final animation

here it is! the final animation. this was such an enjoyable experience. i really liked making this. i think it was because the scene is rather feel good, as is the movie in an all too idealized way. the music in this scene is fabulous and really catches the cadence of the scene. this was brought to my attention at the final review. i think that i had known this music was the secret to the cadence, but did not perceive it analytically in my process. at the end i added the music to my animation, after a musicless process.

a bit about the music itself, which would have been interesting to analyze in tandem with the scene, had i recognized this earlier: the director of the film, Jean-Pierre Jeunet was intrduced to the music of Yann Tiersen through a chance encounter. the music is largely accordion and piano driven. he instantly became a fan and commissioned him to compose pieces for the film. some of the pieces in the film were from his previous three albumns, while others he made for the movie. i could not find whether the film maker was inspired by the music before making this scene, or if the music was made after the scene, but i would guess that the filmmaker was inspired by the music and he made this scene to go with it because of the specific cadence of the scene (the tempo, the way the camera shots are edited together, the position of the camera sometimes up close in their faces and others along side of them etc) and its direct relationship with the music.

making this animation brought me great joy. using final cut was great, i had never used it before and was suprised by how easy it was! the process of making an animation is very similar to making physical models and collages. it is extrememly rewarding. in the end, some of my final comments touched on how this animation is beautiful and happy, makes you feel good. and i definitely got that feeling as i was making it. it was pure fun. i think that architecture needs stuff like this. architects, especially in academia, are always looking for the rigor, the analysis (christine's project for example, was highly rigorous) and this stuff has a particular appeal to architects. but what about all the people that this architectural internetion/ building/ whaterever will be for? will this building make them happy? will they want to keep it around for a long time? feelings are important. this animation process was a combination of analysis and unconsiousness. in the end, there was not a lot of conceptual weight to what i had done. therefoere, the critics were less interested (or so i feel), because they weren't getting the intellectual stimulation that they were hoping for. this dissapoints me. why can't people just let their emotions take over a little bit? why can't they just say "i like it!" it's fun!" and be happy about it. perhaps i could have been more rigorous, but having little to no experience with electric image and final cut prior to this, and discovering a new lens through which to explore archietctural ideas, i got wrapped up in the making. i am thrilled with the final animation and really pleased with this course. i learned so much and look forward to exploring architectural proposals in new ways.

final board_project 2

the final board presented at the review was a combination of diagrams i had done throughout the project that reflect the analysis of the amelie scene. it thracks the spatial temporal nature of the scene through analysis of the scene's structure and subjective experiential criteria.

physical model analysis

making this model was like baking. it took careful attention and patience. this was an interesting study and i think yielded a surficial construct that has potential with this project. it could have inspired a completely different direction with the animation than the one that i took. some of the criticism i recieved at the final review of the animation was that the objects in the animation were all the same throughout, and have potential to reveal additional conditions of the precedent film with development. this model could have been a way to bring in forms that explored the morphology of the scene. for example, lofting curves from the model would have made for very different pieces. breaking the pieces up along the way, as with the current animation, would have had the same rhythmic results.

a different way of looking at it

this second video, and final diagram study (for now :) uses transparency overlays to abstract the overlayed color swatches. i am going to attempt to splice these images into the final animation using final cut pro, which i used for the first time this afternoon to create these animated slide shows! these images are very spatially rich, vibrant and emblematic of the energy of the scene that i am studying that it would be a waste to not use them in the animation somehow. here is one of my favorite diagrams from the video, so you can see it big.




using the previous studies, the overlaying of all of the scene diagrams on top of each other, i was able to study the composition of the scene further. this first video is about overlaying the true colors at varying opacities, from 1% to 2 to 3 to 4 to 5, and then accelerating the transparency change by jumping up to 10% then 20 then 40 then 80 and finally 100. the subtlety here in the first five diagrams is beautiful to me and could represent the finer moments of the scene, such as the first and final segments. there is also a great deal of other spatial implications to these images that go far beyond this exercise.

further compression

overlaying the color and line scene diagrams from the second column from the right in the diagrams below...

compression

compressing the five columns to one... in color and line

a diagramming obsession...

additional diagrams displaying color analysis. these are basically the same as what is shown in the animation below, but with dark lines to outline the elements of the scenes. more to follow.

horizontal still frame diagram

turning the still frame diagram horizontal (90 degrees counterclockwise) we have more of a temporal representation of the scene. the scene stills were taken every 2.5 seconds which is shown at the top and by markers at the bottom as well.. the original scenes and color diagrams are at the bottom with brackets for each of the five groups of seven still scenes. the main horizontal banding of color that is the focus of the diagram is basically an abstracted color diagram of the original more detailed color studies of the scenes below.

this is similar to OMA's flag for the european union, which they created by combining the colors of all the EU countries flags. it is also a sort of bar code that brands this group of countries.

scene color study

a video i made to help study the color diagrams. i is useful to play it with the dissolve feature from frame to frame because you can start to see the transitions from diagram to diagram.

color overlay_diagrams

removing the scenes from this matrix, we see these diagrams. the colors here are fascinating and the potential for this to become an animation are presented. i plan to use the color abstrations in the animation as a way to present the action of the scene.

scene stills_color overlay

taking stills from the scene every 2.5 seconds, a diagram emerged. lining up the images vertically on a sheet yielded five sets of seven still images from the film. each column of seven images turned out to represent a major sequence of events in the scene: the first was amelie's moment of clairvoyence and inspiration; the second sets up the man on the sidewalk and amelie as she gets the idea to whisk him up; the next two columns are the adventure itself, running through the streets in a flurry of motion and sensory experiences; and finally, the fifth column represents the final part of the scene, shot with one camera, where the man gets dropped off in front of the metro simulatneously stunned, disoriented, and thrilled. taking it a step further by trying to understand the scenes compositionally, i began overlaying swatches of highly saturated colors over the scenes. a similar pallette is used throughout the scene and color is also used as a kind of constant that strings the quick flickers of film together so as not to completely disorient the viewer.

animation_draft 1

diagram revision

our class discussion led me to revise the diagram as follows.

amelie_movie clip

for project 2, i chose the guardian angel scene in the 2001 french film directed by jean-pierre jeunet. the scene begins with amelie walking in slow motion across a bridge. its a moment of inspiration and clarity as she has just successfully delivered her first act as guardian angel. for her second act, she whisks a blind man up for a wonderfully disorienting walk through the street. the scene is spliced with focused clips of details of the journey. the director frames the faces of the pair as the camera moves fast with the gait of amelie as she pulls the man along on her arm. the scene comes to an end as the camera sweeps up into the air and comes straight down on the blind man who is thrilled with his adventure and simultaneously inspired.

amelie clip_diagram

process/ product board

the board that i presented at the review was too much of a diagram and not enough of a final product board. this assignment was challenging. i've not had to make a board like this before and am really glad that this was part of the assignment. as a final presentation board and a process board, you had to figure out a way to synthesize all the work done (1), compose an overall graphic from various graphics (2) and reveal something about the process (3). this board is organized so that the projects build up from the bottom. the name of the project was used as a way to identify the organization and diagram of material on the board. the overall name of the project (constructed morphologies) is the largest text overlayed on text from my reading anayses, a key part of beginning to conceive the how and why of digital practices. text is called out, keying into this new (for me) digital design language. in red outline is "surficial manipulations" which aligns on the left of the board with process diagrams and wireframes calling to attention the interrogated lines and points in red. this is overlayed on a larger image of the final product, which is showed as a long strip and is revealed most clearly on the right side of the page, corresponding to the "constructed morphologies" project label. the overall composition reads at different levels, with the horizontal product images having the strongest read. within these bands, however, there is a homogeneity so as to not create a lot of hierarchy. this was my intention. there was value in each of the 5 major process phases of this project equally, and feel that this process will repeat itself as i continue to develop this methodology. perhaps eventually a breakthrough would be revealed by a larger, more dominant image.

tile pieces_physical constructs

these tile peices were created from a unit of geometry distilled from the car studies, morphological matrix and patterning exercizes. the first was "designed" in the sense that i conceived of an idea and carried that out, while the second resulted from a programming mentality.

tile 1_ the original geometry of this tile was woven together and skewed and then impacted into the a solid base at an angle so that the lines grew out of the solid piece. it was my intention to trim the edges to the 6" x 6" tiile unit. the resultant tile pattern could be repeated forever. i have not trimmed the edges, however, because i appreciate the way that the geometry emerges from the boundaries of the tile. it is less tile-like because of its irregularity, but beautiful and sophisticated. looking at the physical construct revealed a new relevance as i began imaginging myself walking along the smooth plane and into the spaces that emerge from the impacted geometries. to further explore the tile idea, however, i am going to try to trim the edges and re-print.

tile 2_ this was the result of a simple programming or scripting mentality where the peices were copied, offset and rotated by the same amount each time. this then shifted, was reversed, and the pieces continued to flow counter to the original motion. this pattern can be imagined to repeat infinitely. i like how there are different moments within the pattern. a clear, linear void, for example, emerges as the pieces part for a moment as they fold back around on themselves.

physical constructs

here are a few of the model pieces that were created from my digital modeling exploration. i think that the pieces themselves are rather boring. the pieces themselves became more interesting when they were fragmented for the patterns and matrix exercises. it was vaulable to work with the orthographic drawings to develop facility for digital modeling. i would like to explore digital constructs from a clean slate and see what sort of complex forms can be developed. and to have a specific reason/ purpose in mind when designing the geometry.

tile_final printed iteration

the process for this second tile was like a breath of fresh air. it was so much easier to conceive of a tile knowing what the process is like. it begins with a well formed piece of geometry, which i posted below. working in form z in orthographic view was so much easier than axon/ perspective. using graphic/ keyed transformations of position and angle of rotation was important. figuring out how to cut the geometries down to the approximate depth of the tile with the boolean intersection operation made things easier as well. like everything in these classes, its about learning the programs and .

this geometry could be made into not just one but three tiles. the different sides of the piece created unique and interesting patterns. each side could be trimmed with the intersection tool and exported for the 3d printer.

craziness

this craziness was created in photoshop by multiplication.

pattern_textile

this image yielded from the same study of pattern in the images below. using the screen capture of the top view of the geometries, and using the display setting, a basic criss-crossing pattern emerged. the ultimate image was generated with some photoshopping.

pattern interation from deconstructed matrix

with the interrogation of point and line of the surface geometry that i created, i then began to deconstruct the piece. once deconstructed, i began re-attaching pieces. this got messy and ugly. so i chose a piece from the new matrix to array and investigate with pattern in space. several spatial images were created.

new model piece_matrix

the geometry of this piece was by far the quickest and most well formed piece that i have made to date. for the morphology matrix of this piece, i wanted to get down to the basics to really interrogate a point and a line (hull) to reveal visible morphological changes in the geometry. this exercise was useful but did not yield very attractive results.

matrix morphology_3

for this next part of the exploration, i took the rotated matrix and by revealing the hulls, attempted to show the end hull in each of the 15 geometries through which the manipulations were created. this image reveals the morphology, the origin of that morphology, and leaves the piece incomplete in the hopes that the imagination will fill out the patterning that has emerged.

i should also mention that the selected hulls were stretched simultaneously to emphasize the cv's.

matrix morphology_2

to further investigate the relationship of line (hull) in the manipulations that were just created, i arrayed the pieces in a twisting fashion, rotating each piece along the same axis by 10 degrees each time. this was meant to create a perspective view through which the morphology can be observed.

matrix morphology

using this new piece, i transformed the geometry by moving the hulls one at a time (15 total) with each iteration. the hulls were moved up along the x axis and across the y axis to the same coordinates each time. this was an imprecise methodology, as i was not able to move the hulls to the exact same coordinate each time.

with a different view of the piece, we can see how the moves effected the geometry from a different perspective. there's a few layers of information in this image. first, the model. second, the bounding boxes of the individual geometries are visible (highlighted with pink boxes, that become more dense as the geometries build up on top of each other. third, the image is overlayed with points that reveal the wireframe geometry. finally, a wireframe of the original piece is shown in white.

new model piece

i thought i'd post a new piece that i modeled. it got 3d printed recently and looks pretty cool. the flatter side (rear of the car) really flattened out in the print though, perhaps because of resting it on that side for fixing.

tile woes

there will be no model of this exact tile. there is something wrong with the geometry. it will not let me triangulate. it will not let export it to an .stl. i cannot cut/ difference/ subtract/ trim/ section. [why are there all these terms anyway?] so, it will live on for now only in the digital realm and as printed 2d images.

tile mission_progress 2

the tile start that i posted below has been abandoned for now, not to say i won't go back to it. here is a process shot of the new one. i've got it all lined up and will trim the edges tomorrow before the print. the model pieces will be turned on their side in the tile, so that a curvy, linear pattern emerges. the pattern is skewed on the diagonal, leaving one corner revealed to the flat surface of the tile. this is so that the tiles could be arranged in various ways to form different looking overal patterns from the same tile unit. more visuals to come...

new geometry_pattern

i built a new piece of the car, the back fender, trunk and part of the roof of the cab. the geometry is not the smoothest. but i had to figure out how to make the geometry by building surfaces, rebuilding surfaces, and detaching pieces before attaching various components. it is not hard, but there is a level of precision that is needed so that the pieces don't have weird puckers when everything is finally merged.

i broke the piece apart in maya to something that i though could make an interesting pattern and tile. i originally decided to build a new piece because i was sick of the old piece that i had been working with and wanted to see more of the car. so, as i look at this image it is interesting that itis very similar to that original one even though it is a very different part.

a pattern was created with the model piece by offsetting evenly vertically and then copying the whole row and flipping it over and aligning the two rows together so that they are interacting with each other. the overlaying geometries create a suprisingly organic and architectural array. various photoshoped versions become more architectural (as in the "syscraper-esque" image) or less so (as in the "escher-esque" image). however both can be considered architecturally relevant.