MEDIA ARTS: Meet the Sock Sorter

1.) I think that the left arm (the left arm if you're looking at it) was the most successful sculpting in my project because it turned out looking very realistic and metallic. I was really pleased with how the shape of the arm ended up because it did look like something that might be able to pick up items and move them somewhere. I was also happy with how the screen turned out during the paint job because all I did was put a blue "technology background" and lightened it up a bit, then put "Analyzed" and a picture of a sock on it. It looks pretty neat, in my opinion. I think it really looks like a screen.

2.) I wasn't incredibly pleased with the arms on the right side of my machine. They were much harder to do because they were so close to the base and when I grabbed them the base came, too. And when I added in the second arm it was extremely difficult to grab just the one arm and not the other. All of the machine is just one sphere except for the trays on the side and the screen. I thought that the arms on the right didn't look nearly as realistic as the one on the left. I also wasn't quite as pleased with the "sock slot" because it is challenging to make a 'slot' in Sculptris. What I did was make a very deep crease in the base and painted the inside black, but in my opinion it still ended up looking strange because it has 'wrinkles' in the top and bottom of the slot due to the extreme crease I made.

3.) If I did this project again I would certainly make the arms different spheres. This would have made the project incredibly easier because with everything as one big blob I had a lot of difficulty dragging one piece of my machine and not taking another with it (see above--the most challenging bit was the two arms on the right side). I also hope to somehow figure out how to make straight edges in Sculptris so I can achieve a more boxy base for my sock machine... :)


As an extra note, when I was coming up with an idea for my sock machine, I wrote it out explaining it a bit like an advertisement, so I made an advertisement for my sock machine at the top! Here's the original text when I was brainstorming, if you care to read it:

"My idea for an interesting invention is a sock sorting machine!

I always hate sorting through socks, especially when they’re all white with grey heels and toes but you can’t match them up carelessly because on one the lining is different, or it’s a different length, or the material is different, or one has a thicker heel than the other, or maybe even one has non-slip sticky bits on the bottom! It’s frustrating when I have to sort through nearly-identical white socks. My solution to the problem would be that either a) Every single white/grey heeled sock is the exact same (not likely to happen) or … meet the sock sorter!

You put it in front of a pile of socks and it will put a sock into the slot and analyze it with its scanner. It will store a temporary information file about each sock. The sock itself will be piled on thin trays on its side. The machine will continue to scan socks and store them until it finds a match, in which case it will extract the appropriate sock from the pile and match it up. The matched sock is then deposited behind the machine. This process will continue until all of your socks are sorted!"

MEDIA ARTS: My Sculptris Animal!

So I've got two versions of my Sculptris: #1 is just the regular hummingbird clay sculpture at a flower, and number two I applied a motion blur and duplicated my hummingbird's wings a few times to imitate the way a hummingbird's wings blur because they flap them so fast. I don't know which one you'd like to mark, so I put them both up. I figure you can look at the blurred wings one for overall picture and if you want to zoom in on the wings when they are not blurred this is the one.

And since I wasn't here on Friday I wasn't exactly positive if I needed to put up these pictures I took originally...but it can't hurt. If there's anything else I should post tell me.

Reflection Questions:

1. What aspect of your image do you find most successful and why?

I really am quite proud of how the wings turned out. I had no idea how I was going to make wings out of Sculptris because it had given me a lot of trouble trying to sculpt talons out of a ball of clay (and I ended up just not making talons and Photoshopping them in later). I didn't have much luck flattening out things at all, and what is flatter than a feather? But I discovered that if you invert the 'draw' option it works much better than flatten and I got the wings to be the thickness I wanted.  I also was happy with how the 'grab' option pulled the wings and the beak out of my bird's body.
But as for the painting job, I couldn't believe how much more realistic my bird looked after I painted the ruby throat on it! So that was my favourite aspect of my bird for my painting job.

2. What aspect of your image do you find least successful and why?

I wasn't entirely happy with my bird's tail, because it is very thick (but any thinner and it looked ridiculously flat!) and looks like an odd continuation of my bird's body. I couldn't seem to get a proper picture of a hummingbird from the back without its tail feathers spread out, and, as my hummingbird's tail feathers were not spread out it made it difficult to get any sort of realistic texture on it.
The other thing that I fiddled with a lot before settling for the best look rather than the 'perfect' look was my bird's eyelids. I could not make the eyelids go up over the bird's eyes for the life of me! Instead it sort of sits a bit above the eye and sticks out. I had trouble smoothing it down so that it would sit on the eye more because whenever I used the smoothing or grabbing options they would warp my eyeball or flatten it out. Most of the angles my bird is viewed at (before it was painted) it looked angry because of its eyelids.

3. If you could do this project again, what changes would you make to improve it?

I would probably make the wings angled outwards a bit more instead of straight back because from a head-on angle and if viewed from the back it looks rather strange. I would also make my hummingbird's tail feathers spread outwards so that I could put a better texture on them and then they would (hopefully) look more realistic.
I hope to figure out a technique to make my bird look more like it's a part of the background, because if you know where I made the bird it is easy to see that it is not naturally a part of the picture. If I figure out/learn how to do such a thing that would definitely be another change I would make to it.

MEDIA ARTS: 3D Invention Brainstorm

1.) Give reasons for why you think Da Vinci invented the inventions on the reverse of this sheet.

            I think that, just by looking at many of the drawings, that Da Vinci was very interested in human flight. He wanted to make machines that enabled humans to fly on their own, whether for leisure or for convenience of travel, I don't know. I also think that another reason Da Vinci was drawing designs such as diving suits were so that people could explore more of the mysteries of the world such as what creatures and plant life were at the bottom of the sea. Being able to swim in very deep water would give humans more freedom over where they could travel, as could flying. Items such as parachutes would have the potential of saving human lives if they needed/were going to fall from a great distance. As for the 'war machine', I suppose Da Vinci was thinking that it would aid his country in times of war. All of his inventions were intended to make human life easier and to expand our knowledge of other places in the world that (as of that time period) were currently inaccessible.

2.) Choose one of Da Vinci's inventions, and explain why you think it has had the biggest impact on modern society.

            I believe that Da Vinci's sketches and attempts at producing a diving suit had the biggest impact on modern society because now we have scuba diving suits and can breathe underwater for short periods of time. Scuba diving gear is a part of many professions i.e. diving instructors, marine biologists, and oceanographers. Being able to breathe underwater allowed us to explore the world of life in the seas. It has allowed us to better the theory of evolution and to make connections between underwater life and life on land. We have also uncovered historical artifacts such as shipwrecks and know more about people who lived before us as a result. Diving suits are an important part of our society today and it is phenomenal that Da Vinci dreamed up these ideas centuries before they were realized.


Later edit: As I didn't have many ideas of actual things to 'invent' at the time I posted this, I didn't post the ideas, figuring I'd do it later. Well, I've already started on my invention because I thought up an idea and totally forgot about posting my original brainstorm! So here they are:

Step Two: Make up a list of three (well, I did more...) inventions that would enrich our lives

1.)    Hovercraft

2.)    A ball of light you can carry around

3.)    A machine that can create different weather effects

4.)    An electronic creature that is controllable (if it’s small it can listen to conversations)

5.)    A device that sucks up dirt/dust

6.)  A machine that sorts socks from the laundry

 

Interesting Eye Edit

Just for fun, I did an eye edit. It's not spectacular, but I had the idea in my head for ages and decided to try it. :)