought, he explodes in the electrical energie.

I really wounder how it would feel in my brain if I could kill this bloody fish!

the most UGLY CAT in the world

I found very ugly cats when I was wandering around in the WWW to lock for more reference images to my Buzzcat character. The poor animals lock like something between rat, cat, dog, corpses from all of them or even extraterrestrial... I had to laugh and was disgusted in one and the same moment.

They look so special that a surrealist painter could have invented them or they could have jumped out of one of H.R. Gigers airbrush paintings. He is from Switzerland (like me) and has a very cool museum in a castel (unlike me ;-) )

The ratcat



and the first price goes to... brrrrrrrrrrrr...ta taaa!
the CORPS CAT

...eventhough, some sources insist it to be a dog, I don't bother - it's my corpscat.

Poems - everybody

The Jabberwocky

- by Lewis Carroll

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"

He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

I just found out during a bit of reasearch over Jan Svankmajer that he also made a short animation called Jabberwocky (1971). The poem written by Lewis Carroll is very liked by me. It refers to the Dada Word play movement - nevertheless it was written 1871, over half a century bevor the DADA mouvement started in Zurich.

SILLYbilly 1

A possible sidekick (or shouldn't it be a sideclick - as we are digital now ;-)) to the BUZZcat could SILLYbilly be. He is a latern fish from the deepest regions of the sea or to keep up the image where the cat comes from - my inner brain - then that would mean SILLYbilly floats in the subconscious mind of mine.

How he meets the BUZZcat and what their relationship is like I acctually don't know yet. But as they are both living beeings in my mind, their story can't take place without my notification!
I will spy on them and document the way they live to be able to try to tell their story to other poeple outside of my mind.

BUZZ the CAT 1

Today I made first conntact with the "odd couple" project. Right now I can not definitely say that I will adapt the whole idea for my term project. It's more likely that it remaines as a subline to the main title of my film.

Working with 3DMax (after 2 years not opening the program) was surprisingly easy - so I started to model a cat... a special one.
May be a bit influenced from American McGee's Alice in the Wonderland designs, but basically it's a cat that lives in the inner regions of my mind. Hm, difficult to say. It isn't living in the physical brain (the organ) but in the areas my thinking goes on.
I draw it since a while - at some time it caught up the name "Buzzcat" or "Buzz the cat"...

Accommondation

I found a good accomodation here in Nottingham. It's near Mansfield Road on top of the hill - just lovely!

But seriously, I like this space with the thin stones.
They become very odd during the decades and get a wonderful texture.

Opening Message

Here we are, my blog has just opened.

The digital world features a lot of demons who bind you in front of the screen. The longer you stay connected the happier they are.

Well, I will see how I can deal with them.