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.

Wk6 - Bit the Bullet... GoPro!!!

The spycam still hasn't arrived.  Grrr...

So... today I bit the bullet and purchased a GoPro today on my way to work.

Since the base unit was 340... I kinda walked away spending something like $700... woops.

It's awesome though!

GoPro Hero Motorsport Pack

So far, I've only shot bits of the lab and taken it to union court... filmed an interesting thing... the shaddow under the railing so that the shadows of people walk along the wall... I like this... might need to film more of it.

Wk5 - Mandelbox Render (3,800 HD frames, 24 days)

I've been rendering out a version of the Mandelbox in HD since I got Mandelbulber.

 It's been essentially rendering from 4/8 - 28/8...

Here are the 3,800 frames thus far:

Wk5 - Centre-Thru Render B&W

Just testing another idea for displacement maps...

Wk5 - Fly Thru for Displacement Maps

In an effort to generate nice displacement maps, I decided to do a fly-thru from the corner of a black and white mandelbox...



Textures I've played with so far:

Using the particle system, I can see that using such images will work nicely in creating some textured surfaces:

Wk5 - Brilliant Day of Meetings

Yesterday and today have been the best days yet.

It started with the meeting with Kit regarding particles, which was great but it didn't seem too applicable considering the direction I was taking with my "mandelbox-inspired" manually constructed model BUT...

Today I met/chatted with three people which helped me immensely:

1. Martyn - This was great, he helped me see that the work was about the fly-through, about technology and the awe you get.  He also suggested I look at David Haines & Joyce Hinterding's "The Outlands" and "Neo Baroque Aesthetics & Contemporary Entertainment" by Angela Nol.
2. Jack - This chat was invaluable - he made me realise that if I combine my objects with a particle system like Kit has shown me, I may be able to somewhat-generate an environment for my fly-through.
3. Lucien - Using particle generation from an object seems to give a certain amount of order in the randomness... that combined with Displacement and using Level of Detail might just give me what I want.  Mirrors are bad. :)

I have a renewed enthusiasm today.

Wk5 - Spy Cams look cool

So, I've been talking about attaching cameras to things and to do this, I need a small camera and a GoPro looks expensive... for $40, I'm going with a gamble.

This is the one I got... 2MP, MicroSD (with 8GB card) and Lithium rechargable battery!  Amazing.  If it only lasts one fall from a carpark... Win! :-D

Wk4 - Will the pieces come together?

So, using the objects I've created thus far, I've attempted to see what I could construct with them as building blocks... as a proof on concept for the creation of my model/environment.  This is what I've got so far...

I'm thinking at this stage that repetition is important... who knows...

Add caption

Add caption

Add caption

Add caption

Add caption

Wk4 - Maya Learning Curve

So, I've been creating shapes for my manually created object/environment:

My idea is that this will look like it is
 taking in the mist.

The arch is featured a lot within the Mandelbox.

This animates up and down whilst spinning.

I do have a few Maya topics/questions now:

• Camera angle/focal length

• Texture of surfaces

• How to fix a shape, eg. my platform.

• Mist/Fog generation

• Mirrored surface to create infinity?

• Can you have simple animation without keyframes?

Wk4 - Been sick but taking my spoonful of concrete

I've been sick for the past week with the Flu...

I've rescheduled my meeting with Kit for next week.  In any case, I also have a theory presentation to prepare.

In any case, no progress to report for the last week but determined to overcome the lack this week.

Wk3 - Exporing on my own. Lens Flare!

Last week was so frustrating going around in a group so today was brilliant.

The footage I got was so-so but I really enjoyed the afternoon wandering around obtaining it.  I'm so glad I had the opportunity to go out on my own.

My favourite shot was from within a plant next to an external air conditioner... the lens flare amongst the moving leaves was brilliant.  Need more of that.

[INSERT VIDEO SAMPLE]

Wk2 - Maya Crash Course... Booleans are cool!

So, I had a bit of a crash course this afternoon with Kit regarding Maya and in particular Booleans.  Very nice.

The couple of shapes I've picked out for my constructed model/environment will need such ideas and using one object as a cookie-cutter, so to speak, will make it infinitely more helpful.

Here I'm trying to recreate the basics of a shape that appears in my first render:

On a side note: Kit showed me particles too but we're gonna have a followup lesson on those later.  I really shouldn't have dropped Maya after first year.  :-o

Wk2 - A reply from my new hero

So, it turns out that the reason I can't find a script to create a Mandelbox is because it can't be done.  Check out Duncan Brinsmead's response:

Hi Terrence,

You likely saw a presentation where I showed some mandelbox and mandelbulb renderings. I used a mel expression to create a mandelbrot texture but the 3d stuff was done by coding a custom texture for a Maya fluid node, which is not possible for users. However there is an excellent program for exploring the 3D mandelbox interactively here(source included):
http://www.ms.mff.cuni.cz/~kadlj3am/big/boxplorer/
Also www.fractalforums.com has lots of info on generating these structures.

I don’t think you will have much luck generating a mandelbox with a mel script… it is too much geometry. Not only is it too much geometry for a script, but too much to keep all in memory at once. The more typical way of doing it is through a volume render, which is what I did. I compiled in custom code in my local build of Maya, something users can’t do… and the fluid rendering does not have an open enough api to use for this currently. Basically as the ray is marching forward one evaluates the mandelbox  function at points to determine if they are in or out as well as what the color is. At no point are there any triangles.

At any rate I would post your questions on fractalforums.com. If anyone knows of good resources for this these folks will.

Duncan

Unfortunately, Boxplorer doesn't seem to work anymore but I still can't believe he even replied.  I'm soooo glad he did though.  Now I know for sure that it isn't possible in Maya.

But!  Doesn't mean I can't make something that is inspired by the Mandelbox...  Never give up, never surrender! :)

Wk2 - Mandelbulber & Other Cool 3D Fractals

Add caption

Modified Mandelbulb 1

Add caption

Add caption

Wk2 - Red Stop Sign & the 80mm lens of evil.

Today was an interesting exercise for Riley's class... it was difficult running around with two other people when there is one camera... it was disjoined and far from relaxed and everyone had different ways of approaching it... the guy wanted to be more arty and needed a narative.  The girl was good but she dismissed her own suggestions.  After all that, the only thing that was kinda interesting was the red stop sign.

On a side note, some days I hate the 80mm lens, other days, not so much... actually no, I hate it.

Wk2 - Wherefore art thou Mandelbox Script?

I really am having no luck in finding script for a Mandelbox... I'm kinda losing hope.  Other than a few very old programs that can generate a Mandelbox (including some that once worked), I'm coming up empty, particularly on the Maya front.

I've even joined Fractal Forums in the hopes that they might know something... it's taking ages for them to accept my registration though...

On the off chance, I've decided to send the following e-mail to Duncan Brinsmead to see if he can assist:

Hi Duncan,

My name is Terrence Craig, you don't know me.  On the off chance, I was wondering whether you might have some script for the Mandelbox or Mandelbulb for Maya that you could share with me.  For once the internet is failing me.

Just for some background, I'm a third year student doing Digital Media at the Australian National University.  A lecturer of mine (Kit Devine) showed me your Mandelbrot presentation.  I found it very inspiring, particularly when you went into the 3D world of the Mandelbulb and the Mandelbox.

I'm hoping to make such an object for my major project this semester, tweaking the code so that it becomes somewhat unique then add atmosphere, etc and do a fly-through.  I find myself very disappointed though that I cannot find any scripts on the net that will generate such an object.  I can see that there are specialised programs for Windows but I'd prefer to use Maya, on a mac, due to the power and control it would provide.

My background is in programming but my experience with Maya is quite limited to date because my art works haven't required it  I'm not scared of MEL or Python though.

If you could assist in any way, possibly even pointing me to a resource to find such a script to generate those 3D shapes, I'd be extremely appreciative.

Thanks for any assistance you can provide.

Regards, Terrence.

Wk1 - Fractals, Maths & Music

I'm not having much luck in regard to finding some script to create a Mandelbox in Maya... I haven't given up hope yet though.

In any case, we had our first DMM3 Meeting today.  We pitched our ideas.  Of course, now I feel like I've started down the Mandelbox track...  Alistair mentioned Michael Barnsley and Kit mentioned Tim Brook - Mathematics/Fractal Art.  Alistair also mentioned the Lindenmayer System (L-System on Wiki and Wolfram Mathworld)

Another thing that was mentioned was Fractal Compression and the failure of Fractal-based Music.  I wonder whether there is possibility of using such "music" as accompanying audio?

Update:
I went to Hancock Library and got a few books out by Michael Barnsley (Michael.Barnsley@anu.edu.au or mbarnsley@aol.com): "Fractals Everywhere", "Superfractals" and "Fractals in Multimedia".  His site, www.superfractals.com is also very interesting.

Wk1 - Mandelbox Test Render

Ever since watching Duncan Brinsmead's video, I've been fascinated by the Mandelbrot Set, and the subsequent Mandelbulb and the newest Mandelbox.

I found a very old program called Mandelbulber...  I rendered out something simple... not bad really...

For Reference:

1979 Mandelbrot Set (Benoît Mandelbrot) - zn+1 = zn2 + c

2007 Mandelbulb (Daniel White and Paul Nylander) - See The Unravelling of the Real 3D Mandelbulb for details.


2010 Mandelbox (Tom Lowe) See What is a Mandelbox for more detail, particularly the gallery.

Wk1 - Ideas for this semester

I thought I was very clear about what I wanted to do but as of today I don't know.  A friend of mine thought it might help if I outline the various ideas I had for this semester thus here they are:

• Animated GIFs - I like the ones with tension
• Light Bulb
• Smash TV
• Abstract video with a base of mundane/potentially bad, grainy footage processing it to the point of non-resemblance.  Using a combination of Nuke and FCP.
• Something programmatic - Porcessing or Maya -> shapes/fractals -> Mandelbrot set.
• I'd have to learn both, maybe too late in the degre to do this with the tools I don't understand.  What about Nuke though?
• Continue analysing things close up using actual video
• Video Animation -> Morph train to pieces to Bird.
• Koyanastazi for Canberra.

Wk1 - The lift door opens...

So, I spent the afternoon shooting inside the lift in the Music School building with another dude from the comp class.  It's ok footage but 1) it's yellow; and, 2) the lift has one door.  On the plus side, the fan was interesting to film.  Pfft.

Wk1 - Video Complementary 2

Day 1 of my last semester of Uni.

It was alright. Played with the 5D this afternoon. Mostly footage of the lift within the Music building.

I'm not really wanting to be here this semester.  I kinda want a semester off to be honest. But maybe once I stop doing full-time work as well I'll feel differently.  Here's hoping.

In any case, digital video with Riley should be good.  I'm still deciding whether I want to go with my original idea or not but I'm sure that will materialise as time progresses.

Options at this stage:

1. Video experimentation based on highly processed video footage to the point of non-resemblance.
2. Processed video (as above) mixed with experimental projection within Maya
3. Processing - Or at least something programmatic.
4. Animated GIFs - something I've been fascinated with and something I've been blogging under inspiration for a while. 

What am I going to do this semester?

So I got the camera out today... just thought I'd just shoot some stuff in preparation for the semester.  I got some footage of some porriage and out my window... I wasn't feeling inspired.  Oh well, another time.

Game of Thrones Opening Sequence

So, I started watching Game of Thrones tonight, up to episode 5 now and I can't get over how much I enjoy the opening title sequence.  Enjoy!

Complementary Video & Assessment.

So, after much heartache at the library computers and on my aging mac mini at home, I produced the following video for assessment today in my Video Complementary 1 class.

At the end, I was quite proud to show this one... it is probably my best work for the semester, in my opinion.  I guess my marks will be the proof of that.

Assessment was handled by Riley, Kit and Katie.  A nice, friendly bunch.  It think it went well.

My take on the feedback was that it was a polished piece (Riley), they liked obscurity of the object particularly when it seemed to breathe (both Kit and Katie were left guessing - thought it was skin and some other think like that) and they felt that the concept of exploring textures was valid and strong (Kit) and that maybe I should have used some of the surfaces from the earlier shoots, eg. ceramics (Riley).

It was nice to see Katie again.

I think I'll extended the ending... yes, that will work...

So, I've been thinking about the feedback from today...

I have an idea to fix it...  In the first instance, I'm gonna extend the ending to include product placement...   I'll post an updated version soon.

Major Assessment Over! Comments/Notes from VIVA

Had assessment today.

It was disappointing that I didn't get to show the lego winch I brought along or the prior Wii ad for reference for the other two but I think review went relatively well.  I felt much more confident after Chris's comment about it being mostly there... I needed the boost.

In any case, it was an hour ago now so it's difficult to remember everything that was said but my recollections are as follows:

Chris - It's mostly there, drops the ball at the end.  Need to see the product I'm selling.  Keep going hard at it, keep doing them.  Get it down.  Watch more ads, eg. watched video clips for a year.  I want a number of these by the end.

Kit - It felt like the 15sec version of the 30sec ad. I needed to go through the failures to learn (eg. long slow shots meant nothing at speed). Watch all the Nintendo ads.  Entry level work is usually doing roto.  Check out 'Motion Graphics Designer Showreel' to watch other people's work.  Be up on AE.  AE is used in commercial work, Nuke in Film - keep that in mind - it is only technology.  Organised to meet with Kit 10am Friday to discuss direction for next semester.

Alistair - Sound needs more base.  Get the ideas down before next semester starts so that I hit the ground running.  I'll e-mail him to organise to meet with him in two weeks to discuss next semester's direction.

Lucien - [ How embarrassing, I can't even remember his points. :-/ ]

Wii Ad 'All Play' - Render for VIVA

I've decided this is the render I'll use for VIVA tomorrow.

On a side note, why doesn't my Final Cut 7.03 at home have the Bloom video effect?  Very annoying... it seems the computers at Uni don't have the font that Nintendo uses while at home I do, yet at home I don't have the effect.  Jeez.

Inspiration June 8

courtesy of zzap

courtesy of zzap

Inspiration June 7

courtesy of zzap

courtesy of zzap

courtesy of zzap

courtesy of zzap

courtesy of zzap

courtesy of zzap

courtesy of zzap