Maps & Networks - Evaluation
Projection mapping caught my attention very early on in my research. Taking a lot of inspiration from Inner connection - Visionary Projection Mapping, their animation display was very detailed and the 3D elements of the animation created a lot of depth. One specific animation effect which I found very inspiring was the blue print scanning through the building, this was something I wanted to create in my own style. I believe the blue print effect which I created was successful. I managed to create my "skeleton buildings" in photoshop and attach a layer of the light source so the "skeleton" would only show when the light source was attached. I decided in the edit to have the source of light travel around and then expand to reveal the whole of the blueprint. This part of the animated sequence is my favourite as I love the transition between the blueprint to the night scene cityscape.
I discovered a simple tutorial on YouTube on how to create a projection map onto a house, this information was incredibly helpful as it helped me understand how to create a projection map without using software. Knowing the very basic how-to's of what to do technically, I started creating a very basic sculpture to have a try experiment with. I created my blue sky scrapers and projected onto them using a software called MapMap which allows you to import a mp4 into a square composition and position it. I knew I didn't want to use this software for my mapping as the shape of the buildings I wanted to create were a lot more elaborate. I decided that I wanted to create a building but I didn't know exactly what. I knew I wanted them to be something familiar so people would recognise them and I knew I wanted them to be created recently as they would use technology and correlate better with my concept of celebrating technology. I decided on three buildings being The Shard, The Walkie Talkie and The Cheese Grater as they utilized technology in the construction i.e. 3D models and context of what happens in the buildings. The buildings which are currently used for many different things, all of which use technology. Even the littlest everyday things we do use technology and help create a much easyier and creative world, something as simple as sending a message to an office friend.
The build for the buildings I had chosen was very mathematical, I am not very good at maths at all so this was a stretch for me however I managed to get the scale right by creating a formula. The formula was simple (For every 1M multiply that by 1.3cm = a three digit number which you divide by 10) this gave me the scale for the buildings as The Shard is the tallest and the Walkie Talkie is the smallest. Overall, personally, I am happy with the outcome of the buildings and the finish of them as they are crisp and white and with the projection mapping animation projected onto them they're great. I do think the scale of them makes them look rather "toyish" however I think that if I were to do this again I would attempt to create a much bigger sculpture but with the nature of the projection mapping this was the best option.
After I went back to the original plan of using the knowledge from the YouTube tutorial I started experimenting with drawing my map onto my newly built sculptures. This was frustrating at first as it took a while to get the lines straight and perfect on photoshop. I scaled it and screen shotted it and reopen it in the finder on full screen and finally managed to get it to line up. This process was rather time consuming however it was essentially the most important part of the process. From this map I was allowed to continue experimenting with exporting just simply the map, to start, then very basic animations for the map as well to see if they would line up with the sculptures. After many failed attempts at exporting the files as many different variations of video formats I had no luck with premiere or adobe encoder and simply tried exporting it through after effects own built in render software which worked like a dream an lined up perfectly. Once I managed to line it up perfectly I started mapping the distances between everything so when it came to reassembling I would be able to do this accurately.
I started on my storyboarding my animation with a clear idea of what I wanted to show and why I wanted to show it. I wanted a kind of narrative which showed a typical day, trying to show the benefits of technology such as online dating and communication and job creation but I do think that if the animation was longer this idea would come through clearer. If I had more time I would probably reconsider the narrative and mainly stick with the more traditional projection mapping animation effects as I believe this alone is a celebration of technology in itself.
Overall, I am very happy with my outcome, I believe that I have learnt an awful lot on how to do many things such as projection map, animate and build a sculpture, all new things for me. I felt a little overwhelmed at the start as I hadn't any knowledge of how to do this process but managed to produce something successful.
I discovered a simple tutorial on YouTube on how to create a projection map onto a house, this information was incredibly helpful as it helped me understand how to create a projection map without using software. Knowing the very basic how-to's of what to do technically, I started creating a very basic sculpture to have a try experiment with. I created my blue sky scrapers and projected onto them using a software called MapMap which allows you to import a mp4 into a square composition and position it. I knew I didn't want to use this software for my mapping as the shape of the buildings I wanted to create were a lot more elaborate. I decided that I wanted to create a building but I didn't know exactly what. I knew I wanted them to be something familiar so people would recognise them and I knew I wanted them to be created recently as they would use technology and correlate better with my concept of celebrating technology. I decided on three buildings being The Shard, The Walkie Talkie and The Cheese Grater as they utilized technology in the construction i.e. 3D models and context of what happens in the buildings. The buildings which are currently used for many different things, all of which use technology. Even the littlest everyday things we do use technology and help create a much easyier and creative world, something as simple as sending a message to an office friend.
The build for the buildings I had chosen was very mathematical, I am not very good at maths at all so this was a stretch for me however I managed to get the scale right by creating a formula. The formula was simple (For every 1M multiply that by 1.3cm = a three digit number which you divide by 10) this gave me the scale for the buildings as The Shard is the tallest and the Walkie Talkie is the smallest. Overall, personally, I am happy with the outcome of the buildings and the finish of them as they are crisp and white and with the projection mapping animation projected onto them they're great. I do think the scale of them makes them look rather "toyish" however I think that if I were to do this again I would attempt to create a much bigger sculpture but with the nature of the projection mapping this was the best option.
After I went back to the original plan of using the knowledge from the YouTube tutorial I started experimenting with drawing my map onto my newly built sculptures. This was frustrating at first as it took a while to get the lines straight and perfect on photoshop. I scaled it and screen shotted it and reopen it in the finder on full screen and finally managed to get it to line up. This process was rather time consuming however it was essentially the most important part of the process. From this map I was allowed to continue experimenting with exporting just simply the map, to start, then very basic animations for the map as well to see if they would line up with the sculptures. After many failed attempts at exporting the files as many different variations of video formats I had no luck with premiere or adobe encoder and simply tried exporting it through after effects own built in render software which worked like a dream an lined up perfectly. Once I managed to line it up perfectly I started mapping the distances between everything so when it came to reassembling I would be able to do this accurately.
I started on my storyboarding my animation with a clear idea of what I wanted to show and why I wanted to show it. I wanted a kind of narrative which showed a typical day, trying to show the benefits of technology such as online dating and communication and job creation but I do think that if the animation was longer this idea would come through clearer. If I had more time I would probably reconsider the narrative and mainly stick with the more traditional projection mapping animation effects as I believe this alone is a celebration of technology in itself.
Overall, I am very happy with my outcome, I believe that I have learnt an awful lot on how to do many things such as projection map, animate and build a sculpture, all new things for me. I felt a little overwhelmed at the start as I hadn't any knowledge of how to do this process but managed to produce something successful.
Comments
Post a Comment