Category Archives: geranium

Circles Films

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Circles Films

(Another New Studio)

Over the last fortnight I set up the installation area, for the moment a projection room, and played around with using both projectors each throwing to a different wall.

While I was playing with the projections I also produced the first piece of work I’ve made in the studio. A drawing of the birds nest I found when the neighbours trimmed the hedge.

circles films

first drawing in the new studio

A simple charcoal drawing on heavy paper. I made a polycam model of the nest itself

Then later made an AR test with the downloaded obj file. The obj, or format of your choice, can be downloaded here.

I wanted to break up the projected images in the installation and decided to make some large circles to to hang in front of the screens. The images below use a projection of the geranium project film and a new red film made from camera trap captures that came out in shades of red, played in sequence and on a loop.

Circles Films

Red Circles from the right

Circles Films

The geranium film projected onto the large circles

Doing so meant I emptied my portfolio so I displayed the Durer’s solid drawings that are in progress.

Circles Films

The Durer’s Solid drawings displayed in the studio

The video felt too small in the space and I wanted to complicate the surface so I used both projectors and set them with the films overlapping by about two thirds of their width. I added in a line of smaller circles cutting across the space.

Circles Films

Both projectors in the installation overlapping

I have a Vimeo Showcase of film snatches and a longer, 15 min film

There is a gallery page of stills from the  videos

  • Circles Films
    Circles Films
    Circles Films A set of frames from the Circle Films I've been making at the new ...
    See photo »

And that’s as far as I’ve got

Being Sidetracked (continued…)

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Being Sidetracked (continued…)

This is the first post since the end of August and I’m still off track. Pottering I think. About six weeks ago I saw a competiton for VR work that matched the geranium project

In preparing for entry I reconfigured parts of the project and added some effects in the rain garden and the painted garden, storm effects and shadows, and also did a lot of work preparing the piece for Quest 2 as well as The Index and Vive.

Although you can easily build for both platforms you have to switch the platform in Unity to do so. I now know that while it switches without a problem it won’t switch back without causing all sorts of glitches.  I’ve spent far too long building two versions of a very big Unity file. The advantage is that I’ve now got the file updated to a more recent Unity and I can use some better effects in the new work.

The submission got no traction at all, nothing after the acknowledgement, but my own analysis and discussions with colleagues led to the idea that I need to develop a narrative that guides you through the VR world. So that’s where I am now, trying to write a story that I can take through the process.

I’ve not been entirely idle alongside this, a few months ago I started a drawing of a fox

I’ve done some more work on that and it looks like this now

Being Sidetracked (continued...)

Dark Fox

I’ve also been working on some found or accidental images, the first is from a piece of plastic acquired from my last workplace, that I thought suggested an interior.

Found Interior Chesterfield

Found Interior Chesterfield

Drawing

I’ve carried on drawing every day and you can see the October images  here

  • Draw Every Day – October 22
    Draw Every Day – October 22
    Draw Every Day - October 22 Continuing to draw every day, in a new sketchbook using ...
    See photo »

There is a link to the previous month’s Gallery on each page.

The drawings are posted to Twitter and Instagram each day.

Lockdown Continued… (notice the calmer Title Case)

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The VR world from the geranium project on simmer – www.simmer.io/@IanLatham/the-geranium-project – takes 8 minutes and 7 seconds to load.

The latest WebGL build on my own website – www.ian-latham.com/geranium/build – takes 11 minutes and 39 seconds to load.

I’ve spent hours trying to work out how to make the things load more quickly but everything I try seems to make little or no difference.

I participated in an online event for the Doncaster New Fringe art group, a kind of delayed open studio evening in which artists film their work and upload the videos to a website. This is the video I made Art Bomb Video for Doncaster New Fringe I found some old 3d models I made for sculptures over a number of years and built a VR environment for them, I then made an awful video of my studio and me explaining what I’d done in fluent gibberish and placed that video inside the VR world. I recorded that through the computer and there you go.

Other than that this week has been a lot of gardening, building a greenhouse, and the endless frustration of Unity!

greenhouse

My New Greenhouse

I finally got the WebGL build down to 6 minutes and 17 seconds! Or at least below 7 minutes over several tries, the load bar doesn’t work properly though.