The future of 3D animation is... 3D

If Dreamworks' recent commitment to "true" or Stereoscopic 3D in all future releases sets a trend, then we can hope to expect all 3D animations to be viewable at the cinema with those special glasses.

But there is nothing particularly new about the concept of 3D films, they've been around for years.

"In 1952, television was increasingly keeping people on the couch and out of movie theaters, so Hollywood desperately turned to a process called "Naturalvision," and 3-D movies were born." (Full article on MTV)

What's really interesting is that the recent enthusiasm for producing 3-D movies is for similar reasons - not enough people watching movies at the cinema:

"Stereoscopic 3D (S3D) cinema has proven a surefire way to ignite interest in cinema and get movie lovers off the couch and into a theater seat. the current resurgence in 3D entertainment, marked by increasing numbers of digital cinema theaters and substantial increases in box office receipts when compared to 2D films of the same title, has led film studios to rethink their project lists." (Full article on Intel)

And no small wonder - giant plasma TVs and Dolby 5:1 surround sound has made home viewing exceptionally high quality, and a reasonably high investment for most people. It will take something very special (like stereoscopic 3D) to get people off the couch, away from their expensive telly, and into the cinema.

Technology does not replace creativity

But to succeed this time studios must avoid the mistake of the 1950s:

"Convinced that their best hope to win audiences back was by making things leap off the screen, dozens of 3-D movies were greenlit immediately. But just a few years later, bad scripts and gimmickry had effectively killed the fad." (Full article on MTV)

What do we learn? That people do not come to see technology in action.

Once more we are reminded that no amount of technology will make up for a poor ideas development process.

Perhaps this is why Pixar's latest release was described in this way:

"The reason why "Up" is quite possibly the greatest 3-D movie ever made is because it wasn't designed to be a 3-D film. Rather than throwing gimmicks at the audience, Pixar concentrated on doing what it does best: tell a good story." (Full article on MTV)

And "a good story" is the key to a successful movie of any kind.

Examples

Digital 3D animations to look out for: "Monsters v. Aliens", "Toy Story 3D", "Up". (Note for the indignant: Coraline was not digital 3D, it was Stop Motion).

More information on this topic

Creative Cow Magazine - Stereoscopic 3D edition:
http://magazine.creativecow.net/issue/stereoscopic-3d

About Intru 3D (system used by Dreamworks): http://www.intel.com/consumer/learn/intru3D.htm

Dreamworks CEO demands an all 3D future. Do you? http://popwatch.ew.com/2009/06/19/3d-movies-jeffrey-katzenberg/

Dreamworks animation going 3-D
http://www.bigscreen.com/journal.php?id=553

Dreamworks animation and Intel (PDF article) http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/general/VA_Issue2_2009_Dreamworks.pdf

Most notable 3D movies of all time
http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1622500/story.jhtml


Note to ND Y2 Students

This is one reason why we chose to link unit 121 (3D Animation) with unit 45 (Digital Storytelling). We want you to experience the process of making a short animation that people enjoy - not merely one that is an example of 3D technology.

Having said all that, if stereoscopic 3D is the way it seems to be heading you will need to understand how it works, and how to apply it in your own work. Which is why next week, you will learn how to make 3D animations for 3D glasses - and be given the option of using the technique in your assignment.

But remember, the technique will not make up for poor design and a bad story idea. Using 3D technology in this way is therefore not an easy way to a higher grade - it will demand more from you, not less. But if you think animation is where you want to go, I recommend you give it a shot - great animators were not made, and great grades were not achieved, by looking for the easy way out.

Will you be part of the new third world?

Since the industrial revolution we in the UK have believed ourselves to be part of a world conquering super-power. And for a few decades that was true, and we exported "British Made" goods all over the world.

It isn't true any more.

We live in a world in flux. Our stability and future prosperity is not guaranteed. This is down to the actions of individuals. Individuals like you.

You might prosper, while the person sitting next to you might not - purely by making different decisions and having different priorities.

But while individuals are the key to their own success, individuals often still need a reason to change.

In nature individual change occurs through competition with others, and adapting to new environments.

In life the same applies.

Take a glimpse into the future, the up-coming competition, the new environments you will need to adapt to - then ask yourself - "am I doing enough to be ready?":



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emx92kBKads&feature=related

One thing is for sure. Change happens! We can prepare ourselves to cope with change, by learning to learn, by expanding our mental faculties and increasing our work ethic, or we can hang back pretending none of what you just saw will happen.

But you know it will, because it is happening now. Ready? Or not!

Your job is to recognise that you can do well in this changing world, but only if you work hard and consistently. Increasingly there will be fewer options available to the lazy or complacent.

Stand up and be counted, and don't let others decide your future. It's all down to what you decide, and how you respond.

The new third world may not be one of geographical boundaries, but boundaries of imagination, work ethic and ability.

Start preparing now by working at your studies - learn to learn effectively - and in future there will be nothing you cannot do.

Analysing Interfaces

HND students have been specifically asked to analyse and record a range of tasks using an interface. This must be done before you can identify areas of difficulty or confusion.

But what is the best approach to recording and analysing?

Last lesson I spoke about task analysis.

To help you with your work you should look at the following helps:

http://www.usabilitynet.org/tools/taskanalysis.htm

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/documents/briefings/briefing-88/html/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_analysis

On Being a Professional

I often ponder the motivations for students choosing to stay in education long after the legal requirement has passed.

For many in Higher Education the motivation is to prepare for employment. But what does that really mean? And do my students really understand what that entails?

In a former life (before I entered the educational world as a lecturer) I was responsible for monitoring and coaching a new and very junior design trainee. Sadly, this particular trainee never quite got beyond the idea that he was doing a job, because at 4:50pm he was already getting his coat on and preparing to leave (most days I would be there beyond 6pm). He failed to understand that having a "job" was one thing, but becoming a professional was something totally different. Needless to say, he did not stay in employment, or in the design industry. Last I heard he worked in a warehouse for a company that has since gone bust.

I share this sorry tale because, at present, I can see a massive proportion of my design students ending up with pretty much the same outcome. They want to be a designer in word only, but their actions speak otherwise. I speak of the ones who never feel stress. For whom missing a deadline is something to shrug off. For whom a sense of urgency is something their teacher has, but who never quite understand why.

One of these students, on hearing when the deadline was, actually said "well that ain't gonna happen".

I compare this to my own response when faced with lots of work but not much time. I immediately begin mentally checking off the non-essential appointments, the things I can cancel or postpone. Then I mentally log the other things that must be done. Then I work out how long I need for the task at hand. Then I work out when I need to go to bed and when I need to get up, to make sure it is done. Even if I lost sleep, even if I had to change plans. In other words, I immediately begin finding a way to get it done, on time, to a good enough standard - and make sacrifices to make it happen.

Then I put in the work.

And that is what it means to be professional. That is what your employer will require of you.

Sadly, when students stay in education in order to prepare for employment, they usually don't have this aspect of their development at the fore-front of their minds. They imagine (if they even have a clear idea of what the future holds at all) that the qualification alone will be enough to get a job, they imagine that somehow magically the fact that they did the course will be enough. But most will fail to become professional, because they resist the very attributes that define professionalism - hard work, sacrifice, commitment, focus, correct priorities, maturity.

These students sometimes exclaim almost incredulously about the shortness of some deadlines, as if such a thing would never happen in real life. Perhaps for them it won't happen, because unless they deal with it, they will never be in a position to get a short deadline, or any deadline at all.

Their lack of professional development will be evident when the course is over. It will show in how they present themselves, it will show in the thin-ness of their portfolio, it will show in their inability to talk intelligently about their work, it will show in the mediocrity and ordinariness of their college work, it will show in the slowness of pace in which they work and their inability to produce quality work at the speed their potential employer requires.

All this because they imagine that professionalism is something they can suddenly switch on when a job interview comes along. But they are mistaken, professionalism is not merely a set of behaviours (like good manners), professionalism is a state of mind, a state of character. Professional is what you are not how you act.

By delaying the decision to become professional until later, my students are delaying the impact a professional approach can have on their grades, and their work, right now.

It is a false move, and one that will cost them dearly and allow more clued up competitors to sweep in and take the prize. I fear that many of my students will literally watch themselves being used as floor rags by the competition while they are only just waking up and thinking it's about time they became professional.

Do the work now. Make the sacrifices now. Be professional now.

To fail to become a professional as a student, is to fail to become a professional designer after graduation.

Olde Worlde Interfaces

It seems to be a common theme at the moment, looking back on the 1980s, but this is where I am going to direct you to explore some older (and much less user friendly) interfaces.

We looked today in class at the user interface for the Sinclair Spectrum +2a.

The "operating system" is non-graphical, has only 1 menu, and apart from that relies entirely on typed commands. Not only that, but the interface is not entirely digital either - since it uses audio cassettes to save and load data, the user must use mechanical switches to start and stop the tape drive manually.

All very archaic and a world away from the graphical user interfaces (GUIs) of our present day.

The homework

Your task (whether you choose to accept it or not) is to use the Sinclair Spectrum +2a interface as a subject for analysis.

You must:

• Analyse and record tasks performed using the Spectrum +2a.


• As you do this, identify areas of difficulty or confusion.

You must do the above 2 tasks as you:

• Load the program I supply from tape - download here >


• Run the program I supply


• Play the program I supply


• Run and analyse VU-3D


• Run and analyse another game using the system

Get an Emulator

To do this you will need to use a Spectrum Emulator for your PC. I recomment ZXSpin - download here >

If you use an Apple Mac - take a look here >

Hints and Tips

To load the silly game that I provided you will need to type the command:

load "game"

Then press enter.

Because keyboards in 1987 did not have the same standard as keyboards today (especially the Sinclair Spectrum) the " mark is acheived by pressing CTRL+P (not SHIFT+2 as we do today).

Also the SPACEBAR on your PC is also the BREAK key on the Spectrum.

The User Manual

In 1987 the internet was not what it is now. There was no web browser or ISP service for the home user. Any help was gained from the user manual, library books and magazines like Your Sinclair or Spectrum User.

Online versions of the manual can be found here:

View ZX Spectrum BASIC user manual >

ZX Spectrum 128 Manual >

Other information >

Have fun

And that's just about all the help I am going to give you. Welcome to the world of completely un-intuitive interfaces and zero online help. It will be a good experience, and there will be plenty to analyse and find fault with.

As a result you will be more alert to usability problems when you produce your own work.

This will also inform your contextual understanding of current interactive media for unit 5.

It's 3D Season...

Yes indeed, next week my Y2 National Diploma students start their 3D animation unit.

I have been thinking back to how I originally got into 3D. While I tend to think back to my first design job, I can actually trace my 3D experience back to my youth. Some of you will remember the Sinclair Spectrum, fewer of you will have actually used one. But if any of you have actually heard of and used an obscure 3D modelling and rendering program called VU-3D (by Psion software) please leave a comment.

You can try it online here - click>

It really was basic. You started by drawing a profile on the X and Y axis and then you altered the size and position of the profile as you moved it along the Z axis. Don't forget, in all this talk of drawing, there is no mouse, no curves either - these are straight lines between the vertices.

A typical creation of mine would be a drinking glass or something like it. While you are doing this you can't see the model appearing, this is either all guess or gut work, or you have planned it in advance on squared paper. Once the geometry has been produced the next step is to render, and for this it had 3 modes, wireframe (showing every line and vertex), hidden line (removing lines that are abscured by other shapes, and shading (for which you can set the position of the light source in a basic way).

It is truly primitive, but genuinely my first experience of 3D modelling and rendering, way back in the day.

After that I progressed to the 3D Construction kit. Although much better and faster on my friend's Amiga, while I was limited to 8-bit slowness, this did not stop me learning a thing or two about 3D cartesian co-ordinates and working with primitives.

Try it online here - click >

Since then I have used 3D in various guises. Initially a fan of Cinema 4D 4 and then 6, I converted to Carrara Studio because of its intuitive interface and power-to-£ ratio.

But next time someone asks me how long I have been using 3D, I can honestly say a little under 20 years.

No passion... just a conveyor belt?

When I was 16 years old I was a 'scared designer', I had ambition, desires, goals, aims... but fear that I might fail.

That fear became a driver for me. It made me work. I looked at others in my group, others who were better than me, and that made me work harder. It made me have something to prove, and that drove me on. I became more and more dedicated, I put my heart and my soul and my intellect into my work. I made an investment of time, effort and emotion.

Success really mattered, failure I would not tolerate.

Because of this I have literally put sweat and real tears into my development as a student.

Finally, I proved my point. I applied for the top 3 design colleges in the UK, Ravensbourne College, The London College of Print (now the London College of Communication), and Central Saint Martins. My tutor told me that they only interview first choices, but I didn't care. This was a statement of intent, of ambition, where I wanted to go.

I was accepted by Ravensbourne College... I turned them down.

Point made, ambition achieved, I went and studied at a place I actually liked. Always knowing that I was good enough to be one of the best.

***

So where is your passion? Do you think deep down that you are in the only college that would take you? Deep down do you think you are lame?

(The cure for feeling 'lame' is to get better at what you do. The path to getting better at what you do is practice. Practice requires time, effort, concentration, passion.)

Where is your confidence? Confidence comes from work, and effort, sweat and tears, until you know what you are doing and can speak from experience and with the authority of being right.

When was the last time you cried over your design work? If harsh criticism of your work doesn't make you want to cry you have not invested enough time, effort or emotion into it. You do not believe in it. And that means you do not have the passion to succeed.

Instead are you riding the conveyor belt? You know the one I mean. The one that you started when you first went to school age 5. Automatically and with very little effort you have progressed from infants to primary school, primary school to secondary, secondary to college. And most recently, one way or another, you have been accepted onto Higher Education. But the conveyor belt has an end. There is no job waiting for you at the final drop off, there is no automatic next step, there is no comfortable transition.

All there remains is you, and what you have become, and what you are able to do.

Go and watch design for life and see for yourself: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00n8198/Design_for_Life_Episode_4/.

Passionate students put in the time, the effort, the sweat and the tears. Why do I not see you guys in college more, working independently?

Passionate students learn what they want to know off their own back, they don't wait for someone to feed it to them. Why do I not see more in your homework? Why is it just the lesson regurgitated? Where is the bit you learned yourself?

Passionate students get inside the problem through research, through investigation, then spend time developing original solutions, and more time presenting them neatly and clearly. Why do I not see your development work? (Because there isn't any? You just regurgitate what you have seen before, nothing original?)

Passionate students get excited about their work. Why do you not even do your homework?

If you are still on the conveyor belt, the time to get off is NOW. NOW is the time to get some passion, to finally grow up and stop letting your peers direct your attention, your work ethic, your thoughts and ultimately your future.

Remember, at the end of this particular conveyor belt, there is only you, with whatever grade you earned.

This is stand on your own two feet time.

So stand up. Get off the conveyor belt, and get some passion.

You still didn't watch it did you?

Go and watch it...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00n8198/Design_for_Life_Episode_4/

Or are you just playing at becoming a designer?