The concept for the following pieces was based on a desire to explore madMapper's capabilities. I had also enjoyed setting up audio inputs from last project so much, I decided to make it an integral part in a majority of my works.
I first began with the small mask relief sculpture because I was interested in the negative space around it. The sculpture, though small and less intricate compared to everything else in the room, was the perfect "blank canvas" to experiment with and get the creative juices flowing. Not knowing immediately how to begin, I mostly just played around with layering and masking new materials that I haven't messed with before (posted below).
This piece had none of the special animations with it, however, I did play with the lines and line animations. This was when I figured out you could do much more than make a bunch of lines shake, but make the animation move to the music, too!
Unfortunately, the computer's microphone was jaded and so all of the input doesn't show up visually or is even detected by the program at all.
For this piece I learned that you could also add an audio input control on the position of the light on the 3D model. Instead of the face's geometry being statically lit, I added that extra touch so every polygon can be seen depending on the bass of my music.
Professor Scott once asked me in a previous project for one animation to "reveal" another underneath it. I managed to figure this one out using the Particle animation set on "Negative" FX, so its brightest points will become transparent. For the layer underneath, I used a combination of the Tunnel Points and Wisps.
For the sake of the demonstration and audio malfunction, I set the sensitivity to an extremely high number in order for the animation to happen at all.
I wasn't done yet! I wanted to do another setup on the Medallion because of what I wanted to project on the positive space this time. Even though I was having a lot of fun with music, I wanted to create a piece that felt more dramatic and artistic than fun and energetic.
This piece is slow and calmer than my other works because I wanted the viewer to look at it and feel contemplative. I illuminated the fist on purpose to focus on the association of its power as a symbol of hope and strength to minorities in our country. That there will come a day when social equality is achieved despite the hardships and the violence.
And finally, the piece that is the fruition of what my experimentation has come up with. An audio-dependent animation that takes you through a trip in time and space! The starfield has a slight jitter to the bass, but its speed is directly influenced by the music's amplitude, so the louder it gets, the faster the stars travel. Same thing applies to the tunnel points in the medallion and outside of the fist. Inside the fist was the Spectrum F*r that was already set to react to amplitude and made some interesting flame-like jumps and waves to illuminate the geometry.
This one was the most fun to make because of how exciting it is to see the whole space jump alive with several different elements involved.
Concept:
I've been putting together an interview style documentary about cultural identity within a small Ethiopian tribe and thought it would be great to use some of the footage from my subject on this assignment. Instead of using one of the two heads placed in the lab I thought hiding the face within David's abstract concept would match my documentaries theme of lost identity. I came up with a cool effect that I translated onto footage of my favorite anime as well, something a bit more dynamic.
Process: I wanted to keep my interview footage steady regardless of my subjects posture changes and head movements, so within after effects I tracked a 3D camera using points assigned to my subjects face.
Using a plugin called Trapcode Mir, I created an animated mesh which I planned on blending with my subject.
I added a blue tint to my subjects footage and maintained the black values for blending purposes and because I wanted to go for a blue dreamy look.
I blended the Mir layer over my subject using the Stencil Alpha mode then added some glow and heat distortion to get my final look which I brought into madmapper.
I assigned the video outputted from after effects onto the calibrated obj in madmapper.
I used this same overall method with my second composition, but used footage from an anime and blended triangles I created from masks and the after effects plugin "Plexus".
Interpretation:
Upon completion I felt like this assignment was overall my most favorite, the calibration process and the flexibility given with using Uv'd obj files gave my a ton of room to experiment and come up with something unique to me. I think if I were to do something like this again I would try to incorporate reactive music as well with the particles in after effects.
Concept:
For this assignment, I wanted to stick with the visual concept from my previous compositions, but incorporate sound somehow. I really liked the shifting panels from the Lion tape mapping, and decided to use that idea for this project. I thought it would be cool to use the abstract piece as a volume meter with a music video running in the background.
Process:
building the relief
First, I teamed up with a couple other students from the class to create an abstract piece. After they had finished the model, David and I fabricated it and placed it in context. I then set up a template file to work from. To do this, I ran a spatial scan on the piece to get its position on the wall, and then lined up the 3D model in MM. This took a lot of tweaking to get right. After I got the model 90% there, I used 'edit mesh' to get it to 100%.
original music video
template file setup
Next was the fun part, the content. The first thing I had to do was pick a music video to use. I decided to go with 'Rescuer' by Rend Collective. I then rebuilt an After Effects document using the lines from the 3D model and the reference image from the spatial scan. Once I had all of the layers set up, I wrote a little bit of code to make everything work properly. I created a null object that moved based on audio levels. I then added opacity switches to each of the layers, and created a rule that they would be on if the null was above them.
That by itself was pretty cool, but I thought it could be a little more interesting, so I added a light that casted a shadow on the wall behind the piece. This turned out way cooler than I was expecting. The shadows ended up only casting behind the layers that were turned on, made for some pretty cool effects. I also added the music video onto the background, so that I was using as many pixels as I could.
In MM, I added the virtual light on the 3D object and controlled it with the audio from the video. This made the lighting on the sculpture change with the music, composited over the AE video. I wanted to make the project repeatable, so I built the file in such a way that any music video could be dropped in to be used.
Altered States is a pair of works exploring experiences with psychoactive drugs, mental illness, and comparisons between the two. Whether you read into the pieces as drug-induced or caused by mental illness depends on your personal experiences with either. Either way, we experience a warping of identity and reality itself. I combined processed footage of my family members with shaking, vascular-colored lines to emulate altered mental states. The lines increase the hallucinogenic feeling while also expressing how altered mental states can act as a hazy filter or even confinement through which we view the world.
I started by taking footage of my husband Eric and my grandmother Rita (both good sports) and digitally rearranging them in Processing to simulate time compression and warping effects.
After harvesting thousands of images, I bring them all into Movie Maker and set the duration of each to .06 seconds to create a smooth video.
From here, I bring the created video content into Madmapper. After using the spatial scanner to calibrate to the relief sculpture, I added and adjusted the video content to best fit the structure and desired expression. After days of building content, I only end up using about 15 seconds of each video. On top of this I added lines in vascular colors of reds and blues with some auto-shake. I decided not to add background content, because altered mental states is often an isolating experience separating you from reality and other people.
Altered States
Altered States 2
I chose to work with the large abstracted head sculpture because it compliments the Dali-esque style of video I make using Processing and Movie Maker. I enjoyed combining a favorite process of mine with a new output and mode of expression; I think the relief sculpture compliments and adds to the work. I would like to explore this combination more in the future and experiment more with lighting, After Effects, audio inputs, and background possibilities.
Elizabeth Stegall - Project 4 Relief Mapping
Concept:
Eyes:
For the first projection map I wanted to implement a moving object within each triangle of the 3D model however, I didn't want to fill each shape with too much information in order to make it easier to read so I decided on eyes opening, closing and looking around rapidly.
Akira:
For the second projection map I wanted to express the emotion of anticipation and really get the viewer's hear pumping. I decided that I wanted to place clips from the animated movie Akira because of it's fast paced, action paced moments within the object.
Process:
Eyes:
For the creation of the eyes I had to go into Photoshop and draw different kinds of eyes closing opening, etc then saved it as a gif. The gif came out with a bit of noise but I was able to shield it a bit in Mad Mapper. I then turned in the the gif into Mad Mapper and carefully tried to match the eyes with the triangles. To hide the noise, I added a quad that was filled with static and fit the black and white look.
Akira:
For this map I collected a screen glitch video and a number of gifs from the movie and converted them all into mp4 files. I then placed them into after effects, I then placed each mp4 in a order and added the glitch effect to the whole video to give it the visual aspect of uneasiness with the glitching footage. I then make the glitch length shorter and dispersed them in the video. I then added one of the tracks to the movie too put on the finishing touch.
Interpretation:
I found that this project took longer than I had originally planned out but I really think that I am finding my style as I was working on this. I've also learned some ways to get around problems that I had in the beginning of the year and would have never thought of while working on the assignment.
We were assigned to choose a wall relief sculpture to map. I chose the medallion since it seemed to have a strong visual impact and meaning to start with. At the start of the semester, we looked at some of our professor's works of art, and his message really lingered with me. I have been watching the news and have been hearing the same stories play out, again and again, none of them making sense to me, and all of them angering me. History is always repeating itself!
I watched a documentary on Netflix that was the finishing touch on my inspiration for this composition, It is called 'LA 92', and I highly recommend checking it out if you get the chance. This documentary also stresses my concern, that History just repeats itself, and we never really learn our lesson. Police seem to have too much power, constantly get away with brutalities, all too often being fueled by racism and fear.
The song is Sublime's 'April 29, 1992', which is about the Rodney King riots and all the looting and crazy stuff the citizens began to do after the court announced its unjust rule of the Rodney King trial. They screamed, "NO JUSTICE NO PEACE". It's not fair or right for the police to be tried differently than a citizen. If they commit a crime, they should be punished just the same. I see the potential for this kind of uncontrollable chaos still to this day. When the Freddie Gray riots were happening recently, we saw some of the same behavior, but to a lesser extent.
I wish I could bring justice for all, but since I do not have that power, I will do what I can to speak loud enough so everyone hears me, and stand up for what I think is right. I don't want to see a tragic day of chaos like that ever again, but to prevent that, we must stop the cause of it.
Why does this keep happening? When can we have equality? When can we have peace and justice for all? When will we all just get along?
First I looked up some cases so that I could make sure I had all my fact straight, and included anyone I may not have known about. I looked for news footage from the LA Riots and of the recent Riots for Freddie Gray and Eric Garner. I also downloaded some videos of the footage of dashcam and body cam footage of some of the incidents, like those of Latasha Harlins (who was killed by a Korean store clerk at the same time of the Rodney King incidents, and with clear footage of the murder, the court ruled unjustly, also fueling the fire for the riots, putting a target on other innocent Koreans) and Walter Scott, Paul Oneal, Samuel DuBose, and Tamir Rice, and a photo of Akai Gurley. There is a case that happened in the town I lived in 6 years ago, Balch Springs, showing us locals that its here on our doorstep, its not just something happening somewhere. I also wanted to have a special place for Sandra Bland, so I added the beginning clip of her last video post.
I was able to get these videos off of youtube using the site https://y2mate.com/
I then started working in Adobe Premiere. I bright in the spatial scan photo that I captured while I was in the lab, using the canon DSLR hooked up to the computer wherein madmapper it was able to take multiple pictures to figure out the depth. I used this a base for my videos.
I used a circle crop on all of the shots that matched the circle of the medallion. I would then later match it up on the wall with the projector to get the circle shapes to match because it is not exactly perfect when it is projected.
I noticed without the medallion showing through the video, it looks like the viewer is looking down the barrel of a gun. Then I added in some text to go along with the lyrics and match up with the song, and I did that by using photoshop and making a transparent PNG image with the text in a half circle.
Then I took it into madmapper, made a few masks and then added some sound responsive animations around the medallion. I wanted it to move so I put a rotation on it and got the speed to match the song, and I chose to have it roll counterclockwise because sometimes that's how I feel that how the world is working. && Don't even get me started on school shootings, that is a-whole-nother project.
So here is a recording I took with my phone of the composition. I will have to get a better recording with my DSLR ASAP.
Portal
Concept:
The circular form of the medallion reminds me of the circles of a hula hoop, and it goes round and round, so I made it spin. I wanted to keep this composition shorter for time sake in class when presenting, and my first one is 4 minutes long, so I stuck to playing inside of madmapper for hours.
Process:
First I did a spatial scan and it gave me the above image after taking multiple pictures of the scene to determine its depth. Then I also brought in the medallions 3D model into madmapper.
Then I played with the settings on the 3D model, giving it color and playing around with the lighting and texture settings. I like the way it looks but I want to make it colorful, of course. I want it to be funky and have a mystical movement to it. So I added the spectrum quad and the cubic circles one. I changed the settings quite a bit on the cubic circles, animating them even more with rotations.
I also then added a sound activated circular pattern to the inner circle of the medallion to add more organic animations to the composition.
Then I made lines so go along the planes the rim of the medallion. I wanted to animate these lines to turn, and give the viewer the feeling of being infront of something like a portal to another deminsion.
and finally I added another sound activated animation to the compositon with a wave form that goes behind the medallion, and i made the waves as large as the medallion to activate more space around it.
And there you have it, here is a video of results...
Concept:
Jeremiah Baker, Ben Hoggatt, and I wanted to create our own relief sculpture to map. While brainstorming we thought of making low poly instruments we could light up with music. I remembered I drew some geometric art months ago and showed them it. Ben quickly made a 3d model of it, Jeremiah unfolded it in Pepekura, and then I laser cut it. Jeremiah and I pieced it together and created what we call the Growth Sculpture as it resembles a vine or organic intrusion on a building.
I planned to create one composition with Max MSP and another using more of the Google Deep Dream Processing I found in experimentation last project.
Process:
Within Max I used the previous setup I used for creating the John Conway's Game of Life for the tape mapping. I replaced the images used with video created by Falak Jamma. I utilized a new command called jit.pix where I could pull in files to modify the video. I utilized the brcosa, infinite mirror, twirl, and pinch files. I sent those videos the MadMapper to record them. I found the way of recording through Max to be unreliable as sometimes it would corrupt or not record anything. I applied the Spiral Galaxy looking one to the actual sculpture then made a dim kaleidoscope effect in the background.
For the Google Deep Dream one I took a picture as close to the projector's view as possible and cropped it to just the sculpture in Photoshop. I do not know enough about the technology of Deep Dream to create an animation the correct way. I instead slowly zoomed in through Photoshop and rendering images out as I zoomed in. I sent all of these images to render into the Deep Dream look. I then stacked all these images together and converted them into a .gif file. MadMapper works well with those. I used a different kaleidoscope from Max and shifted to a yellow-black color to better suit the Deep Dream results.
Continuing on the concept of my Room Mapping Project, this composition expresses a different perspective towards my idea of allowing the viewer to step inside my mind and with it, to have a moment in which my memories are seen through space.
The second composition is the successor of a work created in my video production class, the story talks about a hacker who lost his wife due to an automated car accident. He loses his mind throughout the video and creates an Artificial Intelligence that replaces his wife but such becomes a much greater burden than her physical state.
Process
The first composition was created in After Effects and Mad Mapper, I initially exported the line output from MM and used it as a base to create the animation of the videos within AE.
For the relief mapping project I wanted to work with creating content that was simple yet indicative of the chosen theme. After being inspired by a classmates previous "wall washing" assignment I decided to focus on biology and the body in general. With that being said, the heart and molecules came to mind. The mechanical orientation and function of a heart has always intrigued me and I wanted to create a projection that would have the same rhythmic and paced flow of the organ. Inspired by the rhythmic nature and structure of the heart, the speed and somewhat unpredictable nature of molecules and the way they function when heat in introduced was also an appealing element. With these two concepts in mind, together they would be an experimentation with speed and how the speed of particular elements in a composition can effect the audience in different ways. For example a hectic and fast speed for various elements in a composition could disorient the viewer and make them feel uneasy due to the rapid movement and unpredictable nature of the content. On the other hand the slow and structured pace of a beating heart can be more soothing and pleasing to the audience as there is a rhythmic flow to the way the content is utilized.
Preliminary AfterEffects Content
Process:
As usual the theme for my projection started at the content building stage. In After Effects I created a video of blob-like shapes that grow and shrink in a heartbeat like pattern. By using the time remapping tool I was able to repeat the motion for a 30 second piece of repeatable content. The second video was created by using shape layers to imitate molecules moving in three dimensional space on a loop. Each created video had a predetermined color pallet, the first of monochromatic red, and the second of warm colors.
Once I decided on the theme for this project it appeared that the complex mask relief sculpture would be the best canvas. The intricate shapes and surfaces would make a nice space to work with. To start it was important to use spacial scanning and UV mapping to calibrate the sculpture. By using the spacial scanned image of the sculpture in MadMapper I was then able to create lines within the tool for my composition.
After layering the content and line layers on top of each other I began to experiment with different textures and animations within MadMapper. For the heartbeat composition it was important to stick to the internal body theme focusing on fluid motion and the continual contracting and expanding of space. Similarly the molecule composition also used the fluid motion to represent it moving through molecular space. After the solid portions of the compositions were compete it was important to make use the the structure's lines in an effective way to complement the theme.
Initial Molecule Comp
For the molecule composition the mad lines were used to further emphasize the notion of life and motion. Three layers of lines all moving quickly and offset to be at different areas of the relief representing veins and the blood flowing through them. The quick motion of the lines in conjunction with the movement of the molecules are in place to support the idea of uneasiness within one's self.
Initial Heartbeat Comp
For the heartbeat composition, because of the idea of a calming and systematic structure of a beating heart I wanted to ensure that everything was easy on the eyes and that no singular element could be singled out because the entire composition should be a stable and balanced. Similarly the lines animation was used in a subtle way to also indicate blood flowing through veins and the notion of life. With these concepts in mind I further explore possible elements for both the molecule, and heartbeat compositions to further solidify their theme.
In order to utilize the external lite space outside of the sculpture I decided to create variation through extension. For the heartbeat composition I created a smooth fluid shape out of multiple quad layers to place the "heart" in context. The external area was also made up of slow moving designs to emphasize the work being conducted by the heart. The last element that was added to the heart composition was the waveform lines and the heartbeat sound clip. To ensure that the theme would get across to the audience I used three waveform lines to imitate the movement of a heartbeat.
For the molecule composition I decided to use the quads to create an angular shape to play with the already developed notion of hectic-ness and movement. Similarly to the movement pattern of the individual molecule pieces, the lines that create the external space all vary in length and work to further the imbalanced nature of the composition.
Interpretation:
The theme for these compositions really did drive the entire piece from start to finish. By utilizing something in the physical world as a tool of inspiration could I use the content I had to further implement the driving theme for each piece. In addition I liked the way that the external space was used for each composition. Instead of using the entire projection space blindly, specific backgrounds were created to add further meaning and place the sculpture in context for the given idea.
When we where first given this project, the assignment had first asked that we create our own sculpture and have it cut and mounted to be projected on. I had come up with a few ideas for my sculpture such as going back to my lion tap mapping and sculpting just the face. Which would end up being pretty neat, but when I thought about it further it would have been difficult and time consuming. So I was thankful when the professor gave us the choice of either using his sculptures in the class room, or create our own. I opted for the choice of using one of his and ended up picking the largest of the 5.
Process
Once I choose the sculpture I wanted to do I got started with getting the spacial scanner completed first. This would help me in being able to take the project home and not having to be in the lab the entire time. I made sure that the camera was place in the center of the piece and as close to being underneath the projector, mounted on the ceiling, as possible. I ended up using a 1/15 shutter speed to keep from getting any interference and a more clearer picture.
When the spacial scanning was complete I imported the object file of the sculpture into MadMapper and matched the sculpture to the spacial scan. Because a lot of the wireframe wasn't matching up, i decided to take the extra time I had in manually moving the points of the wireframe into the right position so everything lined up cleanly for animated lines. With the lines however there was a small problem. Because their was too many wireframe lines/Geometry, MadMapper couldn't create the lines for me. So I spent about an hour lining everything myself, which wasn't as bad as I thought it would. Plus I didn't line everything on the sculpture, just what I needed and thought would look good.
After the lines where finished I moved on to creating the first composition. I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted my contact to be but I did know that I wanted to incorporate my 'Sun Swirl' i created for this project using After Effects. But when I imported the video files into MadMapper, moved them around I wasn't sure what else to do to go with them.
When I looked at the sculpture with the medallion of a peace sign with the fist at the top I thought about doing a 'peace' related theme. When googling 'peace signs' they all came up with a rainbow tie-dye 70's/80's theme to them and decided to go with that. I first looked online for some animated gifs and found many different once and tried them out on the sculpture but none of the seemed to fit, until I found a rainbow mandala, as well some other rainbow animations that I pieced together and overlapped to create a neat and funky, 70's/80's theme.
The two mandala gif's above where the first two I found, and what I started with, with my first composition. I wanted to use both so played win the settings in MadMapper, put one into the eyes before ultimately decided to put both of them together in an overlap, making a really cool effect. I then added my 'Sun Swirl' I did in After Effects into the eyes and put it as a multiply layer to turn the orange to a blue to match. To add more to the composition I made the lines rainbow colored using another gif image before editing the animation effects to make it look nice. Once the background, eyes, and lines where finished I added a light effects MadMapper has with the object file. I synced it up with an 70's 80's mix I found on Youtube.
For the second composition I added these two gif images and overlaid them onto of each other. Making sure the opacity was correct and they both looked good overlapped. I decided to do something with the main madalion on the forehead of the sculpture and used the lines and animated them in a way so they rotated in different directions and put them in rainbow colors. For the eyes I decided to keep it simple with a rainbow pallet that rotates slowly. I then masked out the peace fist for both and kept the rainbow coloring.
Yoobae Kim Projection mapping strategies for relief objects (Week 9-12)
Concets:
Relief mapping is a texture
mapping technique used to render the surface details of three-dimensional
objects accurately and efficiently. Relief mapping is highly
comparable in both function and approach to another displacement texture
mapping technique.
The model will be tested on UV calibration and line output
In this project, I will explore projection mapping strategies
for relief objects. Reliefs are objects that project from the wall. The ideal
relief objects for projection mapping have large surface areas that do not
occlude/block light of cast shadows.
UV Coordinates
UV mapping refers to the way each 3D surface is mapped to a 2D texture.
Each vertex contains a set of UV coordinates, where (0.0, 0.0) refers to the
lower left corner of the texture and (1.0, 1.0) refers to the upper right
corner of the texture. If the UV coordinates is outside the 0.0 to 1.0 range,
the coordinates are either clamped or the texture is repeated (dependent of the
texture import setting in Unity).
Texture Mapping
To create a surface that resembles real life you need to turn to
texture mapping. This process is similar to adding decorative paper to a white box.
In 3D, texture mapping is the process of adding graphics to a polygon object.
These graphics can be anything from photographs to original designs. Textures
can help age your object and give them more appeal and realism.
UV Mapping
A 3D object has many sides and a computer doesn't know how to
correctly put a 2D texture onto a 3D object. A UV map is basically the 3D model
stretched out into a flat 2D image. Each face on your polygon object is tied to
a face on the UV map. Now placing a 2D texture onto this new 2D representation
of your 3D object is much easier.
base_head UV(1).obj
Spacial Scan Images
Captured Madmapping Sceen
Process:
Spacial Scanning to create an image to align a physical model.
I used the UV space of the 3 D computer model of calibration with Spatial Scan Camera Setting to capture Spacial Scan Images:
1/50 5.6 400.
base_head UV(1).obj
Generated Content
Match the real and virtual objects and Fine Tune
Calibrate Projector
Adjustment working with different lighting and projector brightness
