Major Project : Reflection

In this post I will be discussing my reflection on my major project and my website.

Here is my final product for both my website and my major project.

Major Project Scene

Final Website (Home Page of Alan Mark)

When it came to my creation of the 12 seconds of VFX for my major project, it taught me the stress and difficulty organizing each frame of the video had and how it was a very rewarding process as well. There were different softwares that I had encountered and studied about such as Adobe After Effects and Blender that provide opportunities and technology capable of creating the scene I had made today. Though I focused on the utilization of Blender as reference to its upper hand over After Effects from my software testing, I also learned more about the softwares I didn't use as well. It was very fun and I enjoyed every single bit of the process, even if it was tedious to accomplish.

The website creation was also very fulfilling since I was able to showcase and try to advertise myself and my ideas a whole. I get to create a theme and aesthetic that wants to reel in people and tell them that this is Alan Mark and this is what he can accomplish in VFX. I process of creating eye-pleasing content and navigation was very step-filled but was very easily accomplished if focused upon. The whole experience was educational and fun at the same time. 

Digital arts as a whole helped me realize that I can do much more than just my work, that I can show what I can do to the world and what more I can accomplish that what I can do now. It was a very interesting experience overall and it taught me that doing a feat may sometimes be considered nothing at all if no one is there to see it. 

Website Creation : Mobile View

In this post I will be briefly discussing the mobile view of my website and how it is aesthetically aligned to make sure it is not difficult and far from the experience of viewing it on a computer

Firstly, when it came to home page, the website when transitioned fit very well since the text was already center-aligned and the videos and picture-sliders were automatically resized. The text although smaller, had no significant difference to the experience and content accessibility the PC version of the layout had. The header of each and every tab will look the same throughout and accomplished the same goals as what the PC header was required to do.

Mobile View of Home Page - Alan Mark

Secondly, the About me Page was a bit over the place since the pictures and elements I had placed were not fixed. I went on to tweak them and arranged them in a way that gave the same feeling of the PC layout alongside more eye pleasing placement when it came to the text. The icons were also enlarged as opposed to the ratio they had to the PC layout in order to fir the aesthetic of the mobile view and to make them more accessible.

Mobile View of About Page - Alan Mark

Thirdly, when the contact form's mobile view comes into question, there was no changing required as it fit perfectly into the mobile view requirement of pleasing to the eyes and accessibility to the viewer from my assumptions. 

Mobile View of Contact Page - Alan Mark

Lastly, the Project 0.1 Page's mobile view can me considered a bit clunky at first glance since I had to tweak the arrangement of the text in order to help the audience read the wall of text it looked like before the changes. I also tweaked the arrangement of the process images and project scene itself to peak the audience's interests.

Mobile View of Project 0.1 Page - Alan Mark

Here is the link to my website for a closer look at its mobile view.

Google Forms for feedback : UX Testing creation

In this post I will be briefly discussing the creation and responses from my UX testing.

Firstly I went and opened google forms from the homepage of google. I then changed the title of the forms to "UX testing and Feedback". 

First Generation of the Form

Before adding the content and questions for my forms, I focused on the aesthetic aspect of the questionnaire as I chose the grey color to be soft and simple for the audience alongside an easily read serif font style to help ease the eyes of the reader as they are answering the questions provided. Lastly, I added the logo of my "company" also know as HIPNO, that is comprised of a spiral with a line of liquify edited onto it.

Color Palette Board and Image selection

After adding most of the questions, eight of which are multiple choice and the last 2 being short answer prompts about what device they are currently using to answer the forms and if there are any more improvements they would want from the website that was not questioned from the form beforehand. The last step of my google forms creation was adding the remark for finishing the questionnaire  being : "Thank you for your response! Alan Mark will take note of this."

Final Page of the Form

Google forms for Feedback: Response discussion and improvements

In this post I will be discussing the responses and the improvements I have made from my evaluation of the google forms I have created.

Firstly, I had already received 11 responses in total, majority of which are utilizing a Personal Computer or a PC to answer the questionnaire I had provided for my website.

Responses and Devices Used

When the theme of the website was in question, the majority of people who had viewed my website thought it provided the elements that should be presented in a website; which in my opinion states that it looks like what an average website should be. About the navigation of the website, the majority thought it to be good as well.

Website overall and Accessibility

The overall content of the website when asked from the viewers had a great impact on their experience since the majority had answered that it is what they would expect from the content of a Visual effects website. Going into the tabs of the website, firstly about the home page, it had very mixed opinions about the satisfaction each and every viewer had so it was hard to make any assumptions or to approximate if there was a major problem to begin with. 

Content of the website and Opinion on Home page

Pertaining to the About page of the website, the majority of the viewers had a very pleasant experience with both the content and the organization since most of the responses were Excellent on this question. When it came to the question about the Contact page, the majority of the responses were Great assuming that the page did its job and was very aesthetically pleasing and accessible.

Opinion on About Page and Contact Page

Talking about the Gallery page, people had a very bleak opinion about it since it does not contain my major project at their time to survey, I will discuss further below this post. When it came to the social media links of the website, the responses had very mixed opinions about it, however, the answer was cemented when it came to the short answer part of the forms.

Opinion on Gallery Page and Social Media links

Lastly, when it came to the additional comments part of the forms, most of the responses focused on the improvement of both the content of the gallery and if the social media links were working or not. So the next step I went to do was improve both the content of the website and the social media links throughout.

Short Answer Responses

Here I went to change the social media icons on my website by removing the ones that were not working and leaving those that had my links and were perfect for advertising my website and myself as a whole. The extra logo alongside the Instagram logo and Blogspot logo cannot be removed since it is what gives me access to the icons being one-click links to my social media.

About me Page - Alan Mark

Here is where I also change the icons that my home page had below my name.

Home Page - Alan Mark

After a few days of working, I have also fixed the problem of the lack of content within my gallery/portfolio page. I firstly added the 296 frames I edited for my short temporary scene to be added for my film "Seep into Reality". Afterwards, I added the video scene comprising those 296 frames aforementioned alongside the pictures of the process of creation of the short temporary scene.

Gallery Page - Alan Mark

After adding more content to my gallery page, I then proceeded to add content to my Project 0.1 Page as well since it had no content before the google forms' responses were taken into account. It now had a description alongside pictures of the process and the project itself.

Project 0.1 Page - Alan Mark

That should wrap up the improvements that were suggested by the viewers of my website.

Finalizing the Major Project : Seep into Reality Project 0.1

 In this post I will be discussing on how I have posted my major project after I had created it.

I had to wait about 3-5 hours for the 296 frames of the 12 seconds of the animation to be rendered. After which I had to put it in a file titled "Blender Video" to avoid confusion.  

Rendering the Animation

Then I went to the project gallery dashboard of the website creation software in order to post 3 things : Each and every frame included in the video, pictures of the process of creation and the 12 second scene itself. I then titled each one of the sections accordingly to give clarity as to what each has to offer and gave them each a description as well to help the viewer further understand their purpose.

Gallery Project Collection - Alan Mark

I also added an image slider that presents some images of the process from my gallery to the Seep into Reality tab under the Project 0.1 section with a title of "How it was Started".

Slider of Seep into Reality Page - Alan Mark

Lastly, I simply added the video using the tool on the left-hand side of the website creation tool named video box and adjusted its size to fit the sides of the website so it looks aesthetically pleasing to the viewer. 

Seep into Reality Page Edit Mode - Alan Mark

I will have to furnish the arrangement of these additions once more when I am finalising my website itself.

Overall,  I think the short temporary scene works well in accomplishes the goal I had in mind. It presented some skills of what you can expect from a rookie VFX artist and I may have to write an introduction to this section to further enhance the viewer experience. Although the arrangement and design still has to be furnished, the project itself was completed and posted for the world to see. 

Website Creation : Seep Into Reality Project 0.1

In this post I will be discussing the creation and content of the Project 0.1 Page.

Firstly, I had to put a description to help introduce the audience to what the content will provide and what it is for. It contains the words : "This is the Short temporary scene that represents my starting point for my film "Seep into Reality". This will showcase a short temporary video rendering that should be presented on the final product. It is a simple VFX project comprising of an object edited into reality." This is enough to help reel in the viewer to ask what is Project 0.1 and what content it provides. To add the text, I had to choose two textboxes from the left-hand side of the website creation software and utilized the Lulo Clean Font for the text and its title.

Project 0.1 Page description

Secondly, I added pictures of the process using the app that provides a slider for said pictures. Alongside it comes a text box that titles the slider.

Process slider

Lastly, I simply added the final project scene to finish off Project 0.1's page.

Project Scene

Major Project : Final Creation

 In this post, I will present my final project.

The video below is the Short temporary scene that represents my starting point for my film "Seep into Reality". This will showcase a short temporary video rendering that should be presented on the final product. It is a simple VFX project comprising of an object edited into reality.

Project 0.1

(Seep into Reality)

A better quality version would be located on my website located at the "Project 0.1" tab.

Major Project : Further study and creation of Project 0.1

 In this post I will be continuing briefly discussing the process of creation of Project 0.1.

I continued the creation by firstly removing the square presented from the start up screen from Blender and proceeded to add the "ground" and tweakable object to the scene as shown on the top-right hand side of the software. After which I tested its adaptability to the tracking and how it fits through the keyframes of the scene. I furnished the object and the "ground" by adding points from the center of the tracking points I had beforehand that will act as the guide for the object and "ground" presented. I affixed the object to the top middle tracking point of of paper and set that tracking to the object Y-axis to make the object face the camera view throughout the scene.

Object and "ground" addition

I then simply went to to Object selection tab and selected the cube I had placed before and clicked the change object and chose the exosphere option as it closely resembles a gem from a fantasy world. From there I went to to the editing tab of the software and focuses on molding the object into the bigger and more "chunkier" looking rock to add a bit more fantastical nature to the object created onto the scene. I did not have any problems when I viewed the scene once more as I had already fixed the faulty tracking points and added a guide for the object to follow even as I changed it. I lastly changed the ground to be the same as the scene, however, it still exists as it would be used in a later part of the process.

Object tweaking and angle adjusting (Ground editing)

In this next part, I focused on making the shadows for the object in order to create this sense of realism. Firstly, I clicked on the "ground" I had made the same as the scene in order to create to shadow effect I wanted. Here I clicked on the scene tab of the software and clicked on the shadows tab below as seen on the lower right hand side of the software. I then proceeded to use their latest feature of solve motion tracking object that automatically fixes the object's shadow creation. I then clicked on the edge selection tool as when I viewed the render image to test a frame of my creation, it appeared to have a shadow overlapping over the table's edge. After uses the edge selection tool of the object and solving the unrealistic shadow properties, I furnished up the "ground's" position to make it more realistic.

Shadow addition

Here was my frame-collection process in which I had to render the animation of the object itself without the scene background in order to make less pixelated and hardware-heavy when processing the animation. It took me approximately 3 hours of waiting time for each frame to be processed as my laptop was not as strong as a Desktop (It only has 8GB of ram). I made a folder specifically for the blender image files for the next process of the project.

Rendering the animation of the object alongside folder creation

Though technical, in this picture it can be noticed that I am in the compositing tab of the software in order to make sure the relation of each scene is correct. Here I added an "image node" for images within the "Blender" file I have created to be placed in for the project to utilized. Here it will be connected to the "Alpha over node" which will process both the scene and the animation frames of the object to make it a smooth and non-pixelated scene as if I had skipped this process the scene would be low in framerate and would be very pixelated for the object.

Compositing and node connection management

Lastly, I assessed the video 3 more times to check for faults and if there any black screen pauses within the scene.

Last Assessment

I started the rendering process which lasted for about an hour and the video was finally processed after the 296 frames were done with the rendering.

Rendering the scene

My next post will contain my final product.

Major Project : Study and creation of Seep Into Reality

 This post will be discussing the process of my work for my Final Project Creation also known as "Project 0.1".

Firstly I opened up blender and went to the add scene tab of the 3D creation software via the "Plus" sign tool located beside the Scripting tab then selected the VFX part of the pop-up when I hovered over it.  I then began to add the video I wanted to utilise for my short temporary scene.

Opening Screen of Blender

Here I began to first take off the filter that was automatically added by blender whenever you add a scene which was named "Filmic", this was to make the scene seem realistic enough for the viewer as any filter would make the scene seem a bit off. I also made sure that each frame of the video did not contain any black screen pauses as it would interrupt and ruin the immersion that the editing may bring.

Default setting tweaking and preparation for editing and rendering

I next made sure to study where I am going to put the motion tracking guides for the software from the video as I have to carefully center the said motion tracking points on the points I want to be tracked precisely. This is where the use of the tracking paper I have created comes into play, I as it acts as a guide both for me and the software in creating the positions of the tracking points. It also acts as a border control as any lines that go over the paper may shown signs of faulty-editing.

Careful placement of Tracking dots and more preparation

In this part of the process, I studied the pattern of each frame's motion tracking point movement to make sure most of them are not outside the paper and are tracking the scene correctly. There are 296 frames in total, out of 296 about 45 frames contained dots that were faulty in which I assessed and fixed. After which I proceeded to watch the scene about 3 times to see if there were any more faults in the tracking.

Repairing faulty tracker points

In this part of the project, it was just a quick and easy issue-solving with the framerate of the scene sequence as I only had to choose the formalize option under the "Motion Tracking" tab and click "Solve motion tracking".

Solve Motion Tracking process

This would be the last time I check the motion tracking points of the scene as I will now proceed to the object creation, addition, and editing of the project.

Final Assessment of tracking points

I will continue the discussion on the next post.

Major Project : Further Research on artists

 In this post I will shortly discussing who are the artists are and what films I watched and were inspired to create my scene from. 

Firstly Alexander Adell, Adell is a vfx artist and film producer/director. His vfx portfolio includes films such as Toy Story 3, Up, Wall-E, Ice Age: The Meltdown, and Robots. Currently, he is a producer at Magnesium Film, which he joined 5 years ago. From 2000-2004, he designed 3D surfaces shaders Ice Age, fur for several principal characters in Ice Age 2, and digital sets on the film Robots using proprietary signal processing software and rendering language. He trained Technical Directors on software for creating surfaces for characters and machines. He also developed internal tools for film production including plant distribution tools, procedural texture rigs for background characters, and animal fur design technology. After working on a game for 2 years, he became the Technical Director at Pixar Animation Studios. In Pixar, he was responsible for designing 3D surfaces for Wall-E, Up, and Toy Story 3. While at that, he created a reusable shading network for development of new models. After around four years at Pixar, he moved on to create games, mobile applications, and later on produced and directed a film.

When it comes to Jim Rygiel, he can be considered to be a visual effects supervisor who worked on feature films since 1984. He has worked on The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, Godzilla, The Amazing Spiderman, Fast and the Furious, Starship Troopers, Star Trek, The Last of the Mohicans, Batman Returns, and many more. Through lord of the rings, he has earned three consecutive Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects. After University, he went to work on doing commercial work, which he gained nominations for. Then, he supervised projects while at visual effects companies. Later, he formed and head a computer animation department at Boss Film Studios, which created films such as Starship Troopers, Outbreak, Air Force One, The Last Action Hero, and others. After Boss Films, he went on to supervise The Parent Trap, Star Trek, and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy before working on many more films.

Simon Otto is a Swiss film director and animator, best known for his work in the How to Train Your Dragon film trilogy for DreamWorks Animation. After studying art in Zurich, Otto studied animationin Paris in which he received additional animation training through an internship wtih Disney Feature Animation Paris. He was first hired by DreamWorks for The Prince of Egypt in 1997. Then, he spent 21 years as part of the character animation team for DreamWorks. He was known for the How to Train Your Dragon franchise, which he was instrumental for the look of the characters, personalities, and overall style of animation. He designed a number of characters in the film including Toothless and Lightfury, and did storyboarding work on the second and third films. After leaving DreamWorks, he went to work on Love, Death & Robots Season 2 as well as directing an upcoming film called That Christmas. In an interview by Art of VFX, Otto stated that he personally did a lot of design work himself, and worked closely with modelers, riggers, and the surfacing department. He figured out systems for complex dragon rigs, then after achieving the desired look, went to work on their personalities with senior animators.

He stated that his job is to make sure the style, quality, and clarity of the animation was as desired and executed efficiently. As such, he must consult the directors on everything related to the animation. He stated that the team used a lot of proprietary software, except for previz and layout, and that the most demanding shots were ones that requires months of rigging time such as beard simulations and flying shots.

From these three artists and their work on VFX, I learned that every piece of vfx work needs a lot of attention and work, especially collaboration with others Along with that, I had also learned that the route to becoming a successful vfx artist requires me to try new things and be brave enough to create or work with big names.

References :

Alexander Adell (no date) MUBI. Available at: https://mubi.com/cast/alexander-adell

(Accessed: December 3, 2022).

Alexander Adell - producer - magnesium film (no date) LinkedIn. Available at:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/zanderadell (Accessed: December 3, 2022).

Jim Rygiel (no date) IMDb. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0753277/

(Accessed: December 3, 2022).

Frei, V. (2014) How to train your dragon: Simon Otto, The Art of VFX. Available at:

https://www.artofvfx.com/dragons-simon-otto-responsable-animation-des-personnages-

dreamworks/ (Accessed: December 3, 2022).

Simon Otto (no date) IMDb. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2259362/

(Accessed: December 3, 2022).

Software testing : Blender

 In this post I will shortly explain my experience with Blender when I first studied it before my major project creation.

Firstly, I botted up the 3D animation software, it is also to be noted that there was no initial tutorial upon the start-up of the program as opposed to Adobe After Effects when you first boot it up. Immediately I was a bit overwhelmed by the sheer amount of tools and options that Blender had presented. I then went to the modeling tab of the animation software.

Blender Start-up

Here in the Modeling tab, I toyed with the transform tool alongside the cursor tool to deform the cube from the start-up of blender. I learned that the Green line presented the X-axis of the model, the Red line represents the Y-axis and lastly the Blue line represents the Z-axis. The circle on the picture was the cursor/point selected and all I had to do to deform the cube was pull using the transform tool.

Modeling Tab of Blender

After toying within the Modeling tab, I proceeded to the sculpting tab in which I could detail the starting cube even further via the different tools presented on the left-hand side. It presented tools such as flattening any surface from the 3D object alongside creating creases within the object.

Sculpting Tab of Blender

Lastly I went to the animation tab of the software in order to check out if I am able to render the object I have created into a scene or create my own scene within the software without any external text. Though difficult to understand for a beginner, it can be very informative since it presents many factors one may need to consider when animating as opposed to Adobe After Effects.

Animation tab of Blender

Overall, Blender is better when it comes to 3D animations, rendering and editing as opposed to the features Adobe After Effects may provide since After Effects focuses more on 2D effects and supporting visual effects (e.g lightning strikes and tornadoes). Though it may be difficult to use at the start, it is very worth learning alongside the different varieties of VFX software out there.

Software Testing : Yumpu

In this post I will briefly tell my opinion on why I did not utilize Yumpu.

Simply put, Yumpu was not fitting to present what my major project was going to provide and require from a software. That fact alongside the fact that there are heavier and better software out there to help present my content makes it very unreliable in my eyes. However, it may be useful in presenting progress, Milanote content (shown below), project compilations (Pictures only), and some information if it requires visual aid. 

To test out Yumpu, however, I had to register my account then had to use the free version since I cannot utilize the "pay for extra options" option. Here I can create a project title, description, its language, its category and its tags. It then can present the information/pictures in either a slide or in different animations. 

Yumpu with Milanote - Alan Mark

My last evaluation of Yumpu is that it is a very useful piece of software for certain fields of work. Yumpu when it comes to VFX work, however, is not the best software one may use since there are better and more reliable tools out there that are better in helping present your work as a VFX artist.