Lydia's Documentation Blog

NYUSH IMA documentation blog

Archives for March 2022

Comm Lab | Memory Soundscape Proposal

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The memory that I want to replicate by sounds is the beginning of my senior year in high school. It was our last year before the college entrance exam, and yet we were also struck in our homes because of the epidemic outbreak. I still remembered the pressure facing countless quizzes, tests and homework together with the worries towards the COIVD. Though the spring was on its way, I still feel like drowning in the uncertainties of future and the rigidity of  quarantine.

I can still remember the sound of books flipping, pen nib crossing the paper. I was listening to music, but it was not really going into my ears. The beeping sound of  online conference was evil. And there were also remote sound of spring blocking out by the windows. In the following project, I’d like to revitalize what I felt at the time by manipulating the sounds.

Comm Lab | “SEE”, Photo Diptych Final Documentation

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Lydia, “SEE”

 

Concept

  • See through eyes
    • Humans are visual animals–seeing and viewing forms so big a part of our daily experiences and the construction of self. Everyday we use our eyes to find more about the world, but in my first photo, I turned the camera around to photograph the eye itself. The point I want to make through the photo is that eyes are delicate organs. It searches beauty and meaning outwards, and it also conveys feelings and emotions inwards. And that’s the reason why I use contrasting eye shadows to paint the eyelids: human eyes are vast and complex, like a sea or a universe to explore. 
  • Sea of vision
    • For the digital collage part, I wanted to create a sea of vision. Natural figures like flower, brunches and coconut tree forms the shape of an eye, and I use the dusk sky and the tranquil sea for the background to indicate the broadness of world outside and inside our eyes. The camellia can also be seen as a setting sun, by which I wanted to convey a sense of inverted size.
  • Communication
    • Symmetrical composition
      • I implemented a symmetrical composition for the two parts, and altogether they formed a pair of eyes. One is shooting straightly into our own eyes, one is formed by natural landscapes that are usually seen by the eyes.
    • Color
      • The color tune for the two parts are coherent. I drew inspirations from the color of dusk seaside: red and blue are generating contrasts, but with orange, they reach to a balance.
    • Meaning
      • There’s a pun in their names: See or Sea?

Process

    • Contact Sheet

      mostly natural landscape; used in the collage part
the original contact sheet, gave me the inspiration to shoot my eye
  • Photographing the Eye
original shot of the eye; photographed through my circle-shaped lights and by use of my glasses/ eye shades/ eyedropper

 

  • Color Correction

    I increased the color contrast of the photo, to make the color richer; also cut off the white frame a little bit
  • Digital Collage
used a bunch of my landscape photographies to form the “sea of vision”

 

also experimented with other possibilities of collage…but finally decided on the other one

Conclusion

  • Improvements
    • If I’ve had more time, I may add more details or visual contrast to the diptych. As Professor Ian pointed out to me, the photo of the eye left a blank part because of the white frame, and the collage work also has a relatively empty bottom. So if I have more time, I may spend more energy making the frame richer.

CGDD | Documentation of Butterfly Dream

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For our group’s butterfly dream project, we decided to make a game featuring the transition between distinct perspective. Following the initial idea, we developed a storyline of a man trying to get out of prison while he has the superpower to turn into the animal touches. In the producing process, since our group is used to complete the project task by task together, I’d like to document the process and my contribution basing on the different stages and tasks we’ve encountered. Stage I: Project Proposal & Preparation

  • Task 1: Come up with project proposal 
    • We all came up with our own ideas and brought to the meeting (I proposed a nearsightedness stimulator and furtively eating stimulator hhh). After discussion, we decided to build upon Jack’s idea.
  • Task 2: Outline the challenges and basic storyline
    • I contributed to the challenge design–my idea to set the first finding apple challenge, which adapts player to the transition of perspectives — also my design of the stealing key challenge.
  • Task 3: Decide on general maps & 3d models
    • We searched for and decided on satisfying 3d models together in the meeting.

Stage II: Building the Framework

  • Task 1: Implement Transitions of Perspectives Through Camera Switch
    • I implemented the camera switch function through scripts.
    • camera switch 1
      camera switch 2

       

  • Task 2: Implement Dialogue System to Guide the Game Flow
      • I implemented the dialogue system by use of Fungus tools.

    an example of fungus
  • Task 3: Complete the First Challenge of Our Game: Stealing the Apple
    • I developed the complete process of stealing an apple
        • Pop-out UI to guild player in picking & dropping apple
        • Apple following the character after picked up
      apple picking scripts
      • Dropping the apple when player finishes the task

Stage III: Developing the Game

    • Task 1: Manipulate Character’s Animation
      • Snow and me co-complete the animation controller script

      • character control
    • Task 2: Develop Further Game Flow Guidance
fungus flow
  • Task 3: Develop Further Challenges
    • Choose & Steal key
    • Get the access card 
      • I wrote two scripts so that both cat and man(main character) can pick the access card, and it depends on player’s choice
    • Enable dog’s bark (audio control)
      audio script & settings

       

       

Final Play Through Video

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jgh8wESqK9DdszCcySyRxlRVO6IL0i18/view?usp=sharing

 

Future Improvements

  • More trials & errors for players: we should improve the game’s flexibility to make room for player to explore the game flow. We need to develop out mechanism in handling failures.
  • Polishing art design: modeling, animation, arts, audio and storyline.
  • More challenges….

Comm Lab | “In Our Own Image” Reading Notes

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Inkedfingers photo in black and white of man and little girl at window

  • Ritchin: “fluidity of the digital”

    • I think that when Ritchin said “fluidity of the digital”, he refers to digital media’s nature of easy manipulation. The advent of digital technologies has largely increase our accessibilities to various materials and the convenience of re-organizing the digital content, such that we can easily re-shape any digital product basing on the original outcomes. Another aspect of the “fluidity of the digital” is the evolving of digital media, either in size, content and with time. Digital media permits keeping the contents in memory, which allows further manipulation and explanation on the content, and that makes the digital more “fluid”. In Ritchin’s case of O.J. Simpson, you can see how human manipulation has guided the directivity of digital image, and how its social impact has lasted to suggest its fluidity. Other examples can be find everywhere in today’s social media—how a post of a celebrity can be distorted and misused in the way that deviate the original meaning when the digital content was first produced.

  • Photography’s capability of capturing reality

    • The unique capability of photography to capture reality lies in the human culture of vision. Seeing takes up so big a part among all our ways to sensing the world that it becomes one of the very primary way for human to collect informations from the surrounding. And among all other arts and technologies, photography is the closest way to human vision that contains plenty of informations in the frame: images, lights, time and etc. All other text-based media or technology such as text and books has fallen short on their directness and efficiency of carrying multiple informations. And yet photography also has its limitations—it’s static and plain in 2d, and it can only capture a fragment of time or space. But the limitations actually allows more space of imagination, or even manipulation, that, while keeping photography’s capability of capturing reality, they also allows more editing and shaping upon the reality—comparing to videos and virtual reality. 

Comm Lab | Photo Diptych Concept

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  • Overall Concept & What to Convey:
    • Concept option 1: Eyes & Vision
      • Humans are visioned animals–seeing and viewing forms so big a part of our daily experiences and selfness. We heard a lot reflection on human’s visual culture: “we’re what we see”/”eyes can tell you everything”/etc. Thus, it occurred to me that why not take a roll around the concept of eyes and vision,?
    • Concept option 2: Femininity & Body Image Anxiety
      • What do you see when you sit in front of your mirror? A face of yours, or a combination of imperfect components? Inspired by my friend’s fierce body image anxiety, I wanted to photograph something that express the disturbing images from a young girl’s mirror.first_2
  • Conversation
    • Concept option 1: Eyes & Vision
      • Similar Composition & Color Tunes: eyes or the universe?
    • Concept option 2: Femininity & Body Image Anxiety
      • Similar Components: Fogged mirror & Girl’s stuff
  • Image(s) to take photos:
    • Concept option 1: Eyes & Vision
      • Close up shot of eyes
      • painted with bright colors
      • lights, colorful lights
    • Concept option 2: Femininity & Body Image Anxiety
      • Girls/Girl’s weeping eyes
      • behind/reflected in fogged up mirror
      • fogged up mirror
      • make-ups
  • How to manipulate the image(s) using Photoshop:
    • manipulating the colors
    • improve the picture quality
    • etc.
    •