Design Tools

In this process and production session we looked at using Cinema 4D and Illustrator to create package labels for product containers. The aim of this session was to teach us how to wrap a flat 2D image accurately around a 3D object in Cinema 4D.

Can

First I went in to Illustrator and used the pen tool to draw half of the outline of my can.

After this I saved the Illustrator file as Illustrator version 8 because no other versions will merge in to Cinema 4D. In Cinema 4D I brought the shape into the view port and then applied a lathe object which wraps the shape and makes it 3D.

Next I created a texture for my can making it shiny with some roughness. I only ticked reflectance in the materials attributes and created a new layer choosing the specular - blinn (legacy) type which creates a very dark grey reflection texture. I created a second layer this time choosing the GGX type which made another reflection layer lighter this time and masked it over the darker texture making a dark silver texture.

Next I went back in to Illustrator and created my 2D can label. I came up with the brand name "Toxic" and the slogan "Seriously Sour Soda". The pattern of the can is made up of the gradient tool using the two colours black and orange covered in bubbles created using the shape tool.

Going back in to Cinema 4D I created a material duplicating the reflectance attributes of the can material and then I went in to the colour attributes and brought in my 2D can label. I then dragged my material to my can lathe object in the object manager. Now my can label was wrapped around my can but the positioning was slightly off. Looking at the list of tools on the left hand side I clicked on texture mode which allows me to edit a map wrapped around an object. I switched to the move tool and dragged my map up slightly so the detail at the bottom was visible as before it was underneath the can.

My can was now complete and now I had to set up my document to render. First I brought in a cloner object and dragged my "can" and "top" object in to the cloner. This duplicated my can sitting them next to each other, I edited the cloner attributes so I had 3 cans including my original and that they were equally spaced apart. Next I brought in a floor and a background object making a basic grey material dragging it both to my floor and background. I then brought in a compositing tag for the floor which combines the floor and background together so they appear as one object. Next I brought in 2 lights and a area light, both lights I positioned at either side of the cans both above the 3 objects so they can cast shadows. The area light I moved behind the cans and then slightly to the left rotating the light so it shines diagonally across the scene. This makes the scene even brighter making it look more dynamic. The final task was to rotate each can so the camera could see a different part of the can as if I had one can no one would be able to see the label displayed behind the object.

Bottle

Again I started in Illustrator drawing part of a bottle and imported in to Cinema 4D.

I brought in a lathe object and applied it to by spline which transforms it in to a 3D object.

Next I went in to Cinema 4D's content browser and found a glass material preset which was a dark green because that is what is found with majority of beer bottles. I then created a new material turning on reflectance and transparency and within these subheadings I changed the colour to a dark yellow almost like a murky gold. I applied this material to the liquid inside the bottle as this will represent the beer itself.

After this I went back in to Illustrator and started to design a label for my beer bottle. I decided I wanted to make up a brand that could have been designed 200 to 300 years ago and still was around to this day. So I called the beer Morning Star and then had two of the weapons overlapping each other.

After finishing my label I went back in to Cinema 4D and brought a cylinder in to the scene. I moved the cylinder into the middle of the bottle and then changed it's size until the cylinder was just sticking out of the bottle. Next I created a new material and imported my label as the material, when this was done I dragged the material on to the cylinder. Now there was the illusion my label was wrapped around the bottle.

Finally I set up my scene using the light objects, floor and background but this time I also decided to take models from the content browser and set up a scene the bottle would be found in.

What Did I learn?

I learnt the basics of wrapping a 2D image around a 3D object which acts as the objects texture. Additionally I now know how to create my own texture using a range of other software to apply to my 3D models. This session was a huge insight for me because it is the basics towards being a texture artist and if I aim to be a 3D modeller the skills of a texture artist will also benefit my work. 

Self Publishing: Wall Mural

In this process and production session we experimented with type designs in groups of 7 before agreeing on a favourite and then using it to create a giant wall mural. The activity would help us work with other people as a team and give us ideas on how we would approach a big project for the future.

Each group chose a word from a hat at random and our group got the word "Prend le!" Our first task after this was to generate different typefaces. After each person had an idea we collected them up and voted for a favourite.

This typeface was the winner which was drawn on gridded paper because the plan was to have each grid as an A2 page and then this drawing could be used as a guide. 

Our next task was to copy the type face on to a much larger art board. We had 30 pages of A2 paper which would act as a frame and then we put each frame together like a jigsaw puzzle. When we finished drawing the typeface, again we pulled another word from a hat but this time it would be a colour we had to use to paint our type. The colour we pulled out was yellow and we decided that our type would look good if we painted the inside and outside of our 3D letters, instead of painting the letter itself. When we finished doing this we found we had a problem which was seeing the pencil from our drawing because the yellow was so bright. Our solution to this was to also paint the outline of our word with a thin brush which looked even better than out previous idea.

Now our final task was to put our type up on a wall and use a camera to create a stop motion reveal of our word. As a team we agreed that a transition where every 3 tiles from the left is revealed and continues towards the right would look the best. We began by sticking all our pages to the wall but in a random order and then starting from the left we would put 3 tiles in the correct order and then take a photo. We repeated this process until getting all the way to the right side where by then the whole word was revealed.

What Did I learn?

I mainly learnt how I would approach painting such a big art board without getting any of the positioning of my drawings mixed up and the solution to this was to draw the image in frames and then use each frame as a page. This made the whole process so much easier and gave a sense of organisation because it works as breaking the image down by focusing on one frame at a time only looking at what goes in that space. While you are drawing in each frame you forget about the overall image and then you start to worry about what it will look like at the end but it all falls together and surprisingly works very well.   

Demo Reel Test

In this process and production session we gathered together our best process and production work and created a demo reel to give us a idea of what should go in a demo reel and how it should be made, tips on how to grab companies attention when looking for placement.

As a student I won't have much or any industry work so my demo reel can be aimed at 30 seconds but no longer than a minute because my reel should be short and snappy to grab and maintain my audience's attention without boring them.

I used Illustrator to make my title frames for the start of the reel and the individual projects so there is a little introduction for my work. I made every object it's own layer so I could animate transitions for example making the text slowly appear when its time for them to be revealed.

I was reading a blog written by game developer's Naughty Dog who wrote a post about how to land a job with a AAA games company and there was a video of a demo reel which was submitted to Naughty Dog that got a 3D modeller a job with them. At the end of the reel the artist had his contact details and web address on screen with images of logos from the software he is experienced in which gave me the idea to do the same thing.




My demo reel is just over 1 minute at the moment so I have decided I am going to use less projects to shorten the video. I don't want to use some of the projects in this reel as my main interest is 3D modelling so I plan to include more projects like the mine cart and the t-shirt.

What Have I Learnt? 

This session has given me valuable experience towards making my desired demo reel with dos and don'ts. Keep it simple because over complicating my demo reel could reveal bad work or something companies won't like. Keep it short because I don't want to waste people's time. Aim your demo reel around a specific ability and area so people have an idea of what you want to do.

This demo reel I can use as a template and something to improve on when I come to create my final demo reel for looking for placement.

Self Publishing: Abstract Typography

In this process and production session we made and used stencils to create patterns with paint. We were given three different alphabets each a different font and we analysed them one at a time, drawing part of the characters as shapes on A3 paper. When I filled the A3 page with shapes I cut them out using a craft knife giving me a stencil to use, next I painted over my stencil on A2 paper moving my stencil either rotating it or simply moving it to experiment with mixing shapes and patterns.

Pattern 1

This stencil and pattern uses the shapes from the Baskerville Bold font and I took shapes from many letters from the alphabet including the number "7" and the letter "I".

Pattern 2

My second pattern uses the font Courier Bold and again I used the number "7" because I wanted at least one character I use in all three patterns so I could compare their shape.  

Pattern 3

What Did I Learn?

This session helped me realise that if I want to make something or generate ideas I can get the information from literally anything if I analyse fine detail. Before this session if I saw the fonts I would automatically think "oh different alphabets" but now examining really fine detail and shapes I can see how different they really are and the smallest detail can make great ideas. 

Animation Development

The Words 

I created the words for my animation with the text object combined with the extrude tool to make them a 3D object. To animate the words “Wellness” and “Illness” I changed their position and size through out the timeline so they could squash and stretch when they jumped and were landed on.

Health Care Centre 

The building was simply made from a cube with a brick material applied to it. The

windows and the door were also made with the cube object while the door knob was made from a sphere. Finally the plus above the door was made from two cubes that were stretched and then crossed over each other. 

Medication 

The bottle of pills and their lids were made from the cylinder object with the lids just placed on top of the bottle. The labels on the bottles were made with the plane object that I bent outwards so they could wrap around the object. Finally the pills were created from the pill object which was already the shape I needed.

The Railway

The tracks were also made with cubes. The wood in the middle started from a cube which I flattened down and the metal that connects it together I stretched as long as the tracks needed to be. I only created part of the track and then I duplicated that as a group object adding it at the end of the track until it was the length I needed it to be.

Final Animatic

This is my detailed animatic for the live brief project where I had the task of creating a visual for a speech written by the NHS.

Live Brief Project Animation from Sam Hepworth on Vimeo.

This has being my best project so far because I have learnt a lot and I have found a creative process that I can work with. At the start of the project I received feedback to do some research on the use of camera shots as at the time I was struggling to present my vision. At the same time I decided to do research on storyboards as well because the storyboards I was producing were hard to follow. After committing this research I finished my storyboard that showed the camera angles I was going to use which helped me hugely when making the animation. During the production of my animation I modelled a mine cart and this process taught me a lot about modelling in 3D and it was something I really enjoyed. Overall I am really happy with this outcome and its development, it has changed my approach to a project and revealed a creative process that makes me confident at what I do.

Patterns in Cinema 4D

In this process and production session we explored and experimented with different techniques to create different 3D patterns in Cinema 4D.

Tunnel Pattern

The first technique involves creating a really long tunnel in 3D and then applying materials to the tunnel to create patterned illusions. To begin I brought in a rectangle and then a extrude object and in the object manager I put the rectangle in the extrude object so the rectangle became a cuboid. Next I adjusted the size of the cuboid making it really long and I made sure there was a lot of space inside. I then brought in a twist modifier and applied it to my really long tunnel so the pattern inside the tunnel will spiral. The next task was to create a material to apply to my tunnel, in the material manager I turned off colour and transparency and left luminance on. I continued to add the checker board texture to the luminance tab which resulted with black and white stripes for a material. After applying  the material to my tunnel I brought in a camera and positioned it inside the tunnel so the pattern was visible in the view port. Next I brought in a sphere and duplicated my striped material but changed the colour to white and green and applied it to the sphere. I moved the sphere so it was at the end of the tunnel to add and finish the pattern.

At this point the pattern looks really interesting and cool but it is still just flat colours that isn't displaying any 3D depth. I went into the render settings and switched on ambient occlusion which adds shadows and depths to the edges of the model which gives it more realism in a 3D space.

I created a animation using the pattern with the idea of bouncing a collection of balls through the tunnel. I brought in a emitter object which fires objects in the direction it is facing and in the object manager I move the sphere in to the emitter object so the emitter fires multiple spheres. Next I moved the emitter behind the camera so it shoots the balls in the direction where the camera is looking but the problem then was the balls were falling through the tunnel so I had to let Cinema 4D know that the tunnel is a object and a collision should happen. I went to the sphere in the emitter object in the object manager and applied a rigid body tag which tells cinema 4D that this object should react when it hits another object, and then I went to my tunnel in the object manager and applied a collider tag to it which tells Cinema 4D that it should react when another object collides with it. The result now is when the balls are fired out of the emitter they bounce off the walls of the tunnel and roll down to the bottom of the tunnel.




Generated Pattern

The second technique I learnt how to do was creating a quick 3D pattern that generates never ending possibilities of different patterns and colours by slightly changing attributes in the material and object manager. I started with a plane object bringing it in to my viewport followed by a displacer modifier which appeared in my object manager next to my plane object. I dragged the displacer modifier in to the plane object and in it's shading tab I add a noise effect so the displacer modifier takes effect on the plane object turning it from a flat object into a crumpled object almost like a creased rug. The plane at this point didn't look real enough because the edges were too sharp and pointed so I brought in a sub division surface object and dragged the plane in to it so these edges were smoothed out and were more rounded. The next step was to add colour to my plane so I created a material and again turned off colour, reflectance and turned on luminance. In the luminance tab I added a gradient texture and inside the gradient tab I changed the type to "2D - V" which means that when the material is applied or wrapped around the object it goes horizontal instead of vertical, while "2D - U" is the term for wrapping a material vertical around an object. I then created four colours within the gradient tab: Cyan, purple, green and pink with cyan taking up half of the material followed by purple taking up a quarter and then green and pink sharing the last quarter. Now in the gradient tab of the material I can change a number of attributes (e.g. frequency, scale and octaves) to make different patterns really quickly.

Patterns Using Particles

The last technique I learnt was how to create a pattern using the emitter object. I started by creating eight materials all using just the luminance effect consisting of two shades of grey, a yellow, a orange, a light blue, a dark blue, white and finally black. Next I brought nine planes in to the scene making seven of them squares and two of them thin long cuboids. Then I applied the two cuboids the black material and then the other six planes each a different colour from the remaining materials. Next I brought in a emitter object placing all my planes inside it in the object manager and then placed the emitter on floor in my viewpoint facing up. In the emitter's settings I turned on "show objects" and "render instances" so I can see the emitter firing the planes in to the air in the render. Next I changed the speed, variation and angle so the emitter spits out the planes at a nice pace while they fly out at an angle so they all split up. After finishing setting up the emitter I brought in a background object and applied my luminance white material to it so in the render behind my pattern it is white. Finally I brought in a MoText object making it say "Post Modernism" as that is the style of pattern I have made and positioned it right above the emitter so the planes fly past it towards the camera.

What Did I learn?

Before this process and production session I had a slight idea how I would approach creating patterns in Cinema 4D but I didn't realise there were some many options and additionally an unlimited different patterns to make. The techniques I learnt have improved my approach to making patterns and textures in Cinema 4D and have prepared me to experiment with my own patterns if I need to. A feature in Cinema 4D I didn't know about before this session was the ambient occlusion option which is really helpful especially when you need to emphasise the depths of making an object 3D.