Final version of Artefact 3

Artefact 3:

Evaluation:

The aim of this artefact is to create a depressing mood to the room. I had researched into depression and the main links that I found were alcohol abuse, smoking, and darkness. I wanted to portray this emotion accurately so I incorporate all of these elements into the environment and then created a questionnaire once it was completed to see if this was successful.

I used the same environment as the previous artefact but this time I changed the composition and lighting. Firstly I had the blanket falling off the bed to show a sign of distress and to show that the person living there doesn’t care about presentation. The second thing I did was modeled alcohol bottles and placed them around the bedroom showing the viewer that he is abusing alcohol which is linked to depression. I have also added a cigarette in an ash tray on the bed to add to the depressing emotion.

As another sign of distress I placed the records on the floor next to the speaker which has fallen on the floor by all of the alcohol bottles, I created another render focusing on these objects as I thought it was an important part of my artefact and it clearly shows the viewer the emotions in the environment.

I showed this artefact to my focus group and I also created a questionnaire asking what type of mood / emotions are portrayed in the environment. The highest response I received was depression. This was a clear indication to me that this artefact portrayed the desired emotion and mood accurately.

Feedback I recived when presenting in front of my focus group:

The image above shows the main comments from my focus group. I took all of these suggestions into mind when amending this artefact. I blurred out the window image so that the view doesnt get distracted and focuses on the rest of the bedroom. I also re created the cigarette smoke within photoshop after experimenting with various methods. I then re positioned the light source outside the window, slightly lower so that you could see the carpet and the alcohol bottles more clearly. I also fixed the bed sheet texture by creating a red fabric material and applying it to the object and fixing the polygons within 3Ds max when the cloth modifier made the cloth object overlap it self. I finally moved the canvas toward the left of the window so that more light came through the window. Below is the before and after images with clear indications of what I have changed:

After fixing my artefact I decided to create a questionnaire to see what people thought about the artefact, mainly to see if people could tell that i'm trying to portray depression within the scene. I created this questionnaire and sent it to people on the multimedia course. Below is a screenshot of the questionnaire:

  

After sending out my questionnaire I saw the results and the depression received the highest number of votes, This was a clear indication to me that my artefact was a success and that the audience really felt the emotions that I wanted to portray. Below is bar chart that I created with the results of this artefact:

Artefact 3 - Progress - More Planning & Research

Once getting my ideas together I decided to research some images linked to depressing bedrooms. I came across many interesting images that I could reference into my own work.

As you can see most of these images are bedrooms which are messy, caused by depression. the main factors in these images are alcohol and low light levels. I will incorporate these factors into my artefact 

Artefact 3 - Depression (planning)

For my 3^rd artefact I have decided to create a depressing mood to the bedroom that I created. I discussed this artefact idea within my tutorial and gained some really good ideas on how to create a depressing atmosphere in a bedroom. Some of the ideas that I thought of are that the bedroom should be slightly messy to show that the person living there doesn’t care about presentation, and there is bigger things on his mind. 

To create this messy environment I have thought about modelling alcohol bottles and placing them around the bedroom e.g on the floor and bed. Once I thought about some of these ideas I decided to research into depression itself and I came across some interesting facts:

“Depression is more than simply feeling unhappy or fed up for a few days. We all go through spells of feeling down, but when you're depressed you feel persistently sad for weeks or months, rather than just a few days.”  - NHS -http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Depression/Pages/Introduction.aspx

This shows that depression can be a long lasting feeling which will show in my artefact that the bedroom would have been in messy circumstances for quite some time.

Another interesting article I came across about depression is that people suffer different types of depression.

“Winter depression is still a mystery to scientists who study it. Many things, including brain chemicals, ions in the air, and genetics seem to be involved. But researchers agree that people who suffer from winter depression -- also known as "seasonal affective disorder," a term that produces the cute acronym SAD -- have one thing in common. They're particularly sensitive to light, or the lack of it.” http://www.webmd.com/depression/features/seasonal-affective-disorder

This could show that the person that occupies this room gets depressed in the winter or night times as they could be sensitive to light or the lack of it. These are some of the ideas that I want to incorporate into my artefact.