The Barlowe Cipher

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So my hand has still not fully healed from the pinched nerve that rendered two of my left fingers nigh useless.  I've been stressing out wondering if I'll ever be able to play the piano the same way again and recently decided I should try not to think too hard about negative things.  Recent events in the U.S. have left me more frightened than ever and, as I am want to do, I have turned inward and worked harder on a long-gestating horror story with the working title "The Barlowe Cipher."  In lieu of a traditional blog post detailing the methods to my madness I'm simply going to post a couple rough draft chapters of my novel.  I will read all comments, but don't inundate me with corrections; this is a first draft.  I will edit everything you see multiple times.  Enjoy.

Wielding Limitations

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     When I started this site I gave myself an unofficial schedule: one blog post (at least) a week. For most people this would probably be a laughably simple goal to achieve. Now I'm not going to give you a list of excuses as to why a weekly blog is so difficult for me to maintain in order to gain sympathy.  That said, here comes a list of excuses.

     Long ago I had a short-term freelance gig at IGN. I was immeasurably grateful for the opportunity, so upon receiving my first check I totally flaked. Besides working a full-time job as an assistant manager at EB Games and taking a full course-load at VCU I simply had a really hard time coming up with ideas for new articles. My eight pieces were submitted during the Summer of 2005; right before the Xbox 360 came out. I was to write editorials speculating on what the next generation of consoles would be able to do and how their increased rendering and processing capabilities would affect new games. It was a subject I was, perhaps overly, interested in; so the first few thousand words flowed easily from mind to screen. After writing rundowns of the Nintendo Wii, Sony Playstation 3, and Xbox 360 (the only system I had actually played at the time) I got stuck.  

     A very patient editor (Brennan Ieyoub) chatted with me online for a bit and suggested doing a piece about a new GameBoy. The Nintendo DS was already out and all signs pointed to that device being the only handheld the company would be making for quite some time. I knew this, but I was desperate and wrote 1500 words of unfettered madness about a theoretical chimera of screens and buttons that no thinking person could have taken seriously. I had fun with the idea, but it seemed way too early for me to be grasping at straws for content.

     This time Brennan saw me coming and suggested writing articles that were genre-specific (RPGs, Shooters, Racing, etc.). That worked for the next few submissions, but my schedule and life in general merged with the feeling that I was veering away from my area of expertise resulting in missed deadlines and the fear that I was actively burning the one bridge I had wanted to cross since middle school.  See, I had gotten this dream gig with IGN based on a series of game reviews I had written for GamePlasma.com and analyzing games I played was (and sometimes still is) a passion of mine; but speculation is a different beast. I learned then that I really needed a lot of direction when writing something that wasn't a research paper or my own original fiction.

Still with me?

     Now it's nearly eleven years later and I'm trying something new. Though I'm working on several pieces of fiction, those aren't ready to be posted online yet. I wanted to do something to show potential clients/employers that I can stick to a rough schedule for submissions, I just wasn't sure what to write about. I tried doing game reviews again a couple years ago thanks to a push from Wilbur Johnson (TheStrongestThereIs.com) and really enjoyed it; but when I have to procure the software myself and beat every game I review on the standard difficulty, the time and money required really add up. I'd love to do reviews again, but without a paycheck I can't justify the time required to do them the way I want to.

     Writing a blog had never appealed to me, but I always saw the merit in trying to write regularly. So I decided last month that I would create content and write brief pieces (this one excepted) about the process. It's a way for me to try new things, hopefully learn some new skills, and hone the abilities I already maybe possess.

Preamble concluded.

     A few weeks ago I had an idea for a basic animation I could create without having to do any 3d modeling. I did a quick sketch before going to bed and spent the next few days thinking about what I would need to learn in order to create this thing.

Note the precise anatomical detail

     The original idea was to draw a series of two-dimensional images that could be stacked in order to create something like an animated CT scan. Later I decided using cubes made from six copies of the same flat image would take less time, but I had to figure out how to get my hand in the shot with my fingers obscuring the animated buttons I would create.

     Around this time I was talking to Wil (that's Wilbur Johnson people) about what I was thinking. He listened patiently while I outlined my plans to individually erase the pixels around each frame of my hand in a video I would shoot. Then he suggested I use a green screen. Certainly this is something I should have figured out on my own, but I had no idea my software would allow this. You see when Wil pushed me to do game reviews three years back he suggested that I learn to use Final Cut Pro and Motion and, while I learned a lot working on those videos, I never knew about the alpha keyer and how powerful it could be. Wil had saved me hours of work and I made up my mind to make a miniature green screen to experiment with.

     It should be said that the content I make each week (unless it's for a paying client) is created very quickly and with a tiny budget, so I used construction paper.

     At some point I'll construct something more sturdy out of a smoother material, but this worked for my purposes. The texture of the paper made isolating my hand a little difficult, so I had to make several adjustments to the alpha key, but I'm pleased with how fast the whole process was.

     Animating the cubes was as easy as getting the images in the right positions, creating a group composed of six flat planes, and rotating said group. I turned the opacity of each cube down, added some lighting effects, and adjusted the focus to give the illusion of depth. Viewing my first test gave me no small thrill.

     The final video (posted below) was completed in one night. Thanks to Wil's suggestion the part I had thought would take the most time was completed swiftly.  Adjusting keyframes and filter settings proved to be more demanding than expected, however.

     Once the video was done I decided it needed a backing track, so I did the best I could in my exhausted state. I recorded six simplistic tracks with a minimalist chord structure (Bb Maj [x2] F Maj Bb Maj) and tossed the recording on top of the footage. Below is an alternate version of the song where the full loops can be more clearly heard.

     After getting some rest I set to work making a quick video demonstrating some of the weaknesses inherent in using a construction paper green screen. Enjoy.

 

 

     

123D Catch

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     I've been spending a lot of time brainstorming various ways to create interesting animations that can be made quickly. While I'm a somewhat capable 3d-modeler, shortcuts are always welcome when starting a project whose contents promise to be onerously complicated; geometrically speaking. While looking for solutions I ran across a series of apps with the prefix "123D" made by AutoDesk. Back in high school I cut my teeth on AutoCAD and 3DStudio Max, so finding these (mostly free) apps led to a series of hasty downloads. One immediate standout was 123D Catch.

     What this app does is nothing new, but the accessibility and ease of creation it provides are equal parts refreshing and compelling. Having started preparatory work on an upcoming project I had an incomplete armature lying around that looked like it wanted to be photographed. You'll see in the scan below that it's an ugly little thing, but I'm not done yet. The inspiration for "Pedro's" creation came from my friend Rick Bushie; the methodology for his haphazard construction is wholly my own (first try).  

     For your enjoyment I present my copper golem: 

Links Below:

Armature - Dimitri

Click on the cube in the lower left that says 3D VIEW (If you're on mobile use the 123D Catch app)

Moog Fantasy

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     So here's the first thing: this week was a little rough. While creating the video for last week's post I thoroughly enjoyed myself and learned a lot of tiny-but-useful lessons that will make later animations less difficult and more polished. That said, I spent about five hours with my left elbow resting on a desk I'm now certain is made of the wannabe-animator equivalent of kryptonite. The end result: I cannot adequately use two of the fingers on my left hand because of (I think) a pinched bundle of nerves. Feeling has been creeping back into my decrepit claw thanks to a combination of hot and cold. I had been planning on recording some music this week and, after realizing my left hand was only temporarily disabled, finally sat down and got to work. First I had to decide what I wanted to experiment with. A new iOS app named "Model 15" slid within range of my radar while I was reminiscing about the soundtrack to The Shining and I was off to the races.

     The app (which costs a hefty 30 bones by the by) emulates an old-school synthesizer; complete with patch cables and ribbon controls.

     I won't bore you with the details of my Moog-infused travails, suffice to say it took me hours to gain even a modicum of proficiency with this program. While familiarizing myself with the numerous virtual knobs, keyboard configurations, and settings I came across some options regarding Bluetooth LE.  Did you know that was a thing?  I sure as hell didn't.

     This fascinating, azure tech remains largely a mystery; but I do know my computer doesn't support it, so the joy I felt when I thought I might be able to transmit notes from a physical keyboard directly to my iPad warped itself into a bizarre amalgam of desire and grief that lead me to an incredible discovery: you can send MIDI data through a simple, private WiFi network.

     Once I figured out how to make that digital wizardry bend every musical whim to my will I set about creating a basic framework for the demo loop I would record. There's an instrument preset in Model 15 called "Eerie Choir" in the "Keys" folder that seemed laden with potential, so I set to work playing whatever I could think of using various MIDI controllers, the onscreen keyboard, and arpeggiated loops. Experimentation and fumbling tweaks fueled by my excited flailing somehow landed me in the key of A minor. I decided on a basic bass line and played it into Pro Tools. 

     The next four hours were spent wrestling with network settings, MIDI cables, and virtual knobs; but I created a brief sketch I think sounds interesting. It definitely doesn't sound like anything from a Kubrick film soundtrack, but the odd synthesized notes that resemble ghostly voices were absolutely Shining-inspired. I've posted the track below as well as some of the MIDI output notated through Finale. Hopefully it makes you think about stuff.

Roto-diculous

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     Mr. Dill is at it again.  He recently sent me a video, shot with an iPhone, of himself "dancing" that was equal parts humorous and mesmerizing.  As I've been trying to find ways to expand my skill set and involve my friends in this new "LoFi" venture I felt especially inspired to create an animation utilizing the video and my own slapdash abilities.  The first step in this sloppy, synergistic project was separating individual frames from the original video clip.  Thankfully Motion (my current animation affair) features an option to export a sequence of frames culled from any video contained within its workspace.  Utilizing this feature I was able to produce nearly 360 unique image files to work with.

     I then selected one out of every four frames to draw on top of in the video I had planned.  I would trace whatever basic features necessary to convey motion, create a brief accompanying musical loop, and place the resulting images/audio over an appropriate background.

     Shot using the slow-motion feature, this clip had been pretty thoroughly compressed before I got my hands on it.  I had been thinking about rotoscoping, having recently watched American Pop, and was curious to see just how involved tracing individual frames truly was.  Quick side note here, I am not a skilled artist in terms of drawn art.  My geometric sketches are serviceable, but organic characters, be they human or animal, leave much to be desired.  "Tracing" frames of filmed human movement might be the only way I could contribute to a hand-drawn, animated project with bipedal characters; so I deigned to bend Mr. Dill's brief clip to my exceptionally specific purposes.

     To be honest this video was both easier and more difficult to produce than I had initially imagined.  I was, relatively easily, able to produce hand-drawn images based on the individual frames of the original clip.

     What surprised me was the high degree of interpretation required to produce these simple images.  

     Pulling individual frames from a compressed video shot on a phone produced some bizarre pixelation I had never before experienced.  I did my best to draw reason from the jumbled images with my digital pen, but found my accuracy left severely wanting when working with these images' peculiar resolutions.  It's for this reason that, though the final product is somewhat crude, I'm actually quite proud of the end result of my analog processing of these images of dubious quality.

     A cursory glance at the above frames should illustrate just how bad I am at replicating organic forms (especially hands) with a pen, but nonetheless I am encouraged by the end result.  Even though the individual cels I created will never compete with any professional, still art, the end result is at least interesting.  There is a compelling quality unique to human movement that mo-cap and rotoscoping can harness to lend gravity to animations in projects as different as A Scanner Darkly and The Jungle Book.

     I know this little demo video pales in comparison to those master works, but I wanted to get a feel for what creating frame-by-frame animation based on filmed content entailed, and I absolutely learned some valuable lessons working on this silly little video.  

Faking Depth

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     Recently my friend Mr. Dill (Robert Edward Dill III for the uninitiated) was showing me some photos he's taken.  Scrolling through the multitude of pictures in locales both familiar and unknown to myself I stopped on a picture that looked like it could have been taken in a recently abandoned desert town. Most of the shots in this particular series were from factories, streets, and bodies of water in and around Richmond, Virginia; but I was nonetheless surprised when he told me the photo I was examining had been taken mere blocks from where we stood.  He's snapped some doozies for sure, but this one remains one of my favorites.

     Having just started lofidragon.com and itching to start creating new content, I decided I wanted to try to make some sort of 3d model out of this photo; both to feature Mr. Dill's awesome shot and to try out a new idea I was formulating.

     I am a fan of integrating hand-drawn art into 3d environments built out of photos, but typically a set in one of my scenes would be created by placing multiple photos in different positions and trying to hide the seams.  It's a process not unlike building a virtual house of cards.  With this picture, however, I was curious just how much I could create using one image and cutting it up to create the illusion of depth.  There were several ideas I debated testing (some of which I will utilize in later animations) but I landed on one inspired by my fifth grade teacher Mr. Mac.

     When it was time to teach us how sonar functioned (side note: I feel like a teacher had more control over their curriculum back in the day) he broke the class into small groups and presented each group with a shoebox.  The box's lid was taped shut and sported a matrix of pencil-thick holes along its surface.  Inside, he said, was a chunk of dried clay terrain with an uneven topography.  Each group's box contained a different piece of faux sea floor, and it was up to us to make models out of construction paper representing what we thought our terrain looked like.  We made notches in pencils, lowered them through the holes, recorded our measurements, and drew crude graphs.  

     Besides being a novel and memorable activity, it taught us a very basic lesson about data collection.  The denser the grid, the more accurate our models.  What I wanted to do with Mr. Dill's photo wasn't the same as measuring depth with pencils, but the end result would be similar. I would arrange plates created from the original photo in order to create a crude representation of the 3d space depicted in the 2d image.  The first step was essentially just very careful erasing.

     Having never attempted anything quite like this I made many mistakes and creating these "plates" took about twice as long as it should have (notice how the same power lines appear in three of the above photos).  Once I had about 20 images I stacked them carefully in Motion, set up a virtual camera, and played around with depth of field settings.  I posted a test video, but that's just a proof of concept.  

     I would like to use more photos to create fly-throughs and sets for animated characters to inhabit.  Lessons were learned.  What comes next will be even better.