2016

Last week I participated as DoPe to a private exhibition/event hosted by a friend in his house.

A pair of works from DoPe (me and Paolo Dolci) were printed and exhibited in small wall structures made of metal and wood by paolo. I’ll post some pictures in a future update. We also presented one of our sphere animation as a projection, on a large icosahedron placed centrally in the main exhibition room.

The icosahedron was also built by Paolo and you can see it here, to have a sense of scale:

Projection Icosahedron #0

The projected surface gave the impression of movement and continuous change, morphing and reshaping itself, with colors creeping around and geometric shapes rotating mechanically….

During the whole evening the event was accompanied by great ambient music created by Luca Bergero. He also executed a great live performance, using carefully prepared objects as sources for his sounds and music. You can contact him here: luca DOT bergero@gmail.com

The music and ambient sounds, and also the guest’s voices were used to change, in realtime, the second projection. Its main theme is the sphere animation, plus a sequence of related artworks from DoPe.

The projection background is more or less visible, depending on the currently played audio frequencies. It’s a realtime video of Luca creating the audio and the rest of the animations and effects are composed on it. Colors and brightness are both influenced by the video (Luca’s movements). It’s possible to see his profile while he moves around, working on mixers and “cabled” objects – his musical instruments!

A wall acted as a screen and during Luca’s live exhibition I also worked “live” on some of the animations and colors.

You can see a short abstract here:

You can see the icosahedron at the bottom center, while the realtime-animated projection is on the right.

I will provide a nicer video as soon as I can get my hands on a friend’s footage. After some small editing work I should be able to present something more “structured”…

Hello! lately I’ve been absent, due to a few overlapping projects as a freelancer… sorry about that. I couldn’t complete any new work, but I want to update you on what’s going on and throw some ideas around 😉

The freelancing projects I’m working on are (partially) related to graphics and the like, I’m speaking of 2D animation, 3D animation and some electronics (related to transmitting and recording video wirelessly).

BUT I’m also working on an art-related project with Paolo. We’re creating a pair of “video” installations, one similar to a projeciton mapping on a real icosahedron:

(DISCLAIMER: the following pics and video aren’t nice, they’re purely for documentation purposes; also, you’ll find some light technical babble reading on)

A standard projector will cover half the icosahedron’s shape. It will be placed in a room corner at a friend’s exhibition in November. I’ll use the faces and shape to create some interesting transitions and animations. Some of our previous animations, (mainly from the Spheres series) will be used as elements, as well as new things.

But the second, less defined part is what I have more updates about: Paolo got an old film projector (Super Almo is its name). It was hand-operated and the light came from an old lamp…

We decided to restore and modify it, you can see some pictures here, showing the parts and the modifications. I wanted all changes to be reversible, so I mostly removed and substituted parts. The only “hard” change was done to the manual advancement handle…. you’ll see later why:

So the changes have been made to the lamp, replaced by a crude high intensity LED array. I added along the light path a “reflection cone” to optimize the light flux and reduce dispersion.

The back reflective dish wasn’t useful anymore because the LED are nicely directional, compared to a traditional lamp.

The projector also became A LOT lighter by removing an electric transformer, plus some switches and plugs. Now everything is powered by a refurbished PC power supply.

To the film advancement mechanism then…

Paolo had the idea of “motorizing” it and to somehow paint and draw on a transparent film to show our content… He sourced a (less)old cordless screwdriver, so I worked on a small, simple circuit piloted by a microcontroller (Arduino), constantly moving back and forth the film… enjoy!:

As you can see, “traditional” film isn’t making any sense because of the continuous lighting and speed.

Next we’ll experiment two different things, first to create some ad-hoc content (the painting/drawing I was speaking of, these will evolve along the length of the film roll, to take advantage of the optical effect).

Then I want to use the microcontroller to control the LED lights as a shutter. By turning them on and off pretty fast they should show a sequence of full frames only. This approach will also require (probably) a finer circuit to control the motor (thus film speed).

I will keep you updated on this and other projects, let me know what do you think on the comments! Thank you!

PS one more thing: if you received and answered the survey you should get the small free print, if you haven’t already! Let me know when you get it and what do you think!

update

Update – ongoing project(s) #1 – projections and projectors

MutaSphere00 on s[edition]

A world-sized creature/planet, sentient, partially organic and partially mechanical, he/she/it moves and re-configures itself. Its sounds and some of the movements and shaping give away the partly artificial birth.

The first MutaSphere is also part of the setting constantly developed by DoPe, a futuristic view of space organisms/planets, a blend of worlds and spacecrafts, place to live and living things. These entities suggest the influence of some form of civilization through technological or mechanical aspects, influenced by humanities coexisting with and within them.

Also this work starts from a physical drawing, illuminated and digitally photographed multiple times. The pictures were then elaborated and combined, to produce a set of new images, used to generate the base colors and features of the planet. As last steps further movements and animations were given to the sphere and a soundtrack was recorded, digitally enhanced and added to the work.

If you like this or some other works I’ve done, please consider supporting me on Patreon and get tutorials, help or custom works in return!

3D Graphics, Digital Art

DoPe 3D Animation – Mutasphere00

3D extrapolated from an oil painting

(Limited edition of 30)

This is an experiment, a video created using an oil painting as a starting idea.

The direction followed points towards the creation a creature, a huge creature similar to a living planet, the movement is a key concept to give life to the whole thing and, most important, to evolve and keep part of the materic look of the oil painting we used.

This is W5, the oil painting:

W5, Oil Painting by Paolo Dolci

Some of the choices made to get to this look are experiments that can open or close new ways to explore, especially in the creation and fluidity of the movement and transformation, probably more “Things” will come!

The animation exists in another version, with red/orange high ground, more similar to the original painting and with a strong color and temperature contrast:

Some of the frames are interesting enough to justify a further elaboration of the data, model and techniques to produce high resolution images for high quality printing in big size (>300 DPI).

If you like this or some other works I’ve done, please consider supporting me on Patreon and get tutorials, help or custom works in return!

3D Graphics, Digital Art, Uncategorized

3D and Digital Art: ViDue_MXD321PRN

MatericLook: ViDue_MXD704PRN by DoPe

Another old work from DoPe (me, Francesco Perratone and Paolo Dolci, a great painter).

A more “planetary” approach to the spheres series, a living planet seen from outer space.

The idea of the still as a work by itself comes from a short animation we’ve done. once an “interesting” frame has been identified the work has been detailed a bit more, recalculated at much larger resolution and a bit of post production has been added.

3D Graphics, Digital Art

3D and Digital Art: ViDue_MXD704PRN

MatericLook: DiPi_MXD627PRN by DoPe

Another work I’ve done some time ago as DoPe, starting from an oil painting by Paolo Dolci.

Also here, I used the original painting’s colors and textures to build the shapes and the materials on the creature, a living sphere/planet…

The high quality large print shows a lot of interesting details were to lose yourself wandering around, the idea for a still image comes from a short animation you can see here.

3D Graphics, Digital Art

3D and Digital Art: DiPi_MXD627PRN

MatericLook: DiPi_MXD4941PRN by DoPe

A work I’ve done some time ago as DoPe, starting from an oil painting by Paolo Dolci.

The high quality large print shows a lot of interesting details were to lose yourself wandering around the “planet”.

The idea for this still image comes from a short animation you can see here.

3D Graphics, Digital Art

MatericLook

Art, Photography, Urbex and Visuals by Francesco Perratone and DoPe

Tag Archives: Paolo Dolci

Private Event and Performance report – 11/11/2016

BUT I’m also working on an art-related project with Paolo. We’re creating a pair of “video” installations, one similar to a projeciton mapping on a real icosahedron:

But the second, less defined part is what I have more updates about: Paolo got an old film projector (Super Almo is its name). It was hand-operated and the light came from an old lamp…

Paolo had the idea of “motorizing” it and to somehow paint and draw on a transparent film to show our content… He sourced a (less)old cordless screwdriver, so I worked on a small, simple circuit piloted by a microcontroller (Arduino), constantly moving back and forth the film… enjoy!:

Update – ongoing project(s) #1 – projections and projectors

MutaSphere00 on s[edition]

DoPe 3D Animation – Mutasphere00

3D and Digital Art: ViDue_MXD321PRN

3D and Digital Art: ViDue_MXD704PRN

3D and Digital Art: DiPi_MXD627PRN

DiPi_MXD4941PRN