Final project synopsis

Oghab is a working title for a short film based on Parviz Khanlari’s poem, which is a metaphorical story recited by animal characters. In the story the main character Oghab (the eagle), the symbol (or archetype) of dignity, splendour and bravery in the animal kingdom, whose fast approaching death urges him to quest for a remedy to avoid the inevitable, ironically through an eye opening dialogue with his antagonist (the crow) realises that the key to the lengthy life of his adversary is cowardice, over-conservatism and a not-so-dignified life style, the qualities that are in contrary with his values and finally decides to continue his short but dignified life.

Painting/Animation interdisciplinarity

As a painter who has come to do animation, I have been recently asking questions about the inter-disciplinarity of the two practices.

Here I have imported two of my paintings into XSI and have textured a grid and a sphere with them and then juxtaposited the sphere on the flat painting, added light and animated the sphere on the 2d surface. As it is evident in the images, the 3rd dimension, lighting, navigation around the textured objects (or paintings) and of course animation have added extra qualities to the work, while they might have detached us from the physicality of the paintings.

I suppose a lot could be explored with regards to similarities/ dissimilarities of the two practices and their overlappings and(possible) converging points, which might be an interesting area for future research... Any comments? please feel free to contribute.

MA DGD/A programmes' strength

Jon Weinbren has a profound understanding of film, screenwriting and character development ,which is helpful to all MA DGD/Animation students. For a good understanding of character development and screenwriting helps improve the narrative of the digital game or the animated piece.

Sense of play (London Games Festival) 26/10/2007

A truly informative and inspiring event, covering a wide area of game theory, technology and design, will write a summary about it soon.

XSI and 3d Max

Eventually after a lot of thinking and consulting with various people in the area of 3d animation I decided to take part in both XSI and 3d Max classes. My emphasis though would be on Softimage XSI's incredible modeling and animation possibilities.

XSI workshops and tutorials

I have joined the Softimage XSI workshops and tutorials (known as Advanced Digital Techniques offered by Sebastian Reed and Jonathan Hunt to 2nd year BA Animation students).

I am beginning to realise that BA Animation students are very well supported throughout their programme and I'm beginning to suspect that the Skillset qualification is only for BA Animation and probably not MA Animation (Although I'm not sure about this).

Having come from a Fine Art- painting background I have a deep understanding of Art and Design, however, I should confess that my knowledge of 3d animation is somewhat poor and I am finding these workshops a bit of a challenge, but I'm improving and developing a hell of a lot.

I am planning to stick to these tutorials and workshops to not only learn the high end 3d animation software, XSI, but also to improve my terminology of animation and 3d animation as well as the theory and techniques of digital animation. So far we have had 8 sessions of 2 hour workshops and 1 hour tutorials, a total number of 24 hours of workshops and tutorials and I am prepared to continue and produce a project with BA students by 7th of January 2008. The project is a 10 second 3d animation piece and since it would fascilitate me with the technical skills I need to pursue my final animated piece, I would like to consider it as part of my exploratory project...

The first few weeks at UCCA

The first few weeks at the UCCA has not been too bad but there seems to be numerous issues with regards to the way things are run here (Remember Mumbai group's project: University College for the Confusing Arts).

The generic part of the MA programme seems to need a more open approach towards group discussions and for reasons I am not aware of, the MA Animation at UCCA is considered as a subdivision of Digital Games Design course!(Is not a digital game one of the very many uses of animation?)

There are no specialised classes or lectures for the MA Animation course and students are supposed to adapt the DGD sessions to their animation needs !?

So far I have been attending some of the BA Animation workshops and tutorials to compensate for this but what would the outcome be is to be seen (as many of BA classes and workshops are not really tailored for the needs of postgraduate students)...

Bedroom as a studio?

Strange as it might sound I find my bedroom more inspiring, artistic and creative than anywhere else on the Uni campus! So I'll use it as a place to generate new ideas and work on paintings, animation clips and research.

My approach towards animation and painting, as it has always been the case, is open, multi-disciplinary and inclusive.

Main areas of interest

areas of interest:

• Aesthetics of painting and the moving image
• poetics, beyond time and place, mysticism, the Sufi path, Shaman, rhythm, harmony, music, trans-cultural discourses...
  
• Game theory and game engines
• 3d Animation, Softimage XSI and 3d Max
• film, narrative, character development...
  

This blog is dedicated to Hamed Zeraatpisheh's animation research and practice at the UCCA and is used primarily as a form of electronic sketchbook to initiate new ideas and academic plans as well as a place to document and reflect upon the experience of learing as part of the MA Animation course at the UCCA at Farnham. Plesae feel free to contribute to this blog