Digital Anthill
Multimedia artist
GoPro HD Hero: Mini Review and Custom Mounts..
Sep 3rd
I recently got my self one of these small digital video cameras…
They are made by a American company called GoPro and this is the HD model. I picked it up for £270 from this small online shop. The camera shoots in various modes including 720p @ 60 Fps(for some nice slow mo action), 960p @ 30Fps and 1080p @ 30Fps. It also has a Time lapse feature that takes photos in intervals of 2,5,10,30 and 60 seconds. It takes a SD card up to 32Gb and can record for about 2.5 hours on a single charge.
Here’s what’s Included (The suction mount that’s usually an extra £30 was free with a special offer minidvcam had on at the time of purchase)
After the first week of playing around with the camera and the various mounts I put this quick video together. Here you get an idea of what the camera is capable of 
I decided to set my self a little project and make a 360 pano time lapse motor. Check out the following videos to see my first tests..
Below is the rig I used to capture the above time lapses. click ‘MORE’ below to see how I made this…
How I got work with Tribe Uk
Sep 1st
So now that Uni is well and truly over I was left thinking what do I do now! My Friend Alex is now working with a guy called Norm (aka Wasteyourself) They have set up their own little graphic design studio in Nottingham. Norm had sculpted this interesting character a few years ago and asked me whether I could create a 3D model of it.
So I got to work making this character. While I was making it Alex was doing some drawing on the studio walls at Tribe (A uber cool design and brand communication agency)…
When I sent him some test renders of the character Alex showed the people at Tribe. It just so happened they were looking for a 3D artist!
So we got in contact and I was briefed on my first project the following day! As of writing this I’m still involved in the first project. Tribe do a lot of work for Eon the power company. They wanted a interactive web based 3D visualization of a new smart network they are implementing in Milton Keynes. I completed the first stage of the modelling a week or so ago and they were so happy with the results they have given me 3 more major/minor projects including the production of their company show reel which will be great fun to make!
Last week marked Tribe’s 10th birthday so they celebrated by having a bit of a party in the studio. I was kindly invited along. Alex and Norm we doing a live drawing during the party… Here’s some photos of the studio and party..
There are more photos up on my Flickr…
I took this Stereographic Projection of the finished drawing..
Over all I’m really happy that Tribe have given me this opportunity to be working in such a good atmosphere with nice friendly people. I hope it leads on to other interesting and exiting things
Incredible Physics engine…
Jul 23rd
Its not often I post up a video.. but I recently came across the following video and it was too good not to write this quick post. The possibilities this kind realism brings to the computer world is mind boggling..
Lagoa Multiphysics 1.0 – Teaser from Thiago Costa on Vimeo.
You see what I mean
iPhone 4 mini review…
Jul 20th
So its been a couple of weeks since I got my hands on the shiny new iPhone 4 and here’s what I’ve found…
My first impression of the phone is that it’s very good indeed. My old 3G was getting so slow nearly to the point it wasn’t useable, Certainly wasn’t enjoyable any more but with this new model the speed difference amazing! apps now load instantly and there’s no delay on the keyboard when entering text which makes a huge difference.
From the above Images you can see that I have got a new Gelaskin. I decided to get the same one as I had before because I liked the design so much . The cover now has bits for the front and more importantly the sides which helps out with the signal issues! The skin lines up very nicely with the wallpaper which also looks pretty cool. If you have a iPhone and don’t want to compromise the look and feel I would highly recommend you get one of these skins. I had the previous skin on my 3G for nearly a year and it didn’t scratch, fade or peal off which isn’t too bad for a sticker.
I’ve been playing around with the camera quite a bit to see what its capable of and the following photos show this..
I’ve tried to select range of different environments to show how the camera deals with different lighting conditions. One thing I have noticed is the strange lens flare that occurs in very low light. You can see this in picture two below.
The video on the iPhone 4 isn’t to bad either. At 720p good frame rate and fairly good picture quality there’s not a lot more you can ask from a phone camera. I noticed that when in video mode the image is cropped more than picture mode which mean your subject has to be quite far away to get it all in shot.. any who check this short video I put together in Premier earlier…
iPhone 4 video testing from Rob Antill on Vimeo.
The battery life on this new model is also greatly improved. I’ve been using it pretty heavily and haven’t needed to charge it that much at all. The multitasking feature is also super useful, This is something I’ve been waiting for since I got the original iPhone.
I’m not sure what else to say about it that hasn’t already been covered in greater detail on other blogs but my personal opinion is that this is a great piece of kit it works very well and is more sexier than ever. If you have the chance to get one go for it …
If you have any specific questions feel free to post them in the comments section
That’s it, that’s all….
Jun 5th
It doesn’t seem like five minuets ago when I wrote my first blog post at the beginning of Uni nearly three years ago. The end of the course was marked by our degree show which took place over the past couple of days. The past week or so we have been working hard to make this night happen.
My role was to create the DVDs showcasing everyone’s show reels. My original plan was to get them produce at the same place as I got the Trent snowsports DVDs made. I realised that I had very little time and finally had to make the choice to produce them our selves. So I brought 100 printable DVDs then got a team of people to help burn and print the discs. Phil came over with his pc and we got started on burning the 100 discs with only two drives! while the discs were being made we were also spray painting the monster media logo on each disc with two different colours. There were 5 people working together and we managed to get them all done in roughly four hours.
The exhibition was held in one of the studio rooms. It had been rearranged creating a really nice space.
The pc screens had been attached to some false walls with track ball mice for control. Second year students had produced a really nice interface that displayed all our work. In the centre of the room were two tables where we put the catalogues, DVDs and business cards.
For the show I updated my business card once again! below are some photos of the updated card and the holder I made using a flexible phone holder. I’ve also made some mini cards that I can hand out to people so they can get to my photos but not spam my phone number.
Over all I was really pleased with the out come of the show! I think everyone put a lot of time and effort into it which paid off! I just cant believe its all over.. only thing left is to wait for my results to come through… eeek
Photo published in Left Lion
Jun 1st
If you live in Nott’s be sure to pick up a copy of this months issue of Left Lion. The photo I took of market square a couple of weeks ago is featured on Page 5. I was surprised to read that they have a estimated readership of 40,000 people! needless to say I’m super happy about this.
I’ve also been putting together the degree show DVD which proved to be super difficult due to the large number of links needing to be created and many other annoying factors.. More info on that soon.
24 Hour Time-Lapse Project
May 18th
Making a 24 hour time lapse is something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time now and I’ve finally done it! getting the camera set up right proved to be the hardest part. But now I know how its done I can improve the technique for next time!
So here it is..
If you click the Vimeo link below you can view it in HD… its worth it
24 hour time-lapse from Rob Antill on Vimeo.
So I set up the camera in my window facing west to capture the sun set (also away from any neighbours windows…) I put the camera to aperture priority mode and set the aperture to F4. When in this mode the camera will automatically take light readings and adjust the shutter speed so the scene is always lit correctly…ish.
I first set it off taking a photo every 24 seconds but realised that’s over 3000 frames in 24 hours! So I then set it to 1 frame every minute. I started the time lapse at 11pm and because it was shooting from a window I had to make sure I didn’t turn the lights on in my room to avoid reflections. Ideally it would be best to shoot it out side. I think next time I will shoot every 30 seconds that way the video will be a bit smoother.
Here’s some of the best stills.. I find it amazing how much the environment changes in a relatively short period of time!
Now that I have mastered the technique I can take the camera to some cool places.. One place I would like to take on is the top of our Uni building which is one of the highest buildings in Nottingham, views from up there would be incredible!
Artefact six
May 18th
This being the last artefact I wanted to combine all the techniques I have learnt in the past 10 weeks. My first idea was to model a tram and then have it derailing and crashing. I realised this was a little ambitious so I came up with another idea. I wanted to show a concept of what the future may hold in the way of 3D monitors and operating systems.
Here’s the final piece..
Click the vimeo link below to view it in HD.
Artefact six from Rob Antill on Vimeo.
So to create this I first had to get some footage of a screen. Below is what my set up usually looks like. This was far to messy for what I wanted so I cleaned it all up to make it look as futuristic as possible.
Here’s the modified set..
I did some test pans and realised that trying to shoot this free hand was going to be a problem. When I came to tracking it in Boujou it was evident that there was too much camera shake. So I went about creating my own DIY dolly came out of a tripod and skateboard. This worked really well, I was able to get a fairly smooth camera pan.
I displayed red on the screen which enabled me to key it out allowing for the 3D replacement to be inserted. I used the tracking data produced from Boujou to create a 3D space within Ae and a camera track for the 3D modelled balls.
For the shots of the web browser I used Photoshop to create the layers then in Ae I simply put the layers on different Z values then with the tracking data applied it gives the allusion that its coming out the screen.
Over all I’m pretty pleased with the results I think as a concept its pretty unique. I would like to have spent more time on this may be tracking some more shots and more animation of the operating system but time is always an issue unfortunately.
Comments and feedback welcomed
Artefact five
May 10th
The penultimate artefact is here! with only one week to go I thought it was time to get artefact 5 and six done!! this time I looked more closely at chroma keying. My original plan was to use the green screen at uni, but I thought it would be more fun to do it all my self. I brought various green things I could experiment with.
Spray paint, socks, body paint and card
I first tested out some juggling with the green socks on in the hope that I could remove my arms and leave my hands floating. This proved to be quite hard because the holes left by the green were too difficult to fill.
I then had the idea of adding a real life object to a 3D scene. So I set up a mini studio in the loft and tried to light the balls as good as I could with out creating shadows. I added Blu-tack dots so it would make it easier to track in Boujou.
I also wanted to see what it would look like to create a window in an object, In this case the wall. I simply stuck the card to the wall then keyed and tracked it.
I used my D90 to shoot the video. The lack of control you have over video with the D90 made getting the right shot difficult. I got about 20 shots for the scenes so I could choose the one where the lighting and movement was correct.
If I had more time I would like to have sprayed a skateboard or bike green and keyed it out. I think I will do this as a personal project some time!
So here it is..
Artefact Five from Rob Antill on Vimeo.
Music by:
Netsky – Secret Agent
Stereoloop
May 7th
The other night I was walking home from town and noticed it was great conditions for taking some photos. So I went back out at 3am on my bike. It was so quite round town there’s something very strange about cities at this hour..
The most interesting photos I took were at the Market Square. I’ve been playing around with these stereographs for a few days now and came up with the following image last night. I’ve combined two stereographic projections on top of one another.
This gave me the idea of creating a looping animation. I had to create every single frame in the following video which was quite tedious but the result is fairly effective.
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For more pics head over to my Flickr
