💧 Final Project

22/10/19 - 26/10/19 (Week 9 - Week 14)

Ng Mei Ying (0340563)

Digital Photography & Imaging

Final Project 

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INSTRUCTION

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FINAL PROJECT: FUTURE CITYSCAPE 

Part A (Still Image Manipulation in PS)

22/10/19 (Week 9)

During this week, we are starting our final project for digital photography and imaging course. I was very interesting and a little anxious when Mr Martin briefed us about the theme of our final project was to create a future cityscape with our creative imagination. We have to sketch out our idea on a piece of paper with some simple descriptions about how does the world will become in the far future. 

We had to question to ourselves on how would be the future cityscape looked like, could be a wonderful and dreamy utopian that everyone wished for or else, it could a sad and dreary dystopia that everyone avoids. I wanted to create a poetic and glorious future cityscape at the beginning. However, I had a strong will to create a miserable dystopia future cityscape aiming to create an awareness towards the pollution of nature especially the air pollution problem. 

Fig 1.0  The scene of Japanese animation <Weathering with you>.

Not long ago, I had watched a Japanese animated romantic fantasy film <Weathering with You> written and directed by a Japan Director Makoto Shinkai. The movie was set in Japan during a period of exceptionally rainy weather and told the story of a high school boy who runs away from his town to Tokyo and befriends an orphan girl who appears to be able to control the weather. 

But upon dissecting the movie carefully, a more profound argument lies within. It’s about how the world has changed and how we choose not to care. This movie portrayed our carelessness towards society. Our society often takes the weather for granted so we do not recognise a weather anomaly. This movie had given me the first idea of how the future dystopia city will be looked like.

Fig 1.1   Reference image 1.

Fig 1.2   Reference image 2.

Fig 1.3   Mood board with stock image.

Fig 1.4   Idea Sketches

I start to imagine the dystopian city with a serious air pollution problem and draft down the idea on the paper. To start with, several images were found through the web as my strong reference to portray the hazy and blurry city. After confirming the reference images, I reached for the suitable image stock (Fig 1.3) from the web that could build up the cityscape I wanted.

Stage 1: First Attempt

(Fig 1.5) I started with the background image arrangement to get the rough atmosphere of the dystopian city I wanted. As it quite hard to find the perfect match background image so I decided to create a new composition of the background with multiple layers image of different sky.

Fig 1.5   The cloudy dawn sky editing.

(Fig 1.6) After finishing the rough background editing, I proceed to create the cityscape by pasting on the multiple images of a diverse high-rise building of the city like KLCC Tower, Twin Tower and so on. I was quite unsure on how will be the arrangement and the ratio of the cityscape would look like but I decided to just paste the image and try to find a visual balance point in the overall cityscape. The image editing approaches were just the simple layer masking, adding blending mode effect and also the opacity adjustment to get the rough composition outcome of the city.

Fig 1.6 The background high-rise building arrangement.

(Fig 1.7) On the next step, some majestic and high-rise building was placed at the foreground to create a visual hierarchy and a nice vista view to the whole cityscape. The composition of the image seemed to be more focus on the centre point.

Fig 1.7   The foreground high-rise building added.

(Fig 1.8) Below was the image that showed the mist and haze was photoshopped all around the city. I adjusted the capacity to a lower point to make it more transparent and the blending mode was added too.

Fig 1.8   The foreground high-rise building & haze were added.

(Fig 1.9) After doing the rough building editing, I proceed to add some extra element which was the human silhouette sitting on the hanging bridge, staring down to the highly developed yet impetuous city that was going to swallow up by a serious air pollution problem. I got some feedback from Mr Martin, he said that I had to keep an eye on the ratio of the building to ensure they looked logic I the right distance.

Fig 1.9   The Hanging building structure with a human figure was added.

Stage 2: Amendment
(Fig 1.10) Base on the experience and the knowledge I gain from the first attempt, I decided to create a better version of the first attempt. This time, I made the background dimmer to highlight the gloomy mood of the dystopian city. I adjusted the scale and the size of the lower ground city to a better ratio. At the same time, I change the left-hand side tall building with the clone of the building on right.

Fig 1.10  The background high-rise building second arrangement.

(Fig 1.11) I remained the same mist effect in the second amendment, and the new layer of the haze was created to enhance the hazy visual effect. The reflection of the haze and the city light was applied open the tall building too.

Fig 1.11   The foreground high-rise building & thicker haze were added.

(Fig 1.12) The next step was to put the same hanging bridge with the human silhouette at the lower centre of the image with a darker colour adjustment. Dust particle was added for the hazy environment and the flying aero car were added in the middle of the air. Mr Martin said that the overall composition was almost well done hence I could proceed to start making the subtle animations effect in After Effect.

Fig 1.12   The Hanging building structure with a human figure was added.

(Fig 1.13) Lecturer said that the composition was lack of hierarchy, hence I came out with the latest version of photoshop editing with the better hierarchy sequence. Mr Jeffrey said the atmosphere of the composition was indeed depressing that had illustrated the concept of dystopian city.

Fig 1.13   The Final Still Image.

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FINAL PROJECT: FUTURE CITYSCAPE 

Part B (Still Image Animation in AE)

29/10/19 (Week 10)

This week, I continued to start working with Adobe After Effect to create a subtle animation I this project. Firstly, I import the PS file as the composition - retain layer size which allowed me to work with the PS file that all the layers were kept and remained in a fitted bounding box.

Different import selections in AE:

= Footage: All layers are combined as one.
= Composition: All layers are retained in the large bounding box (same size as the dartboard)
= Composition - retain layer size: All layers are retained in the large bounding box (same size as the dartboard)

Fig 2.0   Import file in AE as composition-retain layer size.

(Fig 2.1) At the beginning of my thought, I wanted to make the dust particle scattered around naturally just like what we watch in the movie, but when I tried to get some tutorial from the youtube, I realised that the effect would only be created by using the external plug-in effect just like 3D MAX did. Hence, I decided to make it in an easy way which was making it slowly moving down by applying the transform effect. To add some wind blowing effect, I added some fractal noise effect to the air.

Fig 2.1   Add Effect > Noise & Grain > Fractal Noise.

(Fig 2.2 & Fig 2.2) Adjust the brightness and contrast of the whole composition.

Fig 2.2   Add Effect > Colour Correction > Brightness & Contrast.

Fig 2.3   Adjust the value of Brightness & Contrast.

(Fig 2.4) Add transformation effect to the dust particle bye scaling it a little larger.

Fig 2.4   Add transformation effect to the dust particles.

(Fig 2.5) Add blending mode as multiple for the dust particle to make it transparent to the background layers. Fractal type was set to basic. Noise type was set to soft linear.

Fig 2.5   Add blending mode to the dust particles.

(Fig 2.6 ~ Fig 2.9) At this stage, I wanted to create a sky moving effect in order to boost up the animation effect for the whole picture. Hence, the slant effect was applied for the background sky to create a cloud flowing effect. After adjusting the anchor point on the sky image, rotation value and degree was set depended on my requirements.

Fig 2.6   Add Slant Effect > Effect > Distort > CC Slant.

Fig 2.7   Add floor anchor point.

Fig 2.8   How to find anchor point > View > Show layers control.

Fig 2.9   Add slant value.

(Fig 2.10 & Fig 2.11) The last few steps to do was to apply the puppet pin and some city lights to complete the whole project animation. I used puppet pin tool to add the pins on the human figures, the position of the pin depends on the movement for the specific part I wanted to create movement. I made the human figure hunch over to showed mood of hopelessness and loss.

Fig 2.10   Use the puppet toolbar the human figure.

Fig 2.11   Add city light.

Below were the final render outcome of the subtle animated still Image uploaded in Youtube.

Youtube Link: https://youtu.be/rpYgUq1kuyY