I had to test mine out with a lot of the effects turned off just so it would render quickly. Here's some examples of what I've been doing today. Hopefully the next post I do will be the final thing.

I've been taking some screenshots as I've gone along, but haven't put any on here for a few days. I've made good progress, and there's only small details left to add in. Seeing as I still have a while I think I'll add a bit of animation to my character, as well as make a video with some sound in. I've got my presentation to prepare, my second life diary to finish as well as complete my ideas for part 2 of the project! What do you reckon?

http://www.ilovedust.com/

I heard of ilovedust sometime ago in Computer Arts, and I'd seen some of the clothing they make. I forgot about them until recently when I saw some of their work on zunearts. I bookmarked their homepage, but at the time it was under construction. The site is now online, and working very nicely indeed.

Being a company with skills in a wide range of medias they obviously had to create a website which could display multiple medias effectively. It would also have to match the quality of their work. The loading screen is cute and fun, with a little bear rowing a boat. Straight away I loved it. The graphics are typical of their print work. It's colourful and elaborate, but more importantly it's interesting to look at. As a nice touch they've animated the main graphics so something is constantly happening.

I noticed there was a clear colour scheme for the site, something which a lot of websites ignore. The background is a dark gray, and any text is a light gray. It makes text easy to read, and at the same time makes the work and images the focus. You don't have to read through the text to understand what the company is about, picture of their work do that for you. The main logos make use of specific shades of green, blue, pink, yellow, all of which are mirrored in the menu. It keeps things consistent and at the same time creates obvious categories.


Like just about every good flash site it's centered to the browser window, and bordered by the background colour. This makes it all very focused, and also makes it easy to browse on standard and widescreen monitors. It's a simple and effective site, which works for commercial purposes. It's got all the information a possible client would be looking for, whilst at the same time working as a technical show piece for what they can do.

Now that I'm modeling my environment (with the avatar being 90% complete) I'm starting to work with things on a pretty huge scale. To say I'm loosing patience is an understatement. Here's some images of whats cracking right now. You can see how I've used my buildings which I made a few days back. It's just a case of cloning those over and over again, resizing them in various ways, adding a map to the grass area, modeling some trees, creating a sky/atmosphere dome, doing some animation, and sitting back and letting it render. Rather a lot really.

I wasn't happy with how my original avatar was looking, mainly because of the face I'd been modeling. As a result I've changed to what you can see below. I've decided to make my face in to a flat screen television, on to which a video of my eyes has been mapped. It looks pretty cool in motion. I've still got the limbs to do obviously, and I'll make them using the same method we used to make tentacles for the squid.




Another thing I had a play round with was particle effects. I want my character to fall to the floor in to deep grass and lay down. On impact I want a dust effect to cloud up from the collision. Doesn't look much like dust, but it'll suffice.

An important part of my project is going to be the environment I create, and I've got some pretty big ideas for it. I thought it would be best to do some experiments with how easy it is to create a building, and what kind of lighting is going to create the best look. As I thought, omni seems to be best. It's quick to render, but creates quite an atmosphere with some accurate shadows. I'm probably going to create my own materials and maps, but for the purposes of this experiment I used a free texture from Deviant Art.

Thanks to "Davidmcb" for the cool facade texture

I'll do these updates with images, just because it's easier and probably more informative. Take a look...

Yes, I do realise my blog isn't working as it should be, I didn't pay my bills again!

It was pretty overwhelming to see what goes in to such a simple set of movements, especially when you consider how complicated things could get later on. Thought I'd post up what I managed to produce anyway. I had a few problems with my hierarchy which is why I haven't done the walking animation. As always, there's a nice big still as well as some videos below.

I promised I'd be modeling my avatar by today, and I am! Still got some fine details to sort out, but it's all there now. Just thought I'd put some more scans on today so you can see what's been going on.

Knock yourself out

Well, I've completed a research sketchbook and I've got some really strong ideas running through my head. I went ahead and got myself another sketchbook to start doing some ideas in. With all this research my ideas should come together really quickly, so fingers crossed, I'll be modeling my avatar on Monday. If I'm not then I need a kick up the arse!

I spent a fair few hours fiddling around with the morphing modifiers, as well as lighting and mapping in this scene. I wanted to make it look like the actual BBC Three worm clips, so I put some time in to the environment. The draw back of using extensive lighting has become clear...RENDERING TIMES. Even on my beastly P.C it's going to take hours to render the video I created. It's not even that great of a video, so instead I'll upload some stills and put the video up later. *Video Added* Forgive the poor quality but I had to lower the samples so the rendering time was reduced.

I've been doing some sketches of parts of my body, as well as some material objects. When I look really closely at myself it's weird some of the crazy shapes your body has. If you're wondering why I'm doing this, is just to understand my form a bit better, and have a close look at what means something to me. It should help me create an avatar which is meaningful and has reason.

If you've had a look at my scans you might have seen a page on www.faceyourpockets.com
The page in question is this one so have a look if you want to know more about it, or just hit up the website. Anyway, I did some of my own. If you think these look cool, do some of your own and let me know!

If you take a look at my Labels on the right, you'll see I've got all my Identities work linked there. Those postings don't tell everything though, as much as what I've done is in my sketchbook and I'm trying to get as much of that online as possible so everyone can see my progress and hopefully offer some feedback.

The Identities project is something I'm beginning to feel really positive about. I'll admit that early on in the project I was a bit too relaxed with my work, and I didn't get too much done. I completed all the small projects we did with Andy, and in all cases took them further when I got the work home. I also did a little bit of extra stuff with 3DS so I understood the interface and features a little better. I've got the confidence now, and I reckon I'll be able to create the avatar I dream up, albeit with a little help. Or a lot.

I've done a lot of research in to my identity, and others who have explored this field already. Things are moving a long nicely now, and with the deadlines firmly in mind I know what I've got to get done in the following weeks. Right now I've completed my research phase, and in the process of doing that I've come up with some cool ideas, specifically for my environment. I've given myself until the end of next week to have a firm idea of the avatar and environment I want to create. That will then allow me 3 weeks to create everything, more than enough time in my mind. At the same time however I'll be continuing my second life work, any tutorial assignments and creating a presentation for week 33. It's quite a lot of work going on at once, but I prefer it this way, it keeps me on my toes.

I'm so happy to be doing a sketchbook once again. I can remember loathing them in my foundation year, but being without one for so long you realise why it's so important. One thing I'm a little worried about however is dreaming up a character. I've never been much of a comic reader, or a cartoon watcher, neither have I ever attempted to draw a character. I'm much more at home with accurate drawings like you can see in the image on the left. Roma's seminar on Tuesday explained things to me, and I now understand the possibilities.

I'll be back with some second life stuff, when I can bare to use that piece of shit again. Maybe I'm missing something with second life? I seriously hate it. Really badly.

Just a few more scans from what I've been doing in my sketchbook. In no particular order.