Hands On

Starting with a compositional layout of my Humaterial (Fingers-as-Keys) as shown below

it is time to grab the pencils and brushes to get Hands On!

... while you play us a tune ;o)

Here is the left hand, painted by myself with water-paint on paper (A4 size - landscape). The fingers are still in a 'flat' position.



Next is the right hand, also painted by myself with water-paint on paper (A4 size - landscape). The fingers are still in a 'flat' position.



...
I am currently working on both hands with bended fingers, where the left hand is at a distance (other side of the piano) hence smaller. Instead of going to small, I plan to make the whole painting BIG, much more fun to look at and more detail ;o)

"Plans are useless, but the act of planning is invaluable." - Napoleon Bonaparte, Emporer of France (crowned by himself! in 1805)

3D in the Kitchen

December 5, 2005 - Student Wins National Award using Anim8or


Jamie Castle a former student at the Royal High School in Edinburgh won first prize in a national competition to find the best ‘3D environment’ created as part of the Advanced Higher Graphics course, offered by schools in Scotland.

"Jamie was competing with work produced in professional level software packages," reported Jim Black, his teacher. "Delegates to the TTA conference were surprised to learn that Jamie had used a piece of free software." See the Anim8or website at http://www.anim8or.com

There’s currently an item about it on the 'competitions' page of their web site.

His work titled 'Jungle Rocks' is shown here.



"Jungle Rocks"

Jamie made this kitchen scene for a high school class at Royal High in Edinburgh, Scotland. His drawing depicts a cereal box and a flamingo ‘mascot’ in a kitchen environment, created for an imaginary breakfast cereal ‘product launch’. The reflections have been faked by making the wall tiles partially transparent and adding additional models behind. The tiles have been produced by applying a bump map to the flat tile painting. The graphics on the box were done with the help of UV Mapper. Jamie created everything except the electric socket.

Jamie is but one student of Jim Black's computer graphics classes there. There are many other wonderful images and models on their web site. Check it out! And don't miss the "Environments" link. You might find a new favorite breakfast cereal there!

Visit the Class Page

In November 2005 Jamie was awarded first place in a national competition to find the best 3D computer generated 'environment' in Advanced Higher Graphics. The work was created in a freeware software programme called 'Anim8or', a 'surface' modeller. The CDT Department received a copy of Autocad Inventor software, valued at £100-. We also submitted Jamie's environment to the 'Anim8or' web site and Steven Glanville (the software engineer who wrote the software) has featured it in Gallery No. 14. Jamie's 'bump mapped' tiles turned out particularly well. The tiles are in fact a flat 'painting' that gives the illusion of depth.

Co-Author: "Jamie Castle"

Playing with Keys

At the set-out of today's practise I am actually going to draw a Humaterial !

First, I will share with you what the drawing is about.

On my iComposer (see Image Composer) I have two images; one Material (a piano key) and a Human finger.

iComposer with Material (key) and Human (finger)

The BIG Question Mark is... what is the in-between of these two images; what is the Humaterial?

To find a satisfactory, no staggering (!), answer to this question we will investigate both images in turn, starting with the Material.

A piano key is a Solid (a 3 Dimensional object).


A Solid

To simplify our research I start with a box, instead of a piano key to look at its characteristics.

		Side view
		Top views
		All different shadows

As you can see the drawings, pictures, and models (I created in Blender) look at different angles of a box. Notice how the shadow informs us how the box is positioned in relation to the light source. Color for now is not important, I concentrate on Shape.

Next is the Human finger...

Conveniently, the human finger is a Solid too. It has bones inside, that make it bend. It comes to mind that a piano key bends also...!

Finger with bones inside

Before daring to draw a finger, I looked at my own fingers through my iSight camera (in nightvision) and this is how they look:






Wooow.. not only do keys 'bend' like fingers, they also come in series!

Keys

Now I know what I will strive for. I will align the bending joint of the fingers to the keys and 'smooth' the transition from finger to key - from Human to Material.

... continued on my weblog entry Hands On.