Screens from my Life is a play on words of "Scenes from my Life." A memoir I haven't read, but I've heard of it and can't resist a pun.
Screens from my Life
A semesterish-long project that began on my laptop during a less-than-intriguing lecture. I started to model out a CRT screen. I was thinking about the old Dell desktop I grew up with. I didn't make a ton of progress before the class ended. During Spring Break 2023, I came across the in-progress model and finished the scene. I liked the result so much that I decided to turn it into a series detailing my journey with technology up until that point.
If I were to redo this scene, I would have used the CC Ball Action Effect from After Effects on the screen video to make it look more like a CRT screen.
Dell Desktop
The first time I used a computer was in the second grade and it was to email a friend who was in the hospital. I remember using the caps lock because I didn't know what the shift key did and waiting for my mom to come over so I could send the email. That computer was the only computer in my house until I was 14. I hated having to use it. I get headaches remembering that display. Waiting for my characters in Word to catch up to what I had typed. It was a very rocky introduction to computers.
My abuse of Booleans on the DS model is horrendous. Most of these scenes make my computer cry when I open them.
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I rendered these scenes in 24fps but the screen recording was in 30. This forced me to change the speed of the video while the Mario 64 clip is visible.
Nintendo DS Lite
The Nintendo DS Lite was the foundation of my early childhood. Countless hours playing Mario Kart on school field trips or Pokémon White underneath my bedsheets.
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A detail that I am extremely proud of is the text projected on the bottom of the model. When the DS starts to spin I grin at that detail. It took me a while to find a picture online that I was able to steal the text off of.
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The only thing I don't love about this scene is the mic on the DS. It has some sharp edges I don't like seeing but I might be looking at it a little too critically.
While elementary school me had to use my life savings, my parents bought my little brother a 5th generation 64Gb iPod touch for Christmas which made me very upset.
The spinning DS to iPod transformation was inspired by the way Christopher Reeve transformed into Superman in the revolving door during the first Superman.
iPod Touch
On an elementary school field trip to a bowling alley, we spent some time playing on a playground. We were allowed to bring devices on the trip and I saw one of my classmates was taking pictures on the playground with what I thought was an iPhone. My mind was blown when I found out there was a device that could do practically everything an iPhone could do, which in my mind meant playing mobile games. The next week I had my piggy bank sitting in my lap while my mom drove me an hour and a half to the nearest Best Buy. This 4th generation 16 gig reflective beauty was life-changing. Safari and YouTube showed me what the internet really was. It wasn't just your mom's wildblue.net email. It was being able to access any information you wanted. (Child me mostly wanted information about Minecraft around this time.)
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This scene had two versions. In the first one, the apps jumped into the screen. The problem was that it took a while to go through every app and there wasn't a moment that made everyone watching know that it was an iPod touch. They all assumed it was just an iPhone. Which led me to the final result which I'm satisfied with. I was trying to make it Apple-esque and I can picture something like this being an iPod touch commercial.
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My biggest issue with this scene is the music. I played the trombone in the sixth grade but I'm not Mozart. I'm limited to what I can find online from sites that let you use their sounds which are not 100% awesome all the time.
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Nook
What's a Nook? Barnes and Noble's answer to the Kindle. My parents had a no electronics rule during the school week and the Nook was the exception to that rule. Books on the Nook did cost money though so third-grade me didn't get a ton of mileage out of it. Nonetheless, I thought it was awesome and used it for years.
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The iPod to Nook morph was a bit of a hurdle. There are actually two Nooks in the scene. One is only used during the initial morph.
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The main challenge with the scene was making the Nook look interesting. I couldn't find a screen recording for the Nook so I was limited to the only two static images of the screen I could find.
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In order to give the scene character I added the page sounds and tried to make it as cinematic as possible. This made me break my rule of having my video look like one continuous shot making this my least favorite scene of them all.
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Xbox
6th-12th grade is when I started to get into Xbox. Halo Reach, aka the best Halo game, was the first game to grab my attention. I must have spent hundreds of hours either replaying the story or playing Forge with my siblings.
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The goal of this scene was to capture the feeling of playing Xbox in my bedroom. During Summers, I would wake up at noon, turn on the Xbox, and then play for the next 18 hours. My parents would text me at midnight to turn it down because they could here Spartans shooting the Covenant from their bedroom.
2/16/24 Note:
It did last me all the way through college and I can't wait to finally upgrade when my Framework 16 to come in.
Batch 16 baby!
The laptop and desktop were the only devices I had in person to reference to. The rest I had to use images online for.
Computers
I had just started high school and wanted nothing more than a gaming laptop. It seemed like the perfect investment. I figured a decent one would at least last me all the way through college. Spider-Man: Homecoming had just come out and Dell was advertising their laptop with the movie. If it's good enough for Spider-Man then it's good enough for me.
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It didn't take me long to see that even though I had gotten the best model of this laptop, it wasn't a powerhouse. I also felt like I could accomplish more with a desktop. The Trusted Bank of Mom and Dad loaned me money for the first time ever to buy tech. It did take a very convincing PowerPoint presentation. That machine helped me find what I was looking for. An outlet to do anything I could possibly want.
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These transitions were the most satisfying part of the video. The Xbox to laptop transition is just the opacity of the laptop clip coming in. I had to line the camera up perfectly to match the ending of the Xbox One clip.
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I have an extremely hard time animating camera movement. When the camera moves from the laptop to outside the desktop I made the camera follow a curve. I messed up by not paying attention to the direction of the lines and you can see the camera do a little dip before coming to an unnatural stop. I should have stopped the camera earlier but by the time I saw this I had been rendering this scene for days and felt like I was out of time for this project.
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I like how the screens pop out of the monitor, showing what I have done with my computer so far, the applications I've learned to use. I feel like I may have cut this part too short but I like how it turned out regardless.
I wrote a version of this page with a lot more technical detail but it was kind of boring. If you want to wax poetic about Blender then reach out. I really like talking about Blender and don't get the opportunity to do so a lot.
Results
The result was the best Blender project I have completed so far. It isn't perfect, but I made what I wanted. I look forward to trying and top it although I don't know if I'll make another series like this again.
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Going forward I want to focus more on the memories and emotion these devices hold for me and not just the fact that I had them. My love for tech and mission of sharing it with others is what I want people to see.
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