Category: Main Blog

Posts about me and my learning art and things relevant to my Personal learning. (Parent Category)

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Music Video: Pre-Production #1

I want to pick a song for my music video that I hadn’t heard before as I’m aware that ill have to listen to it over and over again I’m also going to be wherry of length. I went through a playlist made by a Twitch streamer I Enjoy and listened to each track. specifically listening to see if any of the music conjures any strong images in my head that I can build from.

I ended up picking “Frog Summer” probably due to it containing diegetic sounds and clear sound queues. Also who doesn’t Love Frogs!

https://padlet.com/billybeeson64/niinbtxeszwkzsg1

An Idea I played with was integrating quill into my production pipeline and played around, importing the maquette I had made into Maya, with stronger knowledge and mesh discipline in quill I could see it possible to at least use the models made in Quil to use as a reference as a trace for modelling in Maya or in a best-case scenario use them directly. However, the topology generated by quills brush strokes is in most cases seemingly unusable. I would love to revisit quill or perhaps another tool but until modelling features like “Bloolen” are implemented it will remain a quick and effective way of developing a visual look and feel.

I’m glad I tried to use Quill as it helped mobilise my brain into thinking in the 3rd Dimension whereas creating storyboards naturally was limiting I also found that storyboarding with the 360 video template was even more unhelpful as everything is laid out in relation to the user and unlike 360 video true 6 DOF VR allows the user to move freely around the scene. my hypothesis is that planing out scenes for VR would work far better-using technics shade by stage performance as theatre requires planing for multiple viewing angles better than films single fixed viewing angle.

  • In our recorded content and lectures we looked at scripts that let us change the unity scene as well as simple game interactions and locomotion with teleportation.

My Idea is lacking any kind of VR user interactions so far. It would be good to set up bounds for the player to move around the scene perhaps using the VR teleportation locomotion that we looked at in a lesson. To make use of VR I thought It would be a cool idea to have it so the way you start is by throwing a frog spawn into the water that would trigger the music and then have it so dragging the egg smaller or larger would, in turn, change the scale of the player allowing a viewer to watch it multiple times from different sizes.

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AR Detective game

(Ongoing! tbf)

Our 1st task as part of the introduction to the virtual reality unit is to make an AR detective game. I created a “Padlet” to plan out a linear game where after finding a dead body you have to follow clues like footprints and blood splats to find a terrifying supernatural murder.

Step 2 feeling out unity and AR tools

We have been using

Step 3 understanding technology going back to the drawing board.

Step 4 creating a prototype

Step 5 Adding a little flair with Maya and win state

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Global Campus Studio

Taking part of the global campus has been a great way to set my expectations and grow my understanding of what kind of work I am capable of producing at such an early point in my studies.

I had the pleasure of working with students from other LCC courses as well as students from Ryerson University Cannada, As Part of the “Global Campus Studio”. Students from Canada had started planing the project weeks prior to us UK students joining the progect.

The group’s idea revolved around having live performances in a vertical environment as an alternative to attending music festivals and Gigs. Having it presented as a social exuberance with an emphasis on sharing the digital space with converging musical taste creating a social meeting place for music lovers and creatives.

As the only student in the group studying VR, I found that I could help the others develop their understandings of the medium and the nature of the industry. Where we discussed the difficulties of presenting VR in a faithful way through other mediums like the once used in modern advertising. identifying that the is a divide in the market between mobile and desktop VR and help device ways to entice both audiences (Ongoing! tbf)

  • Distributing Maximo characters with partial system
  • Controlling distribution with weight painting
  • Creating animated texture
collaboration with Stefania Fiorucci

In creating the 360 video used to give a

https://vrmusicc.wixsite.com/website

https://www.ryerson.ca/fcad/international/global-campus-studio/gcs-creativity/

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Virtual Principles Week 1 and Oscilloscopes

So it begins! I was surprised at how quickly the lectures have gotten me engaged with the subject. We went over some moving picture history going all the way back to the work of Eadweard Muybridge and Georges Méliès, some staples from my film and animation classes. However, I found the work of Mary Ellen Bute’s particularly interesting, who used an Oscilloscope (a scientific instrument that displays voltage over time) that uses a stereo to create abstract images in the early to mid-1900s.

  • Mary Ellen Bute
  • Synchromy No. 4: Escape (1938)

Her work reminds me of the more modern work of Jeroboam Fenderson & “HANSI3D” two Austrian artists that take the idea and run with it, using the music itself to create the images and without the aid of film’s ability to be cut stitched and used as assets to the greater peace. It’s just pure Oscilloscope noise with no orchestral accompaniment. https://oscilloscopemusic.com/

Watch this smarter everyday video for more info.

In the frame of VR I wonder if you would be able to get a similar result with an XYZ-axis adding an extra dimension to the usual X&Y; would you be able to extract the 3rd channel out of a stereo signal? You might get some 3D results with both conventional mono and 2-channel stereo. food for thought and I might revisit the Oscilloscope someday.

P.S. My 1st month living in London has been full of mixed emotions. The course is picking up pace after a slow start with most having a rather coy approach opting to type and go without a webcam in the web classes. I expected that but thought it might be different due to the class’s small size of 7 students.

 After meeting in person on Friday people are becoming a little more comfortable with each other and I have nothing but respect for a head of year Anne having to lead the 1st year of this course through this pain in the arse pandemic. 

I can’t wait until we can take our masks off in class because with a clogged right ear I can’t hear too good and it’s impossible to lip read. Without mentioning the endlessly fogged glasses.

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Setting up the Blog

UAL blogs are understandably limited to a selection of WordPress themes and unfortunately, no Plugins are available for customization. So I’m left to weigh up the pros and cons of the themes and their options that suit my fancy.

After taking a peek at other students Blogs, to see what look appeals to me and I managed to settle on two choices.

  • Twenty Seventeen
  • Dyad
Twenty SeventeenDyad
+Video URL header (embed youtube video)
+ Dark theme
+ unintrusive header logo
+ Menu scrolls with the page
+ Side widgets

Long posts are displayed in their entirety

– Posts displayed in 1 row
+ Mixed dark and light theme
+ Posts displayed in multiple rows
+ Menu scrolls with the page

Thumbnails with an excerpt of the post

– widgets on home page footer only
– no video header
– Tag line larger than the title
– logo large and intrusive

All in all, Twenty Seventeens Title layout and the ability to use a youtube video as a looping background make it a far more eye-catching theme, that helps it stand out compared to Dyads still and spread elements. However Dyad’s compact and easy to navigate Posts displayed in multiple rows force my hand as, in the long run, I believe it will be easier to find posts of interest compared to the single linear approach Twenty Seventeen has where you are shown the full post instead of an excerpt and thumbnail, taking up more screen space whilst displaying less content.

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Press Start!

Hello my name is Billy and welcome to my Blog

I’ll be using this blog to track my studies and progress towards my BA (Hons) Virtual Reality at London College of Communication. 

Picking to Study at UAL has unsurprisingly been the biggest decision of my life so far. It’s a testament to how much I believe in this course and its subject considering how much was stacked against it. After the course was postponed in 2019 I decided that a 3rd gap year was worth taking; turning down an unconditional offer for AUB’s Film Production course. 

It felt a little mad at first. I have had my sights set on making films for a long time and have had notable experience working as a video editor. I especially enjoyed this work because of the mix of creative arts and technology. That I hoped would allow me to breathe life into the fantastical thoughts and ideas that come out of my head. However, I feel Film is limited and VR’s potential is virtually limitless. VR, for artists like me that have never been able to fully visualize and share their minds’ fabrications, is groundbreaking. For me it feels like the coming together of all my interests, I could go on and on about VR and I don’t want to squander that passion.

I think about how technology has changed art and the way we share stories in the last 40 years and where the next 40 will bring us. VR in some form will impact the future and I’m going to be here for it.

Thank you for taking an interest In me, my work or virtual reality as a whole. I’m looking forward to my next 3 years of studies and the following decades as VR becomes more of a household name as it gets integrated into “Reality”, hopefully in responsible and thoughtful ways that benefit society. I hope that you can get some use out of my notes and doodles. 

Enjoy your stay,