Final Project Done!

Well the day has come and our final projects are due. After a few weeks of working on this I can actually say I am very glad, this project was a little stressful. I created bouncy balls in an inclosed enviroment. I placed mirrors in the box I created to mulitiply the bouncy balls. I created each ball seperate and made it bounce everytime it hit the sides of the box. It was very time consuming but I am happy with the results. This project turned out the way I planed and I am very proud of it.

Cheats For Blender!

I found this image that has all the shortcut keys for blender which really was able to help me out. Check it out!

www.blender.org/index.php/Reference/Hotkey_map

Check out this video

While we were watching the video in class today, I thought of this commercial...

this is cool

the music video for Gantz Graf

Final Project!!!

Yay! We are finally at our final project! But it is going to be just as stressful as the other projects if not more for some people. I have an idea in my mind but everyday I question myself about doing the legos again. Now that we have until Dec. 5 ( I know theres time) but I kind of want to do something alittle different. I will experiment with my different ideas over the next few days and see which is easier and what I like.

Here's another one

Random blender movie found on Youtube

So, how do we make objects interact with other objects like this? The cube deforms when it hits the surface.

Matthew Fuller Reading

I think it is amazing what Gordon Matta-Clark did to the split house. I can't imagine organizing something like that will all of those mathmatical equations. Blender would be such a helpful tool for that kind of art! I like what Alicia said about the Amtrack because I think it is a perfect comparision to what Matta-Clark was doing. That reminded me of something I saw on tv the other day, although it is not really industrial and is very old. The Hellfire Caves in Buckinhamshire is a cool place with lots of windy tunnels and such. It kinda relates to the stations he was talking about in the reading. It is so interesting because the Hellfire Caves were dug hundreds of years ago. They are an artwork of the 1700s.

matthew fuller

One concept that struck my interest early on in the Matthew Fuller reading concerns Gordon Matta-Clark's "Substrait" film, which discusses underground metropolitan spaces and structures. I just visited Chicago this past weekend and took the Amtrak. What startled me about the Amtrak service, and the train station in general, was that the train drops you off practically in the middle of the depot, not in some fancy waiting area. I had to trudge a good quarter mile through the cavernous, dirty, cement and steel laiden underground station to get to the door that led to the fancy waiting area. This journey really opened my eyes to another world of the city.

Interesting to me is that often in large metro areas, two entirely distinct yet connected cities seem to exist - one above ground and one below. They change and transform depending upon one another's needs. A structure that is fixed above ground surely has a counterpart below it, whether it be a basement,sewage tunnel, electrical wiring or a subway.

It almost seems to touch on the idea of different dimensions (the above ground and the below) in an easy to grasp way.

Blender could potentially be a great program to illustrate these ideas of the above and below. Thank you Gordon Matta-Clark!

Gordon Matta-Clark

In one of Matta-Clark's works, "Reality Properties", he bought fifteen small, unused sections of land that were left over in property deals or poorly drawn architectural plans. Anything from a section of sidewalk, a part of someone's driveway, curbs and gutters were purchased. Much like his bisection of a house, he wanted to create severed structures and activate the unused areas by the manipulation of rule-based systems to achieve a different, un-intended end (to give the new, transformed structures meaning)

Matthew Fuller Reading

Gordon was an artist who trained as an architect and in this reading it talks about his works and what effect it has. Gordon really uses a split between art and architecture within his work.
In his 1974, Splitting, he uses change and transformation to show his effect. He started with a simple house of detached wood and bisected the home. By cutting through the walls and the floors. he also involved mathematical equations into the mix by knocking the foundation away at a five degree angle. His work was very precise.
I see how he did it and I'm not really sure why. I understand that it was about taking something whole and cutting it into two half's shows the special effects of the time and distance and that he is an artist that works with architecture. But to go through this much work to make a point is fascinating.

Morphing Project

"Morphing: is a special effect in motion pictures and animations that changes (or morphs) one image into another through a seamless transition."

I am trying to come up with project ideas. The main idea I am leaning toward is morphing a simple shape into something else. Like a square morphing into a desgin. I want to keep it simple due to the fact that we have a week to work on this project.
We will see what I come up with.

Here's what I learned today.

O.k. I was excited about it so I thought I should post...

In case you wanted to know how I did it...

• First I created a bezier curve for the "spine" of this tendril thingy
• Then I created a bezier circle for the cross-section of it
• Then I typed in the name of said bezier circle in the box labled "BevOb:" in the "Curve and Surface" part of the edit menu. However, that just made a tube and I wanted it tapered. So...
• I created another bezier curve ( and named it taper) to tell it what kind of profile I wanted the extrusion to have.
• And typed the name of said curve in the box labeled "Taper Ob:" (just below the BevOb: box)
• And voila! One curvy tendil thingy.

O.k. well two, but that's only because I duplicated it...

Malissa

metropolis movie (1927)

I did some research on this movie (1927), and although I have not actually seen it yet, the art is WAY inspiring. Just the whole of "gothic skyscrapers" is enticing, the mixing of old and new archetecture in this way is very odd and unsettling....like the black plague mixed with towering, congested cities. I MUST check out this movie.

I have high hopes for a blender idea to emerge from this.

-alicia

Blender Examples

I found this website of examples of work from blender. It has some really cool examples. So to all of you that were as frustrated as me, it is possible!

http://www.centralsource.com/blenderart/

Add A Post

I thought I would add a post here because my name was not listed on the side and I have a blog! Great job on the first two assignments everyone!

Lego Artist

I thought I would post this here as well.

While browsing the internet, I came across this lego artist that is truly amazing! Some of his creations are so complex, it would hurt my brian to try and figure out how to even start with them. His name is Nathan Sawaya, and you should check out his site.
http://www.brickartist.com/

First Post and Invitation

This blog supports the activities of the Advanced Topics in Digital Art course at the University of Toledo, Center for the Visual Arts. Class members are invited to post updates and pictures concernng their work-in-progress; thoughts and opionions on the reading; helpful tips on the use of the modeling/animation software, Blender; links to other 3D artists of interest; or anything related else to 3D art and space.