Description

In this project, you will apply creative 3D production workflows to develop images or other media using 3D software tools. You will pursue your own interests while balance solving for the project's theme.

Overview

Project theme: “Welcome to Planet B”

For this project, you will be creating work based on the 2022 Ars Electronica Festival theme, detailed here: Welcome to Planet B: A different life is possible, but how? Ars Electronica is a New Media festival in Austria that started in 1979, and gives an award called Prix Ars Electronica in various categories including computer animation, AI, film, interactive art and other related categories. Your job is to respond to the project theme in some way that demonstrates creative transformation, synthesis of novel ideas, and use of 3D tools. You will need to choose a project format that corresponds with your media interests, participate in peer reviews, and follow the weekly production process. You will critically reflect on the work you have created and the project theme in a 150 word work statement.

A successful project will demonstrate understanding and mastery of 3D tools and processes, application of formal design principles, attention to detail and composition, and lead to discussion about your work during a critique. If often helps to choose a sub-theme, or a way to focus the work on particular issues within a theme.

Consider one the following sub-themes:

  1. Local vs global
  2. Speculative futures: fictional products, fictional places
  3. Shared ecologies
  4. Provisions: food, materials, and energy
  5. Individual and collective health
  6. Stories from the past, present, and future

Project formats (Choose one)

Choose a format that you can reasonable accomplish within the timeframe of the project. Do not use motion or animation in the final output.

  1. High resolution image(s). These images are large enough to allow a viewer to spend time looking closely, enticing them to explore discover details.
  2. 3D Style frames for pitching larger projects (animations, product, illustration, etc.)
  3. Poster design (follows a particular poster size format)
  4. Magazine or book illustration (choose a magazine or book)
  5. Comic book pages/panels
  6. Political cartoon
  7. Realtime display on Sketchfab.com or p3d.in websites.
  8. Modular game assets (with examples of the things they can construct)
  9. Archiviz Renderings of interior or exterior spaces
  10. Renderings in the style of portrait photography
  11. Renderings in the style of a particular style of photography, painting, or illustration.
  12. Product design concept renderings
  13. Renderings of experimental forms and surfaces, materials and textures, light and colors.
  14. Character design concept art or
  15. Other (talk with instructor about an idea not listed)

Production Process (All steps required)

Week 1: Concept development

What makes for a good concept: Concept Definition, Concept Formation, Design Concept Thoughts.

  1. Concept(s): Sketch, label, and write ideas in sketchbook.
    • Fill 3 to 5 pages of your sketchbook with project ideas. You may also work digitally if you prefer an all digital workflow, in which case, sketch the equivalent of 3 to 5 pages of a paper sketchbook.
    • Upload jpg or png images of sketchbook pages
    • Must be clearly scanned or photographed. This should look professional, do not upload blurry, rotated, poorly cropped images.
    • If you used the concept development worksheet linked in the assignment rather than a sketchbook, you may submit scans or well cropped photos of the concept development worksheet page, or upload a pdf file.
    • Note: Develop the concept around your interests. Are you interested in fashion or video game environments? Great, solve the theme around your interests!
  2. Mood board or reference sheet: Find reference images and put them into a large image canvas. See example of mood board. Save as a single image.
  3. Work intent: Describe what you will be doing
    • Include name, date, and project format
    • Write a few sentences to describe what you intend to make.
    • Upload this in an MS Word doc format

Week 2: Production begins

  1. Submit screenshots from Blender showing significant progress.
  2. Post your screenshots to the Project 1: Progress 1 screenshots discussion thread
  3. Meet with instructor if needed

Week 3: Production continues

  1. Submit screenshots from Blender showing significant progress
  2. Submit a draft of your 150 word minimum work statement
  3. Participate in peer reviews for statement drafts
  4. Post your screenshots to the Project 1: Progress 2 screenshots discussion thread
  5. Meet with instructor if needed

Week 4: Finish production and present work

  1. Upload final materials as a LASTNAME-project1-files.zip file
    1. Include final work statement
      • MS Word .doc format
      • 150 words minimum
      • file name: LASTNAME-project1-statement.doc
    2. Include the media (finished renders) you created
  2. Post your finished renders to the Project: 1 submission images show and tell discussion thread
  3. Participate in work critique with peers

Week 5: (Optional)

  1. If all work was completed and submitted on time, you may submit work revisions based on peer and instructor feedback. This is not required.

Writing a work statement

A work statement is a clear articulation about what you’ve made, why you have made it, and how it connects to the project theme. This is not a journal entry, where you might feel compelled to complain about problems you’ve had with software, or that it didn’t turn out how you wanted. Instead, imagine this is being printed in a magazine, or put on the side of a gallery. What do you want your viewers to come away with?

Example projects with work and artist statements:

Include the following to create a clear work statement:

  1. Your name and date
  2. Title of your work
  3. What did you create?
    • IE - “I created images that depict …”
  4. Why did you make it?
    • IE - “I created this work because I am interested in exploring …”
  5. What is the work about?
    • IE - “This work is primarily focused on …”
  6. How is what you did in your work demonstrating what what you’ve said the work is about?
    • IE - “You can see an example of this in the work where I have used … to reference …”
  7. Were there any unexpected, interesting, or strange outcomes?
  8. Did you have any interesting moments where the projects theme helped you understand something new or from a new perspective?

Constraints

All assets used in the production of the work must be created by you, be appropriately licensed for use, or be appropriated in a transformative way that significantly alters the nature of the original asset. For example, you can use a texture pack you downloaded from a texture website, however, if you render an image of just a flat plane with the texture applied, this is not really creative transformation since the entirety of the image is work from someone else. Your transformation and contextualization is what’s important. A render with a background that uses an image from Google image search (please don’t do this) that comprises more than 50% of the work is also not really enough creative transformation. If someone reviews your work and says that the image’s background is their favorite part of the image, you’ll have to then explain how you didn’t make the background, which is not a great situation to be in.

Frequently asked questions

Q: I’m having trouble coming up with a project concept. What do I do?

A: Don’t panic, this is the hardest thing there is beyond learning technical production skills. First, look through the “inspiration” links to see what other artists and designers are doing. If that doesn’t spark any ideas, download and try the concept development worksheet. Many people are able to generate ideas from this worksheet. If the worksheet isn’t helping you come up with any ideas that you are interested in, the third recommendation I have is to use your environment to generate ideas for you. Through observation, ideas can come to you. To do this, write down everything you see, think and feel, and apply a filtering process to establish relationships between those things. This is part of a design thinking process, and there are many design thinking processes to choose from. How you develop your concept doesn’t matter, and the concept itself doesn’t matter. The important thing is that you are going through some kind of creative or generative process to articulate a concept, and can then respond to it by creating creative works. I often find that listening to other artists and designers talk about their process inspires my own. Often, the stranger the process, the more interesting the work is.

Here you can see Andrew Jones demoing Alchemy, a drawing tool, to generate shapes for a character design process.

Learning Objectives

  1. Demonstrate understanding of 3D modeling skills including many of the following: Lighting and camera setup, materials and shaders, UV maps and texturing, and rendering.
  2. Apply fundamental principles of color and composition theory.
  3. Practice concept development skills

Project Inspiration

Investigate linked media to try to develop a sense of how other artists and designers assemble creative projects, develop conceptual frameworks, and write and talk about their work.

MAK Design Salon 4: Meinong’s Taxonomy of Objects

Concept Development Worksheet

If you are having trouble developing a concept, please use the provided worksheet as a guided method for exploring potential ideas. You may need to try it a few times before interesting ideas emerge.

Tutorials for project format types

Please explore the Blender Resources Page to explore what it possible in Blender (and has tutorials to support your training). I've also posted links to some tutorials for other media types like 3D printing and paper craft. You'll need to do your own research and technical investigations to learn how to do other things that you are interested in, but aren't covered in the course materials.

3D Rendering for Illustration

Modular game level or environment design

SketchFab Tutorial

Papercraft

3D Printing

Peer Review Resources
Rubric

Criteria Description Assessment Weight
Concept Development This criterion attempts to measure your ability to respond to the project theme through creative thinking processes, account for technical and causal relationships through systems thinking, and show awareness of cultural contexts and philosophical or ideological mappings through critical thinking. It also measures your ability to synthesize and articulate ideas through a work statement and to meet the minimum statement requirements. 40%
Technical mastery This grading criterion measures your ability to quickly gain and apply necessary technical understanding. Working with new digital formats, following technical instructions, using digital and analog tools, and applying formal elements and principles of design can all be considered aspects of technical mastery. Often, learning resources outside of provided course content will need to be consulted to acquire pre-requisite knowledge and skills that may be lacking. Your ability to quickly and efficiently locate and absorb technical knowledge is essential for success after your studies. Consult with instructor where necessary. 40%
File Submissions This grading criteria measures your ability to use proper naming conventions and formats, meet submission deadlines, and fulfill other specified requirements. 20%