APD - Week 5 - Play and Forces

Link: https://youtu.be/HgR9iJEdkJ0

CONTEXT

For this particular exercise, I wanted to draw inspiration from my first semester practice, whose focus was developing loops or short clips animating in Cinema 4D. My Studio 1 project used as a base some small transparent rectangular figures whose interpretation varied, allowing them to be classified as different objects according to the scene, giving clues to the concept through sound, movement and the forces that were applied to them. This is why we saw in the animated short, a row of these rectangular objects accompanied by the sound of a train and moving as one, or multiple rectangular objects falling from the sky, thus recreating a scene where it is raining.

This is why I decided to use a similar approach, showing malleable cubic objects that at first, thanks to their physical consistency and the sound presented, could be related to a real-life object, but by applying an unexpected force that is not related to the concept of an object that one had and that modifies its physical properties, presents a situation where the viewer would not know with certainty what those objects are.

METHOD

Through Cinema 4D, I made a small virtual stage where a crystal glass is presented. All the objects that I will be describing have different physical and dynamic properties through tools offered by the software (soft body, rigid body, collider body, force simulation, wind simulation). What would be a group of ice cubes falls into the glass, which thanks to the sound feedback and the relationship that is generated between the different objects (glass glass cubes), in general the viewer has an idea of ​​what the objects would be. . By applying an unexpected force and completely modifying the physical properties of the ice cubes, I hope the viewer wonders about the real interpretation of these, if there is one. In addition, thanks to the applied force, I can play with the physical properties of the glass, which breaks when receiving enormous pressure from the objects inside it. After this, I use another force that would be the wind, to move the objects on the stage and to be able to complete the loop so that it repeats infinitely.

RESPONSE

An infinite loop where various forces are presented that invite the viewer to reinterpret the objects presented in the scene.

REFLECTION

For this week, it felt great to use Cinema 4D again as a tool for creating animations. I feel that sometimes it can be a bit problematic, possibly due to the limitations of my equipment, but on many occasions when using intensive physical simulations such as soft body, it greatly lengthens the production time since the scene runs very slow, taking a lot of time since I have to see it in its entirety to observe the behavior of all the objects, which can often be unexpected, presenting intersections and strange forces that deform and damage the animation.

Due to the above situation, I am very happy with the concept but the simulation can improve, since I did not achieve the consistency I wanted, thus preventing the cubes from sticking together and intercepting with the broken glass fragments. This reduces my enjoyment of experimenting with the production tools, since in my mind I can play with the concept however I want, but when trying to recreate it with the software, I am often limited by different factors.

Beyond that, I think that the reinterpretation of objects as a narrative or interactive tool can be a very powerful factor when talking about Play. With this, in a linear story we can generate curiosity or uncertainty to the viewer, but for example in role-playing games such as Dungeon & Dragons, having a malleable object or that can be transformed into another would be an element that would modify the decisions, the player's abilities and the course of history. Another example, closer to the one I present in my exercise, is found in the Dark Souls video game, in which we can find different chests scattered around the world, containing useful objects for the player. In a specific sector we can find a chest, which looks like any other and which most, if not all players would go to open, but we are all surprised that it is actually a monster in the form of a chest that instantly devours us. This surprise and unexpected factor is what allows the generation of meaningful experiences that mark the user and invite him to continue exploring