After we assigned roles to each other, I started gathering my holiday photos that my family have gone on, as this is where a lot of my research has come from in terms of image reference.
My role in this project is modelling statues of the environment and what I'm interested in developing is- texturing.
So far I have come up with some story-lines off the top of my head with out doing much research. What I intend on doing is, the historical research I have collected and I will use work contextualize my story ideas and see if it will head in any new directions.
Here are my story ideas:
Background of this city.
Around ????? years ago there lived a civilised people in an average sized city who worshipped a multitude of gods. These gods would then pass on the peoples worship to The Gold Crest, in which is believed be the source of all life and wisdom. They believe the animals came first, then a millennia later Zeus and his realm. The human race was last to be created.
These animals oppressed their younger sibling gods and forced Zeus and his realm of gods to Earth. Where they were forced to build huge temples in the animals image, these temples could be built up to grand sizes of 100 acres. The animals made the promise that once done, Zeus and his council could ascend back to the status of gods.
A millennia had passed and Zeus and his council finished the work that they were forced to do. But the animal gods didn't keep their word, war broke out between the sibling gods.
With the desire for peace between these races of gods to prevent the loss of human life, they declared that no more war would happen. And with this peace agreement, the miracle of human life appeared in the form of a great civilisation.
Alternative- a fragile peace agreement was made between these two realms of gods. Each realm created their own civilisation of human beings, with different colour pigment and different culture. The animal gods brought up their human civilisation as oppressors and a superiority attitude, whilst the trauma of oppression spread to Zeus civilisation and so had a history of feeling inferior to the other civilisation.
Zues and his counsel brought up their civilisation with love and care, and wanted loving worship from man.
Whereas the animal gods commanded fearful worship and regular human sacrifices, to quench the animal gods thirst for blood. This is believed to prevent further war. They also encouraged a hateful and superior attitude against their neighbours.
Story idea 2.
could be where various old religions- Egyptian and Greek gods could have originated from. So the main temple would have a blend of these civilisations architecture.
Story idea 3.
millions of years ago of years, there lived an advanced civilisation. Not advanced in physical, chemical or biological science or technology but in sociology.
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Could manipulate other cities to their own personal benefit. If a people declared war on these manipulative people then they would infiltrate their armies and gain influence among the armies and get a grip on them to an extent where this army would- kill each other. Or join forces with the manipulative city.
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Used it to benefit their allies, so helped them resolve conflicts, negotiate business deals with other cities. Because of the helping nature, that nations that were helped by them, presented these people a gift- building a city for them, with a blend and combination of architecture from Greek and Egyptian culture and heritage.
In order to enrich my story ideas, or come up with new and better ideas I started researching Ottoman Empire, Greek architecture, history and religion.
I feel that I have learnt a lot about these areas. Please see below.
Otterman Army.
- The Ottomans arose from the obscure reaches of Anatolia in the west of Turkey.
- Called the Oghuz. They had come, primarily, as settlers during the reign of the Seljuks in Turkey (1098-1308); the Anatolian frontier was largely hostile to Islam.
- The Ottomans soon ruled a small military state in western Anatolia by 1300, about the time the Seljuk state was crumbling apart. This small state was in conflict with several other small Muslim states, each preying on the other for territory.
- By 1400, [they extended] their influence, over much of Anatolia and even into Byzantine territory in eastern Europe: Macedonia and Bulgaria.
- Constantinople resisted every siege and every invasion that the Muslims threw at them.
- The Ottomans, however, wanted to break this cycle. The seizure of Constantinople represented a powerful symbol of Ottoman power, but it would make the Ottomans master of east-west trade.
- 1453, Sultan Mehmed (1451-1481), who was named “The Conqueror” took this last remnant of Byzantium and renamed it, Istanbul. From that point onwards, Otterman Europe remained in Istanbul. This then became 'one of the most cultured cities of the early modern world'.
- The Ottomans inherited a rich mixture of political traditions from vastly disparate ethnic groups: Turks, Persians, Mongols, Mesopotamian and Islam. [This list here will be another stepping stone in my research, even though it is political influences, I would still like this to have an influence on architecture and sculpture].
- The Ottoman state, like the Turkish, Mongol, and Mesopotamian states rested on a principle of absolute authority in the monarch.
- Ottomans set up a number of practices and institutions in the central government surrounding the Sultan. The first was the establishment of a bureaucracy drawn from the Sultan's inner circle. This bureaucracy in turn controlled local governments.
Other institutions and political practices were:
- Observance of government : The Sultan's job was primarily to keep a watch on all the officials. In some cases, this observance of government involved the personal involvement of the Sultan. He would sometimes observe in secret the proceedings of the Diwan, the central advisory group to the sultan. Sultan was required to tour local governments in disguise to ensure that magistrates and justices were operating justly.
- For the most part, the Sultan monitored local officials through a vast, complex, and elaborate system of spies who would report back to the central bureaucracy. The intelligence gathering system in the Ottoman Empire was the best in the world, until the twentieth century.
- Public agents and officials that abused their power and the peasantry were subjected to a special jurisdiction called the Siyasa. Which were a set of severe punishments imposed by the Sultan on corrupt officials.
- In the siyasa system, the most severe crimes involved illegal taxation or forced labour of the peasantry, staying in their homes without permission or billeting troops without permission, and requiring peasants against their will to provide food for them or for soldiers.
Members of Ottoman society could approach the Imperial Council with grievances against government officials; these official petitions were called ard-i mahdar and were always treated with the utmost seriousness. If the Imperial Council ruled against the officials, they would often be subjected to the siyasa.
-Centralised Government...available to each and every citizen of the Empire.
- All Ottoman wars of the conquest in the sixteenth century were assiduously planned years in advance.
- Government would lay up stores of supplies all along the campaign route so that the armies could feed themselves
- Ottoman conquerors believed that no conquest could stand without the goodwill. So military campaigns were remarkably fair and easy on the average person.
The Ottermans appeared to operate similar to both, the Turkish and Mongol, [in a monarchy]- both the Turkish and Mongol peoples believed that the crown fell to the most worthy inheritor.
- Each individual in the hereditary line, brothers and sons, were equally entitled to the crown.
- This meant that successions were almost always major struggles among contending parties.
- Once a Sultan had assumed the throne, all his brothers were executed as well as all their sons
- [This guaranteed] no future wars or struggles.
- Ottoman state saw a succession of mad Sultans and the corresponding increase in power of a corrupt bureaucracy.
- Ottomans followed the old Turkish and Mongol tradition- Sultan's lands to be a joint possession of the Sultan's family [and] conquered lands were considered the private property of the Sultan.
- Sultan was regarded as personally responsible for every government decision, in reality the government was run by a large bureaucracy.
- The Sultan was constrained by these rules.
From this research I was starting to really like the Ottoman Empire as i felt that they fitted in with the civilised and socially advanced civilisation of my story idea.
[It appears that the Otterman Empire had a lot of similarities to todays politics i.e. something that is good in theory, but, when in reality a lot of it is corrupt and a load of empty words meant to convince people to vote for their party.]I had been doing silhouette drawings of the city to get the layout, composition and camera angles right. Mapping out my thoughts as i find this gets rid of preconceived ideas and allows me focus. During my research, I hadn't taken in to account capital punishment nor government buildings. So with a centralised government, this could mean an easy access building, with my current layouts. So this will be incorporated in my layout designs.
After doing Ottomen research and finding that there was a Pre-Islamic and Post-Islamic I decided to focus on the post-islamic side for it's architecture. A fact about the Ottoman Empire which I found incredible, it lasted late in to the 20th century.
The idea behind the research section in our group is to collect anything we find inspiring and that could be used as a reference. I found this both liberating and enjoyable because it felt like I didn't have any restraints with research. Here are some research pictures that I have collected from the internet:
Something that I was wanting to get in my designs was a good sense of perspective. In this case I see a one point perspective, which is the path leading up to the mosque. I also liked the dome shape, or water droplet shape on top of the mosque. This is one of the things that stand out in Islamic architecture and it was something I wanted to incorporate in to some of the defense building designs.
The first reason why I chose this photo was because of the colours, I loved the mixture between the gold of the object in the middle of the mosque and the selection of greens on the ceiling mixed with the light refractions of the chandelier. I also really liked the art-nouveau decoration which is very pre-dominant in this interior design.
Another reason why I chose this photo was because the people in this scene are interacting the environment, which is a criteria that has been emphasized in this unit and it is something that I want to understand better.
Again I was looking at the shape and decorations on islamic architecture in order to put in to my designs, because I was after some form of islamic influence in some of my designs.
In here I loved the decor of the walls, and the variety of textures. I found this photo cool, and could be potentially used in the design stage. The main application of this would be in the temple design.
After I had researched Ottoman empire, I decided to research some of the Greek gods and the history of sculpture. See if I can some how incorporate it in to my designs.
Here are some photos from my trip to Athens:
This was the view from a restaurant roof top. The culture there is very different when it comes to the eating and of serving food. The duration between each course is very long, what feels like 20 minutes sitting at a table waiting for your next course to come.
This photo was taken using a 20-55mm canon lens. I had the shutter speed quite high because at this time, it was late afternoon so the sun was almost setting. It also allowed me to get the shadows from the glasses and cloth.
Again I was looking for inspiration and the use of perspective and composition. I found this to be a good source of reference for my silhouette drawings. So in the picture above, you have the railings coming together, which then leads your eye to, I think, is a church on (what I know) is a very tall hill.
This is a photo of the Acropolis, from my hotel room. I was fortunate enough to have this on one side of my view on the balcony and then a view of Athens where you can watch the sun setting.
This photo has got some useful reference in it. 1- principle of what is closer to you is bigger (and your eye can pick up more detail) and objects that are further away, appear less detailed. This is principle which is also useful for rendering a 3D environment have the objects that are furthest away from the camera have a lower polycount and smaller texture resolution. I also found this principle helpful in my silhouette drawings.
Here's my research of Greek sculpture and the ancient gods so far.
6th Century BCE, 100 years before classical Greek sculpture took place. The Greeks had pretty much perfected sculpture of the human figure.
However, interesting from an animation point of view, this made the sculptures look awkward and unreal like.
Greek sculpture was around the archaic period.
This was seen as a disadvantage.
Sculptors then looked and forceful sculpts in order to get the appearance of weight.
The Greeks studied the movement of the body, how weight is carried, and how a shift in stance could affect the placement of limbs, torso, and head.
After 480 BCE, the first marble sculpture displaying the qualities of ‘Contrapposto,’ or weight shift, appeared in the Kritios Boy.
But the advancements made on this sculpture were lost when the Persians invaded Greece.
It's uses.
A lot of greek art was used to show appreciation to the gods and 'gain favour in their eyes for good times to come'. This then had a direct effect on the temples where they were set up to hold these cult statues. For example, the Erechthieon, located in the Acropolis, was built to commemorate both Athena and Poseidon by placing shrines around the areas where Poseidon was said to have thrust his triton into the ground, from which a spring was created, and the olive tree that Athena planted when she finally won Athens from Poseidon.
Because of the mix between secular and religious beliefs, the sculptures were mainly used to reflect Greek life.
Greek Gods.
Athena (Minerva)- goddess of wisdom.
Brief biography.
- Never had a real mother. Came to birth by her mother getting swallowed by Zeus.
“Athena invented the flute, the trumpet, the earthenware pot, the plough, the rake, the ox-yoke, the horse-bridle, the chariot, and the ship. She was also the first teacher of the science of numbers, and all women's arts: weaving, cooking, and spinning.”
She is most well known by- “the aegis (shield/fringed cloak, sometimes with the head of Medusa on it), a shield (again, sometimes with the head of Medusa), bronze armour, a helmet (this is very common), and a spear.”
Athena: Greek Goddess of Wisdom. Available at: http://www.paleothea.com/SortaSingles/Athena.html [Accessed January 10, 2010].
Hades (Pluto)- God of the underworld.
Brief biography.
Zues and Hera (Jupiter and Juno)- King and Queen of the gods.
Brief biography.
Zues was the most powerful god ever. His wife's name was Hera. Apparently because Zues was a busy god, he didn't have much time for his family. This resulted in him having an affair with Alcmene. Alcmene found out she was pregnant with Hercules.
His symbols are- bull, thunderbolt, eagle and oak.
Depicted either by standing, striding forward, thunderbolt in right hand (levelled) or seated in majesty.
Zeus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeus [Accessed January 11, 2010].
Apollo- god of light and music.
Brief biography.
- Worshipped by Greek and Roman and Greco-Roman Neopaganism
- Was a very arty god- music, poetry and the arts.
Son of Zeus
- Was known for prophecy and healing. But was also known to spread disease and illness.
- Lyre is commonly attributed to him. The lyre was made and given to apollo by Hermes
Dionsyus- god of wine and grapes.
Brief biography.
Eros (Cupid)- The god of pure love.
Brief biography.
Aphrodite (Venus)- goddess of love
Brief biography.
Nike (Victoria)- goddess of Victory
Brief biography.
Poseidon (Neptune)- God of the sea
Brief biography.
- Known as the sea god and earth shaker i.e. earth quakes.
- In Athens seen as second only to Athena in importance.
- Poseidon was seen as creating new islands and offering calm seas
Cronus (Saturn)- Zues's dad
Brief biography.
Hestia (Vesta)- goddesses of the hearth
Brief biography.
Demeter (Ceres)- goddess of growing plants
Brief biography.
Hercules.
Brief biography.
Warrior. Son of Zeus. He was conceived out of an affair between Zeus and Alcmene. Hera made two attempts on Hercules life- the first one was when Alcmene was pregnant. The second time when Hercules was a baby and Hera put snakes in his cot but Hercules killed the snakes. There were other attempts but these were the first two attempts.
Gaia- Greek Goddess of the Earth.
- Also known as mother nature. Mother of many. She was the starter of a lot of the gods. Gave birth to Uranus who was born with an effectuation and love for Gaia. They then had many other children.
I will continue to add to this blog entry as time goes on as I find more out about these gods in the research and development stage.
