The University Clearing guide by UCA

Over the past few months me and Sam collaborated on a commission to produce a short animation for UCA's marketing campaigns for Clearing over this summer.


The film was to help students understand the important elements of the Clearing process 2013 and what you need to do if you're in Clearing this year. It was enjoyable working on this project with Samantha.

New Designers Portfolio

CGAA Summer Speedpaint Challenge: Summer Breeze

CGAA Summer Speed Paint Challenge: Flaming June

Major: Demonstration and Brief Evaluation

Strictly a 'Proof of Concept' project to demonstrate what a Kinect and two projectors can be potentially used for in a context of a Theatrical Production

I'm reciting Shakespeare's Henry V Prologue, using the Kinect to play seven separate video segments as I step on "virtual plates" on the floor.


Some quick after-thoughts:

• I should have used more time to prepare the live recital. or I should have hired an actor for the recital.
• The camera should have been positioned more to the right and focused better
• It should have been worth making and recording the second offshoot-context of the theatre concept- in which anyone can step on the plates and have the sequence play out with the appropriate narration

The final sequence (The fade to white) there was a major idea cut. This idea was that the actor reciting the prologue, steps within the screens and becomes King Henry V.



The technology was already set up. I would have been dressed in complete white so no colours from the projection would bleed.

The mask crafted would have covered the face. The 3D model of King Henry V  was also completed, rigged in Maya, and the bones were connected to the Kinect skeleton via Unity (Similar to my previous demo).



The reason for its cut was due to time constraints in fixing the problems it involved-

As the projector is calibrated to the three screens' distance, there is no "dynamic" way to adjust the projection images based on physical objects added to the projection area. Any objects moving closer to the projection distance would cause the projections to intersect.

Major: Technical Paper

Major: Art Of

Major: Demo Reel

Major: 03/05 Henry V Draft Part Two

Major: 30/04 - 02/05 Henry V Draft Part One

Major: 29/04 - Content Concept Art Part Two

Major: 29/04 - Content Concept Art Part One

Major: Update 28/04

Dissecting the script

Major: Update 22/04-27/04

Doing theatre/concert design
Taking forward my most successful past ideas - The third projection mapping test and the Pandora's Box.

More specifically, I'm doing a theatre demonstration sequence adapted from Shakespeare's Henry V

There's restrictions with unity in terms of how I can vary the visuals and the direction I'm hitting at this point.  So I'm cutting that out of the pipeline.

I'm pulling pre-rendered clips and attaching them to user interaction. It'll take away the problem of latency and will make things less complicated then it needs to be.



Fundamentals are



Dialogue Spoken by Chorus, Henry V, Prologue:

[Enter Chorus]

• Chorus. O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
  The brightest heaven of invention,
  A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
  And monarchs to behold the swelling scene! 5
  Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
  Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
  Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
  Crouch for employment. But pardon, and gentles all,
  The flat unraised spirits that have dared 10
  On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
  So great an object: can this cockpit hold
  The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
  Within this wooden O the very casques
  That did affright the air at Agincourt? 15
  O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
  Attest in little place a million;
  And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
  On your imaginary forces work.
  Suppose within the girdle of these walls 20
  Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
  Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
  The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:
  Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
  Into a thousand parts divide on man, 25
  And make imaginary puissance;
  Think when we talk of horses, that you see them
  Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
  For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
  Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times, 30
  Turning the accomplishment of many years
  Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,
  Admit me Chorus to this history;
  Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,
  Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.35

[Exit]

Seven bundles of dialogue, Seven pre-rendered sequences, Seven areas to mark.
Feedback Welcome.

Major: Update 14/04-21/04

Worked on debugging/cleaning the code:

-Researched and made efforts to have the Kinect automatically detect user position without needing to do the calibration pose
-Removed the image jitter by dampening the rotation and transform values of the user that the Kinect gives out.
-Removed the huge sway when the user rotates their body left and right and instead replaced it with the camera kept at a single rotation with only transformations happening. - Therefore when you move around the area, the proper illusion is seen.




Cleaned up my general creative pipeline/workflow for this specific project. - now smarter, faster and easier.

-Optimised the pipeline to allow easier transition from my current toolset to surface projection.
-More Portability, any demonstrations I set up can be easily manipulated to adjust the angle of projection.



Currently need to: Finish Reading up on the history of Trompe L'Oeil some more.
Finish Reading up on the DLSR low-light recording functions properly.
Sort out delay in image
Finish experimenting with animating textures to models

Major: Update 29/03 - 14/04

Initial Demo (very rough)





Demonstrations over the period last week. 8th-14th

Trompe L'oeil


Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten's View of a Corridor, 1662



Visualiser - ALL-DYNAMIC RENDER


Visualiser - ALL-COMPOSITED RENDER



Visualiser - Visualiser Visuals

Major: Old Concept Ideas

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Major: Update 14/03 - 29/03

It's been a very very enduring few weeks but everything's slowly coming together.

I've been in contact with multiple people regarding various things, most of all space to work in, but also other issue regarding Hardware, Software, Cables, Materials... Most of the time has been diverted to getting the frame up, as well as passively but constantly think about the final concept.

In the meantime, some progress shots:

Initial Area - around 2.2' x 1.2'

Initial Area - Mapped

Concept of how it will look

Getting the materials and frame up. and calculating the angles, projection distance, size of projection.

It's loose, so will need to tight-fit the material over the frames

Stitching the material over the frames

It's up! - The material still needs to be taut further over the frames to remove the creases.

The left frame has been taut, creases are more obvious on white

Getting closer. The two large white boards on the floor is the Initial Area's Planes

during getting the frames up I experimented with lining paper... a lot of lining paper. I've got some 4' wide paper ordered as a backup in case of any material tearing

Almost finished. Fine tuning to go- but the area's creases are not shown when projection is up, 

The box at the bottom is also the first intractable "Box of Curiosities"- Made of wood and canvas

The middle frame also needs to be taut - the creases interfere with the joining of both projector edges, so I'm going to grab some Velcro to tighten and obscure the frames on its sides.

Fantastically, it's as portable as it gets. The frames can be dismantled easily for transport and reassembled again without hassle. and the projectors are simply a case of measurements for correcting the angle and projection throw distance as well as the Kinect project code.


But, there's still a lot of work to go - concept is my biggest priority at this stage. I'm aiming to put out a video demonstration of the area and how it can be interacted with in the next couple of days.

CGAA/ACT Live Commission: All Days

CGAA/ACT Live Commission: Day Ten

Day Ten



Speed painting interpreting a piece of classical music.
More info Here

CGAA/ACT Live Commission: Day Nine

Day Nine



Speed painting interpreting a piece of classical music.
More info Here

CGAA/ACT Live Commission: Day Eight

Day Eight



Speed painting interpreting a piece of classical music.
More info Here

Major: Hardware Update

This is a technical post to document and update my findings in the hardware specifications of my project.



The two projectors will be mounted using professional tripods, angled down to the area. I've only tried one so far and it's a pretty straightforward setup. There are minor issues with cable length and triple-input that will need to be sorted out.




I've loaned out a video camera for recording my progress, although I regard the quality not good enough for submission, (I'd preferably like to have the set up on campus as the submission, but via recording is my failsafe), I'm hoping to get that issue sorted tomorrow.





The canvas area (i.e the area I'm projecting on) is divided into three boards, with the dimensions of 4ft x 7ft. I'm constructing it in the way that will be large enough to stand in- surroundings ones peripheral vision, but also light enough to be a portable set.





My current set- which are 3x canvas (Canvas material stretched over four pieces of wood) are not suitable in regards to size and portability, I'll be trying to instead use an alternative method - three sets of stretched cloth as projection screens, and using plastic piping attached to 90° elbows for the frames. This way when I need to transport it, I can pull apart the piping and roll up the cloth.
Tomorrow will be dedicated to setting that up and seeing how it goes.





With the room, I've determined that with the hardware I'm using, I'll need a room with the approximations of at least 6ft x 8ft x 16ft. I emphasise the approximation of 16ft as I wasn't able to get a room big enough for length just yet- The projector not far enough to give a large enough projection image on the wall.




I'll be checking out the studios on UCA's Maidstone Campus on Thursday to see if their suitable, otherwise ill look into other local areas on Friday.