# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
EBAC - Foundation 2018
Made with Maya Bifrost, rendered with Arnold.
1920x1080 / 24FPS

# data[].attributes.body
Documentation of submission (21/11/2018)

# data[].attributes.body
Going through the criteria to make sure I was safe in all of them, I got concerned about the experimentation part.
I remember Michael said in a workshop that different software do count as experimentation. So I emailed him about it, and asked permission to use the screenshot in my reflection.
After a couple replies, I was a little bit more relieved.
As he said, it's about finding the right tools for the job.
And I considered lots and lots of different softwares, as is easily accessible in my sketchbook. And chose a few to make tests, as much as my time allowed me.
The plan was to have samples of everyone of them, but since rendering in some softwares was as complicated as doing something, it would take as much time as learning the basics, and I didn't have double the amount of time.
So I decided I would just print screeshots and show the results without it being in a video.

Most experiments were done after I chose the software, which was Maya, and that is super clear. I have videos, lots of screenshots, and even here in reflection I have videos, and wrote a lot about the decisions I made.

I've done everything I had to, and could possibly do in this project. I'm aiming for the highest grade. So let's see how it turns out.

Learning water simulations was not the best idea for a 2 month project, but somehow I managed to learn and make something that, in my opinion, looks very good.
As my brief said, I wanted to do something technically challenging, and well...I managed to do that and even more. The water choice was very technical, because it's one of the hardest things to do. Since any errors are easily noticeable due to the water being transparent.
I also spent a lot of time working on the narrative and context, and I think I managed to reach a nice balance point. There's enough depht, so anyone can interpret it differently, but it's not "nonsense", and with a little bit of reflection you can come to a conclusion.
Or just enjoy the visuals.

So my ambition paid off this time, but at a high cost. So that needs to be addressed for future projects.

Overall, I'm happy with my results and I hope I made my path clear for anyone accessing the work.

# data[].attributes.body
Today I visited 2 exhibitions for primary research.
The first was recommended by Carlos. It's Lume, by Ernesto Bonato. At Galeria Virgilia.

For my surprise, the presentation was very much what I will be doing for my project. Black walls. And instead of paintings, the screen. He also had a screen, but it was a small tablet, showing water washing one of his pieces. Kinda like rain.
The woodcuts are really impressive, the level of realism he achieves on them is really respectable.
But what interested me the most whas the theme.
"Each portrait is a river"
He talks about the flow of emotions, mood, body language, anything that creates our relationship with other people. Or so did I understand.

Moving on to the next, it was Chalkroom by Laurie Anderson and Hsin-chien Huang. At SESC Augusta. Recommended by Sol.

From what Sol told me, I wasn't expecting much. Since I knew it was a VR experience, I didn't look up anything for spoiler reasons.
Good decision, because the experience was amazing! The environment was much larger that I expected. And really immersive.
There are rooms in this dark, weird, maze structure. One of them was called water, which was nice to see, a cool coincidence.
What I liked most from it, was this sense of exploration. You don't have a map, and everything looks kind of the same. So exploring is a big part of the game.
I also looked at the sky for a long time, I flew to the top, and just stopped to look at everything from the distance. The sky was beautiful and a little bit creepy.
There's nothing to scare you there, but you can't shake off this feeling of uneasiness that comes from the unknown

# data[].attributes.body
I scheduled a meeting with Carlos today, to talk about both reflection and research. He was again, very nice and helped me with a lot of things.
We went through the criteria required to get a high grade. And he said I do have a nice broad range of research. They need to be commented and Harvard referenced, but that I was already going to do during the holidays.
He also mentioned an exposition of Ernesto Bonato that just opened yesterday, so with that I have one more place to do primary research, besides the one that Sol recommended me. This is very good because it is one thing that was lacking. I only went to Vetor Zero, Split Studio, Pinacoteca, Bienal, Video Brasil and to watch a couple films during the research weeks. So it's a good amount, but not enough.

He gave me very valuable feedback on research, showing me a few entries that could be improved a lot, and others that were really good.
One of his advices was to use the marker tool to highlight some parts that are most important, and that would make the life easier for anyone assessing it. So I spent the day doing that, as well as adding more information where there were some things lacking. For example, some entries had things like "this was useful" or "this didn't work", but I didn't explain why.
I realized I can improve it almost infinitely, there's always a "why" to be asked. The only thing stoping me, or anyone, from doing that is time.

If I finish working on my research/sketchbook earlier than expected, I plan to come back here and add as much information as my memory can remember.

# data[].attributes.body
"How does what I have achieved today compare with my daily target?"

"How can I adjust my planning before the deadline to be fore effective?"

"What assessment criteria do I still need to securely evidence and how will I do this?"

With my video being ready yesterday, it leaves me with a week for improving sketchbook and research. I reached out to Carlos, and we have a meeting scheduled for tomorrow.
I plan to ask and get some valuable feedback about my research, and how far it might be from a disctinction. As well as reflection. I think the sketchbook and the outcome itself are safe.
The only criticism Carlos had about my sketchbook a few weeks ago was that I wasn't putting the date in the pages. That's it. And since then I improved it even more with writing and evidence of work.

I used today to think about the cards I will be doing using my storyboard, that everyone seemed to like more than my video, despite the fact that I made it in half an hour, and the video took 1 month of learning, and 1 month of making.
I understand that the shapes are interesting, and it's intriguing because it's "hard" to understand what's going on. But that alone shouldn't be more interesting that something extremely hard that learned by myself with a very limited time frame.

I thought about doing stickers, because they're not that expensive, and everyone can enjoy. It's small and pretty much everyone likes it.
It was around 160 reais for 100 stickers, which I don't think would be enough.
Michael gave me some info on that, and in his exhibition he gave around 200 cards. Out of a thousand. So I don't expect much more than that. I'll probably do 150, or 200.
I also investigated note pads, and things that have pages that you can just rip one off and take home. But that was way too expensive, and probably the printing wouldn't be too nice, leaving an ugly border.
I then looked at visit/bussiness cards. Cezar told me it wouldn't be a good idea because they're glossy, and kinda small.
My solution was to make a custom size card, so instead os the default 9x5cm, I used 9 by 7, which gives me more room to work with, and make the storyboard visible, and also has more of the shape that the image has.
I ordered 250 cards, in Couche 300g, and it's matte, so it doens't look glossy or shiny. Two problems solved very quickly.
Time was also a concern. We have two holidays. And the deadline is wednesday. Most deliveries would be on wednesday. Which is veeeery risky. And I didnt want to risk it being delayed and I wouldn't be able to show it for the assessment.
These cards are estimated to be ready on friday, so there's saturday, monday and wednesday in case it gets delayed. I think that's safe enough!

# data[].attributes.body
Refining week, I though I didn't have anything to "refine", since I rendered the last scene today, so I would just put every scene together and render the video.
But actually I figured out why my water was having noise issues. So I re-rendered the scenes where it was wrong, like the last one.

I also changed the camera movement in the 3rd scene because in all of my scenes, or the subject moves, or the camera. Never both. And in this one both moved, I realized it was breaking the flow of the video a lot. So I rendered it again, and also made the 5th (the one I spent 12 hours rendering manually) longer, because I found out how to fix the problem, so instead of 50 frames, I rendered like 120. This also helped the flow because it was the only scene that was ending too soon.

I was also worried about printing something, since Cezar talked to me about it today. He gave me the idea of using a note book, that you can just grab a page and take home, like we saw in the Addiction exposition near EBAC.
I need to think more about it, and how I can do these cards/posters/stickers/whatever works best.

Cezar was kind enough to ask Monique for me if it would be possible to do it at EBAC, and she said yes, we can cut everything, and glue it together, as well as print, of course.
The problem is: I have tomorrow and wednesday to make it. The remaining days up until our deadline are holidays/weekend. I'm prioritizing my video, of course. So if I manage to have it ready to go soon, I might be able to print everything wednesday.

(Image below is one frame of the 5th scene without the noise/bubble problem)

# data[].attributes.body
-Today's reflection
-Re-render scene 5 with more frames
-Design cards for exhibition

# data[].attributes.body
This weekend has been the most tiring one I've had in a long while. These last two weeks, actually.
I spent all of Saturday rendering, frame by frame...my 5th scene. I think I'll have nightmares with it. Since Zync's render was making the water look like soda, with one billion bubbles, I couldn't lose another day like I lost friday just trying to figure it out. I decided I would render them manually, ONE BY ONE. This way, even using the students license, there's no watermark. The huge downside is, it took a whole day to render 120 frames...amazing. By whole day I mean, I did a couple hours when i got home friday, after midnight. And continued right when I woke up until 10 PM. Only making a few breaks to eat/shower.

After this incredible experience, I started to do my 6th scene. Which I'll have to figure out how to do 2 scenes in one day...
Anyway, the original idea from the storyboard consisted in a lot of people, just like scene 3, all falling to the ground and splashing. After thinking about it yesterday, since I had time while the frames rendered, I figured it wasn't very cool, and kinda depressive. Even when everyone is together they still fail? Not that I have much faith in humanity at all, but I'm not a pessimistic person and I don't think that fits the video as I imagine.
So I had this idea, a reference that came to my mind was Bia's Moving Sculpture project, that instead of making it be a lot of people, I would use one model, and show different times of his "life" as water. In a circular shape, making the camera follow it in 360 degrees.
I won't even start talking about how much trouble this 360 gave me, because the camera loves to aim at certain directions that I did not set up, but I figured it out after some good 4 hours. I also had to do this project on Maya like 3 times, because the first two crashed, and it crashed everytime i try to open up the project again.
Anyway, despite all the trouble, I think this will be one of the best scenes in the video. Because the frozen frames while the guy is splashing down looks very appealing and the 360 make it look like a clock.

Update: I was writing this while the 6th scene rendered and IT LOOKS AMAZING. (Image below) I was concerned because I used 800 frames, to make 360 turn look smooth, and I used 48fps, which is double of what i was using. For my surprise, it took 5 minutes per 10 frames, which is the fastest speed I've seen since I started using Zync. And the water looks right. The way it was before I had these issues with the random bubbles. I'm extremely happy right now. That's the first thing that happened this week that worked. Thank God.

# data[].attributes.body
Today was one of the worst days I've had this week, and none of the days were good.
The 4th scene was the easiest, in theory. I set up the scene in Maya in half an hour. Super easy. But then, the rendering nightmare began. Zync, same as the last couple days, was rendering my water with bubbles in it. But my PC's render showed the water clean.
What was the problem then? I still don't know. I left EBAC 10:30, same as yesterday, exhausted. And still haven't figured it out.
I sent an email to them, and they replied, but when i replied back i think they were not online anymore since it's only Mon-Fri.
Anyway, after submiting like, i don't know, 20 projects with different settings, testing each individual attribute to see if that would change the render result. Nothing worked. I, then, had to use the last option. Render frame...by...frame.
Each frame is taking around 6 minutes. And it's a very, very ,very repetitive and tiring process. But that's the only way. I can not lose another day trying to fix it, without knowing if it will work.
I even tried using other renderfarms. I registered at other 4, but none of them had Arnold renderer God knows why...

I managed to do 20 frames today. It's about 8 frames per hour. I think i'll be able to finish it tomorrow.

Below is all the files I submitted to Zync's renderfarm today trying to render the scene without the errors.

# data[].attributes.body
making scene 4
scale problems with voxel size
----------------------------

I'm writing while my 4th scene is rendering, so the goal for today has not been met yet. But there's a long night ahead of me.
I'm having similar issues to yesterday, and the day before. Rendering problems. The water seems to have grains, or noise. But my render on my looks fine (aside from the watermark). I really don't know where the problem is being caused, I don't think it's on Zync's end.

Michael talked with everyone today, and I'm glad I can get everything I wanted. The black wall, and since I'm in front of a dry wall, we will put a PC behind it to supply the screen. We agreed it should be 30 inches, but it can be reduced to 20 if needed.
It's a lot better using a PC instead of a screen alone, because it depends on the screen if it can run videos on it's own or not. I didn't ask for a PC because I didn't know I would be in front of a dry wall, that would have space behind it. Otherwise I would have problems hiding it. I'm glad Michael put me where I am. That helped a lot!
This took a lot off my back and I can concentrate better on the video now.
We also have a crit tomorrow and Monday, and I really hope it's a one to one crit, so we don't lose all this time, which is really important for me at this point.

# data[].attributes.body
This is how the second scene looks like from another angle, and not the front one.

# data[].attributes.body
Today I made the second scene. It took the whole day, and a couple more hours, which means even less sleep time.
We did "lose" some time, because we had to meet our FAD2 assistants. I really don't need much help, so it's not that useful for me. She did give me some good ideas though. For example, maybe using my storyboard as cards that people can get and take home. That is possible and better than doing posters, which would take a lot of space to hang, and take off the attention from my video.
But that would take even more time, and money, to print and cut. If I can follow my action plan, and nothing goes wrong, I might be able to pull it off.

This seocnd scene gave me a lot of trouble. The render was not working, and it took around 6 tries to work. I tried it with the mesh on, off, particles on, off, both on. Nothing would work. Eventually it worked and I have no idea why.|

Michael showed us our exhibit space, and mine is pretty cool, actually. It's one of the first ones on our side, so everyone will be seeing it right at the start. SO my concern of being thrown into a showreel is gone, and on top of that I got more than I expected, I'm really impressed by the way he managed to give everyone a very nice space!
It's also in front of the bar, so people might look at it while they're there.

# data[].attributes.body
Production Padlet - Orange (Need to talk with Sol about 7.2 criteria)
Making and rendering scene 1.
Should be ready by the end of the day.

By 12:30 the geometry should be ready and by 4:00 the simulation should be ready to be sent to Zync.
----------------------------------------------------------

I managed to conclude my goal for today. And even more, I already started making scene 2. Unfortunately it failed miserably, but i'll get back at it tomorrow.
It failed because the scene gets way too heavy to simulate with over 92 cilinders.
I had the scene ready by the end of the class, and could start working on the next at EBAC until 9 PM.
I printed lots of screenshots and I'm writing on my sketchbook a lot to hopefully be able to show everyone how hard it actually is to learn everything by yourself, specially if you're talking about something as complicated as simulations can be.
But I'm doing fine, if you don't count all of the hours of sleep lost.
I believe I was too obsessed with the idea of not doing a "small" project, that i chose a subject that is very hard.
My plan is to finish all of the scenes by friday, and then spend the next week of refining finishing putting everything on my sketchbook and commenting on my research. If everything works as planned, I will have a very good rate of completion of my Action Plan!

# data[].attributes.body
I uploaded this simply because it looks beautiful. It's the result of lots of days learning about each individual attribute and it's effect on the object.

# data[].attributes.headline
4/11 - Learning how to render with HQ details on Sunday

# data[].attributes.subject
4/11 - Learning how to render with HQ details on Sunday

# data[].attributes.body
I decided to take one day, and time every action I had. I had two reasons.

One: I wanted to show how much time, effort, and patience it takes to do a basic thing, like learn just one attribute slider, that shouldn't take very long.
Two: I wanted to be able to look back on it and see if I was being efficient with my time. (which I believe I was, because Im using all the hours in the day when Im not sleeping, and working as fast as I can without compromising the quality)

A day in Part 3
Woke up - 11:50
Started working - 12:30
Learning about Kernel Factor  - 1:06
Testing Kernel Factor influences - 1:28
Learning about Droplet Radius - 2:26
Testing Droplet Radius on top of Kernel - 3:13
Rendering test at Zync - 3:50
Pause to eat :) - 4:00
Changing values to get a better result - 6:24
Pause to shower :) - 6:40
Testing Resolution Factor - 7:03
Rendering with Resolution Factor added - 7:45
Making tests with Scene1 cilinder - 8:39
Trying to figure out why nothing is working - 9:42
Creating a new cilinder path - 10:15
Making simulation with new cilinder - 10:58
Making a more curve path - 11:32
Eating - 00:00
Trying to figure the why the water render isn't working - 00:49
Adjusting lighting - 1:24
I gave up, will try tomorrow - 2:00
Researching about society -  3:09
Sleeping :) - 3:30

# data[].attributes.body
-Make Scene 1                    /Done
-Render Scene 1                 /Done
-Print Screenshots             /Done

# data[].attributes.body
Low quality simulation just to see two liquids colliding.
This was useful because I had naver tested more than one "water object" interaction with another.
I set the quality to be very low so the render would go quickly.

# data[].attributes.body
I spent the day finishing the last tests I needed in order to begin the real making of my project. I divided my storyboard in 7 scenes in total and i'll begin making scene 1 on monday. During the weekend I will learn about the Bifrost's settings that can improve the quality a lot for the render.

I'm a little bit worried about the assessment criteria 7.2, which is about the exhibition and how the presentation of your work is seen by other people. It's possible that my video will be thrown in a showreel with all of the other videos due to lack of space. And i'm afraid it won't be the same experience. I don't consider a showreel, that gets almost no attention, to be a very high standart, so I don't know what to do. If my proposal is accepted, I do think it is a very high standart considering the line of thought i had.
There's also a few sketches and research to make it more solid.

After talking with Sol about this criteria, she told me I should have some research on the topic, with visual references to support the sketchbook. I have the main reference which is Bienal, but I'll be looking into other video exhibitions and how they displayed their work.

# data[].attributes.body
01/11
Testing multiple objects in the same layer colliding with a cointainer.
This was necessary because for some scenes I will have more than one subject, and I can not make 5 new layers of liquid attributes for each one. So I testes combinind all of them in one layer. And it works, thank god!

# data[].attributes.body
01/11
Testing a single object colliding with a container.
The splash after the hit is very interesting and could be used in slow motion. I think that would be very impressive.

# data[].attributes.body
I stayed at EBAC a few hours after class to talk with Edu, from the BA. And Igor also helped me a lot with Maya. I ended up leaving at 10 PM because I had a lot to do.
I split my storyboard into 7 scenes. Some are continuous, some are split into two parts. But there are 7. If everything goes right I should be able to make one scene per day. And that would leave the holidays and a weekend to focus on reflection/research and sketchbook.
I managed to do a test I wanted about the first scene. I also teste a lot of render setting that I read about at autodesks site.

The first scene is just a water stream flowing. But in Maya's Bifrost I can't use a spline as I would do in RealFlow or C4D for example.
If it was one of those, I could use this spline (which is basically a line in 3D space) and set a force to make the particles follow this line. This way would be easy and simple.
So my idea was to use a rectangle, and make a hole, or a tunnel, going through it with the shape i wanted. So I could "put" the water and make it collide with this tunnel, and then it would flow through it.
It worked! The water collides with the shape and goes through the cilinder as expected. Igor helped me to make the shape, and then i did the simulation.

Reading about the Bifrost's Mesh at Autodesks site I learned a lot, they explain about every and each attribute, and there are a lot, that was incredibly helpful because there is very little information about water simulations in general, but specially Bifrost's simulations. So Autodesks site has been my primary source for technical research.

I'm thinking about making a few pages in my sketchbook talking about the technical skills involved in each scene, as well as the meanings behind it.That would make it very easy to assess and evidence my work. I want to make it clear that this is the most difficult project I've done. So by making this, like I've done with the storyboards would help.

# data[].attributes.body
I got positive feedback during the crit today. People seemed to like the test-videos I showed. According to them, it looked realistic (which is what I was going for) and beautiful. Cezar really liked the storyboard I made, and it was even suggested it would be possible to make posters with it. He said that it looks appealing and has interesting shapes, which is very much what I've been researching, so I'm happy about that.
I kind of agree with him. On one side, I do think it would be a good poster. It has an interesting composition, and nice contrasting colors. But on the other, I don;t want something I made in half an hour, using the one I drew in the sketchbook to steal all of the attention from the video.

I also mentioned I had problems with a top view camera test, and Otavio and Henrique made suggestions that I'll be trying today. The suggestions included, instead of using the camera already inside the water cilinder, I could try starting with the camera outside and then moving it into the cilinder. This way I might be able to avoid the refraction lines that I didn't like in the video.
(image below)

Daniel replied my email today, where I asked about getting Distinction.
And I know I'm not at that level yet , but I'm feeling confident with this storyboard, it has a solid research base. And can have multiple interpretations. Even I am still finding other meanings to it.
Since I think it would be accurate to say it's about society, I want to research even more into this subject, and maybe make a few changes, if necessary.
Right now I need to hurry and write my proposal for the exhibition. I'm thinking of something simple. Just a small room, 3 walls and the ceiling. All black. And in the back wall, a hole for the monitor. Would also be necessary a hole behind the wall to make all of the cable management. Which I want to hide. This way all of the attention would be focused on the video itself, without distractions.

# data[].attributes.body
Make test of top view with a "shell" cilinder          /Done
Finish commenting on research
Make proposal                                                           /Done
Research about society                             /Done
Test EXR at EBAC's PCs                                            /Done

# data[].attributes.body
-Set up Zyn'c's Renderfarm account                 /done
-Make a render test                                             /done - .EXR is a problem
-Make a "water string" test                                /done
-Test water collision with another liquid      /done -big fail
-Make final storyboard                                      /done
-Research artists                   /done

# data[].attributes.body
We had a mini-crit, in preparation for Monday's crit. During the afternoon I continued to work on the storyboards.
The book i'm reading (The Filmmaker's eye, by Gustavo Mercado) gave me ideas, for example a Macro shot, which focus on a small detail that was been appearing during the film constantly, and has importance. It's usually used when you have a prop or object which is very important for the story. But overall a better understanding about composition, and what which element does in a scene.
With that in mind I will be working for the next couple days in my storyboard, and making a few more sample videos, testing Zync's Renderfarm.
I learned about it after asking Kevin if it would be a good idea to use a renderfarm. He suggested Zync, which is a Google company, that gives every account $300 to start rendering. He might have just saved my project.

Daniel told me in the tutorial feedback that I should look more into artists, and see what they have to say about their work. So that also may help, and I'll focus the rest of the day researching.

# data[].attributes.body
After talking with Carlos yesterday, I'm a little bit more relieved about my sketchbook. I also talked with Daniel today about some ideas for other storyboards, and we brainstormed a little bit. Some of the ideas were about buildings also, or going for something more metalinguistic, and abstract even.

I'm almost using all the hours I have avaiable in the day working on my project. During the day, at EBAC, I work in my sketchbook, storyboards, writing. And I spend the rest of the day learning more about Maya's Bifrost. And at night I always leave some test that I made rendering. It's hard to think of a way to be more efficient. As I learn more about Maya I get faster and get things done quicker. So the only way I can think of now is doing more. By doing that I learn more and save more time in the long run.

# data[].attributes.body
I've continued to work on my storyboards, and did two of them today.
One of them has a more defined narrative, I'd say. Because you can follow and understand the storyline very well. But I'm trying to run away from that a little bit, Iwant to explore more and discover how much I can push it and still have a narrative. So I have been thinking of ways to get some more crazy angles, and not so defined shapes.
I used Doctor Strange and Inception as references for some crazy achtecture, and perspective. And I've been researching some other buildings from the real world also.
I have a meeting with Carlos scheduled for tomorrow, so im sure he'll be able to help with that also.

One interesting thing about the test I made below is that since there is no background, thus reference points, even though the camera is moving, and not the character, it seems the other way around. I'm thinking about other ways I can use this to my advantage.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Maya Bifrost - Camera Rotation Liquid Rebuild

# data[].attributes.body
"What's the difference between the experiment weeks and the first day of the make week?"
I started working more on the conceptual side, rather than the technical software stuff. Today I focused on doing a mindmap and one storyboard, out of five. Will try to finish all of them by wednesday, so I can show it to Carlos and get some feedback.
Later today I want to test something that might help me save some time. Which is to use a rigged hand to make an animation, and then turn it into a liquid, instead of doing the other way around. The problem is I dont know how to animate in maya, so that should take some time. I will need to check my Action Plan and see if I can spare some time to learn it.

I was also thinking more about why water is so interesting, and found out a few things while doing the mindmap.

Why did I choose water?
No taste
No smell
No color

Despite all that it's so important for society and humankind in general. And sometimes we dont even value that. Would we if it was golden? Or it tasted like candy?

# data[].attributes.body
From the feedback I've been gathering I know my tests are visually appealing.
I asked friends what were their thoughts and how big of a project they expect it to be based on the tests I have done.
Most of them told be basically that anything I made like this would be amazing. But they don't know anything about the 3D world so that's expected. One of them told me that he didn't expect a professional hollywood scene (which is good, because I woudn't be able to do that at this point), but expected something kind of big, because he knows I've been putting a lot of effort in learning.
I can also rely on my expectations as well, besides the feedback, because I'm usually too hard on myself. This should work in my favor for this project, because I'm doing something that I believe no one else knows at EBAC, maybe Kevin aside.

The next step is to make a storyboard. And for that i need to generate ideas, i want to have at least 5 different ones. And probabibly will do a mindmap too. I already have about 3 ideas ready, just need to develop them.
Another issue is rendering. In order to use Maya's Bifrost i'm almost sure i have to use Arnold. But i have the student's license, whoch is problem because it renders with a watermark. So I have to figure this out as well.

I personally want to work more on my sketchbook, which will be easier now because of the ideas generation, and i should include more research there also.
Daniel agreed and told me this is the time to skyrocket my project. Create ideas with many layers of depth.

# data[].attributes.body
-Finish printing screenshots      /done
-Explain process in sketchbook    /done
-Update Action Plan                     /done
-Harvard reference latest research entries

This test was made using the drag value, which creates a force obligating the particles to come together again. I used the particles and the object layers to create the motion field.
The problem is that the fingers are too thin, and would take like 500 frames to come back. I can't render all of this. I need to think of possible possibilities to work around it.

# data[].attributes.body
Even though it's a research week i didn't research much, which it's a problem I'll fix in the following days. What i did was comment on all of my previous entries, or almost all of them. Which already helped a lot.
I concentrated most of my time in testing more softwares, like Cinema 4D with Phoenix plugin, rendering with Redshift and Renderman, Realflow in and outside of Maya, a little bit of Houdini. I tried almost everyone in list. And I'm almost sure i'll use Maya. But i need to figure a few things out first, like how to render with something that doesn't leave a watermark. I'll probably ask for help from Edu thursday after my tutorial next week. He is very skilled and might know a few tricks on how to render better.
According to my action plan, I should
It's important for me to focus on rendering because it's as important as making. And takes a long time.

Image below is a test I was doing in RealFlow, trying to learn the software.

# data[].attributes.body
I started working on my sketchbook today, as Sol recommended, i layed out my pictures in a better way. Also had a reflection tutorial with Cezar which helped me realize i was descripting too much and that its good to add pictures. So i need to fix a couple entries and start working on my research.
I'm a bit worried with my sketchbook once again, because i have three things to do there: Make small sketches of how i want my tests to look like, use more colors and add some research.
But that doens't seem enough, so i need to think of other ways of turning all that im learning into evidences there.

I should schedule another meeting with Carlos as soon as possible in order to talk about my sketchbook. I believe it's very important for me to "fix" any issues i might have with it, since it was my worst grade in part 1.

# data[].attributes.body
I'm only using software for my project, besides the sketchbook of course.
I made this choice mainly because i wanted to learn more about Houdini, for example. Which i wish to specialize later. It's really specific for particles and simulations, but that's what i like mainly in VFX so i'm very excited to work with it.
The idea could be represented through animation, painting, sculptures, anything really. But I believe video is a good way of showingwhat my narrative is about, even though i don't kow specifics yet, this whole thing of water and attempt will be very beautiful and pleasing to see.
From the crit today I understood how I can improve my sketchbook, by adding different colors, so it looks more dynamic and organised.
And just keep doing what I developed, printing the screenshots and explaining my process in those software, so the tutors can follow along.

# data[].attributes.body
After being absolutely destroyed by Maya yesterday, I decided I would figure out what went wrong and why things didn't work.
We did watch a few videos with Cezar about early animations, and that cost some time. But by the end of the day I managed to get a basic simulation going on. It was a very basic shape and not many frames, but I don't really have a baseline to follow, or  a tutorial, so i'm kinda learning all by myself.
One of the main problems was making the fluid return to it's original shape, because the Motion Field property was not applied in the right layers.
After figuring that out, after many hours...I managed to complete the simulation and I hope that tomorrow I can implement a 3D model and make it a liquid. The collision is a problem, i think the force is too strong and the particles take too long to come back and thus take way too long to render. One way I could try to fix this is by decreasing the strenght, or using a contrary field to make it weaker, and then it would return faster, requiring fewer frames. That would fasten my production.
I'll be trying that out tomorrow.

# data[].attributes.body
The way I'm doing things is that I planned the project as a whole for the brief, and then i do daily action plans in the production padlet, and a weekly one in my Action Plan file. Today I made a big mistake, and it was time miscalculation, but i'm also disappointed with myself, because i set a target of having a base form in Maya, but i got nothing. Actually nothing, i didnt manage to do anything today, besides working a little in my sketchbook. So I will take today, and try to accomplish it. It won't change much my action plan. I'll just not do tests on one software, probably Houdini, since it's harder than Maya, and im already struggling.

Reflection and Research are not a concern at the moment, i always add one or two references per day in my research, and do my reflection in the same day.

After a few hours I realized that even though I didn't manage to do anything in Maya, I made mistakes that I won't do in the future, so it wasn't a waste of time. Because I would probably make these mistakes anyway, so it's better that they already happened.

# data[].attributes.body
Monday - Print screenshots, write notes about them

At this point, according to my Action Plan i should be finishing experiments with a few chosen softwares. But since we didnt have classes on Monday, and Tuesday we were presenting the brief im a little bit behind.
My tests with After Effects were just tests, i dont plan to use it, because its not capable os doing what i need. You can only make "flat" water, and I need a more potent, and 3D software to work around. Even with plugins, as i confirmed today.
I think my research has helped me so far by giving be ideas of how water has been represented in videos, films, animations and so forth. I definetly need to look for more references, but i prefer to do it as i go, rather than spending a whole day only researching.
For the weekend i should finish a few more experimentations, probably with Maya and 3DSmax, maybe C4D if i have time.
And I've created this system of taking screenshots as I do the experiments, and showing the results, printing the images and commenting about them in my sketchbook. This way the tutors can assess the experiments I'm doing with a big variety of softwares to find which one works best for me.

After Effects tests -> https://vimeo.com/292369151

# data[].attributes.body
I tried to be as broad as possible in my research. Even though i don't really enjoy sculptures, i could find a few that stood out to me. Films are easy references, since they all have VFX, and often water effects.
I used all the references that were recommended to me, it helped to show the view they had when they heard my idea.
As Daniel suggested, i should stop for one day and generate ideas, just brainstorming, and i thought it was a good idea. So ill definetly add it to my action plan.
I spent the day trying to create water in AE, without plugins...and that was very challenging. In the end i managed to create some sort dripping water, as in a window. But i couldnt create forms or shapes. So ill use some plugins at home, such as Trapcode, that will allow me to do what i need. In case it doesnt work, ill just cross this option from my list of potential softwares.

For my idea to work, I need to be ble to "control the water" completely, doesn't matter what the idea is.

# data[].attributes.body
Writing my own proposal was, unexpectedly, pretty cool! I had my ideas all in my head, and was a bit confused. But when i sat down to write it properly, it went well and i finished all of it in an afternoon. I've got positive feedback from everyone that read it, and I liked it personally too. People's feedback was mainly that it was easy to understand, had clear goals, and was well written. Which made me really happy!
With this i got to improve my writing skills, how to elaborate a well written text, and manage the word count, so the message is passed without useless information.
I believe my presentation was good, I just need to work on speaking out loud, because sometimes I misread words or something like that. I also believe that the audience understood my project. I didn't see any confused faces at least.
What i could improve, which was the Action Plan, and a few mistakes in the Harvard referencing, has already been fixed.
I also need to use more my sketchbook, since these last few days were focused on the brief itself and research, it was a little bit left behind

# data[].attributes.body
I went to Pinacoteca on Monday with some friends, and since it was the first day of the week i decided it was ok to go to a place that may not have too much related things to my project. I ended up getting a few pictures of some great paintings that had water in it.  Other than that, i didn't take much from this day that was useful for my project. The following day i did an interview with my cousin, she has experience with writing, and it was useful to decide some details of my brief, that i finished writing the same day. I followed Michael's tips on how to write a good proposal to create a good question, since it's necessary to have a solid project. My question is something like "what is necessary to have a character?" in this case, i will use water as a character. On the following day, i went to Video Brasil, which is 2 blocks from my house. But it didn't have anything interesting for me at least, so I decided to watch The Meg, which despite being a bad film, had good CG, and lots of underwater scenes. It works as a reference i guess.
Thursday we went to Bienal with EBAC, and i thought i wasn't going to enjoy it, but our guide made it very interesting, and i ended up liking the exposition more that i would if i went by myself. I also saw many videos displayed in a room with all walls black, and i like that because it helps the projector by not having light, and puts all of the attention on the video itself. It's simple and effective. After that we had a scheduled visit to Vetor Zero, and that was amazing. Broki showed us the place, explained how it was created, all of the rooms, introduced us to some friends, that were working on things, so they explained what it was, how it was made, talked about the pipeline and workflow. And after that he showed us their studio, where they do all of the practical stuff. It was really cool to see people working this close.
I did not go to MIS on friday, as i planned. I wanted to, it would be a good place to see videos, and the Hitchcock exposition. But my graphics card died, and i really need that to do my project. So i spent the day going to some places nearby so i could get my files out of my hard drive and work on my laptop meanwhile.
I also lost my pictures from Monday and Thursday, but i'll do my best to replicate them (in the case of the video display at the Bienal), or remember the name of the painting and add it to my research.

This research week helped me by doing to things. First, of course, researching. Seeing expositions that are not related can help a lot. You might make a connection that you would never think of if you were only looking at related things. That's likely to have already been explored by someone else. The key is to look at different areas and there is where new ideas can be generated. I will use this to add more areas of research in my Padlet.

# data[].attributes.body
I made the most progress this week on Wednesday when i talked to Carlos. After that i started to look at my project from the conceptual side. And that helped me realize what are the goals and aims.
I need to think about the brief now, i have almost all of the starting bibliography, but i still need to write all of the 3 sections.
I'm focused on the research for now, but I'm constantly thinking about things I can write in my brief.
My biggest concern I wether my project is too big or small. I want to push for the highest grade, so I don't want to make a small project at all. But at the same time, if I do a huge project, I won't be able to finish it. Trying to find this balance has been really hard, because I can't exactly measure how hard it is to do water simulations, or learn the basics of a new software, it all depends on which one I'll use. And that depends on what I need to be able to do in that software. So there are a lot of variables, which makes it hard to define.

# data[].attributes.body
Continuing my research on water, i found useful references of paintings and videos/animations that i think portrayed emotions well. For example, Ernesto Bonato has some amazing woodcut pieces that look very realistic.  Daniel also gave me a few references, one of them was Bill Viola, and he has some interesting videos with practical effects, like water and fire, that gave me another idea for the research week, that just to look at audiovisual stuff, which can help just by being the same media, and not exactly related to water.

Also Carlos sent me an email with references we discussed yesterday, so i'll look into that tomorrow. My research file is getting a lot bigger and that makes it more exciting to work on the project. During part 1 and 2, I didn't have much on my research, or sketchbook, and now that we actually will have a grade I want to do the absolute best I can.

# data[].attributes.body
I had a meeting with Carlos this morning, and it was incredibly useful. He was able to guide me, and give a direction to follow which will make my project more interesting.
I told him my idea, and while talking i realized i need to think more about concept, and the narrative before i think about the video. It always happens to me, my mind instantly jumps to the outcome, it's just how i view things since i work so much with videos.
But in this case, i need to have a solid narrative, so the project can hold itself.
He advised me to look into water, and attempt/failure in art, which seems to be the main elements in my idea.
Also to look into why i chose water. After thinking for a while I believe I have the answer.

I discovered Water sImulations in my Redo project, so he said i should look into the brief before that one, which was moving sculptures. And in this project i researched about K. William LeQuier (image below) and his glass sculptures that resemble water. I believe this was the source of my interest.
Now i have something to do and look for in the research week. That helps to give me a direction.

# data[].attributes.body
Today i decided to research this the idea i had in mind would be possible software-wise. i found out that even Maya is used for simulations, which is good because i wouldn't have to learn a completely new software, just study more one i know a little bit.
But the most important thing i found out was RealFlow. It is both a plugin for existing softwares and a standalone one. You can use it in C4D, Houdini and Maya, probably others too.
The results are very impressive, because the generated mesh is very accurate to reality. There are thin blobs as well as bigger volumes. And i still have to look into it more to see if it's achievable for me. The image below is an example of what it can do.
But before that i started to do my action plan. And reserached how water was portrayed in art on different medias. I think this will help me contextualize and give me ideas instead of focusing in the outcome.

# data[].attributes.body
I have been thinking about this idea for a couple months now, but haven't put enough thought into it yet.
It would be something like this: water, and a hand is trying to get it's shape, but keeps failing and becoming water again. There would be emphasis on the failing part, where it "breaks" and starts over.
The first reference i thought about after having this idea was this Spider-Man scene, you can feel the atmosphere and drama, and it's very emotional.
i just wanted to do it because i researched about water simulation in the Redo project, but i realized there's more to it, and i can create a powerful narrative with it.
I need to think more about how and what i want to show exactly, but i'm 99% sure i will do something with water simulations. Also need to research which software is more adequate to it. I want to learn Houdini, but i have to experimrent it a little before i decide if i have enough time to learn such a complex software.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Birth of Sandman Scene - Spider-Man 3 (2007) Movie CLIP HD