Facing “Istanbul”
January 3rd, 2008

Early in 2007, I began sculpting a realistic human face. The result can be seen in the two protagonists of “Istanbul”: obviously human but creepy in a less obvious way. The hard-to-identify creepiness came from the concept of the uncanny valley, which states that the more realistic a creation becomes the more unsettling it is to look at (up to a point).

Face modeling in Istanbul.
Blender Face

The long climb to the other side of the uncanny valley is what persuaded me to not focus on realistic character for Eros, despite being a film which focused more on the human condition then my others. But now I am brave enough to climb, and eager to make realistic human caricatures, even if they are secondary to the robots in my next film.

I started with a deeper understanding of mesh modeling — a character in “Istanbul” began his existence as a cube witch was deformed and sub-surfaced into a face. This girl’s face began as a simple, tiny plain on the top of her nose. The focus here is of the facial features, not the shape of the head as a whole.
Picture 7

Notice the Natalie Portman reference image. Below, the nose begins to take shape.
Nose 2

I’m editing the face from two reference images: one from the font, one from the side. All three dimensions are represented.
Picture 3

The action is focused around the nose, mouth and eyes; this gives the loop structure an easier-to-animate quality since most complicated parts of the face contain the most vertexes.
Picture 4

This method is much more intimate since it focuses on curves not cubes.
Picture 5

Notice how most of the faces are squares and not triangles, which cause problems in the animation.
Picture 7

Notice the difference between these lips and the ones from Istanbul.
Picture 10

From the side. It’s smooth!
Side Lips

That is all I have so far for my next, unnamed film. These more realistic humans should provide sufficient contest with the robotic protagonists.

Posted in Istanbul, Madeline | No Comments »

Web Premere of Istanbul
November 23rd, 2007

It’s been a long time coming, but now I can happily announce my latest film, Istanbul!
Istanbul is my first attempt to model the human form, and also is more plot based then my previous films (seems plot plays more of an element in each successive film, doesn’t it?). The story follows two merchants (A and B, as described below) as they attempt to woo an unnamed customer into buying some fruit, becoming more and more desperate as the day progresses.

Istanbul
You can watch Istanbul here. Repeat if desired, and feedback is very much appreciated.The film is primarily inspired by my family’s travels in Istanbul a few years ago. The bazaars were never empty there; on the contrary the amount of humanity packed between the vendors was comparable to a 747 flight’s boarding terminal. Funnily enough, the merchants’ desperation to attract customers was so strong even with the masses of people that I could not help but wonder about what would happen if there was only one potential buyer. The idea turned into a simple plot, the simple plot became simpler, and what we are left with is this movie.

Why the name Istanbul? It was the first idea that came to my head, but I was hoping to come up with a more unique combination of letters for the film (it’s better for Google rankings, no?)… so I decided to put off the naming until I could find some inspiration. That inspiration came long after the film premiered at my high school’s culture show, Pangaea. Someone recommended this Orhan Pamuk book to me. I should have read it before I finished the film, (it describes the city in cinematic detail) but nevertheless gave me all the convincing I needed to use the title.

Orhan Pamuk
In other news, this website has undergone several changes since I last spoke with you. In addition to a graphic redesign (which, in theory, ought make the new site easier on the eyes), now the latest videos are served directly from my server using Quicktime instead of being hosted on Google Video. This means that the videos should look much crisper and smoother and still be reasonably quick to load. So far it has worked flawlessly, but let me know if you have any problems.

And speaking of Pangaea (last year’s performance was where Ancestor’s Tale was previewed, by the way), Istanbul was not the only film in the playbill. A fellow student premiered an excellent live-action drama called “Claire” which was received very warmly. The film can be enjoyed here (though you might want some popcorn, it’s a long one).

Now we are excitedly discussing the very real possibility of working together on some projects, which of course will be documented here. We live in the first time where there are very little restrictions in terms of editing and distribution that previous independent filmmakers had to deal with, and we hope to take full advantage of this. I’ll update soon.

Posted in Istanbul | No Comments »

Marionette
August 3rd, 2007

Modeling humans is something that I’ve done before (see Istanbul). But a model by itself does not contain any information about how the mesh will react when animated. Each movement has a corresponding counter action (ie, a model’s center of gravity must change when picking up a heavy object) and often involves more then one muscle.

In Istanbul, the structure of bones (or armatures) in the characters did not use a system called IK kinetics to control the structure of the bones. Instead, each bone was rotated separately and manually like moving a wireframe model. IK kinetics stets up a set of rules for the software that will automatically move the bones near the one moved manually in a realistic (and user defined) manner, making the mesh behave much more like a puppet.

A perfect example of where this is useful is the (almost infamous) scene in Istanbul where a character reaches for an orange. Instead of simply moving the hand and letting the rest of the arm deform itself realistically, I animated it by manually moving each part of the mesh until it looked realistic enough. Of course, it did not look realistic enough.

So, the protagonist in my next movie is fully set up by IK kinetics. Here are some early versions of the character with a disjointed head and stubs for arms, very much borrowing elements from ancient Cycladic statues.

Cycladic

I began by creating the bone structure and modifying it outward into the fingers like so. There are no IK kinetics here.

Cycladic

Once the structure is complete, adding the IK kinetics allows for better control over the mesh, and I maneuvered the statue into a sitting position and moved the hands onto the knees.

Cycladic

And here is a frame from the final render showing the stature complete and expressing loneliness.

Cycladic

Since the style is very similar to that of Cycladic statures and figurines, and since the characters have no facial features other then an elongated nose, all the emotional elements must be communicated by body movements. It is interesting how much faith we put on body language, something that has been lacking in my previous films.

Posted in Istanbul | No Comments »