Wk8 - Physical Mandelbox Arrived today!!

My Mandelbox arrived today.  It turned out extremely well.  It is better than I imagined.  The detail is really good... the teeth on the edges are very fine.  I'm happy.  I'll upload a picture later.

Wk8 - GoPro & Multi-Image Capture Test. I'm old.

I've been playing with the idea of attaching the GoPro to my body in different locations then doing the same task over and over then somehow stitch it back together and get the perspective from the different parts of the body...

I tried it this afternoon.  I'm getting too old.  I walked down the stairs and across the music school courtyard and down toward the city six times with the camera strapped to my wrists, ankles, chest and head... I decided against using footage and used time-lapse instead... in order to avoid the blur that would happen...

[insert test combination]

Kinda fail.  1) I can't think of a way to put it back together in a cohesive way, especially if I was quicker on a particular take.  2) the photos lost the impact that the blur would have given.

On the other hand though, seeing a sequence of hovering legs is very weird and interesting.

[insert leg snapshot]

Break Wk2 - GoPro, Afternoon/Night Timelapse

I reiterate that timelapse is where it's at... I'm thinking about going to Northborne and doing some there... or in a flowerbed at Floriade... Hmmm.

[insert sample afternoon timelapse]

Break Wk2 - More rendering...

I've been looking at the renders and the end of the fly-thru looks too sudden... I've decided to add 800 frames after the second last frames... actually 400 for the centre and 45 degrees, 800 for the 90 degree frames.

It took an additional 10 hours, 54mins... 

Base rendering total is now at 10 days, 8 hours...

Break Wk2 - GoPro, Morning Timelapse.

So far, this is the best use for the GoPro yet... I made it take photos every 5 seconds... it produced great imagery/footage.

[insert morning time-lapse]

Break Wk2 - Rendering 12-20 September...

I've been setting up and monitoring renders for the last 9 days in 3000 frame batches... I've done 33,000 frames now.  It has taken 9 days, 21 hours.  Multiple render failures but I finally have what I need.

Break Wk1 - Ordered White Strong and Flexible

I did it!

I couldn't help myself.  I've ordered my Hollow Mandelbox online in the White Strong and Flexible material.  It was $98.  Fingers crossed that it is worth it...

Break Wk1 - Physical Possible!?

So, after installing the Collada plug-in, I was able to export from Maya into the DAE format, which when zipped came down from 87MB to 19MB

I imported the model into the Shapeways website... Within 15mins, I knew that the model was viable and even had a price tag attached.  Here are my first three uploads:

10.5cm solid displaced model = $869.92

5.4cm hollow displaced model = $127.59

5cm solid constructed model = $98.48

Clearly, the volume has something to do with the cost but I found that with my 5cm model, that making it hollow, whether a cube or an identical replica within made no difference to the volume or the cost... this could be related to the 5cm size though... not sure.

The question is, should I buy it for nearly $100?

Break Wk1 - Spycam + Balloon = Crazy!

So... I got a tank of helium and 30 balloons from toys-r-us.  Once I figured out how it worked... it

worked a treat.

It only took 3 balloons to make the spycam boyant.


BUT...

I took it out while it was very windy... not a good plan... the footage is worse than the footage taken when the camera was around the dogs collar.  Oh well.

Might need to come up with some kind of brace to hold it in the right direction,

Break Wk1 - Mandelbulber Slices to Cube...

I was showing David the ability for Mandelbulber to only show partial cross-sections of a fractal.  He gave me the thought of mixing the displacement idea with slices, captured front-on.

In the end, it seemed that only 27 slices were needed before I had reached a solid form:

I further refined this gradient to 11 slices, removing redundant levels having only small additional details:

Depth Animation

This was still producing non-mirroring geometry thus, in photoshop, it was mirrored, flipped, etc.  The result was a near-perfect slice used to create a single cube side.

This side then had the sides chamfered off at 45 degrees.

Using some rotation, I combined and merged six copies of that side to form the best cube to date:

Break Wk1 - Renders to be calculated.

Position and render path calculations page2

Render position calculations

After the 50000 frame render test took so long...

I decided that I'd go with 9000 frames from beginning to end, doing it in 3000 frame render batches... There will be 9000 for the centre view, 45 degrees and 90 degrees respectively.

Position and render path calculations page1

Fly-thru Render Path of chosen Mandelbox

Render position calculations

Wk7 - SpyCam arrived! :D

It took a bit to figure out how it worked but it seems to work a treat.  Amazing technology these days.

Naturally, I attached it to the dog, to my dash and to my foot as I went down to get petrol.  The latter was the most interesting effect yet.

The impact of the footstep freezes movement while the other leg lifts causing an odd visual effect.  Can't wait to film more.

[Insert sample shoe footage here]

One downside though, as you can see... it puts a hard-coded timestamp on the footage!  I can change the font through firmware but I can't turn it off.  Well done China! :)

Wk7 - Photofly was a bust...

I tried twice to use Photofly to make the model.

In both instances, the path I used was a circle, rounding the top, then down around the base.

First attempt, using a black background:

The result was a relatively clear model of only two sides.

Second attempt, using a patterned background:

The second attempt produced a model with four good sides.  You can see that the path was again misinterpreted by the program.

In any case, these incomplete models couldn't be easily used to piece together a full cube.  Eventually, after a lot of trying, this method was abandoned.

Wk7 - Physical Object Concept (Autodesk Photo Scene Editor)

I was looking tonight at Autodesk Photo Scene Editor 2.1 (Autodesk Photofly)... I'm thinking that this might be a better way of producing the model of my physical object...  Just need to render out some 360 degree fly over shots...

Wk7 - GoPro + R/C @ Night = Some success. Fun.

It was a bit chilly and damp out tonight but I had a heck of a good time driving around ANY with the GoPro attached to the front of the R/C car... by the looks of it the footage in the dark is not useful but the bits under light a brilliant.  My attempt to use lego lights on the front of the car was ridiculous... it did nothing.

The car is an absolute mess.  Need bigger lights!  Not just to have light but also it almost got run over by a car near the art school on the road.  Eep.


[Insert Picture of dirty RC car]

Wk7 - Physical Object Concept (Displacement)

Custom Mandelbox

Mandelbox Face

Face without Light, shadow, etc.

Displaced across cube

Displaced across Plane

Displaced over cube on each surface.

Wk7 - GoPro + Fishbowl + Milk = Failure... again.

Another failure tonight.  Again, it's to do with the depth of field... my fish bowl is way too small to focus on anything within the bowl itself.

Worth a try though.  It would be interesting to put it in a fish tank at a pet shop... hmmm.

Wk7 - GoPro + R/C car = Awesomeness!

So, I made used one of the mounts for the GoPro and attached it to my Remote Control car.

The speed and the perspective is brilliant.  When it runs across gravel, it is awesome.  I can't be more excited by the footage being produced.  I even took it through Union court... no one really took any notice.  Odd.

Now I'm thinking... lights and night time.

Wk6 - GoPro & Glass Teapot = Fail.

I purchased a new glass teapot today.  Yippy-ky-yay!

Unfortunately, Epic Fail!

The fixed focus on the GoPro meant that the filming was really bad.  Add too that I put too much tea in and it just went black...  Live and learn.

I did like one shot I took where I pointed the camera up and was making the tea... looked good until the tea blacked it out.  Must expore this further.

Wk6 - Fly-Thru Concept

This is my customised Mandelbox... with a view to designing one that can be produced physically.

Using a -90, -45, centre, 45 and 90 degree pass, I created a test for making a setup where the viewer can place their head inside the mandelbox.

 This is the render that I did, combined using Nuke, starting from the centre of my customised Mandelbox. This is only 1350 frames but it illustrates the concept:

Wk6 - Helium Calculator

Using http://www.heliumcalculator.com/ as a reference, I believe I need between 8 and 22 balloons to lift my camera... hmmm... this might be more tricky than I expected.

Wk6 - Inter-Particle Collision - I hate Maya!

This is really starting to shit me.  I know what I want in my head but getting Maya to do it is so frustrating...  All I want is that the particles collide with each other and on the fourth collision they freeze... is that so much to ask.  Bloody hell!  Kill me now!

Wk6 - Crit with Honours - Brilliant!

Crit with the Honours students was brilliant.

It was great that the topic came about about the renders and whether they were actually mine - I'm still not entirely sure but I'm glad some were on the same page as me - in that they are not mine, including Lucien.

One particularly interesting concept was having three components of my work:

1. Mandelbox-inspired model using particles mixed with my objects.
2. Mandelbox fly-thru where the viewer places their head so that it is like they are going through it.
3. A physical version of the same fly-thru mandelbox.

Again infinitely helpful was the clarity to what my work (including past works) has been all about:

• Scale
• Texture (surface)

It's that simple.

Wk6 - Group Crit Presentation - a flop!?

I presented today at crit... it went relatively well I guess... only the lecturers were speaking... to be honest, I don't think people got what I was doing... I don't know if this is a failing on my part in regard to presenting my work.  Hmmm.