Month: October 2020

For the fourth project, there were some readings and various tutorials.

• Parallel Universes, Chapter 8. This chapter’s main purpose is to introduce students to visual principles, and for this project, we visit visual principles such as Direction and Contrast. The direction is associated with creating the path through the work, so the viewer pays attention to the focal points and visual structures. The contrast can occur when the qualitatively different objects and events occur in the same visual field, e.g., round vs. square, straight vs. curly, large vs. small, etc.
• Parallel Universes, Chapter 6. This chapter’s main goal is to familiarize students with the notion of Kinematics, motion, and time. A Kinematic object exhibits physical changes over time. These changes can be caused by internal and external phenomena such as translation (move from one point to another), rotation (spanning around an axis), vibration ( shift in location or scale in some pattern). Time is the fourth dimension; however, we experience it in a different way than other dimensions. Our perception of time depends on culture. So, people living in western countries associate time as a straight line that moves forward continuously.  On the other hand, some cultures depict this line as non-linear (the cyclic or parallel concept of time). We percept motion as a change over time. In art, the notion of motion can be represented through implied motion, actual motion, and the illusion of motion.
• LinkedIn Learning, Learning Autodesk Fusion360. In this tutorial, the students had to focus on Parametric sketching and Geometric modeling. I was surprised that it is much easier to create complex bodies with sketching. However, I also faced some problems while working with this tutorial. When we worked on sketching the struts, the instructor wanted us to create fillets on the sketch (see the picture below), but I could not do it on the sketch because it resulted in strange-looking additions to the strut. So this problem was solved by first creating the sketch without the fillet, then extruding the part, and only adding the fillet to the body. In addition to that problem, my Strand Beast leg does not move as it should move, I tried to fix it, but after some time, I decided to leave it alone because it already took a lot of time. The result of the tutorial is represented in the following embed.

• The other tutorials’ main purpose was to introduce students to CNC mill, its set-up, and CAM software. Students also learned about the MeshCam program that generated G-code that CNC mill uses to recreate the design. In addition to that, there was a video that talked about the Mach3 app that turns a computer into a CNC controller.
• Collage and Montage in Art. This article’s main goal is to bring in the idea of collage in art,  show that it is not only can appear in 2D, and also introduce students to the pioneer of this type of art expression – Louise Nevelson.

The third project references are Chapters 8 and 14 of Parallel Universes, Alternate Realities, and LinkedIn Learning tutorials.

In chapter 8 of Parallel Universes, students were asked to read about the following visual principles: Hierarchy and Scale. Two relationships of order can occur in Hierarchy: Emphasis and Subordination. Emphasis is represented by the main object/event, and Subordination is represented by the dependent objects/events that modify or complement the emphasized feature. The scale is a relationship between an object and its context (or other external relationship). When we change the size of an object, we change the scale with its environment. Changing the size of the surroundings can also change the scale of the object.

Chapter 14 of Parallel Universes discusses material processes such as addition, subtraction, assembly, and substitution. Addition (modeling) is characterized by building using soft material that can be modeled by hand. However, computer software (Mudbox) allows the modeler to manipulate volume as if he or she was working with clay. Subtraction occurs when works reveal from a larger volume through the process of carving. In traditional sculpture, the material such as stone or wood is used in the subtractive process. Assembly is a practice of manipulating the existing objects through assembly and construction. Digital analog of assembly can be seen in boolean union commands and juxtaposition of the elements. Substitution is a process of creating a form in first, intermediate material in order to recreate it in the second, final material. It is a process of creating a mold. In digital art, 3D scanning is a way of acquiring the data from the physical world.

Alternate Realities Discusses the notion of realism in the art world. The reality in art takes many forms, such as Realism, Surrealism, Photorealism, Hyperrealism, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Computer Generated Imagery, Digital Fabrication. All of them try to imitate the real world.
Realism emerges in France in the 1850s when the artists attempted to represent the world around them in a truthful way without supernatural elements and fiction. In turn, Surrealist artists use traditional realism techniques in the non-traditional way when they explore the subconscious rather than the conscious state. In photorealism, artists study the photograph and try to reproduce the image by painting, drawing, and other graphic media. Hyperrealism occurs with the emergence of high-resolution digital images. Hyperrealistic painting or sculpture resembles a high-resolution photograph, which creates the sense that it is more real than real. Computer Created Imagery is an application of computer graphics in creating still or animated visual content.

LinkedIn Learning tutorials’ main goal was to introduce and familiarize students with Autodesk Meshmixer, 3D printing, and 3D scanning. In the tutorial on Meshmixer, the instructor discussed its interface, talked about how to save and import files, and showed the technique of fixing mesh automatically and with remeshing. In addition to that, students learned what separate bodies mean in Meshmixer and how to export them. In the tutorial on 3D printing and scanning, the instructor showed how to use 3D printing software, FDM-style 3d printers, and a laser scanner. The main takeaway from these tutorials was that it is recommended to work in a standard shader because it shows the outside and inside faces in different colors, and this might help detect the problems.