My identity

Below is the wall I have created in my room to portray a range of aspects shown within my identity. These will be used to influence the design of my Avatar. I am also currently producing some mood boards which show some of my favoured objects and identity.

Second Life Final Diary

Second Life.docx

Being connected and century of self

Last week we had a lecture with Simon, on being connected and the century of self. The lecture was crammed with philosophical points about modernism and post moderism. Now I myself, prefer the idea that we all have different views on different things, and we should have equal opportunity to express these views, something that is becoming more and more recognised as the world we live in develops.

We all have individual ideas, about everything we do, some of these cause disagreements. In terms of art, I haven't seen a piece of work in Multimedia so far that has been identical to that of someone elses, something that shows the importance of individuality and how it effects us as people. Sure, we may take inspiration from one anothers ideas to develop these with our own, but that again surely shows our individuality to be influenced by the type of work that has inspired us. I've never been one for the total and utter views that science can explain everything, and when taking psychology last year, I found science has many leaks and flaws that are taped together by deceptions and twists in the truth. How do we know all these things are correct, JUST because someone tells us. This is why the thoughts of individuality are so important, and we should not loose ourselves with what we think when others say THIS IS RIGHT. Noone is entirely right noone entirely wrong, if so where would creativity be in the world?

With reference to Leannes journal, and the lecture a few weeks back, were we saw the advertisements of women smokers. This bemused me, that people could be sucked out of individuality, by people telling them that something is right, and relating this, in this case, to show that women are equals to men. Such stupidity in my view, but never the less, some clever ass decided it would be funny to make these women tempted by the idea of killing themselves with tar filled sticks. Unbelievable.

The idea of post modernism and moderism to me should be scraped well and truly from todays society. Its dangerous, and the idea that people individual thoughts can be sucked from them with a little propaganda is scary. Our futures could actually depend on some guys ability to advertise. Weird if you ask me.

Prediction time....

Right, a couple of weeks back, we were asked to predict a piece of technology we felt would improve, or begin to rise within the future. I was walking the other day with my Dad around Kinder Scout (If no-one knows were that is its the highest point in Derbyshire). I was thinking about the way we navigate in these sorts of areas, and how risky it can be, especially when the weather turns nasty.

Navigation systems are becoming more and more advanced by the day. Take the Tom Tom systems for example. I remember the first time we had a built in sat-nav in my Dads car, it was shocking. Turn here, turn around there, basically it was more beneficial to throw the bleeder away or less severe turn it off. Now we own a Tom Tom One, which provides the user with outstanding information about roads, traffic, even speed camera warnings.

Now what I was thinking was, how good would it be to have a photo realism navigation system, which showed where the person was geographically, but in a way which, even if it was night, the user could walk according to the photo directions on the navigation system. Almost as if you were walking in the screen. This way the user would'nt get into any trouble if the weather was poor, or if they were stuck in a remote place at night. Might save a few lives.

The closest we've got to this so far is Navmans new camera navigation system.



Nowhere near as advanced as I was talking about but the ability to take pictures of previous locations and place them on geographical co-ordinates on a map is impressive.

This ones clever also, the new generation of navigation in the USA.



This is basically a small version of a laptiop with awesome features. Realy clever use of information through a multimedia system.



I also like the new use of bluetooth and voice activation used on these systems, and the way these are moulding a path for future systems.

Where I stand in the identity module and SPP1 module so far....

Well... my diary of an avatar in Second Life was completed last week, so thats out the way and will shortly be posted in Word format to blogger. This includes around a months experience using Second life, including a diary of events, as well as some general aspects I enjoyed and did not enjoy during my experience of the 3d world.

Whilst completing my journal of Second life, I began experimenting with 3d studio max and its interface. I now feel I can produce some results ranging from average to good, and ongoing practice is still be undertaken.

I have now moved on to begin my design ideas for the creation of an avatar in a specific environment, as well as exploring ideas towards my identity. These are being carried out through a range of sketches and articles about myself, to aid me to choose something which best suits my identity, whilst being individual in my choice of design.

My first design idea shown below is well rough, but I used the opportunity to explore the creation of characters within 3d max, and create objects without the use of tutorials. It was done in about 10 mins, and so obviously has little attention to detail so far. I have chosen to do a realistic, semi realistic - semi unrealistic and unrealistic approach to my avatar. Before beginning the module though, I wanted to create something completly different to myself, which would show some aspects of my inner identity.



Finally, whilst this is still going on, I am currently watching a range of films from different directors to try and establish my knowledge in the area of AV, for the essay and choices I will undertake next week. I realise the amount of work there is to be done, and am finding the use of a gantt chart (Roma's suggestion), useful in keeping me in time with work.

Starting my soundtrack for interactives.

Becuase I am a rather musically orientated kind of guy:), me and my friend from Confetti Studios have begun creating a soundtrack using our acoustic guitars and effects in Logic. The Soundtrack will be basic but looped, so not to take up to much loading time for the project, but also to save time to concentrate on the major aspects of the project. It is based on a short song we wrote a few months ago. The soundtrack will be finished in a few days, so I will be posting this as soon as it is completed.

My own Shane Meadows season.

This week, I've watched four of the best written and directed films I've seen for some time. My friend leant me the Shane Meadows box set whcih includes TwentyFourSeven, A Room For Romeo Brass, Dead Mans Shoes and This is England. I started the set with Twenty Four Seven, as this was recommended by my friend. The film is Shane Meadow's debut production. Its low-budget black and white content certainly may lack appeal in todays world of film, but the overall effect astonished me, and I found myself hooked to a fanstatic dark comedy.

Twenty Four Seven

The story basically follows some guy who starts a boxing club, to stop drugs and crime in the local area. His hopes and aspires to train a bunch of lads, taken from a rough, lower class council estate, turns into a bunch of friends in a bonding session in the Welsh mountains. Truly fantastic filming without colour. Favourite scene shown below:



haha. makes me laugh everytime:). Fantastic use of the almost fatherly figure Bob Hoskins.

This Is England

The second film I watched was This is England. This film is semi-autobiographical, which I knew before the film so had a greater effect on the way I saw the events portrayed. The film starts with clips of entertainment, news, music, film and fashion in the early eighties. This introduces us into the time frame well and is clearly thought out.

The film uses colour this time, and plenty of it. The vivid blues and greens in the opening scenes combined with some good camera fices on the main characters, create a successful insight into the main characters emotions. Shaun, the main character begins as a lonely figure, no friends and little relations with family. He is an only child, and looks up to the brotherly figures he meets at the beginning of the film. These characters are subtley introduced. Before these guys come along though, I found the loniness well portrayed in the film, as short clips followed Shaun doing things that should ideally be done with the company of friends. For example, riding his bike, playing football or hanging at the park. At this stage of the film, acoustic tracks are played over the footage, to great this sense of secluded isolation.

Later in the film, a major thug character is introduced, whom many of the current friends Shaun has doesnt like. He is a major skinhead, who belives in true British people only. A particular scene stood out, where he is intoroduced, and begins making racial attacks towards Jamaican people, without realising one of Shauns freinds is actually ethenic. As he is saying these things, his voice slowly fades away, and characters are filmed upon individually whilst a soundtrack is played over his speaking. This shows us the uncomfortable state the characters were portrayed as being.

Throughout the film, although we dont find out till the end that Shauns Father died in the Fawklands war, we hear, at numerous stages, radio footage of the events in the war. These are usually when Shaun is on his own, which shows us he is thinking about his Father at these points.

Later in the film, a similar situation is portrayed as earlier, bt the other way around, where the black character is talking about his family and fellow blacks. The thug character this time is the one with music playing over his thoughts.

Finally, as the film draws to a conclusion, we see flicking scenes between Shaun throwing an St. Georges Flag to see with the unity of families with soldiers at the end of the war. Again my favourite scene is shown below (I dont agree with the racism at all, but when you watch the film it is knot portrayed as being a good thing. In fact its portrayed as insanity):



Dead Mans Shoes

Yesterday afternoon after dinner, I sat down to the next in the four films, Dead man's Shoes. This was my favourite of the four films, as it used some fantastic plot twists and filming techniques.

Much like This is England, Dead man's Shoes begins with real life baby footage of the two main characters, Richard and his brother. It flicks between this footage, and the footage of Richard walking through fields with his brother as young men. Like Twenty Four Seven, there is a small amount of narration from the lead character.

Throughout the film, a fantastic use of black and white flashbacks, to reveal what has happened to cause this brothers anger at these men.





These clips above are my favourite, portraying Richard as an aggressive, scary character.



I dont think theres a moment in this film I didnt enjoy, as the characters emotions and fellings are portrayed to give the audience an insight into the world of Richard. Revealed at the end is that his brother was actually killed by these men, and when we see him in earlier stages, he isnt actually there, but is an illusion in Richards mind.





The flashbacks of Anthonys life are shown above. The use of the gas mask is well scary and evokes fear, everytime he is seen.

I also noted about the drug overdose part of the film, where the filming is in chaos cam, and blurred, as if in first person of theose who had been drugged. This is fantastic, using distorted audio and flicking between the sober Richard to these proper gone druggies. He then kills them all :).

A Room For Romeo Brass

Finally, last night I watched the Film a Room For Romeo Brass. Like This is England, the filming was bright, had a pleasent start, but developed from this into a tragic plot of two friends plaing around with a very lonely but violent mid aged male. The same guy who played Richard in Dead mans Shoes (Paddy Considine), plays a very different role in this film as a slow, uncanny character, with a very short temper and no cause for thought. At the start of the film he is really funny, but as he develops an obsession with Romeos sister, he becomes angry and outraged that she doesnt want to get with him.

The use of light and dark filming, creates a mood in which the audience can follow, and also some what of a hatred for the characters in the bad of this film. The relationship between the two original friends is portrayed very successfully, and equal filming of each of their lives, flicking between them, allows us to see both ways of their thinking.

Again brilliant use of audio and soundtrack in this film.



My favourite scene:



Absolutly loved these films!!!!! Watch them...!

Second life. The big blog:)

Secondlife is a 3-D world, in which any given person who has access to a suitable specified system with a broadband connection can create an avatar which represents however they would wish to look in a second life. Funnily enough, I was watching "Hogan knows best" on MTV, and the advertisement basically showed the way a person could create a character who may not represent their actual self, but how they would want to appear as an avatar.

Now I've been a member of the secondlife society for about a month, and feel I now need to review my time on the site and talk about how I created my avatar and interacted it within the environment.

To start with, I found the site difficult to get used to, partially due to the fact I skipped the tutorial at the start. However, when I got used to the right click facility, used to interact with the objects and environment around me, I began to get used to doing certain tasks. This allowed me to change the appearence of my avatar. I tried to make my avatar appear as much like me as possible, to begin with. This is something I tend to do on all games like this, as a preference, as I enjoy testing the software to see how it copes with making a character look similar to the real-life me. However, when going around the site, I found more and more people had dressed in clothing which was actually humourous. This then tempted me into creating a free appearence to my character, I wanted something different. Hence my current image, of Tuxedo, cigar and a wheelchair, definetly different to the people I had seen previously.




Below I have some screenshots of different avatars I found on the site, which were bizaare, and clearly not a direct image of their owner.







The positive about how secondlife has been developed is that it has taking some inspiration from the real life world, and combined it with ideas from the virtual world, so pretty much anything is psysically possible. When my character had been created, and I had got used to the interface, I decided to search for well known places, landmarks and popular places within Secondlife, and see how these had been incorporated into the virual world. The first was Paris, New York and London, shown below







and finally I visited Amsterdam :) just for the laugh. This place shows me how much secondlife is based on adults rather than the younger generation. Some of its content leaves not alot to the imagination. Bizarre, but again perhaps something some people take serious when using secondlife.

Still have loads more to write, but I'm off to work for a few hours. Toodles x

Car....again

So heres the mirrored car with a few lights on, which I havent got used to at all yet!:) might take a few tutorials on this section to boost my knowledge. I'd also like to look into a plug-in called V-Ray, which seems to be mentioned in alot of tutorials. I also added a better colour to the model and built a plain for the model to sit within.

The next stage is to add the details such as lights, windows, mirrors etc. I also need to add the bonnet and tyres (already made) to this version of the model and perhaps have a play around at animating it.

Mustang modelling...comtinued

Been playing with 3Dmax for sometime now, and I'm finally becoming familiar with the interface, tools and ideas that the software can incorporate into our work. I created a bonnet for my Mustang a couple of weeks back, and have been playing for a while now with the side of the car as well as the rear. The results are starting to show. Using the blueprints method, found on a few tutorials, I have managed now to craft most of the bodywork. The results are shown below, however theres still loads of stuff to do on it!. Because this is taking so long, and I've gotten into it so much, I have decided to use this in my interactive box, perhaps animated with my Avatar driving? To show my passion for old American Muscle cars.



I still need to add the previously made bonnet to the car, as well as mirroring the model to merge it to the oposite side, but that should'nt be too hard in the modifiers panel.