Alison White
Virtual Reality Design with Animation

University stuff is now transfered over to tumblr. This is because I thought having to blogs would be best, one for the project and another for research and also allows me to more easily follow my friends, who all seem to have tumblr accounts.

http://alywhite.tumblr.com/

http://aw-research.tumblr.com/

Will still keep this updated from time to time, although most likely on a more personal note.

As I am coming up to university starting again for my final year, it only seems fitting that I recap these last few months.

The majority of my time has been taken up by placements themselves. First I worked for Photographic Concept, a Barnsley portrait and wedding studio and then a cross-over where I worked as part of a group, Polygon Shores, which I am still apart of now.

Photographic Concept (Aug 2010 - June 2011)


At photographic concept I devoted alot of my time to creating adverts and improve exsisting materials, such as price lists. I worked here 3 days a week, someones more on busier periods where I was needed in the office. I believe I was benificial to the business and did create adverts that brought in customers. However, for my own personal development I didn't quite achieve as much as I would have wanted and wished that the business would have sometimes taken more stock in my advice. Working for them, especially on albums however did get me thinking alot about how to present work and also how to edit photographs, a previous unknown territory for me. Having never been involved much in the inner workings of a business (dismissing two weeks I spent at Dixons Rover in high school), this was valuable experince in that regard. Working within the arts, freelancing and setting up your own company is always an option and one that I am keen not to instantly dismiss. I did also do work for them outside my placement time, such as creating a album and general enquieries.

No Fate Productions: Terminator The Conner Chronicles (Nov 2010 - present)


T:TCC is a fan-based production to create 13 30 minute cgi episodes. I honestly never thought that they would except me into this, but I am so glad that they did. Working for them as part of the 3D team of modellers has allowed me to work on objects I prob wouldn't have picked myself and receive valuable feedback. I realise that I have a long way to go before I am even close to any of the people I'm working with in terms of skill, which is why it came as a great surprise an honour when I was asked to take over as the cgi director. I refused, as I do not feel I will have the time to arrange everybody, especially during my final year, but it was gratifying to know that my dedication to the project had been recognised.
Unfortunally I have not done anything for them in terms of 3D for what feels like forever, as Polygon Shores stuff took priority, but have been taking part in rehearsals via Skype. This is because I also do the voice part of one of the major characters, the T-1001, seen as Catherine Weaver in T:TSCC. 'She' has changed forms, so is no longer scottish. This work has taken me way out of my comfort zone, as I have never acted before, but I find that I quite enjoy it. Final lines for episode 2 (my first speaking part) have already been recorded, although with the scripts not being complete for other episodes yet, I wouldn't be surprised if I were to re-recorded these as I improve through rehearsals. But seriourly, the story of this just gets better and better as each script goes by and I am really looking forward to seeing them all complete (an estimated 5 year project, considering the volentary nature of the program).
Plans are in place to get permission from the studios to go ahead with this once a proper pilot is put together, with also attendance at a Terminator convention next May. Some fan made things fade away an die, but others bring great success and respect to those who took part and I really hope that we are the latter. Considering the strength of the plot I really think it's possible.

Polygon Shores (March 2011 - present)


This group consists of 5 of us who have known each other of our course. Considering not all of us had placements or had had shorter placements, this was set up to give experince to those without. It has been a struggle to keep up with other events in my life and work on this. Often it has taken up too much time then I would have liked, but has been nessicary considering our inexperince in working with a cilent and working as a group. If you look through my blog however you will see that we've created a really wonderful looking world and set of characters and hope that the concept will gain approvil to be made into a children TV show with leaf sound design.

Other Work Related Stuffs. . .
Other work things take on a variety of forms, such as reading, watching videos on 3Ds Max, following tutorials and generally trying to soak up any information out there of interest.

Personal Stuffs
My personal and free time has also included alot of work things, which I wanted to do, but don't nessicarly fit under 'career' based skills. This has included teaching myself watercolour, which is also helping me with my general drawing skills and learning to drive. I've done approx 30 hours now with two different instructors over four cars. My first instructor seemed really nice, but then went silient after a series of family issues, along with £169 of my money. Several phone calls to the AA later and a letter threatning legal action I finally got my money back. I now have a new independant instructor and all is well again thankfully. I do however feel that I've lost out, in terms of the weeks I spent waiting around for my 1st instuctor and then my second started of with a loan car, which transfered over to another loan car (when the first one broke) before I finally got the final car I'm now learning in, a alfa romeo. Constantly changing from petrol and diseal cars was abit of a pain, but I'm sure it will benefit me in the long run. My theory practise is going well and once I have my timetable for university I sure it wont be long until I book my my test. The pesky hazard test may be my downfall however. I dunno why they do it, every one I've spoken to says that it's waste of time lol
I've spent most of my free time just enjoying spending time with family, my beautiful dog Candy and watching DVDs. I've spent this year catching up on LOST (yes, I know, I'm terribly behind, spoilers an I kill you lol) and going to see films at the cinema. I've also been enjoying a PS3 at last, playing games such as Prince of Persia, Killzone 3 and an aweful lot of Tomb Raider.
Books I've read this year include Orcs, a re-read of Harry Potter 7, some Deathnote, various 'about' watchmen books and currently Brisingr, among others I can't recall.

I'm liking using the particle systems to create these. Even though nothings really committed to memory yet to be able to create these solo, I feel it's a type of animation that much better suits me and prehaps will allow me to bring some life into my final project (through applying the skills to other objects, like falling leaves etc).

Finding Tutorial Shine to be useful. There's not alot on there, but there is a photoshop section too, as well as Blender, with as my work with T:TCC I had been hoping to learn at some point.
It's nice how it provides the starter files for you, so that you can concentrate on learning the skills, rather then modelling things too, although it does make it more difficult for me to think about going about applying the methods to my own work.



Particle systems an space warps will definatly take some getting used to.

From following a tutorial on TutorialShine.com, I came across this by accident, but it was exactly the type of thing I was after. This will no doubt have a major effect on my final project come Septemeber. I'm going to have a play around with this to try and make my own using my own models rather then the ones provided.

http://www.tutorialshine.com/3ds-max-tutorials/special-effects/24-growing-tree-animation-using-particle-flow?showall=&limitstart=