Week 5 (22nd October) Learning More in Motion

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This week I learned how to use a 3D camera in motion. This gave me a chance to see if it was possible for it to be used in my forbidden planet assignment.

One part of using a 3D camera in motion that I can use is when you put an object in front of another (jpeg image in front of another) and make it look like they are just one image. I found it particular interesting and enjoyable when I was able to make the camera go past the smaller image in the foreground and zoom in on the background image. In this case, I got hold of a big image of a rain forest for the background, and a PSD (photoshop) image of a bear & another rain forest, which is made up of those two layers. All I needed to do from here is import both images to motion and position them accordingly. I found it particularly interesting and easy to move the camera. All I needed to do was move it to a new position and it would record & move the camera for me.

We also had to save files that in included audio behaviours, particle emitters, video effects. text effects, etc to show that we are able to know how they work and where to find them on motion.

This is also an important stage for me in knowing how everything works in motion and in giving me a wide range of choices of what it is possible & what is not to use in my forbidden planet assignment.

One important aspect of motion that I found particularly interesting is the use of motion tracking. I have already found at least one use for this behaviour in the forbidden planet visual content.

I think the next stage in planning for the forbidden planet visual content, is creating a final storyboard full of ideas. These ideas need to be entirely possible to produce using motion and can be done within a short timeframe. I also need to discuss with my group what my ideas are for the project and what ideas they have that could be incorporated into the visual effects. We also need to decide what each of us can do to during the production process of the visuals. But for now, I'll continue doing my bit towards the project over the half term.

This short video is taken from the Family Guy episode Blue Harvest, which is based on the original Star Wars film. I chose this clip because I plan to achieve something similar in motion and this a good comparison.

Week 4 (15th October) Learning in Motion

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I managed to complete my motion demo this week and was able to make it work how I wanted it. I think I was pretty happy with the final result because I successfully was able to include several aspects of motion together to demonstrate my potential in using this computer application.

One thing that really came out of developing content in motion was how much I genuinely enjoyed creating a piece of motion. I think that is an important thing that I have achieved in my second year so far because you can't just learn something, be good at it and not enjoy it. Otherwise, you are just going to get really bored and it's going to put you off working on it in the future. The part of motion that I really enjoyed doing at this point, was using the key frame editor to alter, change or move objects on & around the screen.

This is an important step in myself and my group moving towards knowing how to create some graphics for the forbidden planet assignment

I'm really interested in what else I can get out of these tutorials for motion because there is a lot more different aspects of motion that I can learn and include in both the forbidden planet and TV ident assignments.

I also need to plan out more clearly what visuals I can create that can work well and can provide a cheesy element to go with the theme of the forbidden planet musical. I can achieve this by drawing out some stills in the form of a storyboard and make notes to to what I plan to achieve for each storyboard frame.

Week 3: Experimenting with Motion

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This week I have mainly focused on my understanding of Motion and how it works. I have learnt ore about how to use 3D cameras, keyframe editing and the vast library of effects that can be found and are available on Motion. This lesson I have managed to achieve completing a demo in motion of what I have learnt.

My demo is basically a simple rip off of the TARDIS in Doctor Who going through a time warp that can be seen in the hit sci fi show. What surprised me is how easy it was to use and I actually found it to be lots of fun to play around with. This is the kind of thing that I hope to involve myself in even more through various other college projects & in other future projects. It is also something that I could easily use in a film editing process such as creating titles for a film.

To create this tardis/time warp/doctor who title sequence I used a couple of particle emmiters for the background time warp effect, a PSD image of a tardis which I imported into the motion library, an audio track of the Doctor Who theme to make it look more authentic and I used the keyframe editor to move the tardis where I wanted it to go in my home made time warp. I came across a few problems when I decided to include anew camera in 3D. The problem was that the 2D tardis image would disappear when I either moved the camera to another angle or when I manipulated the image to make it seem more 3D (smaller, thinner, wider, etc) However, my motion demo won't have to be done until next week, so I've time to correct a few aspects of my demo.

I think this is an important stage in learning how motion works and how it will be useful when it comes to designing both my TV Ident and the visual content for the Forbidden Planet musical.

One key aspect of motion that will be important when it comes to designing the visual content for the musical, is using the keyframe editor. With this, I can actually move all the different axis' of the tardis & make it look like it is moving. Another aspect of motion that helps an awful lot is that each of the different effects/objects of a motion project are layered in the same way that photoshop, illustrator & flash animation use.

What I also plan to do in the time between this week and next week's lesson is finish off my motion demo and do a bit of research what the original forbidden planet musical used in their visual content. The latter will give me a clearer understanding as to what my group will need to create & design in the next 2 months.

If my motion demo actually works, and if I think it looks good, I will upload it on this blog and compare it to the real Doctor Who / TARDIS / Time Warp Sequence.

For now, I'll give you a taster of the kind of thing I am hoping to achieve for my motion demo.