Winchester 1866

Winchester 1866

 

Hi Res


PolyCount

Software

  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Allegorithmic Substance Painter
  • Autodesk Maya
  • Blender

Houdini Art

Procedural Bridge Houdini


Stylized Car Generator Houdini


Explosion FX


Tank FX


Fire FX

Virus-Ara Prototype

Virus-Ara Prototype


PolyCount

Software

  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Autodesk Maya
  • Blender
  • Pixologic zBrush
  • Allegorithmic Substance Painter
  • Marmoset ToolBag 3

Concept

Thesis I – Project Blog 5

This week, I worked on my studio project. My task was to start the blendshapes and get most done. I got most created and have about 12 left. I plan on working this week on wrapping it up and importing it into Unity and attaching LipSync. Also reminder to me: both top & bottom teeth are not UVed. Copy UVs from the combined game mesh for the final piece.

Here are some tests:


ROUGH ROUGH DRAFT of defense 2: Social cognition

Defense 2: Social Cognition

            Anthropomorphism and theory of mind intertwine with one another. As noted earlier, they trigger the temporoparietal junction in our brains highlighting the connection between, but anthropomorphism goes further than theory of mind. The phenomena can affect our cognitive function that processes how we perceive others, and how we view the surrounding world. (Cherry, Social Cognition in Psychology) Psychologists who study this process called it social cognition.

Social cognition is the “mental processes that (are) involved in perceiving, remembering, thinking about, and attending to the other people in our social world.” (Cherry, Social Cognition in Psychology) These processes influence how people behave, form impressions, and react to others. Simply put, it is the way we store, process, and interact with other living and non-living entities. Many things can encourage the develop of our social abilities such as culture, ideologies, experiences and so on. With anthropomorphism in mind, this cognitive ability grants humans an efficient way for our minds to process social stimulus that engulfs us every day. Predicting, and comprehending is important to us hence why we anthropomorphize the unknown. It puts the current unknown entity into context reducing uncertainty and allows for a simple way to communicate and socially reason to others about them. (Atherton) Therefore, anthropomorphism allows for an efficient way to socially predict and comprehend. Unfortunately, this mental efficiency can come at a cost.

Visually, we are highly sensitive to humanlike characteristics. (Agnieszka Wykowska) Our awareness of the difference between living and inanimate is impressive. As earlier, I explain how we naturally favor smooth human-like movements, called biological motions and how we are born with facial recognition but even with those traits, we make assumptions on what we observe. (Susan R. Fussell) When we interact with entities, we assign categories based on stimuli such as facial features and shapes, body shapes, gender, etc. When humans cannot understand the actor, we unknowingly rely on stereotypes we have learned to process their behaviors, and traits. (Susan R. Fussell) As the actor becomes more similar in appearance to oneself, the more we are likely to reference ourselves and anthropomorphize the non-human entity. (Atherton) Either anthropomorphizing or not, we judge because it allows us to create make assumptions. This assumption allows for forecast of behaviors of the entity and the environment that we are surrounded in. Another important aspect of social cognition is the need for connection that we draw from when we interaction with others.

Human beings desire and crave for some type of interaction that has the potential to produce a connection, emotionally and/or physically. From infants to adults, the social connection between others is a survival instinct. Plucking a person out of their social life, or rather, banish an individual would be a “death sentence for one’s genetic inheritance”. (Atherton) This type of punishment can have an enormous effect to an individual. Lacking or being withdrawn from social connections can influence and trigger the same neural functions that can induce physical pain. (Atherton) This pain may lead the individual to seek for a connection elsewhere. Requiring the person to seek a social connection and will start to anthropomorphize nonhuman entities to satisfy their lust. This basic motivation has been researched and found out that the lonelier a person is, the more they have connected with anthropomorphize objects. (Adam Waytz) Satisfying our need for a connection is important whether its fulfilled by living or nonliving entities. We need “someone” to survive.

Anthropomorphizing has its benefits. It allows us to be able to predict, to comprehend, and to make assumptions about the uncertainty. Lonely individuals that are deprived from social connection and interaction will anthropomorphize and feel at ease. Anthropomorphizing, to me, is about efficiency. This efficiency enables us to expect future actions from others. Removing the uncertainty that we as humans try so hard to unveil and learn what lies within.

 

Works Cited

Adam Waytz, Nicholas Epley, and John T. Cacioppo. "Social Cognition Unbound: Insights Into Anthropomorphism and Dehumanization." Psychological Science. 19 February 2010.

Agnieszka Wykowska, Thierry Chaminade, and Gordon Cheng. "Embodied Artificial Agents for Understanding Human Social Cognition." Philosophical Transacations B, 19 February 2016.

Airenti, Gabriella. "The Development of Anthropomorphism in Interaction: Intersubjectivity, Imagination, and Theory of Mind." (2018). <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6231421/>.

Atherton, Gray and Cross, Liam. "Seeing More Than Human: Autism and Anthropomorphic Theory of Mind." (2018). <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5932358/>.

Cherry, Kendra. How the Theory of Mind Helps Us Understand Others. 26 July 2019. <https://www.verywellmind.com/theory-of-mind-4176826>.

—. "Social Cognition in Psychology." Very Well Mind, 13 August 2019. <www.verywellmind.com/social-cognition-2795912>.

Drubach, Daniel A. "The Purpose and Neurobiology of Theory of Mind Functions." Blanton-Peale Institute, 18 December 2007. Online.

Karolina Zawieska, Brian R. Duffy, and Agnieszka Spronska. "Understanding Anthropomorphisation in Social Robots." Pomiary Automatyka Robotyka. November 2012.

Leslie, A.M. "Theory of Mind." International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences. Elsevier Ltd, 2001. <https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/theory-of-mind>.

Nauert, Dr. Rick. PsychCentral. 15 June 2019.

Nicholas Epley, Adam Waytz, and John T. Cacioppo. "On Seeing Human: A Three-Factor Theory of Anthropomorphism." Psychological Review. The American Psychological Association, 2007.

Susan R. Fussell, Sara Kiesler, Leslie D. Setlock, and Victoria Yew. "How People Anthropomorphize Robots." Carnegie Mellon University, 12 March 2008.

Thompson, Brittany N. Psychology Today. 03 July 2017. Website. <https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/socioemotional-success/201707/theory-mind-understanding-others-in-social-world>.


 

Project Frame – “Dom”

Project Frame – “Dom” 


Development Stages


Other Projects


Proposal


Software

  • Blender
  • Maya
  • Substance Painter
  • Pixologic zBrush

Blog Entry – Research and Project Updates – 2019 #11

This week, I have been working on more shapes of the head for my 3d digital art course and my thesis. This character will be fully sculpted so I am trying to find a shape I like. As of now, I am leanings towards the second head. (longer skull, and droopy chin) I do like the fourth one day as well but I believe it is too close to Picard from Star Trek. Nevertheless, I will find the shape and go along with it to finish the project.

Scifi Decal Panels – Substance

SciFi Decal Panels Substance

Software

  • Allegorithmic Substance Designer
  • Unity Engine

Substance Graph

Features

Description:

SciFi Decal Panels is a procedural material created in Substance Designer. With so many features, the material can be used in numerous applications and environments such as space stations/ships, futuristic environments, Decals for ceilings, floors, or walls, etc. The texture is using PBR metalness/roughness workflow and was created with realism in mind.

The goal of the project was to create a “kit” that could be used to help designers speed up detailing a environment with a many different panel decals in a instant. As well as exploring and understanding the use of procedural kits using Substance Designer.

Blog Entry – Research and Project Updates – 2019 #7

This week I focused on completing my substance designer project. After a week of working on it, I realized that designing the concept for the “kit” should have been my first task. Designing on the fly with a node base system…….makes a mess.

I tried using other graphs which helped clean stuff up a bit but I ended up using one main graph so I can expose more parameters. Maybe with more time, I can figure out a way to reference other graphs’ parameters.

After this weekend’s grind, I am at the final stretch. With the project due date being extended, I can put more time into coloring and give it a polish pass. A major issue I am having is with the height depth. Everything looks flat even after the tessellation. I might have to go in the beginning of the graph where I declared the basic shapes, and create a basic bevel to give it some dynamics.

Here are some screenshots from unity – displaying the kit:

My other projects/journey, I have not had the chance to drop the lipsync plugin into Unity. The instructions seem intense so I will dive into that this week. I have a feeling I will have to import a character with a facial rig (using blendshapes) to make sure it works in my Unity project. I think if I can get it imported Unity and working (or seem like it is working), I need to get it interacting with the kinect. From there, I should be in a good place to start sculpting the character. Although…..

I am worrying a little at this point. It is already HALF WAY through the semester!

I have to start shifting my time into the semester paper. I have an idea about the paper. Something along the lines of color and the affects on humans but I am not sure. I need to create an outline or proposal first.

Blog Entry – Research and Project Updates – 2019 #6

3d digital art

This sprint was to start getting in the customization in Substance Designer. For some reason, I feel I am over complicating the design layout. Creating shapes is not the issue but rather the connection of customization in Unity. I am at a point where I need direction to either make preset panels or keep what I am doing right now and make it real time customizable panels. I believe that later is what the professor wants. Here are some WIP screenshots:

 

Direct Studio/Thesis Project

My focus on the project was to get a rigged character in from Adobe Mixamo. I ended up customizing the character and merging two different toons. Right now, it is in the scene and has a idle animation on it. I discover a huge design problem that I need to keep in mind. Aspect Ratio of the frame…. I could not find a decent 16:9 look. The ratio is too wide for a traditional looking portrait I envision. Good news, I have an idea where I would crop in using a different ratio like 4:5 and then build the physical frame to crop and hide the screen. This should be the best and fastest fix for the issue. Here are some screenshots with different aspect ratios.

 

Human-Computer Interaction

This sprint I focused on writing projects for my portfolio website. I used a few past projects – The Take House on the Hill, Floating Pyramid, and Simon Says…Photo-resistor. The formatting for the 3d art is close to what I already have but I might update some old posts and remove older art from 2012 that does not reflect my current skills.