Big Fish Presents:
Learning Through Recess
Mornin' everybody. I'm gonna get the informal out of my system now; my name is Colin "Big Fish" Hancock and I'm a budding projection mapper a published projection mapper, I guess? My first encounter with the media was way back in 2014 but this marks the first time I've ever put my nose to this particular grindstone. The theme of my project, to be perfectly frank with you, is Learning. While the effects used are simple applications of the software, I'm incredibly proud of the body of knowledge I built during the process and I'm deeply excited to continue building atop this foundation. I recognize that there's a long road ahead, so hopefully this will be something like the boots I need to get me there.
Allow me to explain what I mean when I say my concept was Learning. When I started working on this project in earnest - real effort applied to a cohesive work as opposed to sporadic application of effects and testing of random features - I actually did the assignment wrong. I certainly worked in what I believe to be the spirit of the assignment, but I have a bad habit of running before I crawl and putting my cart so far ahead of my horse that I might as well haul the load myself. I built what I think is a neat little composition! I won't embed that video into the blog post, but I'll provide a link should anyone be interested in seeing the piece ( https://youtu.be/DpbakN-YXRQ ). I'm also very proud of that piece, but it was an uphill battle all along it's trajectory. But it taught me some very useful things that, in turn, made "Learning Through Recess" much more rewarding. "Work Day" was a slog, and one I decided I was unwilling to let go of until I'd beaten it. I wanted to approach "Learning Through Recess" differently. I chose to have fun.
That isn't to say that "Work Day" wasn't enjoyable to make. It certainly was. But I made what I believe to be a fundamental mistake in the workflow; I stopped making the piece for fun and got angry at it. This is not unusual for me, but it also is far from my preference. C'est la vie.
"Learning Through Recess" took it's inspiration from the idea that we learn through play. By giving myself the freedom to do whatever popped into my head, I removed a particularly nasty weight from my mind and experimented more. The first scene took the same background used in "Work Day" and remixed it slightly - instead of a harsh, changing background, the first scene holds it's ground and merely enjoys simple geometry. The second scene uses the gallery materials provided by Professor Scott - I knew I wanted to work with that background the minute we saw it used in class, and I'm pleased I didn't have to capture it myself. Here, too, I laid a simple foundation - a snoring cat, some dramatic but calm clouds, and a soft pulsing light that almost flashes in time with Zelda's snores. There's also a single white line running through the right-most television screen. That element is a broken waveform material; I thought it would be funny to see a waveform bounce in time with the cat's snoring, but that functionality eluded me this round. I have an idea I want to attempt implementing, but no idea if it's on the right track. Time will tell. The third scene is intended to be a metatextual joke as well as practice. Critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy 14 is one of my favorite ways to decompress after work or while studying, and I wondered how well screenshots of in-game architecture and characters would work as backgrounds for MadMapper. The reality is that I'd likely be better served by Photoshop or AfterEffects, but I have to be honest: putting hands on MadMapper and playing with it's functions is the first time I've ever felt an affinity or pull towards visual art. Painting and drawing have eluded me my entire life, and while I used to be a competent draftsman, AutoCAD and Vectorworks have become very rusty tools in my belt. I'm exceptionally pleased with how the screenshot turned out, and I have much more confidence in my ability to mask and fit meshes than I did before I finished it.
Perhaps the most important technique I picked up during "Learning Through Recess was proper application of feathering. On meshes, on masks, on everything: 10-15% feathering softens edges and hard pixelated divisions without necessarily being noticeable in the whole composition. Sometimes cranking the feathering closer to 25% made an exception difference, but there definitely seems to be a sweet spot between 20 and 25% - in some of my applications, 20% wasn't enough feathering, but 23% was far too much. Similarly, variable opacity of layers became incredibly important to my workflow. I may have spent upwards of an hour adjusting, examining, readjusting, reexamining, over and over until I was satisfied. I think the best application of this is in the third scene of the composition; in the windows on the background, I layered in two meshes to simulate stormclouds visible through the rice paper windows. Finding a balance that gave the effect a pop of realism took time. After the initial application I left the effect alone while I worked on applying and masking the lightning effects across the body of the character, then returned to the windows after I'd finished that process, and finished the project much happier with them than I had been initially. I also, after working with Professor Scott's materials for the gallery, made an attempt at using another program to make some copies of the windows to layer atop the clouds; while the copies were not, perhaps, as clean as they could've been, I think they did help make the overall effect better. I've come away from the process with several new ideas for how to improve similar compositions in the future, and a pleasing proof-of-concept to hopefully offer as commissioned work in the future for fellow Final Fantasy 14 players to get unique artwork of their characters. If nothing else, it would make for a fun side-hustle.
Again, I have to be honest: I cut my teeth on Vectorworks, learning digital drafting with an emphasis on lighting and scenic design for theater. Once upon a time, I thought those were things I wanted to do. In retrospect, they were things I thought I had to do in order to succeed in my industry. Certainly they wouldn't have hurt, if I'd kept them up. But in the words of Marie Kondo, they did not spark joy and I couldn't continue to practice those techniques. This feels different. I like to think I'm a person who can put in the work, but it doesn't always come easy to me - the technique nor the drive. And certainly MadMapper hasn't been the most pick-up-and-go piece of software I've put hands on. But as an artist who's been struggling with finding a medium that feels right? I want to believe MadMapper is a tool I can master. It's certainly sparked a desire I haven't felt in a very long time.
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