Identity

Identity by the definition of the word is the collective aspect of the set of characteristics/behaviours that something/someone is recognizable or known for and at the same time is the quality or condition of being the same as something else.

A pre-modern identity is the one where the individual is well-built and it can be defined by predetermined roles. In this case the possibility of breaking free of this identity was difficult as there where ‘institutions’ that determined the security of the identities.  

In contrast with this a post-modern approach would depend on the construction of social experiences. Considered as a ‘liquid’ identity is something that can change at will and therefore we create a theatrical like demonstration of different facades.

“On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” is a comical phrase that started describing the main essence of a modern type of identity: Digital identity. The concept as it describes, predominates on the cyberspace and it is defined as a set of data that uniquely describes a person (or entity in some cases). The main problem with this online identity is to know who the person that is being part of the interaction. Conflicts with the authentication, privacy and security are particular issues characteristic to digital identity.

An element of interest in the videogame industry is the RPG genre (Roll Playing Game) and more in particular the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game). This genre is famous for containing an open world that in multiple cases the creation of an avatar is necessary. In MMORPGs the concept of playing simultaneously with a very large number of players in a virtual world requires the user to customise his/her character and give it a personality. In most cases it goes from choosing gender, age, name, race/species, job/profession and many other attributes related to physical capabilities of the character. 

Final Fantasy is the first RPG game to introduce the system of jobs where the player has the ability to chose and change between different identities within the game giving the character unique attributes depending on the choice. 

Interaction with other users that play different facades of their own personalities through their characters in persistent world that continues to exist and evolve even the player is offline represents a real-world like experience that encourages certain level of dedication. 

The images above are some of the costumisations abailable for the MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV on its beta version. The level of physical attributes that can be modify extends to a large repertory making it easy for the user to identify him/herself and create a digital identity.  

This types of games sometimes represents a safe environment in which some people find an alternative to their own reality. The Sims is a popular game that was created as a strategic life simulation, having the ability to quickly experience a variety of personalities through different characters in a relatively short amount of time.

The Sims is a popular life simulation game where the flow of time is controllable, high level of character customization is available and has the ability of controlling many characters at simultaneously. 

The challenge comes in games that interact with other real users around the world, unlike the Sims, the new Final Fantasy XIV is a game that involves a high level of customization for the character; not only offers a huge range of physical attributes but the accessories and jobs really gives the user a huge library of possibilities. It is also the possibility of enjoying the story behind every videogame shared in a social environment that creates a link between the character and the player and increases the idea of a digital identity within a game environment. 

Eye can see you

Most of the model I made it following a tutorial part of Digital Tutorials that a friend lend me. It was basically to build a female human body which then I modified  on mudbox to achieve an alien-ish look.
Part of this tutorial was the building of the eyes which obviously I just duplicated, scaled them and used them for the other extra 3 eyes on her forehead.

Old eyes with simple geometry

I was happy with them but one thing I really wanted to make was the pupils to dilate as that would add some creepy effect to the scene; also I've always thought that extreme closeups of the human eye look rather amazing!. Just as if I asked for it, a video came on my dashboard on tumblr of how to make really really cool eye with Maya and mudbox and it was only 12 min long, so I gave it a go despite the fact that I made the model fitting the previous eyes.

It was pretty easy and despite the fact that maya wouldn't take the texture I made in mudbox for some reason I ended up keeping this new eyes and work later on on their texture. Now, they don't look really special on the screen cap, but at least the pupil is animatable now.

Also, if anyone wants to give it a try to this tutorial, it's pretty easy and it has a good outcome:

Change of hair style

Something that was keeping me quite worried about the project was the "hair" of my alien.
The tentacle like that I had planned where turning out to be a problem for the kind of movement that I wanted to achieve.

On the render tests it was more than clear that they needed a lot of work. so I went up and made a skeleton to animate it. 

The way it was bending didn't get the kind of look that I wanted plus to get a decent animation by hand was going to be way to much work with probably poor results. 

I decided to go on another direction as the movement that I wanted was like a slow organic tentable movement as if they where under water or without gravity. So I experimented a little bit with dynamics. Now I havent played a lot with them so it was quite difficult to figure the values for mostly everything and even when I followed some tutorials I wasnt getting the results that I wanted, plus it was nearly impossible to see it real time so I had to be back rendering all the time to see the results. 

By the time I was at this point I noticed that this had already taken me out of my schedule to finish things on time, and that it was being more problematic than it was relevant. 

Despite the concept that I already had, I went on and changed for something more easy to handle, so with the help of mudbox I made this as the new "hair-style". My idea was to put a bone-like aureola behind it, but because of time constrains I'll have to see if I have time to add it later on.

Panopticism - writing task

Media networks have increasingly evolved over the last few years. The social demand and the need of people to communicate instantly about their daily life, activities, interest and thoughts has changed the concept of ‘being watched’ to ‘want to be watched’ to an extent. Updating status with the current activity and even the location on social medias such as Facebook and Twitter is clearly not only a way to socialise but also a ‘proof’ that what the person is doing is acceptable.

Remembering the opposition that many people had in time where security cameras where places in public places to help the fight against crime created paranoia among the society about always being watched; the position was clearly generated: you are being watched, but it shouldn't matter if you’re not doing anything wrong. In order to control a society it became necessary to implement a concept of self-behaviour to avoid getting into trouble. This growing need of social acceptance is alarmingly growing and not only that, but the demand of knowing the same about other people around you is transforming society in a sadistic way. People want see more.   

This is one of the posters advertising the film. It is expressing the point of being a sadistic way of the people in power to control certain part of the population while entertaining themselves. A society thirsty  and sadistically curious. 

   

This concept of the relationship between the institution with power and a society that’s being controlled silently gave clear inspiration to the creation of a brilliant transmedia story: The Hunger Games.
Starting as a science fiction novel written by Suzanne Collins, is a story spoken from a 16 year old Katniss Everdeen who lives in a postapocalyptic North America called Panem. The main power source of this new nation is called ‘The Capitol’ which exercises political control over the rest of the nation by making an annual event in which a selected group of young people from the different districts are forced to compete in a televised battle to the death. In this world the people from the capitol, are represented as constantly thirsty society for something new, something entertaining, reflecting the idea of a reality show. The rest of the districts have to live under an oppression that is characteristic of each and one of them depending on the primary activity for development. 

The hunger games represent a reminder of punishment against past rebellions against the Capitol, but even thought is a cruel event, it is consider the main television even of every year.  The arena, despite the fact that every year is completely different, can be considered as a new representation of the Panopticon; an area that is controlled by the Gamemakers and that is constantly watched by hundreds of hidden cameras, broadcasted among the whole nation. The “tributes” or contenders have the notion that this is unavoidable, that they have to kill the other ones and that if they are interesting enough they can get higher ratings and therefore sponsorship that could help them save their lives.

This is the representation of the Gamemakers in the film adaptation. They are sitting around a 24 hour and complete view of the arena while the Hunger Games are taking place. Here they decide what to show to the society and if it gets boring for the audiences, then they'll make sure 'something' happens for their entertainment. 

Within the story you get to see a point of perspective and the transition from a lower class citizen that before she was chosen she used to accept reality as it was. Important part of the story is the transformation of this character in contrast to the realisation and new desire to stand against this power, to start a rebellion.

Among the issues the story tackles, oppression and the effects of war are the strongest ones, and along the way there are numerous morally complex strategies that are well reflected on the film adaptation directed by Gary Ross. 

Panopticism

[Discipline]
1.       Activity, exercise, or a regimen that develops or improves a skill; training.2.       Punishment inflicted by way of correction and training.3.       Behaviour in accord with rules of conduct.

The concept of madness started around the 19^th century having only a few houses around England where only a few “lunatics” would be taken care under special treatment. Before that, there were houses of correction for the unemployed and idle where the idea was to modify their behaviour.

Surveillance, disciplinary power and good behaviour are some concepts that have driven society to many of the mayor human events in history.

An architectural perfect example is the Panopticon; an institutional building designed in the late 18^th century with the only purpose of observing. With circular floor plan and an inspection house in the middle the concept was to have the authority/institution observing at all time from every angle. Being Invisible to the observed at all times, created a state of conscious and permanent of always being watched inflicting self-punishment and keeping a good behaviour. Having no way to escape from the gaze the concept was planned to be implemented for schools, hospitals, day-cares and asylums, but the main function was destined for a prison.

The concept of the Panopticon was designed by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. The top image is the abandon building of the prison Presidio Modelo in Cuba, currently a museum. 

This became a new mode of power; understanding that you’re constantly looked at, under surveillance, therefore the term Panopticism.

Now a day the concept of surveillance is part of a daily life, probably with a different approach, but concepts like open working spaces, lecture theatres, street security cameras and even google maps create a self-regulation on the social behaviour. This disciplinary technique is considered as a ‘gentle punishment’ applied to achieve docile bodies; self-monitoring, self-correcting, obedient bodies and over all, hyper efficient.

The modern concept of open offices is under cover by a friendly working environment based on co-working and social interaction, while the main object is to have and easy view of the employees optimising their efficiency by having constant pressure.  

Not being power a capacity that people can have, it’s a relation between different individuals that only exist when it is being exercised, and this exercise relied on the capacity for power to be resisted; ‘where there is power there is resistance’. 

Power to the Pixels exhibition

Before the Christmas break we had a public exhibition for our projects done for Game Art & Machinima.
It was quite cool the idea of having your work shown to the public and more than that just the experience of preparing for it it's quite different than when you do a presentation on a classroom.

The advertisement took place without much time in advance which I think was the reason for it being a bit quite. Another reason I think was the location; despite the fact that is in an area where there's and artistic community, I don't think it was the right one to attract public in general.  
It was cold and I was tired, so probably it wasn't the best of the moods to go out and network, but it certainly was an incentive to start considering in the future as seeing your work on walls sure feels nice.

The Gaze in the media - writing task

As the entertainment industry and communication media is based on the distribution of visual images and being a culture mainly controlled by men, the circulation of imagery of women has become an obsession.  Taking sexual pleasure by observing rather than being close it is consider voyeurism, and the contemporary society has portrayed women and their aesthetic sex under constantly changing values depending on the society and moment in time.

This are some stereotipical character designs for some MMORPGs where the male armor is proportional to its function while the female is ...not. 

Women are now a day attacked from every angle with images of other women; with concepts that alter the idea of beauty day by day, and in opposition of men who look at this women as desirable,  but women identify themselves.  This ideal women streamed all over the media creates a narcissistic damage and it fires in every direction the idea of a passive woman that does not desire, one that only waits for men’s attention. 

With this last criteria, the media has created hundreds of stories where the female character becomes the victim and the male character fights for her safety. Videogames in particular have been quite characteristic for having this goal among the different genres. Having men as the primary user for the industry, it is easy to target aesthetically speaking some pleasant parameters for the female roles in games. Whether they’re weak and fragile as the female character in Lost in Blue for Nintendo DS or strong fighters like Samus Aran, the female idealisation of the body clearly seems affected by either the behaviour of the character or the sexual desirability it needs to portray to the audience.

Lost in blue (above) is a survival game where first you play as a male character helping a delicate injured girl. The roles are completely stereotypical and there are many points where she is helpless yet tries to fix everything with cute smiles. On the other hand Samus Aran (below) had its beginning from the franchise of Metroid, where people didn't even realized it was a woman inside the suit. It was until it became well know that Nintendo decided to give Samus a "Zero suit" appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl that the character and the franchise became quite popular.   

In videogames, like in cinema, the role is played on the straight and socially established perception of the sexual difference of the characters. The desirability level of the character seems reflected on female characters and the pleasure this takes in being looked at. Among some visual media, the term Fan Service is used to defined those moments, images or scenes that are designed to attract the audience; focusing on part of the body that are private and forbidden  to make sure the audience gets excited. Knowing that a videogame character has no physical body or ego, the creators take part of creating this possible pleasure creating this contrast between the libido and the ego in a fantasy world. This is noticeable in franchises where the evolution of the character is clearly affected by the trend that happens at the moment of its development.

There are many cases in games where male characters can be represented in many shapes, ages and with different visual attributes as a variant. In the case of Tekken as a franchise you even get male bears fighting while all the woman are skinny and delicate looking. 

An example of the voyeurism is Sophitia, a recurrent character from the fighting game Soul Calibur. Despite the background created for the character her visual development has been adapted to make her more attractive to the audience but maintaining the innocence and purity characteristic of her.  

Another way in videogames to create this male phantasy is by enhancing her eroticism but in relation to the male character himself. It means that identifying with the male character thought his power, the user indirectly can possess her as well. This is fetishistic scopophilia where she becomes the objects of satisfaction. Such is the example of Tidus, the main character of Final Fantasy X which fights, among other things, for the sake of saving Yuna, the trophy girl of the game. 

Gaze and the media

According to the Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger (1486) a woman has a “dual” nature. "A woman is beautiful to look upon, contaminating to the touch, and deadly to keep,"

The nudity of the women became to challenge many aspects in a daily life of the society ruled my men. With beginnings in paintings where impossible reflection would allow to get views of the part of women that would normally not be seen started to generate in society a need to see what is forbidden.

 A Bar at the Folies-Bergère by  Édouard Manet is one of the early examples of the gaze as you can see an impossible reflection of the woman in the back mirror. 

The contemporary media soon became used as an extension of the male gaze at women. A social voyeurism in where the audience takes pleasure from looking at other people’s body creating photography and cinema a perfect way to approach to it. It’s a guilty pleasure shared by a mass, unspoken yet well accepted as it is only with an erotic purpose yet it draws a line from pornography.

From the beginning the male took an active role as the protagonist leaving a passive female as an accessory. Over time, the gaze of the media started to control the image of the body and this became subjected to trends and demands. This form of voyeur was affected by feminist movements which included the male body for the female eye, although in a smaller proportion.

 The prospect of a Paparazzi was created (after the 1960 film La Dolce Vita, and referred to it as an annoying buzzing mosquito) in the parameters of an audience demanding for fraction of privacy of celebrities.

Advertising

This is Sarah Dahl posing for the advert of Opium. This caused commotion all over the UK in 2000 receiving over 900 complains. The main complaint was the pose was not suitable for children as this poster was publicly exposed. In result they flipped the poster making the eye of the audience focus on the face. This at least allowed the ad to be shown in women’s magazines.

This advert was deemed to sexual for billboards. So the advertising company flipped the image on its side. Doing this meant the eye was no longer drawn to her body and instead more to her face ...

Television and cinema

In television, the biggest representation was the creation of Reality Television; It would allow a passive voyeur consumption of a type of reality leaving aside editing and granting the position as an all-seeing-eye and empowering the audience. Such extreme case would be consider as Big Brother; strangers confined in a house filled with mirrors. The audience had the possibility of watching them 24 hours no matter what they did and was also engaged with a decision making role by voting and rating the individual.

1970 French film Les Stances à Sophie. This is an example of the camera use and mirror arrangement trying to get as many angles as possible from the nude actor. One of the early voyeur cases dedicated to women in the cinema industry.

Video Games

Loaded Magazine (2000); Lara Croft making appearance in the front cover of a magazine in a pose that has nothing to do with the game.

This way of attracting male audiences expanded even to the videogame environment with strong cases like the character from Tomb Raider, Lara Croft. At the same time as being the strong part of the game story, the breaking sexual image she gives to the male audience caused by the erotic representation of her body is what made her into one of the overly sexualised objects in videogames. Her visual develop became a spectacle to be consumed and the audience took pleasure in the fantasy of her destruction. The development of the character varies and it is until the most recent entry that Square Enix decided to give a more “humanistic” look to the character. 

Time management = FAIL

For the final submission we had a massive problem: we had all the assets, we just didn't have the time to put the together.
Once again I failed to manage time and left post production a ridiculous short time. The music that Sophie found and the particles that Ryan made where really good and suitable for the project and it was a massive shame not to see them together. Like I mention before only the animation that Ryan did (first part) actually managed to be worked on with camera, colour correction, depth of field and bloom for the lights. It looked really well and it would have been a massive success if we actually managed to have it done on time.

We'll do our best to finish this in a good quality, as we hope to use this as part of our portfolio and we're also looking forward to have a decent presentation for the exhibition.

Animation - Iron Heart

Very last minute after having finished all the props and having everything in place, me and Ryan decided to focus on the animation while Sophie was finishing the textures for the scene.
I took the task to animate the second part of the animation that can be broken down as:

-Tabitha finds Albus
-Gets close to him
-Notices the key next to him
-Winds him up with the key
-Albus "wakes up" scaring her
-he stands up looking intimidating
-He asks for a second and turns around
-Tabitha is curious of what he started to make
-he turns back with a flower like object offering it to her
-She gets happy and accepts the flower

Unfortunately my part of the animation didn't get to be worked on unity with different lights and camera effects because of time constrains, so I'll just put a play last direct from Maya just to give an idea of my work.

The animation isn't perfect, it was made with little time and also the characters had a lot of restrictions with their movements, but for what it is, I'm really proud of it :-)

Bradford Animation/Game Festival 2012

This year I finally got the chance to assist to the whole part of events that we had planned (unlike last year) and this year the plan was to attend to most of the animation related talks.
It turned out that most of the program was focused on independent and student films, and it's not that I'm not interested or anything like that, but by this point I knew I had more interest on Video Games so I ended up booking extra talks in the Game part of the event taking place on Bradford University's campus. Bioware, Double Negative, Urban Environments and even Valve. I think I was quite pleased with this year's festival.
The talks where quite amazing; some inspiring, some interesting, some...not so much, but either way I think for next year I'll try to get a hold of the itinerary sooner and plan a more defined route focusing on games again.
I scanned my notes hopping that if anyone wants to have a look can read them, and some of them have even some doodles. Enjoy.