Induction Notes

That's just all sorts of noted I took during inductions and presentations.

Presentation

My Chemical Romance - Welcome to the black parade

I was just doing my work with a music channel in the background. 

Welcome to the black parade by My Chemical Romance came on and I just thought I need to comment on it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rO0p3NsoPY

you can watch the full video on here but the bit I find really useful and relevant to this project is at 5:05
I loved the effect of the faded city in the background and all the bits and pieces still flying in the air. It's a really calm scene but it gives you an idea of what serious stuff hit the fan a few minutes beforehand. 

It's exactly the way I want my video to end, with a tornado still rolling away into the horizon. 

It'll be amazing. If I do it right D: 

Locations

When thinking about where I want to film my video I had to consider a few things.

I wanted the city to be visible clearly, where I could fit the Tornado into the frame and not too many things in the way so it doesn't cause too much trouble when editing. 

And also I didn't want it to be close enough so there are people in the shot. Because it wouldn't look very realistic/believable if there would be people casually walking across the streets with a huge tornado ripping the building right next to them.

The solution is to film from roofs of buildings and avoid streets and pathways. 

I know a few places with a nice view of our Leeds skyline. But not all of them are suitable. 

I like this view, but it's a little far, there is an abandoned building a little closer to town, my friend promised to accompany me there and film from the roof of it ^^

He was kind enough to lend me some of his photographs to show what it looks like etc c:

This is the abandoned building...

And that's the view from the top of it c:

With Leeds skyline there is only one problem... there isn't many tall buildings around, it might be something I will need to model. Just like they did in The Day After Tomorrow.
I think it might be better than using existing buildings when it comes to animating the damage. 

Bit of concept art...

When I started out I actually attempted to draw a tornado. 

But I quickly realized that drawing isn't my strongest point... 

 I'm much better at photoshop, so I quickly started knocking out some images using my own photography and photographs of tornado's found on the internet. 

I just want it to show the size of the tornado compared to the buildings. I like this camera angle although I will not be using such things in my final video, because I don't want to have any people walking around.

I wanted to show the power of the tornado.
I also love the way it's lit up... in my finished piece I will have it lit up just from one side just like in those images because it creates that awesome feel, I also like the outline of the dust it reveals.
In a lot of the images and videos I looked at the tornadoes were accompanied by lightning which I also really liked and will be using in my final piece. 

Bit of moodboards...

Here I've collected a lot of imagery that I really liked. 

I went for the ruined overgrown look in the cities because I think it's the best way to portrait Mother Nature taking over.

With the tornadoes I looked at all shapes and sizes cause there won't a perfect funnely looking tornado anywhere so I just wanted to keep this option open and take it all in. 

I think I'd rather go for the bigger tornadoes simply because it'll be more believable when it comes to ripping buildings apart :') 

Sound O_o

When it comes to music, you can't necessarily hear much when the tornado is nearby. It's just windy... so I might just use the sound of ripping buildings and things being destroyed rather than having music in the background.  

But if I do end up using any sort of music, I want it to be dramatic... action music. But it needs to be something with a kick!

Here I found a few examples I really thought would work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D978Elc8EEU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlnWxiIje6U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaIwXw4oXAs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR1o3e8GsNU

I could go on forever sending awesome music your way but that's not the point of this :') 

It should give you an idea of what I'd want this to sound like c: 

That's if I decide to go with it though ^^

We shall wait and see which fits better!

Tornado - Research

Since I'm doing a tornado, there's no point basing it on other people's work etc.

I thought it's best to actually watch some videos of tornadoes.

So I spent a while on that. I watched lots and lots, but here's a few most interesting ones. 

I think my favourite bit of this video was around 3:55 it's just... breathtaking.

and then around 4:20 because you can see properly how it moves and the whole structure of it.
Then at 5:11 when it's really dark, looks amazing, the size and colour make it look really dangerous. It doesn't look like a fluffy cloud anymore. And when they zoom out at 5:29 you can see the whole thing... It just looks beautiful.

The more I watched them i realized that the huge ones don't seem to be spinning that fast, it actually looks quite slow. I think it's similar to a plane going across the sky, it looks to be moving really slow but actually it's quite the opposite. 

I like this video because in the beginning you actually see the cloud movement. Because it's got a nice contrast, it helps me to understand the movement a little better. Will therefore be very helpful when creating a tornado of my own.
It smashed right through the window and you can see how the bits cuts this guys face! And that was only at the beginning of the whole thing, you can only imagine the power of it when it fully develops.

On this video you can see how its colour varies depends on what ground it's on. A really important point because it'll look out of place if it's not the right colour. I also like the shape of it. 

This video is amazing, the timelapse at the beginning you can see the beautiful sky, this is definitely what I want my sky to look like! 

And again at 0:57 it looks unreal! 

The only thing is that they all come in different shapes and sizes and I think I'm going to go for the traditional look, so it's not confusing to what it is. And when it comes to size I'll just make sure it suits the footage but still communicates the strength of it and looks believable when it starts ripping into buildings.

Maya Exercise,

Thats the original image that we had to embed our little cube into. 

The aim of the game was to use the colour pass, shadow pass, occlusion pass and reflection pass to make it less obvious that it doesn't belong there. 

First we had to texture our cube c: 

 Colour Pass:

 Occlusion Pass

Shadow Pass

Reflection Pass

Here are a few options that I took screen shots of, just to have it for future reference.

And here is the finished product:

: D

Tutorial - Tornado

Here is the tutorial I used c: 

Emitter: create an emitter. Have them all in a sort of circle. 

That's what happens when you press play from there. 

Fields > Gravity
Open up the options and type in -30 in the Magnitude.

Makes the particles go up rather than all over the place. 

Fields > Vortex Options. 

Set it to 100000

 It's starting to look a bit more like a tornado now. The particles are actually spinning.

Select one of the particles.

Attributes > Particle shape, in the lifespan attributes, change lifespan mode to constant. And set a value of 2.6

In render attributes change it from Points to Multistreak. 

Do this for all the particles. 

Grab the outside ring of the particles and move it slightly along the x axis.

And this is what happens ^^

I don't think it looks too bad : D

Storyboard draft

 So here's the first draft of my storyboard. It's not detailed or anything but the story isn't that complex.

I wanted to start it off with a peaceful scene of just a nice field.

Then as the Sun would go across the sky more and more buildings would pop up here and there.

I wanted it to cut to an up close of a building being destroyed by the nature, going through windows and walls... like they do.

Then some dark clouds would start covering up the sun.

And I want it to transform into a huge tornado in the background.

I want it to move towards the city and start eating into it.

Again with an up close of a building being destroyed.

Then it slowly moving away

Here I want you to see the damage. I want it to zoom out slowly from here...

To a shot of the whole thing with a tornado moving away in the background.

And as the tornado is moving away I want the Sun to start coming out.

So that's pretty much... my story right there. All I'm hoping for is that I actually am able to make it happen so my next step is to look at some tutorials to find ways of making it happen ^^