About depression and my del.icio.us link

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

For those of you who noticed the odd del.icio.us link I put up recently... Kudos! It stands out like a sore frostbitten thumb in a sea of scrumptious glazed raised twist donuts (I'm a donut fan). So why did I put a post about depression in a art blog. Well you might have noticed the infrequency of some of my posts. And for those of you that know me, you would also know about my lack of progress in my project. Personally, I found her description of her situation surprisingly familiar to mine.

• "Sunday I slept all day, and it wasn't enough. Monday I went to work, but had to come home and go back to bed and sleep for many hours more, and it wasn't enough. Today I woke up, felt too exhausted, and called in sick so I could sleep until just a few minutes ago. It's still not enough. I'm not consciously trying to make the world go away, but that's the result."

I've actually been having pretty much that same problem. I just couldn't (more precisely can't) deal with my work. For the past few weeks every time I sat in from of the computer to start working on my project, my vision would blur, I wasn't able to concentrate, my stress would kick in into overdrive, and I just couldn't start working. Then when it came to sleeping I always had plans of sleeping for a while then waking up early to do some work either for the project or for one of my other classes. But not even having 2 alarm next to my ear and the lights turned on, would stop me from sleeping. I would just hit the snooze button for 2 or 3 hours, maybe be late for work, and then be grumpy for the rest of the day because I didn't wake up as I had panned. And like she says at the end of the quote: "I'm not consciously trying to make the world go away, but that's the result." For me, I'm not trying to make my work go away either, but when I don't want to wake up in the morning that what it feels like .

How do I model?

Monday, February 25, 2008

Hello, I'm finally back in business. My last few posts have not been project based, and this one's not going to be different. The reason for this? Well, firstly, there is the issue that there has not been much progress made, mainly due to a combination of senioritis, depression, and stress. I really don't want to bore you with details and ranting about my deficiencies as to why I am not working as hard as I should. It's just happening and I need to get over it.

Do you remember that post from February 16th??? I do. And I remember that I needed to explain how I modeled my objects. Well I'll give you the basic rundown of the overall process. Hopefully no one will get lost. To create my models I generally use a cube inside a hypernurb and mold and extrude the shape I want out of that. Ok, let me explain how a hypernurb works, because i hope you already know what a cube, extrude, and mold mean. A hypernurb takes a shape (in most of my cases a cube) and smothes the edges of the object.


The object on the left is in a hypernurb the one on the right is not.

I you look at the box that says objects, you can see the first cube is in a way inside the hypernurb. This tells you that this object is affected by the parent object (the hypernurb). The other cube object (the one on the right) is actually the same one as the left one only this one is not placed on the hypernurb. The reason I prefer working with these specific tools is that they let me create a single object that can be the animated with less trouble.

Artist statement

Blue. Red. Green. Three colors we are all familiar with. Not only are we familiar with them but also we are familiar with what they may represent:

Blue – The sky, the sea, sadness, coldness.
Red – Fire, blood, warmth, passion.
Green – Nature, money, envy, hope.

As I grew up, I knew these meanings, but because the political parties back home in Puerto Rico used these colors to represent themselves, whenever I see the colors blue, red, and green next to each other I also think of politics. Personally, I find situations such as this one fascinating because it means that the way someone interprets the meaning of an object or image depends on their own experiences. It is as though the object changes depending on who is watching it. To me these three colors represent politics, fanaticism, insults and mudslinging. On the other hand if I didn’t have these experiences I would simply relate this combination of colors to color theory or television.

So I have dedicated my art to trying to understand this situation of multiple meanings behind an object, image or idea. For example, one of the concepts I have worked with is how our sense of identity is formed and what shapes it. I believe that as our identity or personality changes parts of them are in conflict with each other in a push and pull for dominance or balance. This struggle makes it difficult for an individual to explain who he/she really is. I dealt with this issue more clearly in my “Dos en Uno” video. The video deals with the idea of duality in my personality through the use of objects such as food, seasonings, books, etc. that act like symbols of the parts of my personality that are in conflict. Each object is paired with another one of a similar type (salt with adobo, art theory books with art manuals, etc.) and the movement between each object on the image would represent the coming and going between the two sides of my personality.

To me one of the most important aspects of art is the transmission of a concept to a viewer. However having to deal with this situation that a single image can have several meanings depending on who the viewer is makes the process of transmitting my idea much more complex. Because of this problem present in conveying a message I believe that I should use my art to instruct the viewer about how we perceive things. One of the things I do in my videos is to bring to the forefront aspects of their lives that people wouldn’t normally notice. For example the topic of my video “Details” is to present the sensation that when we are surrounded by an excess of information we lose sight of the details. The video consisted of showing a song and a piece of ice on the floor and as the view changes to a higher angle (where one should see more) the sound becomes more cacophonous and the image becomes overwhelmed by a stream of abstract geometric objects until the viewer can’t see or hear anything. By the end, the scene returns to the detail shot and the song all in focus.

I want my artwork to show people that our identity is fashioned of different aspects whose meanings change depending from which perspective we see them. I want my art to show that when it down comes to the images we see, their meaning go beyond what we can interpret from our own experiences. I want to let people grasp what they take no notice of.

Emergency post! I'm a one/two-eyed man

Monday, February 18, 2008

Its kinda funny how you get teased as a little boy as four-eyes when you wear glasses. But if you think about it the math doesn't work well here. You would think that if you lost one eye you would have three to replace them not two. And that if you lost two you would still be able to use the other two. Right?

Well, apparently I abused my glasses so much that they decided to break and leave my with one less eye to use. But like I said the math here is different. If the four-eyed man loses one of his eyes, he loses two. So now I am back to being a two-eyed man.


The two-eyed man.

Actually its funny how they broke. Apparently instead of placing them on the table or nightstand they fell between the bed and my makeshift footboard, and (at least I'm guessing this is what happened) this must have weakened the frame. I say weakened, not broken, because when I found them they were all right. That is until a few hours later when the the frame that holds the lens in place just snaps in two, letting my lens fall to the floor.

I know... I know... Dreadful and I just know you are all asking yourself the same things as I. How will the poor artist keep going with just two of his eyes instead of four? Aren't the visual arts, visual? Won't the artist be impeded by this impediment? Well... I hope not. Hopefully, I'll be able to make new ones tomorrow and thankfully I still have the old lenses back at my place. So, the two-eyed man will become four-eyed soon enough and work will keep on going. This will not stop the artist on his endeavor to finish his video-installation about the symbolism of a Buddhist stupa. The only thing it will do is give an incredibly bad headache, less money, less time to work on work (study/art projects) and a funny story to tell.

How to 3D model according to me

Saturday, February 16, 2008

After the interest from people as to how the model I think I'll dedicate a few of my posts to explaining how I made few of my models. Lets start by doing a short and sweet explanation of 3D modeling. No technical stuff here, just the bare bones of what a 3D model is.

First how many of you know what a CG/3D model is? No one, what a shame. Well a good way to describing what a 3D model is, (at least for me) is to compare them to ceramics. To create a ceramic vase or figure you need some raw material to work with, namely clay. Then with a set of tools you shape this material, into a specific form. Well in 3d modeling the process is rather similar. The way the program works is that it acts like a digital sculpture room, or a digital/algorithmic potter's wheel. In the program your objective then is to create a three dimensional object that is made out of digital stuff (1's and 0's) instead of being composed of real stuff (atoms). As a side note, there are companies out there with printers that take these digital objects and make them into real life objects, called rapid prototypes, so the idea that the 3D model is simply digital or "not real" is a complex one. And just like in ceramics where you can create a vase by either hand building it by using coils or making it in a potter's wheel, the options of creating a specific object in 3D modeling software varies in technique and complexity.

Lets introduce you now to what this software looks like:


Cinema 4d. 3d modeling/animating software.

Now of this is a "digital sculpture room" like I said before there are a few things that have to be present. The first one is the room itself where the sculpture is present. This are the four squares (viewports) at the center of the image. Each square gives a different viewpoint of the "digital room" and lets the artist look around the space and the object like they would in real life (imagine the modeler/animator as a mechanic that needs to look underneath a car to fix it).


The Digital room. The place where the work gets done.

Another thing that seems missing from the "digital sculpture room" is the artist. Well the artist is outside the image, sitting on a chair, but this obviously doesn't stop him/her from manipulating or getting hands on with the objects you see on the four squares. For this they employ the tools that you see on the toolbars (yeah I'm referring to those icons or images you see) to the top and the left. Some of the things here act like hands that let you move things around, others let you stretch or shape the object in different ways, and others even let you add more materials to the scene (like a ceramicist that realizes that they need more clay).


The toolbars... I know of at least 4 ways of accessing each function the images represents

To the right you see a box that says "Objects" and has a list object underneath. Well any responsible artist has a list of their material they are using so here's your digital one. And underneath that you see a box that says "Attributes". Well this space tells you some details of what object you have selected, like the position of the object, its size, etc.



Lets recap. By now I've covered where the objects are, where the artist is, where their tools are and where they get information about their objects. And I still haven't even told you how you would do the actual work! Amazing! Well lets talk more about that some other time. Right now I need some domestic iussues to take care of (did you know that if you don't eat you get hungry and can't work as effectively? Well I keep forgetting that).

Second model

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Here we have a few images from my second model.



This model is the one representing the Sanchi style of stupas.



And here's a detail shot of the top of the structure. A more substantial post (and maybe a rant) will come later on tonight.

Tibetan stupa flyby

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Click to Play

This is a flyby of a computer model of a Tibetan stupa.

Storyboards, Models, Videos: it's all interesting

Well I'll say! That story board video is taking its time! The reason is that I have to fix each image so that it looks well on the video (yeah, yeah, I know people may say that I suck at drawing but that's really not the point here). So that's coming slowly.

But, I did start my work on the models of the three stupas I'm using on the video. I've already uploaded on Flickr two images of the first stupa I started working on.



This is the first render I made of the model of the Tibetan stupa. The reason it looks black and white is because it doesn't have any texture (or colored light for that matter). I find this image useful because it lets me see the lighting on it more easily. The lighting scheme is a three point lighting scene, with a main light on the front left (your left), a spot light on the back for highlights, and a filler light on the right.



This is the second render of the model. This one has a simple bump map texture with some color added. Even though you can see most of the shadows and highlights the previous one, it just doesn't feel right without some sort of texture on the model. I'm not planning on leaving the texture as it looks right now, though truth be told I don't know what approach I'll go with it. I think I can go either with a more cell shaded look or a more realistic texture for the model... ah options.

Actually there are several things I have to fix in the model itself to make it look more authentic. For example the spire needs a lot more work to get the curves and details in order (the curved pointy thing at the top is supposed to be a crescent moon... yeah I know... not there yet). But overall it looks pretty well for just two days of work. Actually I threw out the model I started yesterday and I started this one at 6:00 am today.

Right now I'm waiting for a flyby video of this model to render. For those of you who don't know, rendering is a lot like watching grass grow, only the grass is a video. So this post has been a welcome relief from the potential mental breakdown I might have from watching the render of my video.

So lets see what do I owe you? The storyboard video, the flyby and I think a post about computer modeling seems in order (specially after my "render" rant). If anyone out there has any doubts, questions, inquiries, or are just plain interested in anything about the project, the process of making a video or how I stay sane in a computer lab just leave a comment and I'll try to answer to the best of my ability.

Issues with research and blogging

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Before I start with the post itself, a question, if I may: Ever had the problem that you start a post and leave it for a day or two and when you come back to it you find that the energy you thought was present in the post... just... suddenly disappeared? And then, when you try to keep working on it, you start deleting all the phrases you though were good, and the post goes from good to bad to "Oh my God! where's my post, I lost it in all these words!!" Well it happened with this post so I had to restart it from scratch.

Now back to the topic at hand: Research.

Well, I don't know about you but this material I'm using to create my video installation isn't coming from nowhere. Actually I didn't know anything about stupas before I took my Asian history of art class, so I was pretty much had no knowledge on the subject. So I asked a professor in the history of art
department if he knew any good material to learn more about Buddhist
stupas and he recommended this book from Lama Anagarika Govinda called:
Psycho-cosmic Symbolism of the Buddhist Stūpa. And here is when the issues start. If you don't feel the even slightly overwhelmed by the title or the author's name there's something wrong with you. Of course this isn't a problem, it's just more of a sign of issues to come. One of the problem that I had was that I had to catch up on a lot of material that the book takes for granted the reader knows. Which in my case is pretty much the core concepts of Buddhism and its history. But I think that the main problem was translating the ideas he put forth and finding what sort of material I could use to represent visually in the installation. But either way it was a book of great help for me and if anyone out there wants to learn more about these structures this is a great book to read. Actually quite a bit of the stuff you see posted on the internet about Stupas comes from this book.

I think I'll leave this post here as I can feel it draining my powers from me and leaving me with less time time to work on this project. Right now, I think I'll start with the models of the three stupas I'll be using in the video.

Really fast update!

Monday, February 4, 2008

Hey! How's it going? It's the fifth week of class and the stress is mounting! Before I go any further I think that I'll give a run down of the stuff going on the blog so that none of you miss anything.

Firstly you can see I am trying to keep you updated through twitter. So for those of you Twitterites out there, you can subscribe to my account to be updated as the work goes along. And talking about subscribing, if you want to stay on top of new posts the best way is to subscribe to the RSS feed on the right. You just need to subscribe to a feed reader such as Google Reader (did I tell you it's free?) to have a place where to read the feed from.

So that there is no confusion, there are two sets of links as of right now. The top one being about friend's blogs in my Blogging/podcasting class. The second one is about links to things that I find useful or inspirational for my project.

The labels menu is for those of you that want to read posts about a certain topic. And for those with a more chronological twist to their lifes, you can use my archive to find any post of interest.

Oh! And for those of you facebookers, like myself, you can find my Stupas in video page on facebook through my profile. Where you can also see stuff like interests, email, etc. (including the answer to life the universe and everything). Feel free to comment in the wall.

In terms of my work:
Right now I'm trying to finish a post about my research, and hopefully finishing my senior seminar writing work as well... so... that means I'm not having a lot of sleeping tonight. It'll be an enjoyable night of work though, I promise. The storyboard-video is still being worked on and will be done soon (hopefully).