End of Week 03

It is Friday. Yesterday I shot some photos in the Woodlands Cemetary, it was an overcast day and the stone is weathered and covered in lichens, making ideal conditions for subjects. While I'm reflecting here, those batches are processing away.

I'm a little frustrated about where I am, still stuck researching best practices and still defining my goals. Ten week terms are so short, plus my two other jobs are beginning to eat away at my time. My anxiety has reminded me too, that a two year program is an extremely short amount of time.

The following is a list of notes to myself:


- I have been shooting objects, but in a fast/sloppy approach. I have been treating these as 'quick tests' and instead it has left me without any successful models and long processing times.
- little things like the cicada need image stacking (maybe where the Lytro comes in handy?)

-Scanning vs Camera. There is something cool about the immediate feedback from the scanners. But they need a computer to be hooked up to. Cameras are much more flexible in terms of the type of data the can capture, seems to be higher res. It can be frustrating waiting for a model to process, kind of like dropping off a roll of film and then waiting for film to develop.

- When I do have a better sense of methods-- then what? I would like to scout a location to digitize into a walkable virtual space. Would be cool to drive to a gardens. Important goal.


- Yesterday I got to talk to someone who works in digital archiving for the Academy of Natural Sciences. It was really interesting getting to ask about methods and opinions on tech, especially considering the scientific goals are more focused on accuracy. I am now realizing the overlap between the field of digital archiving and what I am doing as an artist.

- Point based rendering is cool, I'm glad I know what it is, I don't think it's for me. This started to become a blocker more than a direction of research. Perhaps a year from now there will be better tools to get started. The resolution can be better than what you get with polygons, but I'm not even sure I care about that.

- This ended up leading me down a path of researching volumetric capture , which is also cool. Holograms are becoming a thing. The hologram display device I mentioned last post is also a thing.

- I need to think about an interactive deliverable. However I think producing data to work with has to happen first.

- I need to remind myself that my goals are that of an artist first. The reason behind my frustration is because I'm stuck in research when I really want to be producing. Maybe need to start looking into substance painter/designer. Maybe should read design research book.