Hopcraft's Blawwg

2010-10-02T12:47:00.001+01:00

New Blog

Made a new one, moved to

http://chewx.co.uk/blog

2010-05-26T16:43:00.001+01:00

Virtual Environments - Finished Lair

Well this is my finished Lair, i think i have come a long way, i will update this with a 500 word rational evaluation !!

2010-05-12T22:03:00.004+01:00

Visual Essay

After about 60 hours and over 100 images, i have finally finished my Visual Essay..i think. I'm really happy with it, considering a week ago i really had no idea of what i'm going to do or even what practitioners i'm going to use. I've always known what pathway i will choose but had no idea of how i'm going to show it.
I really enjoyed doing it, the research stage was the most time consuming part, having to look through so many artists and designers to find someone that i want to put my thesis across.
I haven't uploaded for copyright reasons...

2010-05-06T16:21:00.006+01:00

Superhero Lair Research

Been looking a few diferent lairs for some inspiration on my own. I think im going to be going very close with the batman themed lair. To have rocky walls and staligtites hanging from the ceilings. This is going to difficult but i feel the 3DS MAX modifiers will help along the way.

Firstly, Dagobah;

Dagobah is a little-known, rarely visited swamp planet located in the Sluis sector of the Star Wars universe. Filled with foul-smelling swamps, twisted gnarltrees and dangerous creatures, on the surface Dagobah makes an unlikely home for our number one secret headquarters.

This would be difilcult to replicated but i like the idea of winding trees and swamps to create a lair.

Fortress of solitude;

It has pretty much everything going for it as far as secret headquarters go. A remote location in the Arctic region, just 130 miles south of the North Pole. A structure built into the face of a steep cliff. A locked front door which requires a massive key that only the Fortress's owner (or one of his fellow Kryptonians) can lift. And of course, the best security of all, Superman, who calls the Fortress of Solitude his home away from Metropolis. The Fortress contains living quarters, a gymnasium, a laboratory, an interplanetary zoo, all manner of extra-terrestrial equipment and various trophies of Superman's many accomplishments, one of which is the bottled Kryptonian city of Kandor. Superman rescued the city after Brainiac shrunk it down to microscopic proportions and has since kept it safe in his Fortress. There's even a top-floor observation deck and an entire wing reserved for Supergirl. Superman keeps his playthings here as well: a hyper-intelligent chess-playing robot, an oversized bowling alley and a gigantic diary made of steel which Superman writes in with his super-fingernail. In the loneliest place on Earth, Superman has carved out a familiar and welcoming home for him to take refuge in when he needs to think. While lesser heroes are forced to work under uncertain circumstances on rooftops and below the streets, Superman can rest safely knowing that his Fortress of Solitude is just a short flight for him from anywhere in the world.

The infamous Batcave;

There are few super-hero hideouts which are both better-known and better-appointed than Bruce Wayne's Batcave, located far beneath his Wayne Manor family home. The mansion itself is one of the most magnificent homes in all of Gotham City, but it's the underground lair of Wayne's superhero alter-ego Batman which truly impresses. Batman has slowly expanded his base of operations over the years; what was once just a simple underground tunnel which ran between Wayne Manor and the barn where Batman kept his vehicles has now become a multi-room fortress, complete with a crime lab, extra costumes, replacement gadgets, a gymnasium, a library, vehicle parking/docking/hangar spaces, medical facilities and a technical workstation for the design and creation of more gadgets. There are several entrances to the Batcave: a secret door inside of Wayne Manor, a chute beneath the desk chair in Wayne's office at Wayne Enterprises, an old well just outside of Wayne Manor and a holographic wall which leads out to a well-concealed road (for ground-based vehicle access). The centerpiece of the hideout however is a massive supercomputer from which Batman monitors the ebbs and flows of Gotham City's criminal population when he's not out patrolling the streets.

I'll be taking many idea's from this the most as its exactly how i want mine to be. I won't make it quite so big and make it a bit less roomy. But my intentions of a dark place and being scared are emphisised throughout my lair by the grungyness.

Crab Key Island;

The secret underground lair of Dr. Julius No. The structure offers all of the trappings which are typical of a super-villain's secret base: an on-site nuclear reactor, an imposing reception room, a mechanized underwater vehicle which resembles a dragon, an extensive network of ventilation ducts and a shark tank, complete with a convex window for magnifying the action within. And don't forget about the resident super-weapon, the aforementioned radio jammer which is capable of knocking out missile and satellite launches.

I will finally take somes bits from this lair as inspiration. I want mine to be very imposing and scared, that of Dr. No's entrance room does. If i get time i may also introduce a shark tank of some sort.

Its all well and good getting lots of inspiration from this superhero lairs, but lets just hope i can apply that in 3DS max.

2010-05-05T22:41:00.005+01:00

HOLD TIGHT HENRY

I'm not following through with doing film, nor do i enjoy doing, yet i really appreciate a decent short film, NOT what 'urbanangel's' work that we had a 2 hour lecture on, sorry.

Found this cracking short by Henry Edward-Wood, filmed and edited by. Found his website, and his about me is just how i thought it would be, and would be the route i went down if was to do film.

Quality is top notch and the pans are second to none, considering i doubt any technology was used but a skateboard on rubber wheels and a camera.

Enjoy.

MPORA Action Sports >>

Mile End's amazing new park is definitely the London hotspot of the summer. To celebrate it's brilliance Kingpin bring you some of London's finest doing the park justice. Featuring Shaun Witherup back better than ever after a major knee injury, alongside, Will Harmon, Neil Smith, John Tanner, Scott Howes, Rob Mathieson, Sam taylor and others.

2010-04-29T20:13:00.004+01:00

Material Editor

Lesson 3, and i'm slowly loosing the plot. I just can't get my head around the program, i really thought i would pick it up really easy. Any way, learnt material editor, this is very powerful, and if you know how to use it properly you can get some fantastic results.

Here are my attempts;

Above is my name printed on to the building, i used the same material as the building, a concretey material.

This shot shows the interier that is a wooden floor.

Finally an overview of the whole building. Background was a image i got from the material library and the floor was a sand gradient.

A lot more practise needed me thinks.

To finish, here is a great graphic designer i found, sadly the captions are in a different language but i love his/her work.

2010-04-28T22:13:00.007+01:00

3D Studio Max Progress..

Made my way to Uni today to use the dreaded PC's. First misstake, using the wrong computer room that didn't have 3D SMax, but then finding some that do with dual screens. Well i just re-did the first lecture material, so started off with making a base for my apartment. Then extruding the walls. Also using the slice tool to create a door way;

Then i went on to slice some windows and cut them out. Once getting the segment heights correct, i could ensure the windows were the same height all the way round the building;

Then i went on to use the second week tutorial to make four corners to the floor and extrude 4 legs from them to make a elevated apartment. Also i added in some simple stairs;

Finally came to making a spiral stair case to the top floor balcony;

Troubles that were had is knowing the sizes of stuff. For example once the apartment was elevated and then coming round to putting the spiral staircase in, i didn't know how high to make it. I wanted it to stretch from the bottom floor to the top floor, but i wasn't sure on this exact height. I think a lot more playing with this program would be helpful, because i don't seem to be getting the hang of it that well.

2010-04-27T20:57:00.002+01:00

Type Kit

Ever wanted your most favourite font on your webpage but don't want to use an image ? Ever wanted to view your most favourite font on your webpage from different workstations without using an image ?

Corny i know, well been reading about fonts and typography in the new .net magazine and thought i'd have a try with one of the suggestions. It basically has hundreds and hundreds of fonts on their server and you basically link your site css to that server's fonts.

So no more using image's, just a tiny bit of javascript linking to your account and then add the relevant css to the header/body of text. Then it doesn't matter what machine you use, you will see the font you want.

Check out @fontface or type-kit.

P.S. For those of you who arn't aware of the font, its the title on this blog.

2010-04-23T12:05:00.009+01:00

3D Studio Max

Now have started the new module, Virtual Environments. Last week we were taught the basics and made a house/room foundation and then extruded walls from the foundation and cut windows/doors into the walls. I though i would get on very well with 3ds as i have used it before many moons ago. Saying this i didn't pick it up the best. I'm OK following tutorials but when comes to wanting to do something myself, i don't know the best way about it, but i suppose practice makes perfect.

Our second lesson yesterday taught us how to make a walkway, and the use of the symmetry modifier, which is very useful and cuts time tenfold. Also made some snazzy spiral staircases using the array tool. Which is basically a bit of math making a cool feature.

This is what i managed to get for my walkway, i think it looks good and i seeing as i only actually made 1/8 and then used symmetry for the rest.

Above is the render of my walkway.

We also learnt about cloneing an object and then using the 'morpher' modifier to make an object higher or lower. Once i did this i 'bridged' the gap between the two to link them together.

A render of the above.

Finally using an array to make two spiral staircases to link to my walk way.

Final render of this weeks work.

Doing these tutorials i am gradually getting used to the program and i will start doing drawings of my lair, but making sure its not too complex that i won't be able to make it.

Also need to look out on getting 3DS on the mac, would be life so much easier.

2010-04-22T11:52:00.004+01:00

Final Film - Moving Image

Well i thought i better wrap up the moving image module before i start blogging about 3DS.

The moving image module went very well to be honest. Better than i expected because you didn't have to worry about anything else but what your role was. And nor did anyone have to worry about your role. I think this works very well and is obviously why they use this structure in industry. I can't say it was very exciting, but the filming days were good and its a good sense of suspense to see the final product.

Above is the final edit by Chris Williams (Lighting), i think has done very well seeing as we had to salvage a lot of the first days filming scenes. It does flow together and i think the use of my sound effects as the crowd work well, although a little too powerful. I also think the background music i found worked well. I found a couple different variations and the one chosen integrates the two scenes seamlessly.

I think we all stuck to our roles correctly and if anyone did need help, there was help at hand. This is why our project worked out. There were a couple of things that could be improved such as taking more multiple shots, just so that when capturing, we had shots to fall back on, even though they felt ok on the day.

Finally the most impressive thing of the task was the location, i don't think we could have had a better location than the cellar, so that was cool.

2010-04-20T11:18:00.003+01:00

.Net Literature & Progress

I took the plunge and purchased .net magazine, although expensive it does seem a good read, rather than browsing through hundreds of blogs/websites online its easy reading. May subscribe if i'm feeling rich this month.

Also tried to do a bit of work on my flash game by adding a top scores table at the end, got pretty much all of it done. I added a MYSQL table for the flash game to talk to and store the scores. I was all set and ready to go in flash and i get ONE error, the ONE error i have spent TIME trying to fix to no avail, so i royally give up. Might give another try soon but a fail, at its best.

Also just started on the last module with Andy doing our 'lair'. Can't say i'm a big fan of super hero's and that shiz, but i'm going to have to show some interest to get the work done. Although i like the animation/3DS work i'm going to struggle with this i feel as i have a mac i'm working on now, and i canny run 3DS on it unless i boot in windows, blah, blah, long winded if you ask me. So i will be making several trips to uni to work on the god awful PC's :O

2010-03-31T17:33:00.002+01:00

Visual Essay - Idea 2

This is the second idea, it's much easier to do and the bulk part of it is just the image that is displaying. You have to use your mouse over to move through the picture, hopefully telling a story (a visual essay). The drawbacks to this are that you can't just click on practitioner 3 and it will go there, you have to search your way through until you get there. This isn't necessarily bad as you do not need to skip, but if looking back through the essay you might want to find some information quickly.

I need to make sure the main image is broad, and it gets my point across as this is basically the essay. Back to making 100meg photoshop images..

2010-03-31T17:22:00.003+01:00

Visual Essay - Idea 1

As the snow outside is now over a foot deep and still blizzards i've found myself making a mock up of how i would like to display my Visual Essay. I am wanting to do a cork-board that has notices on it, or a wall that has notices on it, that you can scroll through, by clicking links, or at your own pace.

This is a quick mock up of a flash website that moves left and right displaying images. But in my essay, these will be images to do with my practitioners and evidence to why i want to do a certain course nect year.

I think it flows really well, and uses external flash script to make it flow better.

2010-03-30T18:46:00.002+01:00

Visual Essay - Thoughts

Thought I better get started/thinking on this. Easter holidays are usually for holidaying, but currently I'm snowed in, in the blizzard that Inverness have in Scotland. So.. I've been browsing a few websites for inspiration. I know what I'm doing next year, 'the webby one', forgot the name. So I'm wanting to do a website type thing for my Visual Essay, I know its not fantastically unique but I think I can get my point across by making it. I think I will hit the criteria that the Visual Essay asks for. I'm going to make a couple of mock ups for layout wise and usability and then add the content for the final thing.

Also I need to finalise my 3 practitioners that I will choose. This is hard because I feel that I need to show the best of their work, but yet show a broad range of their work, and finally to show why they are my inspiration. I will update bit by bit on this.. Back to the snoww..

2010-03-18T18:09:00.011Z

Filming - Day Two

Here we go to our cellar scene on our film which was done at Sketch's friends house. I turned up to see the location today, and it was perfect. Couldn't really ask for better. So filming commenced, I tried to get as many photo as i could to show how the day went. Filming done, onto editing tomorrow.

Lights prepared and then setting up how the old man will sit.

Producer sorting things out and writing down time codes.

Couple of lighting alterations, safety, safety.

Producer and Director confer while the film-man gets ready to shoot.

Fake blood getting ready for filming.

Figures on shelf.

Getting the camera ready to shoot the figures.

Adjusting figures.

Final blood splattered figures, a good closing scene.

And thats a wrap, the end to filming on day 2. Very successful outcome in my eyes, lets just hope it looks good when we see it on the big screen..

2010-03-17T23:13:00.007Z

Portfolio_Design

Just an update on my boredem, managed to redesign my portfolio website. Its not out there to get work for myself, but in the future i hope to do that. I was coding in PHP with my last website which i made at the start of the Uni year (october) where i bought the domain and hosting too;

I did really like this site, although i did have critism about the small text, but this was just a style/design feature.

The new site is part finished and is entierly flash as i wanted to get my skills better. I've seen a lot of interesting backgrounds to websites, and i thought i'd try and be original as possible and took a photo of my bedroom wall and then editted it on Photoshop;

And the final website design is below;

chewx.co.uk

2010-03-17T17:18:00.002Z

Figure - Sound effects

Following on from the other post here is a list of sound effects that I think we can use in our edit. Found a great website where the sound effects are free to use. A lot you had to pay for, but i managed to find sound effects that were just as good but free of charge.

Play - Applause

Play - Crowd cheering and applause

Play -Crowd presence

Play - Crowd presence 2

Play - Children playing

Play - Vice tightening

Play - Sharpening knife 1

Play - Sharpening knife 2

Play - Water splash

Machine sounds, if we need

www.pacdv.com/sounds

2010-03-17T16:49:00.006Z

Figure - Sounds

Right, be trawling through shit loads of music and sound effects, but have come up with quite a good list. Aswel as the youtube links i have already put i have also found these Royalty Free Music downloads than can be used in the actual edit. Its all well and good knowing what type of music you cant from famous types, but finding one that is royalty free is a whole different ball game. I think i have found some good'uns though;

Play - Intro to Awards Ceromony

Play - Outro 2

Play - Grungy Music

Play - Children

Play - Outro

I think all these clips will work well with the film, and Im hoping that my thoughts will work well with the edit.

2010-03-16T11:24:00.002Z

Abstract

The pathway I will talk about is Interactive Narrative. I have chosen this pathway because I really enjoy the work and the outcome you can get from the work. I will show three different practitioners linked to Interactive Narrative that I like their work. I will show lots of different types of work they do. I think graphic design as well as programming are both important, and I will link this in the essay.

My first practitioner is Mr. Jago, a Leicester based graphic designer that I first picked up on when he was designing for skate shop Casino's Skates in Leicester. Ever since I have been following his work through his portfolio website to keep track on his diverse style.

In Interactive Narrative it's key to use both computer and paper based mediums. I will also show a mixed media in my essay to portray how the two are linked. This shows the artist to be more broad with their ideas, rather than just keeping to one type of medium.

This is just a quick Abstract, but I need to decide on a final three artists that show everything I want to show that I want to do the pathway. I will mention all the practitioners in question but then will finally decide on three.

2010-03-12T16:07:00.005Z

Moby - 'wait for me'

While searching through the Mobygratic.com website, looking for eiry theme music for our film, I came across this:

http://www.moby.com/journal/2010-02-22/videos-album-wait-for-me-have-all-been-d.html

I think its been done really well, a simple edit and filming using depth of field and focus makes this short film come to its own, the music suits it perfectly and I really like it. I think music is key to the film, so while I search for music for our film, I'm making sure it's the right music.

Also I think the opening few seconds of the music is also key, I think those few seconds should get you in to the mood for the type of film it is going to be.

Back to searching...

2010-03-12T15:32:00.005Z

Sound Treatment

Scene 1&2 :
- Flash bulb pops
- Camera Shutters
- Crowd Presence

Scene 2 :
- Mic type speech / echo / crackling / too close to speaker screech

Scene 3:
- For all cellar scenes;
- Slow grungy music, noticable beat, dark, echoy, cellar **
- Vice tightening
- Water splash

Scene 4 :
N/A

Scene 5 : Inserted Scene
- More upbeat music but still grungy
- Children playing in the backgroud to symbolise childhood

Scene 6 :
- Back to workshop music
- Man sitting in chair, could be a rocking chair, creaking backs and fowards

Scene 7:
- Crowd pressence
- Voice over, crowd still in sound

Scene 8 :
- Scalpel being put down on table
- Sharpening of a knife sound

Scene 9 :
- Applause

Scene 10 :
- Grungy music comes to a dramatic ending

*Couple of youtube videos with backgroud music silimlar to the effect that I am after;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H52BN8Jbv6k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjjiJ7IkiJ8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXZ7EmTMGtw

Moby - Isolate (instrumental)
I think this song would be good for the dark cellar music, as its only an intrumental and I think would work well with our theme.
Moby - Pale Horses
I think this last peices of moby music, would be a good intro/outro type music.

I think getting the right backgroud music is key, it has to be eiry, it has to show that something odd is going, it can't be too slow, yet not too fast. I think when coming to editting we will have to try a couple of selected songs and see which best fits with the filming.

2010-03-11T20:07:00.002Z

Shot List

Scene 1: Flash's/Click's and Smiles

Shot 1 - W/S behind the photographers

Shot 2 - C/U Flashing on his face

Shot 3 - Entailing photographers and flash's

Scene 2:

Shot 4 - Mixed selection of C/U and M/S

Shot 5 - From his perspective

Shot 6 - Him and the Mic

Shot 7 - Audience perspective

Scene 3:

Shot 8 - C/U of vice and his hands

Shot 9 - C/U of scalpel and his hands

Shot 10 - M/S of him behind making adjustments

Shot 11 - C/U of scalpel dropping into water with red (blood) washing off into water

Scene 4:

Shot 12 - M/S of holding his hands up, only award visible

Shot 13 - M/S, he turns and you can see his hands

Shot 14 - C/U of his two hands

Scene 5: **INSERTED SCENE**

Shot 15 - Flash back - E/C/U of eyes closing to depict flashback

Shot 16 - Small hand holding scalpel (him as a child) or him as a child watching his farther with a scalpel

Scene 6:

Shot 17 - C/U of shelf, panning across

Shot 18 - Man sitting in chair, shadowed (silhouette)

Scene 7:

Shot 19 - W/S, he pauses on stage, voice in his head

Scene 8: Flash back (eyes flicker)

Shot 20 - M/S from behind him pausing in mid air with scalpel

Shot 21 - Puts down scalpel and starts sharpening knife

Shot 22 - Old man and knife shot

Scene 9:

Shot 23 - C/U of face nodding milking the applause

Shot 24 - M/S of him punching the air

*to note, this is a very brief shot list so far, will edit and update once finalised

2010-03-11T09:43:00.003Z

Figure - Moving Image

Right, this is our next project we have moved on to and it was my groups task to envisaging the 'figure' script.
At first we were taught about camera views;

E/C/U = Extreme close up (eyes)
F/S = Face shot (face)
M/C/U = Medium close up (face & shoulders)
M/S = Mid shot (face & torso)
L/S & W/S = Long shot & Wide shot (whole body)

Establishing shot = A shot to give you a sense of where you are
Coverage = Different types of shot of the same shot (back up for when editing)

All these shot I had never known what they were, so this will help when planning out the scenes.

<------------Along (to track)----------------->

/\
l
l
l In or out (to dolly)
l
l
\/

When I first read our script, I wasn't quite sure what it was about, but luckily after reading it over a few times and with help from members in my group I got to understand the script a lot more. I wouldn't say film is my strong point, and im always sceptical about envisaging a scene in my head to then actually filming it. But time will tell, and hopefully it will come out ok.

I will make another post about our shots and scenes.

Last thing the group is;

Director - Instructions: Alex
Producer - Organise, Locations, Actors: Michael
Filming: Alex
Lighting&Editing: Chris
Sound: Me

2010-03-09T18:42:00.003Z

Homicide - David Mamet

This 1991 film we watched this morning was a really good watch. I'm pretty poor at writing reviews on movies so;

Policeman Bob Gold has to capture a murder that not even the FBI has been able to find. But before he can even start he is re-assigned to the murder of an old lady in a black area. The evidence points at a Jewish group and he discovers connections between them and his previous case. Written by Mattias Thuresson

-imdb.com

I did really like this film, and I got into it really well (although uncomfortable). All the way through I did feel sorry for Bob, and I did want him to solve both cases. Although his best friend getting shot and killed I think the outcome was the best for him. It wasn't obvious what was going to happen at the end so this also a positive point about the film.

Just to note, they smoke 'nuff fags.

2010-03-02T13:15:00.010Z

Design Practice 2 - Flash Quiz Evaluation

Right, finally I am very happy with my Pub Quiz. I have tested it on different people, and they all took well to using it, so I think from a user interface view I have done well. It's not complicated and it's an enjoyable quiz with a variety of questions.

I started off with making an intro animation for the quiz which then led on to the 'main screen', so if you missed the intro, you weren't faced with the quiz straight away, I wanted to make sure the user was ready for the quiz so gave them the option of 'play' and 'instructions'.

I have been questioned about why I have shown the instructions like this. I wanted to make sure it was clear about what the quiz was offering. I tried to align the text left, centre and right, but there was too much free space around the text and it didn't look good, so I finally had the text 'justified'. I was also changing the font size so it wasn't too big and not too small.

After finishing the intro and the main screen I wanted to add a pre-loader. So I made a simple one that shows how much percentage has loaded and made an animation of a beer bottle loading.

For the layout of the questions and answers, I wanted it to be clear where the questions will show and what type they are. So I made a big question section at the top, then a type of question and finally the answers. This was put through-out the quiz, so there was no change to the layout.

Animation wise I wanted to use a different animation for each type of question, so firstly I made a brain for the general knowledge questions. This was a simple line drawing of a face and then the brain with a small colour tween animation.

Also here are the rest for each section;

I also incorporated video into my quiz. This was a part of question which just shows a clip of a football player playing for their club.

I think this turned out well because I used keepvid.com to download from youtube.com and then chose a small size so no matter how slow your internet is, it will load quickly without you having to wait.

I added sound aswell, I put this on every answer in the quiz, so if you get it wrong, then it will play a different sound to if you get the answer right. I added a 'boo' sound to the answers that were wrong and a 'cheer' sound to the answer that were right in the general knowledge section, I think this incorporated well into the 'Pub Quiz' theme. On the sport section I added a golf noise as a general sound to all three types of sport. It's just a 'swing' of golf club if you get it wrong (as if you were missing the golf ball) and a 'swing' of the golf club and 'pot' sound for the right answers (as if you were getting a hole in one). I think these sounds work well with the quiz.

Finally for the last bit of the quiz, the last page shows, what your score is and depending on your score, you get a different animation, where the pint glass fills up depending on how many questions you go right, and also displays a different message.

if (score >= 26 ){
ifcond.text = "Well Done, Enjoy a full pint..";
pint1_mc.gotoAndPlay("full");
}
if ( score >= 16 && score <= 25 ){
ifcond.text = "Not bad, but not a genious";
pint1_mc.gotoAndPlay("twothird");
}

Also this page I also have left an option to replay quiz so that you can do it again if you didn't get a good score or a 'no' option where the credits come up.

After finishing the quiz with literally no time to spare as I had a unfortunate event with my personal computer (few posts down) I was wanting to add a 'top scores' table. After a lot research into this, I found out that you couldn't make it just from flash and you would have to incorporate a MYSQL database for all the information to be stored. This would have to be online so that the flash quiz could 'fetch' the database and information and display/edit it. If I had a lot more time and access to a MYSQL database I would have added this as a final touch to my quiz.

2010-02-26T11:54:00.002Z

Flash Quiz - Fini.

After a few things not working on the first quiz I uploaded, I have since sorted out the video and added sound, so this is the final quiz upload with both video and sound working on Dev Art. I will write up an evaluation on the next post.

2010-02-22T13:40:00.004Z

Workings Outs

It's hard to show how much is behind making these Flash interfaces. And you always have to make sure things are in the same place when you do tweens etc. Well I like to use my notebook to help me when using flash, so here is what has derived after making this Flash Quiz. Nothing exciting just some notes and numbers..

2010-02-22T12:09:00.003Z

98% Finish Quiz

We were told to upload our quiz asap and it doesn't matter what stage it is at. So here is mine, finished, but with no sound, so I will be adding all the sound soon and re-uploading as the final one.

I won't write an evaluation yet as its not finished..

Just to note I haven't used deviantart for about 5 years so took me about an hour to work out how to upload.

2010-02-18T14:38:00.001Z

It's Back..

Well, I never thought i'd own two Macbook Pro's, but as one was useless, I had no choice to get another. Was contemplating imac's and every mac possible, but I thought it was essential I got a laptop again.

Anybody who wants to buy my 4 month old one off me is more than welcome, but the repair bill came to 1.3k just as a disclaimer.

Now onto Flash quiz that I can finally do at home, instead of Uni.

2010-02-09T13:54:00.002Z

Mac Book Pro Vs Tea

Just an update on recent events, Im now sitting in my DP2 lecture early because I don't have a computer, thus being behind A LOT.

So just to put everything into context, a FULL cup of tea was spilt over my Mac Book Pro over the keyboard, thus now ruined. Thank-fully I saved what I have done for my DP2 onto USB. But havn't progressed as much as I have wanted to.

Looks like Im back to working on a PC until Apple have decided how much they are going to sting me with a repair bill. To be honest, its most likely going to be un-ethical to repair, so a new one will be on the way...ouch to the bank balance.

2010-02-09T13:29:00.005Z

File Size's

Quick post on file sizes. People don't realise how important these are, yet when they want to view something and it takes ages to load, they get frustrated and press the 'x' on the top left or right. Like people say the first 10 seconds of a presentation/peice of work is so key to the person being interested and intrigued into the work. If the work iteself doesn't load then the user will simply turn off and click on the next link. Potentionally, missing mind blowing work because the creator hasn't thought about file size. I think you can do an essay on this subject, so I won't bore.

Here is a great link that caluculates file sizes and loading time:

File Size Loading Calculater

I came accross this link as I was wanting to make a preloader for my quiz project. I don't want some one to play my quiz but have to wait for it to load, but not knowing that it's loading. So a pre-loader eliminates that by letting the user know that the flash quiz is working, but its loading, and will show how long you have to wait like an egg timer.

Preloaders are often an afterthought. You start off building your project and after working for some time you notice that the file size keeps growing. It would be tempting to just say "everyone's on DSL these days" but that's not the reality. Even if your users have DSL, they may not always achieve the theoretical maximum speed as promised by their internet provider. If their DSL speed is 768Kb, a one megabyte file will take ten seconds to download fully. Look at the wall for ten seconds. Count "onethousandandone, onthousandandtwo" and so on. Amazing how long ten seconds is, isn't it?

http://flashmagazine.com/Tutorials/detail/
how_to_make_a_custom_as3_preloader

2010-01-27T18:15:00.003Z

Flash Task

Well our task for tuesday session was to learn how to incorporate sound and video into flash. We were learning from online tutorials step by step. But i thought it would be good to incorporate all my skills learnt that lesson into one piece of work. Its very simple but shows that sound can be used on a click of a button, and that a video can be imported on a certain frame.

Im learning step by step but Im getting more and more confident at making this final quiz and getting all the sounds to work at the right time and how to add video as a question or just an intro/outro.

2010-01-27T13:44:00.004Z

Keep Vid - Website

Not sure how many people know about this website, but its epic. When we were doing our flash task yesterday of putting a .flv video file into a flash project. It was very very hard to find and download a .flv file, especially one that you wanted. I came across this website, and it can handle Youtube video. So you can put any Youtube video website address into the website and then download it as 3 different .flv files (lo, medium or hi res) and you can download as mp4.

This is cruital in our flash project I think, because if your wanting to add a video to the quiz, pretty much any video you would want you can find on Youtube and then download through this website, and its already in a flash compatible format, no buying/downloading programs to convert into .flv format.

Enjoy.

2010-01-21T15:58:00.002Z

My Work

Not sure how to write this but I'll just answer the questions.

For the past few years my creativity has been influenced by looking at magazines that I enjoy and looking at it in two different ways. Magazines are for information based reading but behind that there is also design. Even looking at magazines that are on a different world to computers and design, there is always a graphic designer that works for them. I think a lot of my influence has been through not intentional looking for that design, but coming across it.

A lot of my work has been purely for myself as I don't have a client. Mainly website design. I have created hundreds of websites over the years, yet only a couple have actually been uploaded to the web. Every one has been different and they all link to the portfolio based kind. I have been asked to make some for friends, weather it be a clothing company or a motorsport company. I've never been confident enough to publish them. But its good way of learning and progressing.

The way I work isn't really by the book, I just think of a design randomly, and write it down, sketchy as possible. I will then try and digitalize and then add things bit by bit. I never go through loads of designs and look at the best one and work on it. My decisions are purely my own.

I think the future of my creativity would be to work in a small based company looking at briefs and hopefully getting my mark on the design. Then to look in magazines or on the internet knowing that I influenced/created that said piece of work.

I think research is key in getting to places, its good to know what is out there already. Its good to know how trends have clicked on or have been a complete disaster and keeping this onboard all through creativity.

Starting point for research is defiantly the Internet, without doubt, book research is good, but long winded. The Internet caters for all and anything you want to know is basically at your finger tips, weather it takes 5 mins or 5 hours to find.

I might have babbled on about a load of rubbish here, so sorry for the long read.

2010-01-21T15:37:00.002Z

Iron Man - Tetsuo by Shinya Tsukamoto

Well this was quite possibly the most random starts to education I have ever had. This film is the most random and quite disturbing (if you didn't see the funny side) film I've seen. I tried to concentrate to understand as much as possible, but at the end I only really had a vague idea of what was going on, if that. These Film & Theatre kids we have hooked up with are somewhat genius. Every question had, they seem to have an answer for, which none of whom had seen the film. They also knew many films that were in the same style and same theme. None of these i had heard of either.

I do put it down that they are actually doing a degree n this subject, but it makes me think if we had something web/print based to look at, would I be able to answer questions on it ? Would I know the style ? I feel more research and blogging my favorite works online should be a more regular occurrence to understand the big boys in the design industry.

2010-01-14T20:21:00.005Z

First week back - Term 2

Well, first week back was a bit hectic after having a month off. We learnt how our BA subject is linked with another...

Anyway, my first project is a Interactive Media one with Dr David Downes. He seems to know his stuff, and I think I will learn quite a lot in Flash this term compared to last. Although a lot of people seem to be dreading Flash I'm really looking forward to it and I hope I can learn more of the action-script 3.0 language.

Our first homework task is to play loads of online Flash games and to bring together a powerpoint presentation to review it in our groups. Should be fun.

I finish on this (Kind of linked to our two hour lecture on 'linked subjects'...)

2009-12-13T19:45:00.002Z

Finished Pixilation - Edit 1, 2 & 3

I have finally finished all three edits of my Pixilation. I have done three edits because I think they all needed different editing depending on each style of Pixilation they were.

I did the first one as a simple edit because I knew the level of editing in Photoshop was minimal, so I didn't do much to it. The song choice i feel goes well with the Pixilation because its not fast nor is it slow. It also doesn't get complicated with vocals. I think its just the right speed for the Pixilation.

_1;

The second one I did more editing in Premiere as I felt it needed it due to the moodiness of the Pixilation that I did in Photoshop. I added a couple of 'blips' where harsh beats were in the music. I also added a better title where it slides in and slides out. Also on the ending I got some inspiration from a group member and linked the Pixilation to the final ending screen. Which i think ends it smoothly.

_2;

Finally the last edit I wanted to use a different song as the edit in Photoshop is completely distorted compared to the others. I wanted this entirely synced with the music. So I used the beat to determine when the video is showed. I also did this with the title and the ending to make it all one sync. I am very happy with how this works even though it took so long getting the video to come in and go at the right place in the music.

_3;

Overall I am very happy with all the edits. Im very happy out the Pixilation story itself too. I am pleased we incorporated a member of the group into the Pixilation and to interact with the piece of paper.

Im sure I will use Pixilation again and I have learnt many techniques from this project in both Premiere and Photoshop too.

2009-12-13T19:38:00.002Z

Beer Can Tester

Well when i was thinking of Pixilation ideas, this idea came to mind instantly. I thought of some sort of sequence with beer cans and then to make it sync with the music, weather it be in an equalizer type of sync or just to go with the rhythm. Drum and Bass dance music tends to have a lot of rewinding in the sets. So i thought i could link that to the sequence. Also when editing the video in Premiere i noticed that the background distortion was moving a lot like an sound equalizer world, and i think this goes well with the music.

Here is the tester piece;

2009-12-13T16:56:00.004Z

One Shot Short - Quality

Presentations are looming and my group still only had a crap quality upload on Youtube. So I went about going back into Premeire to export a high quality version. After playing about with export settings for about 2 hours and not finding a decent quality one, I got somewhat annoyed. Then I noticed my school boy error of editing in NTSC format. So I finally got a decent export setting and here it is;

2009-12-07T13:24:00.006Z

Bear Can Pixilation

Well I have started to do my own pixilation and have taken 200 photos for it. I have made it a rythm type pixilation and is just a test type pixilation to see how well I can sync it with music. I have got something in mind with rewinding the pixilation half way through as the music rewinds. Hopefully it will come out well.

Heres the original photo I took for the bear can setup;

I like the setup but i think the back grouds a bit dull, so i changed some bits in Photoshop and resized it to fit widescreen;

I changed the shadow/highlight so that the cans are a little brighter and the background darker. I then added a photo filter to give it a blue effect and finally added a poster edges filter which changed the background dramatically but kept the cans clear and visible which is exactly what i was after.

I hope to play in Premiere as a next step.

2009-12-06T12:49:00.007Z

Batch processing

This was the next step on our Pixilation we made the previous week. You have 280 photos and they all need to be re-sized to be friends with Adobe Premiere. So we learnt Batch processing. We were basically taught how to record a number of commands in Photoshop and then apply that to the rest of the folder containing our photos.

I did three sets of these. Each with different filters and settings giving different effects. First of all they all had to be resized to 720 px x 576 px. This was so they all fitted in to Premiere's stage without being too big or too small. This also cuts the file size down a lot.

These are one out of the set of photos that i think best shows the filters and effects applied.

Original;

_1;

I have altered with the hue/saturation, added a photo filter (underwater) and also adjusted the curves.

_2;

I thought the last one was quite bland and faded. So i altered the shadow/highlight, adjusted the curves, altered the colour balance and added a vignetting effect on the corners.

_3;

For the final one, i wanted to go a bit mad with the filters. So i changed to black and white initially, altered the shadow/highlight, added a mangeta photo filter 50% and then added a cutout effect.

I am looking forward to the next session were we compile our photos to make our pixilation.

2009-12-01T15:19:00.002Z

Pixilation NOT Pixelation

Here we start our final part within this module. Its Stop-Frame Pixilation. This is where a series of photographs are put together to make a video type animation. Im looking forward to experimenting with this. I have come across the subject before, but not gone into much detail with it. I have never realised how widely ranged this technique of media is used. Its everywhere, a lot of adverts and music videos use this technique. It seems cheap but yet well organised and executed.

Our first lesson consisted of watching one example of pixilation and then just going out and shooting our own. I was put in a group with Alex and Keiren. We looked in to going to The Aboretum to get ideas, to no avail. The coldness dragged us inside to doing something that we ourselves did not appear in. The journey of a piece of paper is what we came up with. I was happy with this idea and i think we did well with the flow of a picture taking. Next lesson we will put our series of photographs together and see how well it actually came out, hopefully it meets my expectations.

A good example was one that was on the news a while back, where they took a series of images of sheep and made a dog round them up in the hills of Yorkshire. They then handed these to some animators who turned it in to a space invaders type animations. I can't find the video anywhere though, will post up as soon as i do.

This is one that Andy Love showed us and i think its great, i just goes to show what you can do. It looks like the person is actually skateboarding on him, but frame by frame photos can create such effects;

2009-11-24T16:48:00.007Z

Final Flowchart

I have my final flowchart. I feel this helped me out a lot on the structure of my final peice. I firstly started with putting in all the frames to flash and getting them how i wanted to look. I then put in buttons on each frame that needed them. From this i named each button. Once everything was in place i had to go through the arduous task of linking each frame, and defining each button name to where they will link to on my storyboard. Using the flowchart helped me tremedously with this as i knew exactly where each frame was going.

If i do another flash project again, be it a website or a animation i will definally draw up a flowchart again. As this is very helpful to know about what happens on each frame and where they link to.

2009-11-24T16:48:00.006Z

Interactive Narrative: Finished

This is my final result. It is a Tram and Bus map, that users can interact with. They can go to 5 different tram stations in Nottingham city centre. Each of these stations they can zoom into the map. Also once at each station, they can get off the tram and see a photo of the area. There are also 4 different destinations on the map that the user can go to. This being; a pub, theatre, gig or even go home. Each of these destination will end up in the user having something happen to them.

I think my user interface is really usable. I think most of it seems to be clear and the user can search through the map at ease. I think i could have done with re-doing the map my self, to make links more obvious and make other objects less obvious so it does not clutter the map. But i used a map that Nottingham city council use. I wanted to use my own images so i went around each of the destinations and took my own photos. Some of them i found hard to take, which were generally the photos where something happened to the user. For this i used FlickR.

I also would have liked to have spent more time on the buttons, because a lot of them are plain text with a mouse over shade. I also didn't think about use of colour either, i kept to a greyscale when creating the text which i could have incorperated a colour scheme into the whole peice.

My final product doesn't use story in depth. I started off with more of an interation kind of interface but then added the addition of journey with the 4 different tasks that the user got up to. I also think i coud have added animation but our breif did not state this was necessary.

Finally i think i met the breif and i gave the user a sufficient interaction with my interface.

2009-11-20T14:59:00.003Z

Interactive Narrative: Flow Chart

I have now finshed the main part of my Interactive Narrative in Flash, and i have a produced a flow chart of how the main structure works. I still need to do refinements and add a couple more frames. I will show my extened work on my next flow chart.

2009-11-18T09:05:00.002Z

Interactive Narrative: Ideas & Progress

Well after the hitch of learning Flash in Flash 8 and learning actionscript 1.0. Then realising at Uni we are using CS3 and actionscript 3.0. I went about 'obtaining' Flash CS3 and getting my head around actionscript 3.0. Its still seems the same concept like any script, but its written a bit different, i think i have picked it up quite well.

Once finding my way around Flash again i thought of a couple idea's, but some i thought would test my skills too much but heres a couple initial ideas;

a) To have a computer screen and you were designing a logo in Illustrator, and you had the choice of colours for the logo. When you were happy with your colour you could go to print and then choose where abouts you want it on the page, and then see the final product with your colour and your position.

b) Having to go to a destination, so you get in your car and then you get to the end of the road and you have a series of directions, each taking you different places. Every time you get to the end of a road or some kind of junction you have a choice of where to go next. The trouble with this is getting the camera mounted in my car to take pictures at the same angle as the rest would proove difficult although i was keen on the idea.

c) I had the idea of the London tube map. And at each station in central London you could click and go to that station, you could either get off the tube or stay on the tube, if you got off you would see a photo of outside the station or a famous monument related to the stations location. If you didn't get off the tube, you could just go to the next stop and get off. I was keen on this idea but i didn't want to just get photos off the internet for the part where you get off the tube. I wanted to use my own.

After discarding this location i chose to use this idea but on Nottingham tram system as its the same sort of thing. I chose to focus on the 5 inner city stops; NTU, Royal Centre, Old Market Square, Lace Market and Nottingham Station. These were the last 5 stops that the tram goes. Now as this was the city of my study it would be easier to use my own photos of each of these locations and personalize my Interactive Narrative.

2009-11-11T20:30:00.004Z

Flash Birds

Ok, maybe i was being a bit quick to make a judgement that Interactive Narrative will be a breeze because ive used flash in depth. I've jut had a play about in flash and found out that everything i had leart i have forgot. So 2 years and not touching flash once, wasn't the best idea. So here is a quick thing i have come up with to jog my memory. I have made a vector of a bird in Illustrator and then made it change colour at a click of each number. Very easy and quick, but thought it was a good idea to try out flash again. I will play about some more to help me remember everything.

2009-11-11T11:54:00.007Z

Xynthetic

I know its another useless plug, but this is another collective website for artists and designers. Some of those involved in the collective have some stunning work, heres some that i like;

China Mike

This is a collaboration that CM and Mr Jago (previous post) did as freestyle on a club wall in Newcastle, i really like how its come out considering its freestyle, and i think think both artists style complement each other.

Heres another collaboration with Mr Jago that they did in a Newcastle pub. Its the section above the door frame and the dog/pig. I really like this too.

Gavin Strange aka JamFactory
This designer does a whole host of media including; Website, graphic, illustration, photo and video. I am keen on a lot of his work and he has work with many big companies too.

This is a cover design he did for 'Computer Arts' magazine.

2009-11-11T11:09:00.004Z

Mr Jago

Check out this artist from Bristol, England. In his work he has come from various forms of art and created his own style which all include aspects of graffiti, hip-hop and comic's. Its messy and colorful which has derived from street art and i love it. He has done work for some very big companies those of which i like; Addict, Casino Skates, Nike, Puma and Box fresh, also many many more. He's definally worth the time of day so check out his stuff..

2009-11-10T16:41:00.004Z

Harry Brown

Harry Brown comes out tomorrow. Im a big english film fan. Love Snatch and Lock Stock, also many other english films. Hopefully this will be on the same level. Also a fan of Plan B so looking forward to this..

Quick plot taken from Wikipedia "Described as a "modern urban western," the titular Harry Brown (Caine) is an elderly widower and former Royal Marine who has lived to see his South London neighbourhood overrun by violent gangs, drugs and crime. When his best friend Leonard (Bradley) is brutally murdered and the gang leader (Plan B) responsible walks free, Harry finds himself snapping. Soon, his desire for revenge leads to the vigilante facing up to the young thugs, with terrifying results".

2009-11-10T15:03:00.003Z

Cargo Collective

Just found this great website. It seems to be a portal to web and graphic designers. There are some very interesting designers on here, with great work in their portfolio. I hope to show you some of the designers that interest me from this portal and some of their work. Definally check this website out as there are a vast range of different designers.

2009-11-10T13:33:00.005Z

Flash Website

For our Interactive Narrative project we will be using Flash. To many this is a new program and to most it is an irritating program. Luckily i have used it in depth a couple years ago at college. I got on really well with it, but im a bit rusty at the moment. Here is what i made in my FMP at Leamington College. I created a company called Harter Skateboards and i did everything with the branding of this company.

This is the final Flash website i made (also created a HTML version too).

This website involved making a pre-loader for the website, which i used my brand logo for, i made it fill up to show the progress of loading. I also wanted to incorporate as much of the urban culture as possible. So i added different motion tweens of dripping paint.
I was very pleased with the overall website, as this was my first fully flash website. Im very keen to start this new project and revive my previous skills.

2009-11-10T12:59:00.002Z

Interactive Narrative: Overview

Now we have finished our 'One Shot Short' project we have now moved on to the next one which is Interactive Narrative. Our first lecture was telling us about what we have to do. We were learning about Narrative and the context of narrative and how we can make it interactive. We were taught the difference between Plot and Narrative. These are two different things which i was finding hard to get my head around. Plots are within the Narrative.

So the Brief is to create a flash interface that tells a story that you can interact with, using the minimum of 10 frames which can include anything you want to narrate the story. The narrative needs to be the primary concern in this project, but also the interaction was key within the story.

We were told there and then to think of different concepts for our story. I found this hard at first but after looking at previous years work, i got the jist of the brief and thought of a couple ideas.

Here is one of the best examples i found, it narrates a great story, and also lets the user interact with what happens in the story, its also very well presented.

To help get ideas of different examples i thought of questions that you ask yourself in everyday life and then thought up stories from these questions for example;
Getting cash out of a cash machine, what to do; night out/stay at home ?, how much to drink/what to drink ?, which turning do i take ?, deal or no deal ?

These are just a couple of questions you ask yourself everyday without noticing it. This gave me a couple ideas of a story that i can tell..

2009-11-10T12:19:00.004Z

10th November Lecture Rant

Just like to say the lecture this morning was really interesting and i was really liking the guys work (can't remember, pronounce or even spell his name). Just a shame about the interpreter, no offense, but Jools' question was really quite simple and she was having trouble to interpret it to the guy. Not that i could do any better, oh well. Would like to see more of his work if anyone knows his name ?

2009-11-02T18:23:00.004Z

Northern Design Competition

Just signed up to this competition, seems to be pretty big and connects education and commerce to the creative sector. This provides us the opportunity to showcase our work.

For more information check out http://www.northerndesigncompetition.co.uk

2009-11-02T13:39:00.002Z

X06: The Future Of Story Telling

Well this conference was quite interesting, but a little vague. I think some of the points made were interesting. They know that not everyone wants to plays games for the story, but just for a sense of achievement to beat the console. For those that want to enjoy the story, they want them to get more involved into the game. So a suggestion of episodes was a good idea, but along as money doesn't become the forefront of the idea. Its the fact that gamers want to know the next episode once they complete the game. They want to know what happens next so it keeps there addiction alive. When games are made, as soon as the game has come together, they want it all to be released, but now the sense of getting it released will have to change to hold some of the story for the next episode. This will make the gamers want more..

I think there is still along way to go with the future of gaming, but to get ideas out in the open in conferences like this, makes the industry think where its got to go, and what gamers want to get involved.

2009-11-02T11:02:00.002Z

DP1 One Shot Short

Well here is the finished product for my first project. The quality isn't the best at the moment as we have never been told the best export settings for Youtube. I will however find out the best quality to export to and re-upload to Youtube.

I am extremely pleased with the final outcome. When shooting, our ideas got a bit crossed and we ended up with something that we weren't quite looking for, but we as a group persevered at and thought it could work really well with the right editing. I went home after the filming day a little dubious about it.

We then met up at our next session and had a good group discussion about what we could do editing wise, and what sort of music that can be added, and basically thought the whole edit through. We found it difficult to all edit at one computer. So we went away with the task of doing our own edit, meeting up, and doing a final collaboration.

When we came together as a group we looked at my edit and used that as a basis for the final one. A few suggestions were made and we came up with our final edit there and then.

Watching it all back as a group was the final step to achievement and i think we all went away happy with it finished.

2009-11-01T13:46:00.003Z

Forza 3

Do NOT buy this game, you will struggle to get your work done, and blogger updates will NOT get done. Sorry for those that have the PS3. Maybe next time..

2009-10-30T12:01:00.002Z

Creative Project Review

Well my last creative project must be for the DP1, and this was a 'One Shot Short'. In this project we had to produce a Short film, between 1-5 minutes. So it wasn't to short and not to long and boring. This was a good exercise but we were then hindered with the rules; The camera had to stay on a tripod and only move on the tripod. This is where we as a group had to think of what we could make, considering we were stuck in one position with only moving up, down, and left and right.

I had a thought of being on night out, and used the camera in 4 different stages, as the camera rotates 360, this would require good acting to pull off, and in my opinion, 5 multimedia freshers aren't the next John Travolta.

So the process of how we got our project done;

-Think creatively in a group throwing ideas to each other of what we can do, remembering the key limits to the project.
-Note the sensible ideas down, and realistically thinking if they are possible without hiring acting's etc.
-To book or ask permission of space that we wanted to use to film in.
-Once deciding on location, booking equipment ready for the day we are wanting to film.
-To each write a storyboard and make a final storyboard with the our ideas as a collaboration.
-FIlm and critique, film again, critique until we were happy with our result.
-Discuss as a group ideas on how we are wanting to edit our film and what we would like as a final result.
-Editing the film and critique the edit to see how we can make the final edit even better.
-Upload to Youtube..

I will post again with the final project and write a mini review of how it went and how we could have improved it.

2009-10-29T16:38:00.005Z

Day in a Life Video

Here is a day in a life video of Nick Jensen. The task that Sidewalk Skateboarding magazine set was to film a video in the city in one day. The city was London, and they had one day to film. Im not too sure on editing time. I really like this video. I think it portrays London in a beautiful way at night. Doesn't show congested horrible London that you would think of. I love the way the video shows all the aspects of London and all its famous architecture and to do all this whist showing a skateboard film is really clever stuff. I also love the music too, it really fits the theme of the video. Sadly this was back in 2001 and VHS's were used at the time, so it's not the best quality copy.

2009-10-29T16:06:00.005Z

Sigma 10-20mm

Got a new lense today for my Nikon D60, this is the first photo i took, and of corse is a bottle of lager. Really love how this lense views objects. You can get so incredibly close and cause of how wide the lense is it can fit everything in frame. Looking forward to using this lense a lot. Hopefully i will get to use this for my animation project too.

2009-10-21T21:01:00.003+01:00

Whiteboard Animation

Here are the animations for the first years Multimedia.

We were put into groups of four, and given a whiteboard, pens, camera and tripod. We then had to work out a way a box had to get from a to b. Like most groups we used a house as the obstacle that the box had to get past. We started out as a jack in the box and then once that had jumped over the house we used ourselves to flick the box back to the ground. While this was happening we had loads of other things going on at the same time.

I really enjoyed this task and it was good to break the ice with team building.

2009-10-21T11:23:00.001+01:00

BA Multimedia

Well, I have been asked by NTU to sign up with blogger to create a journal. While in the process of doing this i had remebered that i already had one when i was doing BTEC Multimedia at Leamington College. So i have a few old posts in this blog dating back to 2006 when i was using 3D Studio Max and researching how CGI was used in the industry.

I will try and update this blog as much as possible to include thoughts, links to work and anything Multimedia relating, weather i understand it or not. I will also post a lot of my inspiration, as the internet is full of it nowadays and this is a good place to anchor down everything that interests me.

2006-07-03T12:37:00.003+01:00

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Cgi took a central role in Terminator 2: Judgement Day in 1991, t-100 was the teminator enermy, who had morphing effects and with liquid metal. This was like the abyss but these effects were very complicated, because morphing from phase to phase had to be lots of fframes of some sort. Terminator 2 won ILM an oscar for its effects.

2006-07-03T12:37:00.002+01:00

Abyss

This is a screenshot the the Abyss, this is the use of cgi to create a realistic water face called Pseudopod.

As cgi established itself, it became photorealistic cgi, which is self explanatory, this played a key part in the academy award winning abyss, for visual effects. This was mainly for the water creature, that was in the film. It is very realistic, you couldnt really get any better in my opinion, and they have done a good job there, thats why they won a award.

2006-07-03T12:37:00.001+01:00

Lord of the Rings

Cgi is used in other computer effects appart frm animation, and this is called digital grading. Its basically inhancing an image you have already, as if some of the image is too dark, you can inchance it to make it lighter, this was used in the lord of the rings film. There was many copmuter effects on this as you would know,. gollum, is a very realistic character, who had to go through many digital grading faces. I think the effects in thsi film are great and a high standard of cgi has been used, its a lot more realistic to say such films as toy story,and i appreiciate it a lot for that.

2006-07-03T12:37:00.000+01:00

Final Fantasy : Spirits Within

There are other pruducers apart from pixar that did a lot of cgi wok, Square Pictures create the film Final Fantasy : Spirits Within, i think has some very good quality animationm it is like photograpahic quality graphics being used. This film didnt get that succesful, but in wise of graphics it looks great. After this Square pictures closed down.

2006-06-22T14:59:00.000+01:00

Shrek

Shrek two has great animation, it flows really well, and its just like human movement, they have made it very relistic in the way wind blows their hair etc, but yet its a blatent cartoon format, everything is realistic movement wise, and this the movie is a great success personally. It must have took a lot of time and effort to do it, thus i give great respect to the whole animation.

2006-06-22T13:35:00.000+01:00

Counter Strike 1.6

Counter Strike 1.6 uses cgi in their graphic gaming, this is not best best graphics in the owrld, and the gameplay isnt the best, but you can appreicate it for the age of the game. The game play, isnt annoyingly rubish, but it would be nice for it to be more relistic, but for some reason, its reallly addictive, and its just more fun to play than the more relistic version counter strike : condition zero.

2006-05-18T13:24:00.000+01:00

20th Century Fox Logo

The logo for 20th century fox is in 3d, i think this makes a bold stand and shows that 20th century fox have been around for a long time and they mean buisness. It makes the company look very professional because at the start of every film they produce it is there, and its a bold logo, which everybody rememebers, so they have a lot of respect for that. If this logo was flat it would not work as well and people would not rememeber it as much because its just a flat image, but the benefit of having it in 3d format is that it stands out to you.

2006-05-18T13:12:00.000+01:00

Tony Hawks Underground 2 Remix - Psp

This is the orignial game that was on the ps2, and they have changed it into psp format, with adding a few extra levels and bits and bobs. The graphics on the psp, are about the same as the ps2, and that is very good, considering the ps2 is the leading playstation console, and you can get all that but handheld is great, with same graphics and dolby sound. The animation of the skateboarder is good, no jittery graphics when moving around and it does not lag either.

2006-05-11T15:23:00.000+01:00

Gorillaz

Gorillaz the band, have come along way since its started, with a lot more revolutionized animation, they are famous for their animation, as its very unique, all bands have their faces shown. With Gorilaz, they have real people for the singing, but they have characters for each of them, which have become famous for that, and they are known as real people.

There Charaters work well to the music, the music is quite slow and the characters when anuimated on their videos, walk around slowly, and it just works with the music they are playing. Also in the videos, they put the characters in real life situations, i.e on the side of a road, etc. When they animate them in the viedeos, they work like real human music videos, everything about them acts so real, but they are just of a catoony natual that makes it so unique.

2006-05-11T14:15:00.000+01:00

South Park

Comedy Centrals South Park won a award at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences awarded the 2004-2005 Creative Arts Primetime Emmys for the animation catorgory.

For animated programming less than one hour, South Park took the cake for the episode Best Friends Forever. Trey Parker and Matt Stone were the creators for this, the comedy series is about four kids living in a messed up small town in Colorado.

This animation for the series is in 2D but yet, still doesnt put off the viewers from it, it work well, and still has enough graphical content to keep people watching aswell as the humour of it all.