From our critics I was given a lot of great feedback into how I could improve my work. One thing that changed was the metal lighting of the tubes and cage in order to give it a more solid robotic feel (I like robots). The people now are not represented as flies moving around but as people wanting the food before it decays. Somebody mentioned that the food should decay and the background could change to show how methane is released in the air. Food waste methane is more than 30 times worst than passenger cars are around the world. I really enjoyed creating a changing skybox and to not over clutter the environment I decided to not add a texture to behind the food as well.
I wanted to go more literal in food waste and the irony that 55 million people are under nutrition in just America and with all the waste people throw out (81.4 billion pounds). We could have every person from that 55 million group have 1,500 pounds each. Food waste is a serious issue that is usually a surprise to everyone who I mention it to. I also incorporated more industry like standards by adding a tube where the food waste comes in to the cage and then seeps out. I wanted to have a more realistic but a little bit abstract tone when presenting this piece. If anyone is curious of the cylinder in the food, it represents the 4.6% of people who compost wasted food out of the 40% of food that is wasted annually.
This is important moving from farmlands my grandparents to cities where my cousins live to find that the farm side needs to get rid of excess products that are not day old fresh into the farm sewers and in the city where I have seen many people who are under nutrition. Global warming is greatly caused by food waste and it is 26% of our trash. How mush money is wasted on food waste is a big problem to people as well but I chose to not include it in order to avoid to much clutter (it’s roughly $165,000,000,000 a year).
I would like to hear how this piece made you fell and if you have any suggestions about what you liked and did not like about the piece let me know.
Also with suggestions I have a question about the piece, what were your emotion when looking at the food getting wasted? Also if anybody could go into detail on jit.gl.2dtext on click and how to get one click to cause one one bang and then stop please let me know.
Update: The axes and hitboxes are now invisible. Also the max folder is organized and is easier to navigate. The mouse hovers which to interact with the food and shows now how far we are from reaching it, the hover stays with the rotation so that the user is somewhat out of control with food waste. The background changes and restarts automatically and now the food enters from the top pipe. In order to add more dynamic movement and to show being trapped and fighting for food I altered the z-axis of the fly dots. For those who mentioned circular and easing motion, I tried and had many technical difficulties. I am sorry that I was not able to make it happen.
Thank you to everyone who gave advice and asked questions for this piece. It really helped me make a piece that I am proud of.
This piece made me upset at how wasteful we as humans have become and throw everything in the garbage so carelessly, food waste is a huge problem we need to bring more attention to! I like how you made the food look like it’s going to waste in a trashcan- it further pushes your point of the food just going to waste. Also, the colors made it pop, making it your intended center of attention.
The only criticism I have is I don’t fully understand what the cage around the food represents?
Thanks for the comments and the feedback to my piece. The cage was to represent how people who need the food most are always caged out even though we have a surplus. I will see if I can signify it better.
I am intrigued by the amount of detail you put into the piece. From the changing background representing methane, to the food spreading out in the bin, the visual showcases a lot of effort has been put into this. The overall piece made me feel disgusted with how much food is being wasted. I think you made the message very clear with the audience. What was the code used in MAX to make the food appear to spread in the trash can? I have an opinion on adding one more feature. You could try adding another food sphere that grows from the top of the tube, instead of reappearing. This would give the message that new food is continuously being wasted.
I really liked your opinion on how to make food appear from the top and that was something I was thinking about when I was editing the MAX project today. The code I used was a counter with a scale that altered the y and scales in order to look like decomposing food. When animating like this in Max, I recommend making your calculation before starting the animation because if you are not precise you can get ugly interactions.
This is definitely a piece that makes me want to look twice at it. It draws attention and definitely communicates some sort of food waste. I notice a recurring grey color in the piece – what was the intention/reasoning behind that?
The grey color for the objects were to symbolize machinery and the things we do not see with our eyes and the grey people are that way to blend into the background. The background turns grey due to the methane being released from the food.
I have an opinion about your smaller sphere animations. I know in your previous data sketch post, you toyed with the idea of animating flies buzzing around the food waste, and that impression is cemented even further here. The animation of the flies buzzing might be more fluid if you incorporate some easing into their motion as they go back and forth, or maybe some circular motion.
To comment on what you said. The small spheres were going to go into a figure eight pattern but after some math and implementation it was taking up to much time. I will see if I could get easing to work if I can find an easy object for it in MAX.
One thing I noticed was the robotic aspect of your piece, it reminded me of a cooking utensil (kind of like a whisk of some sort) which got through the idea that the piece is all about food as well
Huh, I never saw it that way but that is a really great statement. That is something I never thought about or considered making over this project but I will see if I can amplify on that.
I have an opinion about the texture that you used to represent food. This might just be nitpicking, but because you scale the sphere differently in each axis, I think it’s a little distracting how the image gets warped. Maybe there’s another way to represent food?
I am not sure of the other ways to represent food but if you think of possible solutions let me know. I am not the best MAX coder so I am not sure how I could easily represent food another way.
This is a very striking image to look at. I particularly find the huge sphere of food and the metal cage effective as an appeal to emotion. I feel sorry for wasting my food and eager to help make this whole situation better. Also, is the change in background color intentional?
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the piece. The change in background color was intentional and used to show methane release. The flicker is just initializing the countdown which is currently a button press.
This piece makes me very angry at how much food we are wasting. We produce enough food to feed everyone, but decide to throw it out or burn it if it doesn’t turn a profit- feeding people who are hungry is not a priority in our society.
I have an opinion on your composition- Although you said you changed it, the dots on the outside still look like flies. I think that works really well for your piece though, and helps to further your message.
Thanks for the feedback. I always saw that this issue effects everyone on many different levels and I am glad I got the point across.
How were you able to make the sphere be in wireframe mode?