Sunday 29 March 2015

Geography research

The World's Weirdest Weather

After watching a few episodes of this, it sparked up my love for Geography again and so I tried to relate some weather related into my work. 



Looking into weather was my main idea as I wasn't sure what to do with natural disasters till inspiration hit me in lesson.

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Going with pattern of the 4 elements natural disaster style: 

Fire = Volcanoes



  1. volcano is a rupture on the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. Earth's volcanoes occur because its crust is broken into 17 major, rigid tectonic plates that float on a hotter, softer layer in its mantle.

Earth = Earthquakes


  1. An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time.

Wind = Hurricanes


  1. hurricane is a huge storm! It can be up to 600 miles across and have strong winds spiraling inward and upward at speeds of 75 to 200 mph. Each hurricane usually lasts for over a week, moving 10-20 miles per hour over the open ocean. 

Water = Tsunamis



tsunami, also known as a seismic sea wave or as a tidal wave, is a series of waves in a body of water caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lakeEarthquakesvolcanic eruptions and other underwater explosions, landslides, glacier calvingsmeteorite impacts and other disturbances above or below water all have the potential to generate a tsunami.





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Carbon Footprint


For starters what is a carbon footprint? 

- It is the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result of the activities of a particular individual, organization, or community. -

According to the Dictionary but more importantly what does it have to do with my project? Well the fact that carbon footprints are causing global warming which in turn may cause natural disasters to worsen and kill ourselves and the planet.

What is/causes global warming?

One of the first things scientists learned is that there are several greenhouse gases responsible for warming, and humans emit them in a variety of ways. Most come from the combustion of fossil fuels in cars, factories and electricity production. The gas responsible for the most warming is carbon dioxide, also called CO2. Other contributors include methane released from landfills and agriculture (especially from the digestive systems of grazing animals), nitrous oxide from fertilizers, gases used for refrigeration and industrial processes, and the loss of forests that would otherwise store CO2.
 Since 1990, yearly emissions have gone up by about 6 billion metric tons of "carbon dioxide equivalent" worldwide, more than a 20 percent increase.

Possible outcomes if global warming continues:

  • Ice is melting worldwide. This includes mountain glaciers, ice sheets covering West Antarctica and Greenland, and Arctic sea ice.
  • Researcher Bill Fraser has tracked the decline of the Adélie penguins on Antarctica, where their numbers have fallen from 32,000 breeding pairs to 11,000 in 30 years.
  • Sea level rise became faster over the last century.
  • Some butterflies, foxes, and alpine plants have moved farther north or to higher, cooler areas.
  • Precipitation has increased across the globe, on average.
  • Spruce bark beetles have boomed in Alaska thanks to 20 years of warm summers. The insects have chewed up 4 million acres of spruce trees.
The effects that could happen later this century, if warming continues.
  • Sea levels are expected to rise between 7 and 23 inches by the end of the century, and continued melting at the poles could add between 4 and 8 inches.
  • Hurricanes and other storms are likely to become stronger.
  • Species that depend on one another may become out of sync. For example, plants could bloom earlier than their pollinating insects become active.
  • Floods and droughts will become more common.
  • Less fresh water will be available.
  • Some diseases will spread, such as malaria carried by mosquitoes.
  • Ecosystems will change - some species will move farther north or become more successful; others won’t be able to move and could become extinct.
All of this will lead to us either becoming extinct, because of overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate change. 

Finalized Message and Idea

This project will consist of the use of projectors to imitate 4 main Natural disasters, and include 4 handmade human sculptures (Busts) to project onto. 
The point of this project is to show the constant battle of survival between the two forces, Earth and Humans. But I'm questioning if there even is a battle, from newspaper headlines we are told that Us (humans) are "killing" the Earth - climate change, pollution, carbon footprint, ect - Yet from what I've seen, the Earth is fighting back and we are unintentionally making it stronger. 
From visible evidence the Earth is not dying, it's a planet, it will continue on without us whether we like it or not and I am using this layout/project to show fight between the two  with the impact of natural disasters on humanity.


Lists and Layout

Layout of the installation:



What I need to get for making the sculptures:

  • Chicken wire
  • Wire cutters
  • Newspaper
  • Paper towels
  • Flour or glue
  • Paint brushes 
  • White paint

For final presentation:

  • 4 podiums
  • 4 busts
  • 1 projector
  • 1 Laptop 
  • Speakers

Saturday 21 March 2015

3D Modelling in Maya

For this Professional Toolkit we had 4 sessions with our tutor, and in each one he showed us the basics for modelling, UV mapping, texturing and basic animations along with rendering. 


Day 1: Spaceship






UV Mapping the spaceship (which takes way too long)

Using Photoshop to texture the spaceship

Rendering

Day2: Asteroid









 Day 3:  Moon










 Sadly after rendering it the ambient shell didn't show and was just a black ball and I couldn't find a way to fix it 

 Day 4: Enemy UFO
















Basic animation






Interactivity - Unity

For Interactivity we had sessions that took us through the process of creating a simple game in Unity, using scripting and the tools in Unity itself.

Playing around with unity

Playing with gravity and effects
Playing with the terrain 








Tuesday 17 March 2015

Research into Sculpting

To start off with I was thinking about making one full sized bust to do tests on so I know how to improve the sculpture as well as testing the projections, seeing how they look on the sculpture and see if adjustments are needed such as the projection is too distorted or it bleeds over the outline. 

So to begin with I have to think about what I need to use for the structure of the bust and from discussing with my auntie, who knows a bit when it comes to arts and crafts, she said that chicken wire would be the best as a base structure and then paper mache because it's cheap and easy. 

After a bit of looking around on the internet I found cardboard could be used a base structure however because the paper mache is wet it will dampen the cardboard and it would be difficult to make a head shape with cardboard. 

So instead I ordered chicken wire on Amazon to practice the first bust. 


Paper mache

Then I looked up how to make paper mache and I found a few different ways to make it. There is the option to use glue and water it down a bit, or a cheaper way to use flour and water. I'm going to try both and see which is better quality.


This website is very useful as it has multiple recipes for paper mache as well as tips for when building a sculpture which I'll take into account.

Sculpting tips:


  • After using newspaper for the initial shape I can use softer paper, like tissue paper, to smooth it out
  • Rougher paper, like paper towels give it a bit of texture to the final coat
  • Also with painting the busts she recommended any kind of paint, of course I'm going for white and textured look so nothing difficult there 
  • She says to make Gesso to seal in the paper mache and ready the sculpture for painting however I'm not going to use this tip




Thursday 5 March 2015

Main Idea in a bit more depth


  • Installation piece about natural disasters and the impact it can have on humanity
  • it will include 4 or 5 busts (chest and head)
  • they’ll be very basic as they’ll be representing humanity
  • on each bust will be a projection of each disaster (so one will have lava and another with have cracking earth, etc) (moving and looping)
  • and sound wise I was thinking of having bassy earth noises with the odd crack or boiling sound to represent the sounds of the different disasters (www.vimeo.com/80266870)
  • I need to look into different materials for creating the busts, (whether i can buy them pre made or if i have to make them from scratch (either way I don’t mind getting my hands dirty and because of the simplicity of the busts it will reduce the difficulty of the sculpting them))
  • the projections will be made in after effects (for obvious reasons of not being able to go too disaster ridden locations (need to choose what disasters to replicate and then contact simon or reference Lynda to figure out how to create the effects)
  • inspiration (www.danielwurtzel.com)
  • I have a back up plan just incase the sculptures back fire (double exposure)