Zheng's Blog
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Month: June 2023

Categories
FMP

Week 4 Character Design.

  • About Soldier

This week, I completed the 2D design of the soldiers. My overall story framework is set in a timeline about 100 years after World War II, in the real world. Therefore, the technological advancements in the story will be somewhat limited. I am trying my best to ensure that all elements do not appear too futuristic. Additionally, the design of the research institute in my story is inspired by the Umbrella Corporation style from the Resident Evil movies, combined with many of my own design ideas.

In my story, all characters, except for the doctor and the female assistant, are not real. Therefore, these soldiers cannot show any skin or human symbols. That’s why I designed the character to be fully covered.

  • Soldier reference
  • Soldier design.
  • About Doctor

I’ve been really struggling with the character of the doctor. I wanted to design him with distinct characteristics and a unique style. However, considering the overall plot, a character with too striking a personality could not carry the role of a victim, which is essential for the protagonist. So, I abandoned this idea and continued with my previous design approach – a middle-aged man with a receding hairline.

In this script, I’ve added some emotional depth to Dr. Parvis. He signed a contract with the research institute to conduct experiments, driven by the need to pay for his daughter’s medical expenses. Thus, he also has the role of a father.

From a design perspective, I’ve added more lifelike clothing to him, just wearing a lab coat over his attire that relates to his profession. Also, due to his constant work in the lab, his expressions are more pained and troubled. The long-term longing for his daughter has stripped him of any smile, leaving him only with the desire to quickly finish the damned experiments and reunite with his daughter.”

  • Doctor Reference
  • Old Doctoer
  • New Doctor
  • Different colourways.
Categories
FMP Uncategorised

Week 3 Complete story and specific detail control .

I finished the whole script this week and it now contains a lot of what the group wanted to produce. We’re adding a heavy mech that’s controlled by a female pilot. There’s also a Doctor Who to Monster transformation.

Since we need to make a lot of scenes, I found a lot of references for the group to refer to.

Reference view of the corridor, the red boxes are the elements that need special attention.

And my teammate Gavin wanted to add a little monster character, and I am responsible for providing the 2D design for it. Gavin will handle the modeling and animation of this character. So now, I need to find a suitable place for this character in the storyline. After discussion and consideration, I decided to make this character a pet of the doctor, which became monstrous due to a failed experiment.

Also this week, I drew the storyboard for the first chapter of our story. In this chapter, I mainly want to immediately convey to the audience the prominent status of the doctor in the laboratory, to create a rich contrast with the later plot. Hence, I placed the doctor in the very center of the scene to emphasize his uniqueness in the lab. However, I designed the entire room to be made of glass. Every action of the doctor in this space is under constant surveillance.

This setup highlights the doctor’s unique status, but also his awkward position of having lost sovereignty, fitting with the storyline of Dr. Parvis’s contractual relationship with the research institute. The characters around him, besides assisting with experiments, also serve a surveillance role. Such a design is meant to make the protagonist feel like he is in a prison, setting the stage for his eventual departure from this environment.

The story begins with the doctor, despondent due to a failed experiment, looking at his pet’s collar. Assistant Kris enters and starts a conversation with the doctor, thus unfolding the entire story.”

Categories
Advanced & Experimental Project-1

Week 20 Animating dialogue

  • Showreel
Categories
Advanced & Experimental Project-1

Week 19 Animating dialogue

This week, the requirement was to convert the animation graphic curves to spline curves, and I tweaked some of George’s suggestions. I also added keyframes to add more detail to the animation.

Categories
FMP & Theis Thesis

Week 18 About FMP thesis

The film “The Untouchables” is a French film based on a true story about the real-life friendship between Philippe, a wealthy physically disabled man, and his African immigrant caretaker, Delacy. In this case, we can analyse the impact of emotional needs on audience satisfaction.

Emotional needs play an important role in a film like The Untouchables. Audiences often want to experience and emotionally empathise with the film and make an emotional connection with the characters. In this film, the emotional relationships and emotional shifts between the characters are one of the key factors that resonate with the audience.

Firstly, the friendship and interaction between Philip and Drasi triggers emotional resonance in the audience. Despite coming from different backgrounds and social statuses, they build a deep emotional connection, a true friendship formed through mutual understanding and support. The audience is comforted and moved by this display of friendship across racial and social differences, as it echoes the importance of belonging and interpersonal relationships among human emotional needs.

Secondly, the film shows the emotional transformation and growth of the characters. Philip is initially prejudiced and suspicious of Drasi, but as the story progresses, he gradually opens up, accepts Drasi and develops a deep friendship with him. This emotional transformation of the characters brings a positive emotional experience to the audience, making them believe in the malleability of humanity and the power of mutual understanding.

The satisfaction of this emotional need plays an important role in audience satisfaction. Audiences gain emotional satisfaction and enjoyment through their emotional empathy with the characters and their emotional transformation. They may feel touched and inspired by the beauty of humanity in the film. This emotional satisfaction can enhance the audience’s enjoyment and satisfaction with the film, making them more likely to recommend and review the film.

Categories
Advanced & Experimental Project-1 Team work

Week 10 Project 2

This week is rendering week, after a month-long effort . Our film is finally finished. The results are still very good.

Summary
This time it was a collaboration with a good friend who we work with regularly. Because of the short time frame, we couldn’t add much to the plot or the content 🙂 At the beginning of the re-design, we were subtracting from the film. We wanted to have enough time to finish it, but we succeeded. It was a new experience for me and it was the first time I had done the whole process of designing a character from design to texture mapping. I had a lot of freedom at the beginning of the project because of the trust of my team members. There are still some lessons to be learnt and I hope to be able to pace myself better for the next project.

Categories
FMP & Theis Thesis

Week 17 About FMP thesis

This week I have designed the broad framework of this thesis, presenting my ideas through different chapters in conjunction with the literature review. I also want to try to isolate the effect of emotional resonance on audience satisfaction and analyse it in a separate case study.


The relationship between happy endings and audience satisfaction

  • Factors affecting audience satisfaction
  • Emotional resonance and emotional peaks (Film Untouchability case study)

Statistical analysis and findings

  • Do happy endings have higher box office?
  • Young people are increasingly looking for direct excitement

Only commercial films with happy endings have a future, right?

  • Analysis of a commercial film with a non-happy ending that scores high
  • The impact of a large number of happy movies on the market

Conclusion

Categories
Advanced & Experimental Project-1

Week 18 Animating dialogue

Following George’s advice from last week, I have reoriented the character left and right. Also adjusted some facial expressions to avoid too much push.

Categories
FMP & Theis Thesis

Week 16 About FMP thesis

The introduction to the thesis was completed this week. A brief description of the source of my ideas and the starting point. It also briefly explains my analysis of the factors of audience satisfaction in this thesis. And the methodology that will be adopted.

Categories
FMP Uncategorised

Week 2 Stories and scripts

This week I’ve been approached by some of the team members I’ve been working with to continue working together on the final project. I told them my story and they unanimously decided to go with the second story. So we’re going to make a story about a lab, a doctor, and a monster.

As I am the creator of the story, I will be in charge of the whole project. I finished the basic plot framework this week.
The protagonist, Dr Parvis, has to sign a contract with a research institute in order to pay for his daughter’s high medical expenses. To create a biological weapon for them. However, he is not allowed to leave the lab after completing the experiment, so he has to use some special means to leave the lab.

In the meantime, this week we’re going to go over the basics of the mission. I’m in charge of the script, all the character designs and the models and textures.

We have standardised our production style. We decided to use a realistic style for this project.
In order to control the overall art style and effect, I found some reference images for the direction of the production.