Final Project Proposal Presentation

Over the last 2 days everyone in my class gave presentations on their final project proposal.  It was great to see everyone having such unique and exciting ideas.  I have to say my class is a very diverse and creative bunch! Here is a copy of my presentation I gave today.  You can also check out the videos I showed in class today, here!
silicatproject p1 2 from silicat on Vimeo.

First attempt at Animata!

I'm one step closer to making angry pandas come to life! I started by uploading a drawing of a panda arm and with the help of a tutorial available on the Animata website, I was able to animate it!  I started by creating a skeleton around the arm, then creating joints were I wanted the arm to move, e.g. wrist, elbow then created a fixed joint in the shoulder.  I then made vertices where the wrist, elbow, shoulder met, this is basically creation a circle around the hand, forearm and upper arm,  the circle/vertex indicates how that part of the arm is capable of rotating.  After this you could them simple guide the arm to where you wanted it to move.  To finally make the arm move you simply increase the tempo and the arm moves automatically.  You can also control the stiffness of the movement and how much the joint moves.  My next step is to incorporate what I've done with the camera on my laptop or a Kinect, so I can manipulate the movement with my own arm.

Animata

A software I hope to use for my final project is animata.  It is an open source real-time animiation software designed to create animations, interactive background projections for concerts, theatre and dance productions.  Here is an example of the possibilities with this software.
Reverse Shadow Theatre from gabor papp on Vimeo.

Offset

At the weekend I went to the creative arts festival "Offset."  It was held in the Bord Gas Energy Theatre in Dublin and for  three days it was home to some of the best Irish and International illustrators, designers, photographers, advertising agents, animators and artists.  They all took to the stage to give hour long presentations about their work, influences, backgrounds and how they established their career.  The event boasted some big names like legendary graphic designer Bob Gill and world renowned photographer Oliviero Tuscani, who for me, was the highlight of my weekend.
For me I was mostly interested in seeing illustrators and graphic designers and I was delighted that I got to see some really unique and quirky people.  People who stood out the most for me were Hannibal & Hvass,  Ben Newman,  Kate Moross and Calef Brown.
Overall it was a really fun and inspiring weekend.  My mind is brewing with so many creative ideas from dutch wooden sneakers to Damien Hurst telephones!
http://iloveoffset.com/