The document discusses research conducted for a fanzine and animation project focused on Star Wars. It examines different fanzine layouts, color schemes, and formatting techniques. It also explores how to recreate aspects of the planet Naboo and Star Wars blaster animations in Blender, noting techniques for the environment, buildings, foliage, water, lighting, and simulating blaster bolts and lightsabers. The research uncovered various presentation styles and technical methods that could be applied to the fanzine and animation productions.

1. Resistance on Naboo
Project Research
Matthew Evans

2. This fanzine uses a lot of bright, vibrant colours though they're all of a
similar colour and fit within a obvious colour palette for this fanzine. I
feel like creating a solid colour scheme as a basis to follow for all
colours throughout my own fanzine will be really important to
creating something that is appealing to look at and grab my target
audiences attention.
I also noticed that the format of this fanzine is pretty common
throughout a wide range of fanzines. A lot of fanzines seem to use
the layout where they have a full page of imagery on the left hand
page then a detailed text based page on the right hand side,
explaining the imagery and content on the left hand side. This is
something that I could definitely incorporate into my own project as
it will be easy for the audience to follow as well as easy for me, the
creator, to lay out.
This fanzine has a very doodle based style that is definitely a stylistic
choice for the fanzine that the creator was making and I feel it fits
well and works for the ‘craftivism’ context they were trying to convey
in the imagery. Although the doodle style may not be something I use
in my own project, it is interesting to get me thinking about how I can
convey a style and feeling in the imagery on one page and then
further develop that feeling and style into the next page through text
and explanation.

3. The first thing that I notice when looking at this fanzine is the colour scheme. I feel the greyscale colour scheme used for
this fanzine is perfectly fitting for the context of the fanzine. The context is quite negative and talks about conflict and
issues of the storyline that this fanzine is following and I therefore feel that the colour scheme used is fitting. It also has a
very stylistic art choice where it feels that a lot of the content has been cut out from other sources and stuck onto this
fanzine which gives the fanzine a very rough and messy feel, further pushing the style and feeling of this fanzine, that the
creator is trying to push. This fanzine shows me many ways that I can incorporate different content, from text to imagery,
in a way that will possess a feeling. This is definitely an idea that I can think about whilst planning my own fanzine and if I
could use any of the techniques used in this fanzine to further help me convey the feeling I want to convey to the audience
of my fanzine.
This fanzine has a pretty unique format as to
where imagery is the vast majority of the
context on the pages. It has hard to tell if these
pages are the covers for different fanzines of the
same topic or they're snippets from the same
fanzine. I therefore cant see if this fanzine uses
double page spreads or just singular pages like I
can see from this image.

4. I like the format of this fanzine, I feel that it divides the page well
between text and imagery and it makes it really easy to follow for
the audience. Having primarily text on one page and imagery on the
other is something I think that I will want to incorporate into my
own fanzine as I think it makes the work extremely presentable and
aesthetic but also provides a straight forward yet effective structure
for the audience to follow.
I also like the colour scheme used for this piece, although grayscale
is not something I can use for my own work, as it just wouldn’t fit
the genre/style I'm working in, I think it works really well for the
piece this author has created and helps to express the message the
author wants to express in his fanzine.
I'm mainly looking at this piece because of its layout and structure,
its definitely something that I will consider for my own fanzine due
to its easy readability as well as leaving enough space for creative
visuals to complement the text. This may not be the exact structure
that I use but its definitely something that could influence my
decision when I later decide upon the structure that I want to use.

5. This is the planet and environment style that I will be trying to recreate in blender for this project. I noticed that a lot of the
buildings have a very similar shape and all use the same textures. The only differentiation in the buildings is the scale of the
buildings as well as some difference in the architecture such as the windows and bridges between buildings. This is
something I should be able to recreate relatively easily within blender. It may not be exactly the same but it will definitely be
close/heavily inspired by. I think that getting the right textures for the buildings will be crucial in making the buildings look
similar to how they do in Naboo. I also noticed that this planet has a lot of water features as well as foliage. This is something
that ill be able to recreate in blender to further familiarise the audience with the visualisation of Naboo they already know. I
recently purchased an addon for Blender called scatter that I will use in this project for the majority of the foliage on the
planet. I'm not too sure on how to create waterfalls for this project but ill do some further research in to how to do so as its
definitely an important aspect of this planet. I also noticed that this planet uses a lot of fog which I will aim to use in my own
piece. I will use volumetrics to create fog around the lower areas of the planet, stemming from the waterfalls. I think its is
also very important to get the lighting right on this scene. The lighting in this image is one of the first things I notice, it’s a
very warm light and is just off to the right behind the camera. The light in this scene creates a very tranquil feeling scene.
I want to take as much influence from this shot as I
can for my own work to try create a scene that feels
close enough to what Star Wars fans already know.
Although my scene will definitely look a lot different,
it is very important that I incorporate as many key
features of the planet as I can to help my recreation
feel as close to the real thing as possible.

6. I wanted to see how I could recreate the animation of the blasters in Star Wars. I've identified that the blaster energy
projectile seems to be a luminated cylinder. This is something that I believe I would be able to recreate relatively easily in
blender using particle systems. I also noticed that the blasters emit quite a large amount of light. I could recreate this effect
by parenting a red light to the particle system, meaning every time a shot from the blaster is fired, a light source is also fired,
creating the effect that the blaster bolts are emitting the light.
From previous experiments with bloom I have noticed that it is quite challenging to create within the cycles render engine. To
create bloom in cycles, you need to use the compositor in blender but that effects the entire shot not just the blaster bolts.
This also applies for lightsabers that I may use in this project. However, I need to use cycles render engine to ensure that my
environment looks the best it can. To tackle this issue, I'm currently thinking that I will render everything besides the
lightsaber blade and the blaster bolts in the cycles render engine, but then render the lightsaber blade and blaster bolts in a
separate render in EEVEE. I will then use Blender’s compositor to combine the two render passes and final render the piece
again to combine everything and hopefully overcome this issue regarding bloom.

7. Research summary:
From this research I have learnt a range of different techniques and styles that I can use throughout production for this
project. For example, I have discovered a range of different ways to format and present my fanzine to my audience. I
could use mainly imagery to present my ideas to my audience if I think that’s what will appeal to my target audience the
best or I could use double page spreads to have an image on one page and then mainly text on the other oage,
explaining the more visual content on the other page.
I have discovered a lot about colour schemes for fanzines. I think this is an important part of fanzines as a good,
consistent colour scheme helps to connect all the content in the fanzine together but also makes the fanzine itself, a lot
more aesthetic and pleasant to look at for the audience. Because of this, the target audience may become more
attached to the fanzine and therefore more likely to stop and read the contents of the fanzine.
As well as researching techniques and styles around fanzines, I also researched some topic specific aspects such as
animation/shot styles used in Star Wars. I also researched into planet specifics of Naboo and noticed a collection of
different key points that I could use within my own recreation of the planet, to make it feel more like the original. Things
such as waterfalls and foliage are dominant throughout any shot of Naboo as well as the planets unique architecture,
lighting and atmospheric qualities. Finally, I did some research into recreating the blasters from Star Wars. I discovered
ways that I could go about recreating the blaster bolts in blender and ways I could get around a potential render issue
regarding bloom for the lightsabers and blaster bolts.

8. Bibliography:
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@starwars. (2019). What part of Naboo would you most like to visit for #TravelTuesday?. [Online]. Twitter.
Last Updated: 23 April 2019. Available at: https://twitter.com/starwars/status/1120807304411004928
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