Old hoover development

Below i have drawn the hoover coughing out dust, the bag on the hoover would expand to show breathing, or more of a wheezing and then he would cough some dust, this would blow the hair up thats on the front the hoover:

A few front views of the hoover just to see the character from slightly different angles.

Reference to Dyson hoover character.

DEAN: These robots below are created by Norio Fujik, designer based in San Francisco. I have referenced these because it has elements that the Dyson hoover character will have.

JIM:

I quite like the 50's imagery, that sort of primitive advertising, where brand names and logo's were in their infancy. Really quite blunt when identifying their target demographic, very un pc! Also comparing this with modern imagery of a Dyson - more reminiscent of a car advert with its slick photography and orthograpic views. Dyson's are designed with an aesthetic element in mind - I remember my mum's first (she reverted to an ordinary upright as it was a bit rough on the pile) had "de stijl" printed on the front of it. De Stijl was an early 20th century Dutch design movement and featured works by artists such as Piere Mondrain. If I recall, it's paint job was reminiscent of one of his canvases, each panel that made up the vac was coloured in different flat primary colours. Now Dyson has given up that aesthetic and gone for much simpler, heartless, mechanical battleship greys (albeit its interior turbine bit is still bright yellow...). Probably wouldn'ty be out of place on Top Gear one week.







I have also collected some reference images for the new dyson hoover character looking at the products they currently have stocked and are selling, taking a closer look at them i did not realize how futuristic and advanced they look, this will definitely inform how the character develops.

Reference to old hoover character.

DEAN: 'I have collected some visuals of old vacuum cleaners from the beginning of the century and also the mid 90's, having a look at these will help me when thinking of the personality and characteristics of the old hoover character. From these i will create some initial ideas for a character."

Bacteria

Knitted offering of four bacteria, shows the knitters attempt to make them look all cute and cuddly. Possibly one way we can generate sympathy for the character. Might be worth looking at more toys and see how they are layed out?

Character direction - dust mites

Just had a meeting with Dean, we have both decided to base the entire project around the hoover idea. The pre-formated narrative will provide enough scope for developing the five characters. At the moment the story revolves around the two vacuum cleaners, and their relationship with the mites that reside in the carpet.

Dean's already come up with some preliminary sketches of the mites, based on photographic referencing. In this case the mites are the story's protagonists, and the viewer needs to empathise with them. Not easy when you consider their physical appearances and the fact we are repulsed by their existence.

I am always horrified when I watch video's like this one, that inform you of all the nasties that reside in/on and around you at all time, so the first challenge is to create characters that will emote a sense of sympathy from the viewer. The next challenge is etsablishing their place within the narrative; Dean and I both envisage a variety of different species that will pose interesting rigging problems.

Nurbs patch modelling - Stitch Tool

Been playing with nurbs patch modelling, and having difficulty getting surfaces to connecting two surfaces together to give an organic transition associated with the machined object I am currently modelling. The stitch tool will join and blend two objects together. You can adjust the weighting so that one surface will change shape to match the other and vice versa. In the image above I've managed to stitch two cylinders together. As you can see the shape of the smaller cylinder has gone from cylindrical to square to accommodate the larger cylinders aperture.


Once the surfaces are stiched you can attach the surfaces togegher, so the surface becomes one. The nurbs shape can then be converted to a poly mesh, and when smoothed appears exactly the same as the nurbs.

Dot matrix - SDK

Another solution i've overlooked is the set driven key option. I could toggle the visibility of each object to reveal the characters expression. Would like to create some sort of sequencer for scrolling effects. This would entail each LED inheritng the visibility information from the one before it, and controlled overthe timeline.