Distinctive World Post

Distinctive World and Artstyle                                                                                Matthew Lawson

There have been a large variety of art styles across history and some of them have lived on as iconic for many parts of society. Sometimes an artist's style defines not only the piece of art but can define what the artist will be most well known for making. In this, I will be doing over the two distinctive styles to create the ‘Alien’ universe; by the styles of H R Giger, Chris Foss and Ron Cobb.

H R Giger became well known because of his designs and artwork on the 1979 film 'Alien'. He created all of the designs for the extraterrestrial parts of the film, including the Xenomorph designs. The idea behind the artstyle (which would be become known as Biomechanical (mixing technology and life forms)) is Giger had night terrors and tried to visualize his nightmares into his original drawings. Some of the original art pieces that he created were known as 'The Astro-Eunuchs' and ‘LI L’. Giger's idea was to combine machine, environment, and human with sexual undertones. A lot of the concept art designs had subtleties of sex, even some of those ideas made their way into the final film. An example is the Xenomorphs inner mouth that evokes “vagina dentata” (a vagina with teeth).

His ideas were first turned down from the production of Dune, until he was brought on to work on the production of Alien with Ridley Scott. However some of his style can also been seen in not just the creatures he created, but the sci-fi ships he designed. Some of his original work was designing starships with the same style. His concept art for Dune follows the same style but up-sizing the scale of the created art with the same principles in mind.

The other half of the design was the human technology mainly the design of the ship 'Nostromo'. Ron Cobb and Chris Foss combined ideas created the concept of the spaceship. They mainly based the exterior of the ship with ideas from Gothic horror movies such as Nosferatu (trying to make it a floating Gothic cathedral). They had certain locations, buildings and environments in mind when using the style to create the area. To create claustrophobia in such a large environment, they made the interiors very closely compact with very long corridors and no side passages. Compare this to designs of Star Wars 1977, the corridors on the death star for example have multiple side passages, have turns along the path and is fully lit. With a straight path (with no side paths) it subconsciously adds tension; because the fear that something deadly is on the other side we have no options than to run straight forward or back, where the threat can easily spot you.

Combining these together created a claustrophobic and isolated universe, which set the standard for the rest of the Alien franchise and many other projects afterwards.

Other creators have taken some of those ideas and created their own films.  Examples are the ‘The Thing’ 1982 (an isolated environment trapped with deadly threat), ‘Predator’ 1987 (being hunted by a threat you don’t know if you can kill)  and ‘Inseminoid’ 1989 (an alien threat with more explicit sexual tones for fear). A game that uses some of these ideas is the 2008 game ‘Dead Space’ (being put into long, tight corridors and trapped in rooms with enemies that you are not sure where they are).  

All of these examples, however all take from the Chris Foss and Ron Cobb artstyle. As for H R Giger; the idea of Biomechanical beings in the modern media, the artstyle mostly died out. One of the few games that used the idea were 2D shoot em up games, such as R-Type (1987), and one of the very few movies that has used a Biomechanical for some assets of a production is the 2016 movie ‘Independence Day Resurgence’ and the video game ‘Warframe’ (2013). Specifically for the Alien concept art designs, however it does not have the extent that H R Giger uses the artstyle. The style of Biomechanical has mostly been taken up by tattoo artists such as Eric De L’etoile.

However the main example of both off these concepts being put to use again, has to be part of the Alien Universe, the 2014 game ‘Alien Isolation’. In a way the premise is similar to original movie “Go to an isolated location and get trapped with a monstrous threat you cannot face”. The way that the gameplay uses the concepts from the art concepts of the original film is by, forcing you down long, gloomy and tight corridors. With openings along the walls and ceiling so it can keep you guessing where the Alien is. This also corresponds with the way the Alien functions; it has an unpredictable pattern of movement it can show up anytime it wants. If it finds you, you are done for because the Alien moves faster than you and will easily track you down.

So, how can these artstyles be used in future productions? Considering that the styles from Cobb and Foss have been used in a decent amount of productions, I want to focus on Giger. The main problem with branching out this idea is that it is meant to physiologically creep the audience, while having sexual undertones to through them off. Well an idea is that in a distant dystopian world, Humans (or another sentient species) have become enthralled by Cybernetic enhancements, they have become as close to androids as possible, fooling themselves into still thinking that they are humans, by trying look like what they remember Humans to be (appearing in the uncanny valley of humanoid designs), by slowly showing how they changing into something abnormal and eerie. Somewhat similar to the Li 1 drawing he made in 1974.

SSCS Alien Starship Finished

I have finally finished one of the two main models for my synoptic project and I am quite happy with the result.

Since last time, I have baked all of the objects down to low poly versions and applied all of the diffuse and incandescence layers. Then finally put the objects together to create what the final model will look like.

A point that I learned more recently is that when Mudbox saves your model file, it saves your texture files in a separate file. If you export the texture files it can appear differently (as you can see). What happened is that when transferring an incandescence layer to a texture layer in Hypershade, sometimes it can't read some of the information on the layer. An example is using the blur tool with lighting; to cause pools of green instead of a glowing light.

I am fairly happy with how the normal map appears on most objects for the model. especially for the body back indentations and the weapon tips.

If there was anything I wish I could improve would be how the wings join up to the body, it looks just like is clipping into the main body. One more idea would make more of the indentations glows appear blue, too make the colour more prominent without overpowering the green.

For now I am done with this model and need to prioritise finishing the player star fighter. Right know all of the objects are finished with the first model and UV'ed. What my issue is now, is that I have an understanding of Substance Painter 2.  Since that texture program has better capabilities than Mudbox I might want to redo the textures. So either redo all textures in less than 2 weeks or continue with a not as good texture editor.

Adding more to detail before the deadline

In the past week I have decided that I will add more detail to my objects before it is finished.

The way that I will do this is by smoothing out the mesh in Maya and creasing certain lines to keep the mesh what shape I want, before importing it to Mudbox  and adding one more subdivision level for sculpting.

Something extra I have figured out is that you can change the look of the mesh with a material editor next to the stencils and stamps. That's why obj files are orange and fbx files are black.

The main point of the extra detail is to add dents and drops in the mesh. Compared to how simple some of the objects are in the model I want more from it. I know that I can't do this to every one of my objects, however I will try with most of them.

Since I have started to properly understand 'Substance Painter 2' I will texture this object in SP, then see how it will look, compared to the rest of the model. Since SP has more options for the textures (such as adding metal shading into the colour), I will most probably appear different however.

Depending on how much time I have left, that will show if I use Substance Painter for the project. I will finish the objects in Mudbox first before Substance painter,so I have something to show as a finished project.

SSCS Alien Starfighter Model Update

Since the deadline is starting to creep closer everyday. I have had to stop and reevaluate the state of work for my part of the Synoptic Project. While the Main player star-fighter only needs tweaking, the main enemies need to be finished. I did finish the model and finished UV unwrapping a while ago, however it needs texturing and then baking.

After looking through a few concept designs, I have learned that alien ships have 3 defining characteristics: they look either organic, pieces of metal being gravitationally bound (like the Prometheans form halo 4+5) or being as lit up as a disco ball because of glowing lights. So since lighting is the simplest one to get right I went with that.

For a while I was still not to sure what colour scheme to use, I originally wanted a main purple and secondary green.  However I have gone with a silver and green colour scheme. I got the idea from the "Xcom" plasma weapons. I have tried to make the placement of the colours seem meaningful, to show how the ship can function (and to make it appear cool). The silver is kind of a no-brainer for a colour palette. As for the green though, it has a uneasiness about it; as it has always been associated with alien life. Not to mention it contrasts the player Starfighter (who I made glowing orange).

The green spots were achieved by creating an incandescence layer and making the colour very light green. Around the edges I used the blur tool not just to smooth the edges of the paint out, but to add glow around the green light. Something I am happy with however is the addition of a tint of blue on the main cannons. Instead of the model being entirely glowing green I made the weapons glow blue instead; I think it looks nice. The way that I did it was have 5 separate shades of colour between green and blue and then blur the edges of the colours together. The only improvement right now I can think of is to get the colour at points to look brighter.

My main tasks now are to clean up the textures for my current objects and to put together the the starship by the end of this week.

Industry Standard Project First Version Finished

I have finally finished my typewriter model. This doesn't mean I am finished with it yet however, this is the main focus however I know I can add more before the deadline of June. Sine last time I have textured and baked the keys and have cleaned all of the main texture issues.

I have learned that some rendering software (such as Arnold) are better than others. Sometimes (like in my other blog posts) Mayas software can try to hard to render everything and over bake certain parts of models. As for the final render of the completed object I am mostly happy with it, all of the objects look fairly decent and fit together well. Any problems with my current objects would have to be that some parts of the normal maps don't cover up the low count at points. An example is the loop that surrounds the keys; you can see some hard edges that should be smooth.

As something else that has been bugging me for the longest time. I figured out how to change more of the lighting system in Mudbox. In the display tools you can deselect "Smooth Shader", what that does is it adds extra shadows to the model based on what angle you are at. This is helpful when the mesh is finished, however when it is still being sculpted and painted, it gets very irritating. So since it is gone when I need it, it makes the process a bit easier.

My plans for this now is to mainly add more individual objects to the typewriter to make it more complete. I have already added a small lever on the face at the front. An example of what I could add would be all of the small metal rungs and gears further at the back near the main lever. Or maybe add letters to the keys.

The Final Draft for My Emerging Technology Essay

Research Report into an Emerging Technology or Trend                        Matthew Lawson

What is Augmented Reality?

Augmented Reality is the technology that can be seen as an opposite of VR. In VR you are brought into a virtual world, while Augmented Reality is bringing virtual elements into our own reality. Most of these inputs are visible or auditory. Another importance is that Augmented Reality works in real time with actual events at the time, this also works with the environment that the device is surrounded by. As small as a market AR is, it is quickly gaining traction. Revenue is “forecast to increase to £90bn by 2020.”. The way that AR functions is that there has to be an anchor for the apps to respond to and detect what to show on the screen. This can be a physical anchor (such as a AR pad) or a signal from multiple sources.

The History of Augmented Reality

The term “Augmented Reality” was created by Tom Caudell based on the previous efforts of Ivan Sutherland and Myron Krueger. The earliest recognised AR system was the Virtual Fixture, made by Louis Rosenberg it was created for the Air Force. “The full upper-body exoskeleton allowed the military to control virtually guided machinery to perform tasks from a remote operating space. The first major use of AR was when (in 1999) the NASA spacecraft X-38 flew “using a Hybrid Synthetic Vision system that used augmented reality to overlay map data to provide enhanced visual navigation during flight tests.”.

It was not until the 1998 that Augmented Reality was taken into the entertainment industry. The 1st and Ten system was created to create the first yellow virtual down marker. In the 2000s software such as the ARToolkit was created and AR was tried by Print Media, however it took until around 2013 to evolve to become the market we know it as today. In 2014 the Augmented Reality trend in the public started mainly with google, announcing their google glass ready for consumers, which brings us to today. Although the technology has and is being used in other fields of work rather than just entertainment.

AR Technology Today

The purpose of AR is varied based on what program uses it, but an overall view for it is to add digital elements to our regular lives, making it more interactive. Most of its functionality right now is for retail use. On a small scale this is used in simple apps in phones to point out highlighted interest points on the local map, or in games (major example is Pokemon Go or in AR Tower Defense). No triple A developers have created a game with augmented reality in mind. However it does not mean that some these games are not successful, far from it in fact. Pokemon go has “Estimated number of Downloads to date: 650 Million”. This is a worldwide statistic. For more expensive products such as AR glasses, such as Microsoft's Holo-lens, the Vuzix M-100 and the Atheer One. All of these glasses all have different functions for different purposes.

Some examples of some AR products that have gained recognition for convenience are, the IKEA AR catalogue, it was designed to show the user how a piece of furniture would fit into your household, (A Study done by Digital Marketing Academy) according to the company statistics it shows that the app came out with 8.5 million downloads for it, within a few months back in 2014, even though it met with below average result from customers. This can prove that this technology is very popular (because it is new to the public) and peaks interest, however it needs to be done well to keep their attention for the foreseeable future. The American Apparel Colour-Changing App (allows you to change the colour of clothes to see what would suit you) and Shisedio Makeup Mirror (allows you to test makeup on yourself to see how it would look).

Some other ways that AR is used are in certain job fields. In the medical field, the near-infrared vein finder creates patient monitoring data, this can include a virtual x-ray based on ultrasound and micro probes. This has help doctors with finding tumours and blood clots. This can make procedures and examinations much faster and less harmful for the patients.

In tourism, Word Lens is an app that translate any foreign printed texts. “Word Lens looks at any printed text through the Iphone’s camera, reads it, translates between Spanish and English.”. The app needs translation packs to understand the language first though. If continued to be invested in this could be a virtual translator in your pocket. Both of these technologies have potential but they still need development to become better products.

AR in Filming

In the filming industry Augmented Reality has been created with visual effects with in Science Fiction films such as Avatar (2009) and Total Recall (2012), however one of the more relatable but extreme (to us) is a small six minute feature that has been getting recognition because of how it shows Augmented reality. It is call Hyper-Reality, created by Keiichi Matsuda. The purpose of the feature was to show how  “Our physical and virtual realities are becoming increasingly intertwined. Technologies such as VR, augmented reality, wearables, and the internet of things are pointing to a world where technology will envelop every aspect of our lives. It will be the glue between every interaction and experience, offering amazing possibilities, while also controlling the way we understand the world. Hyper-Reality attempts to explore this exciting but dangerous trajectory.”. Even though the feature is short, it is very visually stunning.

Augmented Reality can become  “the whole story is filmed from one woman’s point-of-view, wearing a pair of (fictional) “augmented reality” glasses – and as her day in the city progresses” As well as showing just how overwhelming Augmented Reality can become in our future, it can also show how Augmented Reality can become the norm for us fairly soon. Considering that this is a drastically improved Vuzix M-100 or Google Glass it can become a reality in our very near future, especially since looking back on how far technology has developed in the past two decades. Right now the Vuzix M-100’s “pre-installed apps can be used to take still pictures, record and playback video, track timed events, link to your phone and more. The real strength of the M100 comes from its compatibility with thousands of existing Android apps, and easy access to developer resources which enable the creation of custom apps to suit virtually any need.”. These features are creating a really good foundation for AR glasses’ future in society. This could lead to Hyper-Reality coming into our own reality; this could even make mobile phones obsolete given how much capability this technology has. .

There are very few filming projects that actually use Augmented Reality for the audience. One of the closet is ‘NFF AR Movie Experience’. Created for the Netherlands film festival in 2011 “this AR mobile experience uses the layar app to create a “3D surround film set of a movie happening in augmented reality””. The set is filled with speech bubbles floating in certain areas containing dialogue of the movies that were filmed there. While this is very far from an actual film feature, it can give an idea of how some films may use AR in future productions.

Augmented reality, however does have some drawbacks that have stopped the technology from evolving. Aside from risks from a new technology (the 500,000 Hoverboard malfunctions in Britain) and stupid behaviour (driving while on the phone). Ar has its own problems that have to be addressed. Examples of this include “limitations regarding GPRS, information overload and privacy”. An example of this can be AR has social media applications you can advertise the fact that you have new items in your home to paint a target for thieves. Another point is that it can become another platform for companies to advertise all over. If the technology gets enough investment this will become a reality, just like Youtube (2007). The main question now is can Augmented Reality live up to its potential, or will it fade away in a few decades? Not to mention how we might lose sight of the world around us. With this ease of access to technology on the go we could live in a society that is constantly turned on, losing sight of who we are.

Conclusion

Right now Augmented Reality is a very niche technology, it has drawbacks and limitations. However AR still has potential for future use. Given how popular and diverse the technology is, it can be supported and invested into; to be improved for even more functionality. A parallel for this can be computers in the late 70s and early 80s, the technology still has a way to grow but can develop into something much better. The applications that it has now can change some of the elements of gaming, mobile apps and real life interaction with digital elements. Although, this technology will not alter the way we see digital apps or video games, it is to specific (just like Virtual Reality), it is an addition to entertainment technology. It will probably not overtake our current industry.  In other fields however, such as architecture and medical science it can have more of an impact because of what new equipment can be created to make doctors and architects jobs so much easier. Although since the future is not set in stone maybe the ideas of ‘Hyper-Reality’ can change the way society functions (being completely reliant on technology).

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http://hyper-reality.co/