This current mess of a mind map stemmed from three topics: 1) Covid-19 2) Coding 3) Themed Entertainment Design. Everything is color coded. Red being things I don't care about, yellow a things I kinda care about, and green things I care the most about. The exclamation points mark what I'm actively looking into. The black things are questions I have.
I have been making some interesting connections with puppetry and animatronics. I rediscovered realtime CGI puppets (I first found during my motion-capture research from the spring). Examples of CGI puppets within themed entertainment (specifically the Disney parks) are "Turtle Talk With Crush" and The Monsters Ink Laugh Floor" It's a lot like a video game where someone controls the characters moments with a mix of pre-rendered and realtime animation, and the puppeteer works with a voice actor to complete the character. Very similar to motion-capture in a way, or even a Instagram or Snapchat filter. I am beginning to understand it might become important for me to learn how to code arduinos for "actual robotic" animatronics. I don't have much coding experience. I have taken a Visual Basic programing class during my undergraduate. However, the class was mainly spent on making spreadsheets, not very creative or fun. Since then I thought I would never touch coding again. I couldn't see a use for it in my own work at the time. Since then, I have seen coding popping up within my research of entertainment design, projection mapping, and lighting design. So I am giving coding a second chance. After talking to some people they recommend me to look into p5.js and gave me some helpful links and tutorials to look at. The tutorials are from a YouTube channel called "The coding train," supper fun and helpful, Dan (the teacher) is great! Thus far I have a made shapes follow my mouse, change shape and background color, along with some other cool things. Bellow is a link to the program I made with said things I have learned using p5.js. Its nothing fancy, just a test.
CLICK THE LINK! ( <iframe src="https://editor.p5js.org/kgolson7/embed/5S3UQGSYU"></iframe> (Links to an external site.)
Im still making connections with my other two topics as-well. Animatronic Control Systems have peaked my interest and I found a dude who sells a kit that allows you to make an audio animatronic crow. Unsure if purchasing and building the thing would worth the cost. I am still trying to figure out how specifically animatronics fit into my overall interests. I'm not an engineer, Im not interested in fabricating metal, plastic, or 3D printing, i'm not an electrician, but designing an animatronic by working with a team of fabricators, engineers, and electricians sounds fun. I could then perform/animate the animatronic along with making the animatronic look cool on paper. I do, however, have some theatre prop making skills and could possibly do some post creation cosmetic additives to an animatronic.
During some down time, I took another look at my mind map and reread my unanswered questions around the future of themed entertainment. Specifically "How do you design the future?" or "What does the future physically look like?" or "How do you design for constant evolution?" more anticipatory design questions. I dove into these question a smidge, but soon realized these questions are probably going to lead to blackholes and push me farther away from my main research goals. I also looked over my current Grad portfolio and assessed I needed more concept visualizations, like prototyped drawings. Something that can visually show a growth of process (I think my peppers ghost research from last year was a good example of this, drawing an idea out on paper and then actually creating a thing or a polished visualization of the thing). I could do something like this again by possibly designing an animatronic or a futuristic looking theme park, however, that might be an ambition idea. I'm not sure. Just doing a lot of thinking and list making recently.
On a different note I signed up for the free Blooloop V-Expo. A virtual conference and exhibition for attractions professionals, themed entertainment designers, and more. If anyone else wishes to sign up! Click the link below! It takes place online during Oct 13-15th! You can also preview the full agenda in the link below. Im not payed to say this (but I wouldn't say no to a payed sponsorship). This is just a great opportunity for anyone wanting to get into the field of entertainment design.
https://blooloop.com/news/blooloop-vexpo-agenda/ (Links to an external site.)