Sunday, September 19, 2010

Final Assignment Video

Final Assignment Mind Maps


Final Assignment Essay Writing

In the age of communication and technology, creative multimedia is the medium of intercommunication between organizations and of course, various individual importances. The multi itself means multi, which in this case, we have the sight, hearing and vocal conveyed messages as mediums. Photography, motion graphics, 3D modeling and animation, typographies, and graphics design are combined together to produce the ultimate medium of conveying the message.

Let us brief ourselves with 3D modeling and animation components in the media. It’s a major breakthrough in media science as we can create something that is real and most definitely, surreal, by just observing and applying our human capability of being creative. It’s not genius; it’s called perspiration with enough practice and training. 3D models are created and then rendered, which in this case the modeling and the rendering is divided into two processes. With enough resources and analytical precedent studies, a good model could be produced. These modeling works are done by 3D modelers, working together as a group or individually to produce models for gaming purposes, movies or even animations.

The next viable process that has to be done is to render the model, which, can take a lot of time to finish. This time-abducting process can be done on a single very powerful super computers or render farms (lots and lots of processing computers). There are mental-ray renderers, basic scan-line renderers, and the most popular, V-ray.

V-ray is easily explained as a rendering engine that is used as an extension for certain 3D computer graphics software. It was developed by Vladimir Kyzalov and Peter Mitev of the Chaos group, a production studio that was established in 1997, and based in Sofia, Bulgaria. This useful computer graphics extension makes use of advanced techniques available, for example, global illumination algorithms such as path tracing, photon maps, irradiance maps, and a directly computed global illumination. The wide usage of these techniques makes it preferable rather than other conventional renderers which are provided as a standard renderer with 3D software.

By using these techniques also the models or scene can appear more photo-realistic, as the actual lighting maps and effects are more realistically processed and emulated. V-ray is widely used globally in developments of film productions and multi-million dollar game productions. V-ray also is extensively used and helped architecture in making it realistic and emissive.

The V-Ray plugin is compatible with packages such as Sketchup, Autodesk 3ds Max, Maya, Rhino, Maxon Cinema 4D, Blender and Softimage XSI, and is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit architectures. VRay.info was the first help-site dedicated to the V-Ray community, going online in spring 2002, shortly after the first release of V-Ray. They publish news, tutorials, reviews, interviews and links related to the V-Ray renderer, and also showcase work created by V-Ray users around the world. In cooperation with CGArchitect.com the VRay.info Shop is one of the newest initiatives put together to help the community with all of their visualization needs. Featuring literally hundreds of different products and provide industry leading support.

V-Ray introduced rendering with global illumination with unmatched speed and ease of set up. This fomented its implementation by many large-scale productions, including big-screen movies like The Last Samurai, and Final Destination II, computer games Onimusha 3 and music videos of Nine Inch Nails and many others. In addition to being an excellent animation renderer, V-Ray has also become practically the standard solution for photorealistic architectural visualization. Its streamlined architecture, specifically designed to handle effects like area shadows, glossy reflections etc., combined with very efficient global illumination solutions and ease of setup, have left it practically without competition in this area.

One aspect that has set V-Ray apart is the communication between its users and developers. The result is a software that is well adapted to the need of its users. The official V-Ray forum is a great place to find answers to any questions related to V-Ray, ask for comments, or simply share an opinion.

Built on the foundation of the already existing rendering engine, the brand new 1.5 version of V-Ray introduces many new features. Among these are accurate daylight simulation through the new V-Ray sun light and sky environment, physical camera that allows users to take virtual photographs and set up parameters like in a photographic camera, extended support for render elements, new materials and shaders, as well as an SDK that allows to extend or replace practically all aspects of the rendering engine.

Beyond this prospective progression, we can only hope that V-ray or any other rendering engine will take another step further in enhancing computer graphics films and motion graphics. This technology has done so much in helping us produce more creative products and it will soon be one of the greatest achievements mankind ever made in the computer generated graphics history.

Final Assignment Sketches

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Juxtaposition : Exercise

In class, we had an exercise on juxtaposition. Mr Razi showed some slides about a guy running away from the path he used to go because he's cheating on his wife and now the other guy is waiting for him at the station he used to take.
It was a sad story, but I'm a man, I will not shed a tear.

oh.. oh god.
*cry*


...
..


anyway we were supposed to make a signboard to scare people away from this toxic waste dump place.
We're supposed to look at cats for inspiration. And I have just the thing to scare.

One of the most notable scary trait on a cat is their eyes.
They're big, they glow, they expand and contract like, like, like cat's pupils.
When they look at you, its as if they're putting a curse on you for 4 generations, "You've seen into my eyes, you won't be happy for the next 4 generations. For the lulz." and when they meow it sounds like the very sound from hell itself.
But however I will only use the eyes as an example.

So based upon the eyes, I have made this image

"BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU"


OH GOD. OH GOOD GOD LOOK AT THOSE EYES.
SCARES THE BEJABBERS OUT OF ME.
I SHOULDN'T ENTER THIS PLACE OR ELSE BIG BROTHER WILL KILL ME.

ok im going to puke.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Juxtapositions | Metaphors

i've been dancing around the topic of juxtaposition and metaphor for some time now and some of the notable examples i can give are rarely from pictures or the like. Instead, I prefer to quote from rhymes, as in rap rhyme.
Not kindergarten rhymes if you were wondering.

Juxtaposition:
  • the act of positioning close together (or side by side); "it is the result of the juxtaposition of contrasting colors"
  • a side-by-side position
    wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

  • A placing or being placed in nearness or contiguity, or side by side, often done in order to compare/contrast the two, to show similarities or differences; An absence of linking elements in a group of words that are listed together; Two or more contrasting sounds, registers, styles etc. ...
    en.wiktionary.org/wiki/juxtaposition

Simile:
  • A figure of speech in which one thing is compared to another, in the case of English generally using like or as
    en.wiktionary.org/wiki/simile

  • Simile is a comparison of two dissimilar objects that uses the words like or as. See, for example, Karen Connelly's description of herself in "Touch the Dragon": "As the country pulls out from under me, I overturn like a glass of water on a yanked tablecloth, I spill. ...
    www.pearsoned.ca/text/flachmann4/gloss_iframe.html

  • a figure that explicitly expresses the comparison, often signaled by "like" or "as"
    www.indiana.edu/~bestsell/glossary.html

  • A comparison, usually using "like" or "as", of two essentially dissimilar things, as in "coffee as cold as ice" or "He sounded like a broken record." The title of Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" contains a simile. (Compare with Metaphor.)
    www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/glossary/glossary_s.htm
source: google define

So, lets look at juxtaposition first.

The Rose That Grew From Concrete by Tupac

Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk with out having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping it's dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared.

This was from Tupac, and it was written some time around 89'-91' right when his name is growing in his hometown Harlem - where a lot of other rappers from.

Now if we see closely, clearly, a rose cannot grow out from concrete.
And yet, it did. And what Tupac was trying to achieve from this is not to show about that rose, but to show him. Its the reaction of people when he talk about the place where he grew from.
"You grow up there? Daaymmnn."

Harlem if you don't know it is a very harsh place to live in back in the days. That place is really ghetto, people get killed for drugs and gangs. If you're not in a gang, you'll die unprotected. But if you are in a gang, you'll probably get shot too.
So, lol.

Anyway, though this was one of the few first pieces that he produced for the masses, it was so finely written that we can feel the emotion he's portraying.
When people saw a rose growing from concrete, people won't go "Damn look at the rose, its so beautiful and thorny and all. I want to pluck it for my girlfriend."
No, people will go "Daamn that rose grew out from a CONCRETE! I mean, when else can you see that? Thats just impossible man!"

He's truly a rose that grew from concrete

RIP Man


Another thing to look at is simile.

"I'm cooler than a polar bear's toenails... bend corners like I was a curve, I struck a nerve."
- Big Boi on "Atliens," Atliens

"Me without a mic is like a beat without a snare...
I'm sweet like licorice, dangerous like syphilis."
- Lauryn Hill on "How Many Mics," The Score

"I come fresh like your breath after you brush,
wack Mc's like that orange soda get crushed."
- Fatlip on "Pharcyde," Labcabincalifornia

"Throwing out the wicked like God did the devil,
funky like your grandpa's drawers, don't test me,
we're in like that, you're dead like Presley."
- Q-Tip on "Steve Biko," Midnight Marauders

"My rhymes are like shot clocks,
interstate cops
and blood clots,
my point is your flow gets stopped."
- Talib Kweli on "Hater Players," Mos Def and Talib Kweli Are Blackstar


These people are geniuses in hip hop and they are nothing like today's rappers. People like 50 Cent, Chingy, Caprice and all the lot, they're destroying rap music.
But we'll save that for another time.

We can see the rhyme structure fits nicely and we get to 'see' what the writer is trying to convey. Its so awesome to read something and feel the emotion and mind of the writer.
"Dead like Presley."
Come on, how dead can you be?
lol

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Mortar and Pestle

At the start of the class I was very interested to hear what Mr Razi wanted to talk about mortars. I didn't care about pestles because I didn't know what pestles are.

But then my fascination and interest was shattered when he brought forth a pair of mortar and pestle-

yes, they were lesung batu

LESUNG

BATU

i thought he was going to talk about mortars. As in, you know, mortars *pew pew pew* *shiuu, BOOMM* mortars. The canons.

Oh well, LOL.

We were given papers, A3 size for making a creative mindmap to think of the usage for the mortar and pestle.

:: Imagine we're in 201010, and we are archeologists. Then we stumbled upon the mortar and pestle. Think of a way it was used it 2010.

this is a badly drawn picture of a pair of mortar and pestle



and this is a real picture of them



I know they look so different, but honestly I've tried my best to draw it. I'm so proud of my drawing and it looks very nice.

**********************

After hours of brainstorming, I finally thought of a way to use the mortar and pestle other than knocking someone's head or mashing belacan.

"In 2010, people use mortars and pestles as a symbol of their purity. Each born male will have their own mortars, and each born woman will have their own pestles. Then in marriage, they will combine the mortar and pestle as a symbol of their marriage, and as a symbol of pestle going into mortar's hole to create something delicious just like belacan except belacan is edible and the pestle entering mortar is not edible. But its up to your view whether its edible or not, I won't judge, and I know some people are cannibals so they can eat anything. But I don't think they'll eat the mortar and pestle."

I was wearing an 'I Love Sydney' shirt in the class that day and it was embarrassing when i was called I Love Sydney when I have never even been there. Then I thought another use for the mortar and pestle...

But still I was proud that I thought of a great usage for the mortar and pestle in just a few minutes and I can smell the jealousy in the air and my classmates' faces turning green of envy.
I shall not let them savor the tasty taste of compliment so I pretended that I do not notice them.
I must watch my back from time to time because one might hire an assassin cum ninja cum pirate to attempt to assassinate me. Its true, one of them almost killed me in my sleep.

Anyway after a few days my friend told me that there is a tradition like that in India or somewhere like there. I cant differentiate between them all, they look the same, just like white people see all asians as the same.
She told me that Indians do give each other mortars and pestles upon marriage, and I don't feel like my idea is unique anymore.

:(