Adding the missing features...

That shawl was still very tricky to pull off, so I did some improvising. Using Maria's research (and a bit of creative improvisation...which I hope wasn't too dangerous), I tried to approximate what the wrapped dress might look like underneath the shawl (pulled over the shoulders and pinned). This actually might have worked out nicely for me, since a shawl would have covered her belt and bag. Now everything can still be seen. :-) Also, I added her sandals based on the Poma illustrations (I remember looking at some in Anne's collection, but she never gave me the pictures...so again, more creative improvisation). Over the next couple days, I'm going to incorporate these shots into a semi-interactive Javascript webpage that will let the user mouse over certain clothing items and have them light up on some Poma illustrations (with corresponding images of my lady model showing up as well). True, the project deadline has passed, but I still want to follow through with the webpage to showcase my (and Maria's) effort.

Video of my low LOD lady in action!

She is planting things. :-)

I am a bit disappointed that I didn't get the man to Pengfei before he made this video. I'd love to see both models in the scene.

What I have so far...

Well, my time is up, folks. Today is the last day to show my progress and I need to catch my train, so here goes.

Based on collaboration with Maria and Anne, I've re-constructed what an upper middle-class Incan woman what have worn (most of it, anyway) using Maya and a starting model that I bought:

As you can see, I was not able to finish her sandals or her shawl. I spent hours trying to figure out how to model a shawl in Maya (using nCloth and without). Things kept going wrong (Maya crashing, the cloth simulation exploding, etc, etc). Eventually, I had to stop working on her and begin creating the male and female models for the ritual group. Since there were going to be so many of them, I had to keep their geometry simple (even more simple than my lady!). Here they are (I hope that the ritual group will be able to use them successfully. Last I checked, Pengfei had the lady walking around with CMU mocap data just fine.) I know they look a bit angry...I had to go back to the original tall-forehead version in order to keep things simple. Alas, shawls were not an option for these guys, and I know that the women didn't wear sleeves (according to Anne, anyway), but due to time and geometry constraints, I took a Poma illustration --> 3d model approach, which consisted of looking at Poma's simplified illustrations and adding colors to things based on what Anne told me about class hierarchy and how it corresponds to color. I even took a stab at making silver plated earrings for the man.
I haven't had a chance to look at the final ritual simulation - I hope it looks okay! One problem that I did experience with these other models is "wandering" eye textures. If I didn't delete non-deformer history before binding them to their skeletons, their eyes would go crazy! All in all, I actually came away from this project feeling like I learned a lot (and I'm glad that I got to dress and animate some virtual people of the past, which was actually a goal of mine at the beginning of the semester).

I will try to work on making a shawl for the detailed lady over the next couple days. If it doesn't work, then I'll throw in the towel.

Step 2 Progress (7) [and a pose!]

Due to time constraints, a single pose will have to do for the Inca lady. I hope it's an alright pose. Her pretty features combined with the staring off into the distance may have incidentally caused a fashion model effect. Well, I suppose she is a fashion model...for Inca fashion! So, all I have left to do for her is make her shawl and then paint her sandals. Then, render a few good quality shots (I wonder if ambient occlusion would look weird). No movie...oh well. After that, I need to block together the low LOD man and woman for the ritual group.

Commence the next step!

It's the final stretch! I'm not sure how much I'll be able to get done by the 22nd, but I'll give it my all. Today the focus is on rigging and animating with mocap data. Here's just a taste (a scary, scary taste):I haven't put on her clothes yet, since I want to make sure that her body is sized and rigged to fit the mocap data. Unfortunately, Pengfei, who is helping us put things into OGRE, needs the models by this afternoon. I'm hoping it will be okay if I give him the unclothed version to start off and then hand him the clothed version tomorrow morning. We'll see...

Step 2 Progress (6)

Texturing is...difficult. :-/

Step 2 Progress (5)

Step 2 Progress (3)

I'm not sure how much I'll be able to complete by tonight (I have to go to work today, so that knocks me down 3 hours), but I'll keep doing as much as I can!

Step 3 Progress (2)

Here she is with face and hair. By the way, I used this tutorial to help make the hair and this reference image for the facial size and textures. I think she looks much better than before. :-)

Step 3 Progress (1)

Okay, I was out of commission there for a while due to a dead monitor. But I've been able to borrow one and I'm back in business! I met with Anne yesterday and she helped me pin down (tupu pins, ha!) the kind of outfit that an upper-middle class female in Kuzco might have worn. I have run across several issues, though (apart from my dead monitor):

• Clenching teeth in the original model. I'll try to go in and fix this. I guess I didn't notice them as much when she was blue. While I'm in there, I could try and scale the head to make it more round too...
  
• "Swishing" skirts and shawls. The only way to have these cloth pieces move in real-time (inside Ogre) is to use a physics engine. Meaning, I can model them, but if I do, they will not "swish" as the woman walks. So, I think my current plan of attack will be to model the fixed clothing items (belt, headband, pouch tucked in belt, sandals), and then see how much time I have left from there to work with the physics.
• Potential clipping of polygon meshes, specifically between her hair and her head. When I go to attach the model to a skeleton, I'm guessing the hair is going to have a ridiculous mind of its own and clip through her head in odd ways. Either I can paint waits to try and fix this, or the hair strips could be simulated in real-time with the physics engine (along with the skirt and shawl.

I hope she doesn't look like she's wearing make-up. I actually pulled her eyes right off of an image of a pretty Peruvian woman. :-) Maybe I'll try to lighten the eyelashes a bit.

Step 2 Progress (2)

Haha, just kidding. :-)

The ear sticking out...might not have been such a good idea...(makes her look kind of elfy). But I'll leave it for now. Onto the next step!

Step 2 Progress (1)

She's blue as a tribute to James Cameron's Avatar. (Also blue makes it easier to see bald patches through the hair). The polygon count might have suffered a bit from this...

It's time for some peopling!

Greetings! (Yes, I'm still here). A couple of my classmates have gathered motion capture data with the intent of re-constructing a planting ritual in OGRE (yay, game engine!). The problem is, they don't have any 3d Andean peoples to animate! I'm going to try and help them out using my experience with Maya modeling/rigging/texturing. Granted, I'm not the best in the field, but I think I can churn out an okay product for them. Okay! So what am I planning on doing? I'm glad you asked...

Step 1: Buy and download existing 3d models to use as a starting point (a male figure and a female figure). So far, I have purchased these guys (for $25, not bad):
Why the low resolution? Several reasons: First of all, if we're going to have a crowd of these guys in OGRE, we need them to have a low polygon count in order for the engine to handle animating and rendering all of them in real time (I'd still like to be able to move a first person camera through the scene in real time as the ritual takes place). Secondly, fewer polygons means fewer texture surfaces to unwrap and that's a big plus, especially for someone like me (with only basic texturing experience). A possible disclaimer here is the anatomical "weight" of the two figures. Andean peoples seem a bit rounder in the face, but you'd be surprised at how difficult it is to find downloadable models that aren't athletic or shall we say "busty" (unless you're talking about the old lady models - no thanks, haha). Once I add clothing to them, this issue should dissolve slightly. Of course, the faces would still be skinny (more Caucasian-ish), but perhaps with the right texturing, this won't be very noticeable.

Step 2: Add hair and clothing. According to Clark: "Males and females during the Inca period had long hair...each female had hundreds of tiny braids and possibly the males." So braids look like a good plan (for now anyway). As for the clothing, I have an accumulating database of reference images - some from Clark and some from another classmate who has met with Anne Tiballi (a Binghamton University grad student working with Andean mummies and the textiles found with them). I think I'll start adding features to the woman model first (no particular reason why, I just want to).

Step 3: Unwrap textures. Hopefully, this won't be too difficult to do (it's still the scariest part of the process for me, though). Basically how texturing works is that you obtain a texture map of your 3d model using various means of projecting the boundaries of their polygons onto a surface (for example, you could project onto a plane to get a "planar" projection or onto a sphere surrounding the model to get a "spherical" projection). The models I downloaded came with texture maps, but I'll probably have to create new texture maps after I add clothing and hair to them. Here's what the woman's looks like at the moment (no clothes or hair):
Once you have a texture map, you paint the colors that you want the model to have onto it. So, if I wanted to give the woman blue eyes, I would have to find the part of the texture map that corresponds to her face (see it there next to that gray bar midway down the image on the right?), find the eye polygons and color over them with blue (in Photoshop or some other image manipulation program). What you end up with is something like this:(Assassin's Creed anybody? Haha). Obviously this is not the painted texture map that I'd use for the Incan woman, but you get the point.

Step 4: Rig the models (i.e. add skeletons to them). This involves making a human joint structure for both models which can then be "bound" to them to make them move. Once that's done, I'll have to "paint weights" to make sure that if, say, I move the arm of the skeleton, only the model's arm moves and not a piece of his/her leg.

And that, my friends, is my current plan of action. :-)

Using a Game Engine...

I really think that making an exploratory "game" for part of our final class project has a lot of potential. I shot some footage (please excuse the bad frame rate; my video capture program is terrible) of one of the demos that comes with Gamebryo (a commercial game engine). From a programming standpoint, it's not very difficult to change the environment, change the "player", and put some people doing idle activities into this scene! Also, this opens up opportunities for several students to model/color buildings and/or people, which can then be inserted into the "game". The only issue, I suppose, is related to copyright infringement (since Gamebryo is not open source). I do indeed have a valid license for it, and since we're not intending to sell anything here, maybe this isn't an issue after all. But I'd still need to check. Another issue is public access to the final product. Users would have to download an .exe file before playing the game, so embedding this kind of thing into a website is probably a no go. However, we could show video footage of one of us playing it, and provide a download that users could click on.

Ideas for My Contribution to the Final Class Project

I am most interested in using my background skills to aid in the “peopling” aspect of our class project. At the same time, I would be willing to help teach other students how to use software tools that I am familiar with for their individual contributions. Likewise, I would also be willing to help integrate smaller mini-projects into a single multimedia website.

Idea #1: 3d representation of ceremonial (or day-to-day) clothing/costumes for people and/or animals
- Programs to use: Maya or SketchUp
- Would require creating or obtaining basic 3d models of Incan peoples and llamas (to which the costume elements would be added)

• These shouldn’t be too detailed
• Could be generic and slightly cartoony (to avoid issues of ethnographic portrayal)

- Could be broken up into:

• 3d models of the costume pieces

1. Uncolored at first
2. Examples: animal pelt worn around the shoulders, headdress made of feathers

• 2d textures of the costume colors and patterns

1. Would be used to color the 3d pieces
2. Example: jaguar spots, pattern of multi-colored squares

- Costume elements could be generated by looking at fragments of textile artifacts from the area and attempting to extrapolate possible designs (like in Redknap’s paper)
- Or, costume elements could be generated by looking at ceremonial costumes that are still used today

Idea #2: 3d representation of temples (could be huacas) within and outside the city of Cuzco
- Programs to use: Maya or SketchUp
- Could be broken up into:

• 3d models of the temple architecture

1. Uncolored at first
2. Example: long, narrow corridor with supporting columns

• 2d textures of the temple materials

1. Would be used to color the 3d architecture
2. Different textures for different times of the month (snow-dusted or not)
3. Example: repeating, offset stones

- Final results could be peopled with the 3d models from Idea #1 (and Idea #3)
- First person shooter (FPS) camera could be used to navigate the final product

• Models could be imported into a game engine for additional features such as:

1. Ambient noise (talking, music, crunching of footsteps, fire crackling)
2. “Drunk” effect (lots of high contrast colors and motion blur)

Idea #3: Motion capture of a ceremonial dance (or ritual path) applied to a 3d character
- Programs to use: Motion Capture Software from SIG lab
- Would require at least one person (the mocap model) to learn and perform the dance moves or ritual path

• Could videotape a demonstration by native peoples to use as reference
• Could try and extrapolate steps by looking at existing video footage
• Could try and extrapolate steps by reading through existing written documentation

- If learning dance moves or ritual paths proves to be too difficult, record daily activities instead

• Farming movements (digging, planting)
• Feeding animals
• Conversational gestures

- Motion capture data could be applied to the 3d models from Idea #1

Idea #4: 3d representation of known Ceque huacas
- Programs to use: Maya or SketchUp
- Use images of existing huacas to create 3d approximations
- Same person could be in charge of both the structure and color of these models, since many huacas (like stone pillars or carvings) don’t have intricate colors or textures

Readings for week of 10/19 (notes)

"Imagining Prehistory: Pictorial Reconstructions of the Way We Were", Mann
- there are few clues as to the original environment in which early humans lived
- discovery/analysis of fossil evidence that documents human evolution --> major focus of popular science (New York Times, television programs)
- typical scenes in popular science: made-up moderns, imagined environments, burying dead, painting, foraging, Neandertals, Cro-Magnons, australopithecines
- what attracts us to the study of our ancestors?

1. curiosity: we wish to know more
2. reassurance: that we've changed from brutish creatures --> civilized existence
3. romance and mystery
4. isolation from culture/family (due to technology): has created a desire to seek out ancestral roots

- whatever the reason, our evolutionary history has been featured in all sorts of media: newspapers, magazine articles, television programs, films, cookbooks ("neanderthin" <-- oh jeez) - why has this become a recent phenomenon?

1. recent finds: for example, discovering "Zinjanthropus" in 1959 (or other relatively recent announcements of very early hominids)
2. emergence of new media forms or existing media forms adopting new subject matter: popular science magazines and television stations
3. recent genetic studies: human origins research, comparative genetic studies, and thus the assertion that all living people are similar biologically

- most artistic reconstructions feature environmental settings that come from the imagination of the artist
- critique of Moser's Ancestral Images: the Iconography of Human Evolution (1998)

• in her book, she traces the historical developments of artistic reconstructions (many of which were created before pre-historic evidence was discovered)
  
• first set (early artistic representations): depict things like pastoral scenes & caves; people have modern physical appearance (body type), but use past "artifacts" like animal bones, furs, clubs - these artifacts are early icons for the primitive; other major themes include pair bonding, language, and fire
  
• next set (16th - 18th centuries): still portray people with a modern physical appearance; still use icons like fur garments & clubs; many relate to a biblical theme
• next set (mid 19th century): at this point, the existence of prehistory was accepted; people depicted as grotesque (non-European) instead of modern in terms of physical appearance - this new imagery reinforces the believe that white European culture is advanced and superior; icons still persist (example: 1940s textbook compares Neandertal skull with those of Australians/Africans instead of modern Europeans)
• final set (past 75 years): least satisfactory part of the book - Moser doesn't say much about modern interpreters of the past, nor about their impact on both academic and public visualization of early humans

- reconstructions of the prehistoric past impact how we conceptualize our past
- The Neanderthal Flint Workers (painting by Knight from 1924; Moser mentions it in her book)

• here, the anatomical details and icons are not as important as the facial expressions and body postures of the subjects
• they look unhappy, as if watching imminent extinction
• these are savage brutes with no connection to modern humans

- versus a painting in 1985 issue of National Geographic (by Matternes; Moser mentions it in her book)

• central figure is a woman
• the faces and bodies of the subjects imply that they are competent and capable
• these are suitable human ancestors

- why does Moser not discuss this dichotomy?
- usually she is very insightful when it comes to these things - consider the following examples:

• 1992: she examined reconstructions of the La Chapelle-aux-Saints Neandertal skeleton; concluded that variations in reconstruction reflected the 2 competing theories (at the time) about the origins of modern human species - pre-Neandertal or pre-Sapiens?
• 1999: she examined scenes of the human evolutionary past portrayed in museum dioramas; concluded that their continued use is problematic, despite their popularity as a means for relaying info to non-specialists - they produce stereotypes, present singular visions of the world, and are mostly imaginary

- Moser isn't being critical enough in her 1998 book; readers might get the impression that she finds "ancestral images" agreeable (which is definitely not the case if you look at her other books)
- the recreation of our ancestors remains highly subjective
- problem: the imagined elements of an image (facial expressions, hair distribution, etc) are usually the most memorable parts of the scene
- problem: most of these recreations still use icons that were established long ago


"Archaeological Representation: The Visual Conventions for Constructing Knowledge about the Past", Moser
- knowledge of the past is constructed through different modes of representation

• academic modes: archaeological writing, conference presentations, illustration
  
• non-academic modes: museum displays, popular books, print media, fiction writing, film, television

- little research has been done to examine the latter and how it shapes archaeological knowledge/interpretation
- non-academic forms of presentation are not merely by-products of academic research - they have a life of their own
- the ways in which we write the past play a significant role in determining its meaning
- "archaeological poetics": the devices used to communicate archaeological knowledge
- are academic modes of representation more important in shaping archaeological knowledge or are non-academic modes more important?
- archaeology has been slow to recognize the role of popular representations

• public archaeology isn't considered an important field
• popular representations are seen as not having a significant impact on the production of knowledge about the past
• thus, those who use academic modes (like archaeologists) think they are immune from the non-academic modes
• this exemplifies a false distinction between science and culture!

- popular images of the past are often seen as a source of amusement for academics, even though the commit great injustices to the ancestors they portray
- many times academics assume that these representations are unproblematic and don't require any interpretation
- but this view is incorrect - these representations influence the wider public's perception of archaeology and even affect the archaeologists (who are, whether they like it or not, members of the wider public too)
- popular representations contribute to the process of making meaning; they make their own statements and have the ability to create ideas about the past
- they even shape the ideas of professionals (scientists are driven by the myths)
- a lot of the scientific community uses a "diffusionist model" to explain why culture and science are separated (knowledge is created by scientists and then diffused/reused into popular culture via a one-way process)
- the diffusionist model is wrong!

• for example: the dinosaur imagine has become a vehicle for both reporting scientific knowledge and for regulating and redefining the process of scientific thinking and discovery
• another example: drawings of hominid ancestors constitute theories about human evolution all by themselves

- politics and social values (like class and gender) shape representations of the past, both academic and popular
- many different genres of communicating the past: illustration, museum display, site presentation, film, magazines, souvenirs, re-enactment, children's books, computer / multimedia, 3d reconstructions
- out of these, visual images are the most influential
- archaeologists cannot escape this influence - they continue to fit their ideas into established (iconic) pictorial frameworks
- contemporary society is fascinated with the visual
- in pictorial representations, meaning is produced through a visual language of communicating the past (i.e. pictorial conventions)
- visual representations are not second-rate illustrations of ideas - they have the ability to convey information, pleasure, displeasure, style, consumption, and power relations
- likewise, they have the ability to communicate meanings that we may not be aware of or wish to convey
- pictorial conventions that appeal to our sense of reasoning:

1. iconography - representations contain icons; for example, 1548 woodcut in a German translation of Vitruvius' De architectura establishes fire as a symbol for the transition of human ancestors from brutes to civilized beings; icons are frequently repeated, function like stereotypes, and reduce information to its bare essentials; they communicate an idea immediately and effectively, but this idea is restricted by lack of explanation
2. autonomy - representations have a life of their own; for example, 1585 painting of an ancient Pict by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues exploits creative freedom at the expense of historical accuracy - based on an ambiguous piece of knowledge, its subject is lavished in decorative, detailed tattoos - this artistic choice might garner greater artistic success, but it came from the artist's imagination; creative afterthoughts like these go on to influence subsequent conceptions even though they are innacurate
   
3. longevity - representations replicate and recycle aspects of earlier images; for example, 1616 engraving of ancient Germans by Philip Cluverius shows its 17th century audience something they are already familiar with; iconic images are extremely difficult to replace because they are usually visually successful and pre-constructed (thus, no extra work involved with creating something new)
   
4. authenticity - representations incorporate as much detailed evidence as possible; for example, 1779 illustration of ancient Britons by Joseph Strutt aimed to correct previous inaccuracies by using meticulous detail and "composite reconstruction" (a wide range of ancestors in one scene); variety and realism create the illusion of authenticity
5. singularity - representations depict a precise moment in time in order to convey some essence of what life was like in the past; for example, 1887 illustration in a book by Henri Cleuziou depicts an engaging and active "man vs. beast" theme; the problem with singularity is that it is limited to one view of the past - a lot is left out
6. dramatism - representations have a long-lasting impact on the viewer; for example, 1888 painting of prehistoric France by Paul Jamin is constructed to shock and entertain its viewers by capturing aspects of human experience which cannot be captured using words; dramatism creates a sense of immediacy that attracts attention, regardless of the subject's origin; the problem with dramatism is that it reduces the importance of background props (usually important artifacts)
   
7. persuasiveness - representations are full of familiar ideas that appeal to our sense of reason; for example, 1924 painting of ancient artists by Charles Knight portrays its subjects in a familiar "art studio" setting, despite the fact that there is no archaeological evidence to support it; in the attempt to create persuasive representations of the past, artists and archaeologists slot archeological evidence into familiar pictorial compositions
   

Taking a Break from the Archaeology Research...

I found this week's reading ("Reanimating the Dead: Reconstruction of Expressive Faces from Skull Data" by Kahler, et al.) to be very interesting. Being a DMDer, these ACM papers are more my style. Yeah, yeah...I'll admit that I skipped over the majority of Section 4.2, which talks about the math involved in the procedure. But something about this research just pulled me in. Maybe it's because my senior project could potentially add hair to the reconstructed faces? Something else worth noting is the similarities of this "art form" with those we discussed in class (like Pate's paintings). "The process is thus highly dependent on rules of thumb, the experience of the artist, and some guesswork," says the paper. The same thing could be said about Pate's work too.

The paper discusses a technique of computerized facial reconstruction using what is refered to as the "tissue depth method." This involves using statistical tissue thickness measurements at specific points on the face to guide how the face is modeled on top of the skull. In this case, the facial "modeling" consists of deforming a template mesh head. For non-computerized versions of the method, the facial "modeling" consists of applying and shaping clay layers to a cast of the skull. There are several advantages of using Kahler's computerized method. First of all, it is a lot faster than the non-computerized alternative (taking about an hour to do vs. "many hundreds"). Secondly, the computerized reconstruction process makes it possible to easily create many "variants" for a single skull, the most common being related to the build of the reconstructed person - skinny, medium, or obese. Finally, the results produced by Kahler (et al) allow for simple facial animations (such as smiles or frowns) to be applied to the reconstructed faces, which "could be helpful for identification purposes." The paper focuses on applying its facial reconstruction technique to the field of forensic science and criminology. However, I definitely see its application for digital "peopling" of reconstructed scenes/architecture of the past.

Here's the general step-by-step approach used by Kahler (et al) to reconstruct a face, given the skull of the person and details about where it was found and what it was found with:

1. In cooperation with an anthropologist, extrapolate more information from the remains, including an estimation of age, ancestry, sex, and stature.
2. Scan the skull (using a volume or range scanner) to obtain a 3d representation (a triangle mesh). The original data should be simplified as little as possible.
3. Equip the skull model with landmarks (which look like the "dowel" tissue depth markers used by tranditional tissue depth reconstructors). Each landmark is associated with a vector in surface normal direction and is scaled to local tissue thickness based on statistical data.
4. Deform a template head model according to the landmark data. This model consists of several "layers", including the skin surface and virtual muscles right below it. A mass-spring system connects the layers together in a realistic fashion, which comes in handy for animating simple expressions later on.
5. Add more landmarks (if necessary) in places where tissue thickness is near-constant. This is accomplished by interpolating existing landmarks in terms of position and thickness.
6. Apply empirical heuristics about the shape relations between skin and skull to the model (for example, rules governing the width of the nose, length of the nose, width of the mouth, thickness of the lips, etc). Update the landmark configuration accordingly.
7. Apply expressions (smile or frown) to the face by adjusting the virtual muscles, which then pull on the skin layer according to the mass-spring relationship between the two layers.
8. Add colors (or textures) to the skin, lips, and eyebrows of the face model.
   

Here are the layers of the template head model, as described in 4 (I thought this was one of the coolest parts of Kahler's technique):

Excerpt from Assignment #2

For assignment #2, I reviewed the February 2008 National Geographic Magazine article “The Black Pharaohs”, written by Robert Draper. Incidentally, I didn't know it was about Nubian (African) rulers when I first picked it out (I guess I thought "black" was referring to some kind of dark religious practice or something). Anyway, one of my favorite parts about the article was its artwork and photography. Here's what I had to say about these images in my paper:

First of all, the article is supplemented with an excellent collection of artistically pleasing artwork and photography. Most of these images utilize bright, high-contrast colors, in addition to tight framing and low camera angles, in order to give their subjects a commanding, noteworthy presence. Of particular note is the inclusion of two paintings by artist Gregory Manchess, each a conceptual snapshot of a scene that might have occurred during the black pharaohs’ rule. Manchess’s artwork employs several successful techniques for capturing his viewer’s attention, including a focus on dynamic action and atmosphere, complex background detail, and a subtle interaction between the painted characters and the observer.

(Battle of King Piye. Yes, he was black, and yes, you can totally see up that one guy's "skirt".)

There was one picture, however, that kind of stood out from the rest. I didn't address it in my paper; maybe I should have.

(Your stereotypical, down-and-dirty, thrill-seeking archaeologist, hehe.)

Well, maybe he's not too stereotypical (maybe archaeologists are always sweaty and hunched over), but what's with the locals walking around in the background? This reminds me of Gero and Root's observation - "Readers [of National Geographic] are also bombarded with photographic images of 'the Other', the non-American, often manipulated to maximize contrast with American lives and values." Now, maybe these guys just happened to walk into the shot, or maybe the photographer was trying to get a different point across. Still, there is a "contrast."

Martin Pate Presentation

For this weeks class, I read "Archaeology in Two Dimensions: The Artist's Perspective", an excerpt from artist Martin Pate's book "Ancient Muses: Archaeology and the Arts", and created a short presentation to describe two of its major themes: (1) artistry and (2) education. Alas, we ran out of class time, so I'll have to present it next week. But, for those of you who just can't wait to see it, here are the slides accompanied by an approximation of what I plan to say.

Pate is an artist. He has standards and he can't work if his creativity is stifled. I mean, you can see here that he was worried about working with scientists at first, just like some of you anthro people are probably worried about working with the compsci people - nah, we're all friends here. ;-)

But working with the archaeologists was a success! They told Pate: Hey, that's just how I imagined it.

However, this brings up an issue that cannot be separated from art: There are various ways in which art can be interpreted.

Keep this in mind as we go through some of Pate's work...

Okay, if you look at these quotes...I don't know, looks like Pate is calling most of us historically illiterate. Well yeah, it's true.

Pate set out to try and fix that. Many of the paintings he worked on were used in brochures, textbooks, and on posters.

Of course, it's tough to get people to want to educate themselves, especially with the video games and the reality TV, etc, etc.

So, Pate had to figure out how to catch people's attention. And this desire, in addition to his standards as an artist, contributed to his paintings.

Unfortunately, he leaves the job of explaining the image to the writer, which...isn't so good from an accuracy standpoint. Remember - there are various ways in which art can be interpreted; if Pate leaves it up to someone else to explain his scenes, then what do we get if we look at his pictures without the text?

We might get an interpretation that isn't correct...

In general, Pate's creative process consisted of thinking about the time and place that he wanted to portray and imagining himself in the scene, living among its inhabitants. So here's something else to keep in mind: Pate's work is from his "general public" P.O.V. Are there subconscious stereotypes at work?

Okay, let's look at some of his paintings.

This painting showed up on a poster, so it had to attract people's attention.

This is where Pate's role as a commercial illustrator AND member of the general public comes into play.

He knows artistic methods of attracting an audience's attention, both because he can say "what would attract me?" and also based on his previous experience with ads.

So how did he make this painting (and others) attractive? What draws us in?

We've got an exciting atmosphere going on here. The picture is dynamic and engaging. A lot of activities are going on at once. We've got some smoke blowing in the wind. You can just feel the wind and smell the fire radiating out from the image, right?

Also, we have characters looking into the eyes of the viewer, which might be creepy, but it does work. In fact, this is always what I see first. In his book, Pate says that he wanted this lady's look to say: "Don't you have anything better to do?"

But again, we run into the issue of artistic interpretation. Is this what you think she's saying?

Likewise, maybe some other methods are at work here. I can't help but try and relate my experiences to this image; that's how we process images, right? We can't help it. So, I mean. You've got you're shirtless women. Butts sticking out over here. Poor Pate probably didn't want his paintings viewed like that, but it's going to happen.

For these paintings, like the other one, there's definitely a sense of dynamic atmosphere that draws you in. Diagonal lines creating motion might make this image catch our eye. This guy cheering; even though he's not looking directly out of the painting, I feel like he's almost looking back at me, expecting me to cheer with him. See? Pate was a clever advertiser.

Beautiful colors in this one. More diagonal lines too. Hey look! A cat in the window! Again, we're given a lot of different stuff to look at so our little ADD minds can be appeased.

This one...okay, kind of boring. But at least he stuck some people in there doing stuff, which is better than just looking at some structure all on its own. Interior designers and architects use this same line of thought when trying to sell their ideas: they put people in their scenes, interacting with their environment. It's a method of attracting people's attention because it makes an image more relatable: we’re all people too.


Check this out. Oh man, I mean...talk about action-packed. You got people shooting...looks like they were cooking down there. People running for their lives. I thought this guy's head had fallen into his lap at first, haha. And this guy with his face all up in the frame sounding the alarm. I don't know about you, but this grabs my attention right off the bat.

Same idea here. KABOOM! And this guy is all, "Oh my god that's loud!" This kind of looks like a whip, even though it probably isn't. I think I let Pate down again with my inaccurate interpretation, but again...it's going to happen.

Another one of Pate's tricks for drawing in viewers involves making his paintings as relatable to modern society as possible. For this one, it's hard not to see the connections between a scene like this and, oh say...sitting around a campfire at Summer Camp, telling ghost stories. Except for the spear part, anyway. The point is the image contains some degree of "relatability" for contemporary Americans.

Here, you've got another character looking into the invisible camera. Dog here, action going on here, here, and here. Atmosphere... Bright colors. It draws you in.

Beautiful colors here. Atmosphere. Cardinal, chicken. After the main action grabs your attention, tiny details like this are what keep it.

Atmosphere...people interacting with their environment.

Again, very action-packed. Bright colors. And the facial expressions attract us too. I mean, if the horse looks that scared, it must be a pretty intense battle.

Intense expression, looking right into the viewer's eyes. That's the one that always gets me.

To conclude:

By using his knowledge of what attracts the general public and by implementing this knowledge using a medium of high-standard artistic realism, Pate was able to make attractive "ads" for learning about the past.

I think they work pretty well. :-)