Extremely happy news!

Long shot? Yes. Are there still people out there to support students with their imaginative projects and contribute to their work? Answer: YES THERE ARE!  At least for me the name is : Tom Dussek. The aspiring voice actor that did all the voices for massive games like Blue Toad Murder Files and Joe Danger, agreed on helping with the narration of my film lending his voice to the character/narrator ! 


The result is sure going to be excellent judging from his work on the above games! Apart from that he gave me much motivation to continue my project with passion and inspiration. 


Please take the time to check his website and listen to his excellent voice samples he has posted there. 
Just...Brilliant!


http://www.tomdussek.com/


In addition to these happy news a good friend and excellent sound designer Kyle Martin-Clark, agreed to spent some time to create a soundtrack for the film. Judging from my previous  collaboration with Kyle the result, i am sure of it, it's gonna be amazing, giving the right feeling and aesthetic to the film. Thanks Kyle!

PFTracking....

Another part of the project is entering the magical (in a technical way) place of Motion Tracking. I have the programme in my hands for the last week and i can tell you this,even better let me just show you :

     This is the interface of PFTrack. It is rather confusing when you open it for the first time and things can get worse when you start exploring its features. But all these are just products of emotions like panic and fear of the unknown. In reality, PFTrack is the most user-friendly and automated motion-tracking software one can work with. In aspects of complexity, it wouldn't be interesting and challenging if it was just a simple-featured software.
     Unfortunately, a drawback for people that want to try using this software in combination with Blender, is the fact that there isn't really much support out there. There are a few tutorials that can show you the very basic stuff on motion tracking and how to import the camera data in the Blender environment, but from that point and on you must start asking for help and information in more detail. 
Now,to explain the why and how.

    The main concept of the project is the creation of an animated 3D character, that will be used in 2D video recordings. The order in which this procedure must be done, in order to reach this technical goal is:

• Record the video you want with a camera.
• Import the recording in PFTrack
• When you have your footage in PFTrack you must experiment and execute three main functions: 1. Tracking(you must play with the settings and be sure about what you want to do with your footage, cause it takes long time to track and you can afford redoing it several times, in aspects of time economy), 2. Estimate Focal length (where you want your 3D grid placed in the 2d environment) and 3. Solve camera motion(solving of the camera movement/rotation in the 3D environment).
• Export the tracking and camera data in a Python script
• Run the Python script in Blender
• Apply Alpha levels to your scene in the video sequencer so you can see your 3D objects in the footage.

    The above procedure is described over simplified, in order to be more easily understood. The full analysis of the procedure and of the technical problems faced (it's a long list) will be fully described in the written part of the dissertation.  

Character! We...were almost there.

 

Meet our hero. He doesn't have a name, just yet. Unfortunately he won't look exactly like that , as this is a high resolution model and Blender doesn't cooperate well with my current technical equipment, so i could leave him like this. On the other hand he will be like that but some of his details will be lost cause of technical difficulties. "What's the problem" you'll say. Let me explain:

Because i decided to get to know better the sculpting tools Blender has, i found very intriguing to experiment with multires modelling. This doesn't necessarily means, vast amounts of faces and countless hours of rendering. Let's make the argument more visual:

                         

The above models have nearly 300,000 faces. They sound too much for a character like this? Not really. I've been contacting artists in the Blender Artists forum and something they explained to me was: " Just because the character you are creating won't be used in Blender's game engine, and because you are using sculpting tools, so that the animation to be more realistic, 300,000 is a very reasonable amount for that kind of a character. Usually professional modelled characters tend to have millions of faces, so to be more realistic and smooth". 

Problems though were waiting for me just around the corner. After modelling and texturing the character, i created the armature that would bring him to life...and it did. But for some reason, the armature caused many deformations when applied on the character.

                                   

That was the turning point for this little guy. Because with 300,000 faces Blender used too much memory, so all the processes were going slow, i reduced the multires level to a previous step. Now the character has 175,000 faces which made things easier and faster. Was the problem with the armature solved too? Well, not really, at least not by just reducing the faces.


The good thing out of all these handicaps was that i experimented much with all the tools that blender has to offer for character modelling. Now i am happy to say that the majority of  problems, the armature was causing, are solved by building a more detailed one with extra bones and Ik controllers(still there are few problems left,but i am on it):

                                                

Too many fields to explore

    For the past month i've been working consistently on understanding how many things work: The PFTrack motion tracking software, Blender sculpting and Multires, frame rates, high definition recordings, estimations of focal length etc etc. It's been pretty intense i can tell you that.


    Why a student with no past experience in these fields is trying to do something, according to many, ambitious? Well...that was always the case with me. I always wanted to have the best possible result at the end, i always wanted things to be as they existed in my mind, exactly the way i have imagined them. Right now i'm feeling lost in waves of technical calculations and estimations. But that's what i signed up for...and if i have to do this to reach the point of personal satisfaction...so be it!


P.s. I know that this post is a bit personal, but thats why this blog exists to share with you all of my concerns and troubles.

Basic Proppian flow of the film

The basis of the storyline has been decided after research on the analysis of Propp. The chapters that will be implemented in the story are (in order) :

1. Absentation : A member of a family leaves the security of the home environment. This may be the hero or some other member of the family that the hero will later need to rescue. This division of the cohesive family injects initial tension into the storyline. The hero may also be introduced here, often being shown as an ordinary person.
2. Mediation: Misfortune or lack is made known, (hero is dispatched, hears call for help etc./ alternative is that victimised hero is sent away, freed from imprisonment). The hero now discovers the act of villainy or lack, perhaps finding their family or community devastated or caught up in a state of anguish and woe.
3. Interdiction: An interdiction is addressed to the hero ('don't go there', 'don't do this'). The hero is warned against some action (given an 'interdiction').
4. Branding: Hero is branded (wounded/marked, receives ring or scarf)
5. Receipt of a magical agent: Hero acquires use of a magical agent (directly transferred, located, purchased, prepared, spontaneously appears, eaten/drunk, help offered by other characters);
6. Hero's reaction/Punishment: Hero reacts to actions of future donor/ Villain is punished
7. Transfiguration: Hero is given a new appearance.

The above are only descriptions of Propp for the specific functions. The storyline will be explained in a following post.

What is the project exactly

    As i mentioned in a previous post this final project of mine will combine motion tracking technology and will follow Vladimir Propp's analysis of fairytales. But let's make it more specific:

    The project undertaken here was motivated by a variety of subjects presented throughout the academic year. In particular, it combines work on 3D animation and modelling with the experience acquired on DMSP(Digital Media Studio Project); the latter had offered the context for modelling and animating a realistic human being embedded in a storyline.

Apart from the components that Design Digital Media MSc familiarized students with, the project here will also employ 'motion tracking' techniques; these will make possible the introduction of the 3D modelling and animation products into video recordings.

A personal camera is going to be used for capturing video with a tripod, so to have more steady and professional recordings. All of the research is going to be conducted in the University's Main Library, where ill use books relative to the Proppian analysis.

    The project is going to be developed mainly on my personal computer and will make use of computers in the University's Atrium for minimising any risks that may occur. From my research the softwares that are going to be used are: Blender software(modelling/animations and "composition"), PFTrack 5 (for using the motion tracking technology), Adobe Premiere and Final Cut (for video editing), Adobe After effects (for any special effects that may be used), Adobe Photoshop(for texture and image editing). I am also considering using the software Z Brush, so to experiment on character modelling. A personal camera is going to be used for capturing video with a tripod, so to have more steady and professional recordings. Extra equipment ,if needed, can be found and used in the University. All of the research is going to be conducted in the University's Main Library, where ill use books relative to the Proppian analysis. The final product will be presented either in the Atrium or in InSpace depending of the result and the technologies that might be necessary for the presentation.

Outcomes expected:

1 Acquire expertise on Blender software as well as discovering and mastering sculpture techniques for more realistic modelling and animations.

2 Acquiring good knowledge on Adobe After Effects in use with animated objects and characters.

3 Extend past experience with Adobe Premiere and Photoshop.

4 Understanding of the basic elements of fairytales (researching Propp).

Launching the Project

From this day and on experimentation,imagination and creation start. The ideal goal? Creating a 20 minutes film based on the analysis of the basic plot components of Russian folk tales, by Vladimir Propp.

But first let’s break down the title of the project:

1)Motion Tracking

With motion tracking, you can track the movement of an object and then apply the tracking data for that movement to another object—such as another layer or an effect control point—to create compositions in which images and effects follow the motion.

2)Who was Vladimir Propp?

Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp ( 29 April 1895 — 22 August 1970) was a Russian formalist scholar who analysed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements.

Vladimir Propp extended the Russian Formalist approach to the study of narrative structure. In the Formalist approach, sentence structures were broken down into analyzable elements, or morphemes, and Propp used this method by analogy to analyze Russian fairy tales. By breaking down a large number of Russian folk tales into their smallest narrative units, or narratemes, Propp was able to arrive at a typology of narrative structures.*

Motion tracking a fairytale? What that even means? There are gonna follow many posts so all of your questions will be answered shortly.

* Picture of Vladimir Propp and info as seen in wikipedia.org