Background designs

http://www.orientaloutpost.com/art/japanese-watercolour-painting.html

Tasks for Simon

Dear Simon,

Please finish the 2nd version of the rough animatic until the end of this week (I will seat doen with you and help on Thursday, ok?)

This week please make sure you finish you essays as I would really like you to work on out final animatic until the end of teh term (specially in week 8 and 9).

Thanx, see you on Thursday!

Tasks for Heba

My dear Habibty,please do these:

-fix the project plan until the end of the week in MS Project (please don't forget to ask Jared to give you the CD with the programme- note: be careful how you save the documents- they have to be compatible with the version of the programe we use in college 00-03)

-research:

1.Japanese woodcuts
2.Origami (how to do the crane and all about the phillosophy and etc about it)
3.Japanese dolls (specially the paper ones )- go to wiki and from then on research to different websites and books
4. Japanese water colours ( what ink and colours they use, what are the rules, the history and the art theory- perspective, forms,...)
5. The COPYRIGHT for the story that happened about 50 years ago and the copyright for the name "Sadako Sasaki"
in our group blog you can find a link to a museum of Atomic Bomb victims (1st post- about Sadako's life) and please email them to ask if we can use that. Make personal contacts, it is always good for marketing of project and also to spread the idea.

This is all for this week:

Next week I would like you to take my background psd files and clean out the whites of the chosen layers as I would like to finish them until we do proper animatic which will take place in week 8 and 9. So basically until the end of the term you have loads to work on.

this week please make sure you finish your essays.

AFX LECTURE Monday Morning 10.Nov.2008

Bart's Masterpiece with Glow

HOW TO MAKE CUSTOM BRUSH IN PHOTOSHOP

SETTING THE COLOUR MOOD

Japanese Traditional and Ceremonial Colors

General Color Meanings

Chrysanthemums are favorite flowers of Japanese. In general, they prefer flowers that drop their petals one by one, rather than fall off in one clump. That is why the rose is not popular, and even considered bad luck. Sakura (cherry blossoms), daisies, plum blossoms are greatly admired. Something with many petals can also be related to many years of life (long life) which is another "good fortune" wish.

Ideas for backgrounds enlightened in a very soft blue- reddish complementary contrast.

Red and White are auspicious colors (good luck). You will find the two colors used for many special occasions, such as weddings, and births. Since tassels are used to decorate things of celebration, red and white are the colors you will find (unless it is black and white, or all black for a funeral). There is an observance in Japan that you may find amusing - you are in a train station and see a couple. The man is in an all black, double-breasted suit, the woman in all black kimono. Both are carrying a shopping bags (yes, shopping bags!) containing gifts. Are they returning from a funeral or a wedding? The only way to tell is if the woman's obi is colorful, or solid black, and the man's tie is white or black. Colorful/white is for a wedding, black/black is for the funeral.

Blue and White are also prominent colors in Japanese fabrics and dishware. Yukata is a blue and white cotton fabric used to make summer kimonos. I

The color list is referenced to Liza Dalby's book "Geisha", about her study of Japanese geisha life. The layering of colours for kimono and their surface decoration vary with the season and even the month. Apparently, as ceremonial kimono are very expensive, only geisha follow the tradition of changing colours for each month. This is one list of colours from a traditional school of Japanese etiquette. (Web master's note - Japanese culture is closely linked with the seasons, so each month is also represented by a nature reference.)

• January Pine: sprout green and deep purple
• February Redblossom plum: crimson and purple
• March Peach: peach and khaki
• April Cherry: white and burgundy
• May Orange Flower: deadleaf yellow and purple
• June Artemesia: sprout green and yellow
• July Lily: red and deadleaf yellow
• August Cicada wing: cedar bark and sky blue
• September Aster: lavender and burgundy
• October Bush Clover: rose and slate blue
• November Maple: vermilion and grey-green
• December Chrysanthemum: lavender and deep blue

http://www.ukiyoe-gallery.com/nightscenes.htm

Sadako died on 25th of October 1955, so ussage of the colour palette between those two nuances- rose and slate blue might be great idea to base the film on.

These colours appear the most frequently, along with black, (in Kimono). I was surprised over the amount of red ad rose nuances:

Ao (blue-green)
corresponds most closely to *turquoise-green*

Kurenai (scarlet-pink)
a bright, slightly yellow-toned pink produced from the benibana,*safflower*, an herbal
dye source. The closest thing to red in the fashion palette, since truer red, *AKE*
was primarily used to indicate rank.

Kobai (plum-pink)
a light red with a purple cast.

Suo (maroon)
another red, wandering in tone from purple to brown to orange. It is the name of the tree
(sappanwood) from which the dye comes.

Kuchiba (old-leaf tan)
(also the one I believe is closest to what she described as *dead-leaf yellow. The name means rotted leaves. If it were a bit brighter it would approachmustard.

Yamabuki (golden yellow)
a tree-shrub, the *Kerria japonica* with a roseate yellow blossom. A golden yellow like
that of the common freesia.

Murasaki (purple)
from the root of the gromwell, difficult to work with and restricted for the use of those of
high rank. A fragile colour, tended to fade. A range of purples included shades called
*fuji* (wisteria),*keshi murasaki* (a greyed mauve), *ebi* (red-violet), *koki* (deep violet
and *usuki* (pale violet).

Johannes Itten's colour theory (all about colour mixing, contrasts,...)

http://www.worqx.com/color/index.htm

A color chart for Japanese colors :

---

Generalized Color Meanings

In repsonse to requests for generalized color symbolism, here is a brief list with credit to Jasc Software/PSP Newsletter:

• Yellow - In the Far East, a sacred color; but it the West it can mean treachery.
• Red - Passion; gets the blood flowing more intensely.
• Orange - Represents knowledge and civilization.
• Violet - Stately and royal
• Blue - Cool, passive, and also symbolizes fidelity (as in true blue)
• Green - Restful and fresh
• White - Purity and truth
• Black - Gloom, sorrow and depresssion.

However, there are also many believed meanings to precious and semiprecious gemstones, and using these approximated colors can also transcribe meanings.

ROUGH SOUND DESIGN

The Anti-nuclear Song that Sadako Sang to Herself

August 19, 1955 / Hiroshima Red Cross HospitalOn August 19, a delegation from China came to visit the patients in the Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital. At their welcome reception, the song Genbaku-O-Yurusumaji was sung. Sadako learned it and later taught it to her roommate Kiyo.


http://www.prato.linux.it/~lmasetti/antiwarsongs/do_search.php?idartista=598&stesso=1&lang=en

"A song by Ishiji Asada sung by Pete Seeger on The Rainbow Quest album (available on Folkways from globalsound at the Smithsonian for download or on CD: https://www.smithsonianglobalsound.org"

Furusato no machi yakare
Miyori no hone umeshi yaketsuchi ni,
Ima wa shiroi hanasaku.
As yurusumaji genbaku o!
Mitabi yurusumaji genbaku o
Warera no machimi!

In the place where our old home village was
destroyed, we buried the charred bones.
Now the white flowers are blooming there.
Ah! we must never allow, we must absolutely
Forbid another atom bomb to come.

(Contributed by Janet Patterson)

I also like the feel of Nine Inch Nails Song "Hurt" and the way they presented it, unfortunately I can't embed it:

http://uk.youtube.com/results?search_query=nin+hurt&search_type=&aq=f

Music Video:HURT (by Nine Inch Nails)

Music Video Code provided by Video Code Zone

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Japanese_musical_instruments

There are several types of traditional, Japanese music (hogaku). Some of the most important

ones are listed below:

H.I.S. Experience Japan Tours Taiko Drumming Course & Asakusa Walk A visit to the Drum Museum, taiko drumming at the Taiko Center and a guided walk around Asakusa.

• Gagaku:
  Ancient court music from China and Korea. It is the oldest type of Japanese, traditional music.
• Biwagaku:
  Music played with the instrument Biwa, a kind of guitar with four strings.
• Nogaku:
  Music played during No performances. It basically consists of a chorus, the Hayashi flute, the Tsuzumi drum, and other instruments.
• Sokyoku:
  Music played with the instrument Koto. Later also accompanied by Shamisen and Shakuhachi. The Koto is a zither with 13 strings.
• Shakuhachi:
  Music played with the instrument Shakuhachi, a about 55 cm long flute. The name of the flute is its lenght expressed in the old Japanese length units.
• Shamisenongaku:
  Music played with the instrument Shamisen, a kind of guitar with only three strings. Kabuki and Bunraku performances are accompanied by the shamisen.
• Minyo:
  Japanese folk songs.

How to do cut out patterns in Maya

Basically we could make cut outs only in photoshop and then enlighten and animate them in After effects, but I would like to do so in Maya as I have more control over arranging them in a 3D composition and lighting them, also simple rigging and animating.

So there are few options:

First one is to create a texture with transparent parts achieved by alpha channels in Photoshop.

So we draw a texture (a picture), then we create alpha channels wich means that we have to colour everything that needs to be transparent with pitch black and everything that is not white (if we want partial transparency, we use greys).

Then when we create lights in Maya, we need to make sure, that they pass through the transparent parts of a plane, making it invisible. We do that with adjusting matte opacity in ...editor.

The second option is to actually model the pattern in Maya, using curves. The problem in Maya is not so much the modelling of silhouette of the cut out (using create polygon tool) as the cutting out the inside holes. This is very time consuming if we work with polygons as with them we have to actually connect all the edges and model the holes inside,

while with the curves we just project them onto the geometry and once done we can still easily remodel the hole (picture below):

The forth option is to do all these in After Effects, but the problem here is that llighting isnt so subtile and controllable3D representation isnt so acessible: