Jason's Online Journal

Artefact 3 - Training staff with Google sketchup7

2010-05-11T06:54:00.001-07:00

The purpose of this artefact was to see if it was possible to train staff to gain a certain level of understanding of a free 3D software package such as Google sketchup 7 so that they can keep up with the growing demands of architects having a good working knowledge of a 3D software. The subject that was chosen was a student from the interior architect course within multimedia. With no experience with any 3D software she was asked to create a house with the use of Google sketchup 7 and also texture the building. To help the student to navigate around the interface of Google sketchup I too had to learn the software briefly to help with any problems or inquires and also used a few links for online tutorials through Youtube. The student was able to create a house and texture it, when asked how did she get on with creating the house, she explained that at first it was hard for her to understand the interface and to remember what icon does what action. However after searching through some of the basic tutorials online she was able to navigate around the interface with confidence. What I noticed when viewing the file was that the model seemed fairly basic and did not seem to be in proportion, so for the next artefact I will be aiming to create a scene with a few models to be in proportion with the rest of the scene in Google sketchup. This will also look at how an individual with working knowledge of different 3D software works with a new software package.

Artefact 4 - Learning another 3D software

2010-05-11T06:39:00.000-07:00

This artefact is to test how an individual with a sound understanding of one 3D software package goes about creating a scene with a different software package A kitchen had previously been designed by myself on 3D studio max, what I wanted to do was to see how easy it would be for me to re-create the same models to the right measurements in Google sketchup7. When creating the models it was fairly straight forward as the interface seemed self explanatory and the tools that they had was also very beneficial such things as measuring out my models and being able to re-size them. However the final outcome the models did not seem to be as well presented as what I had originally created on 3D studio max. Showing both kitchen designs to my client he thought that the design made on Google sketchup7 was a good idea for the presenting stages of my ideas before the final design which would be created on 3D studio max. The benefits that I found from using sketchup are that it is a free software so anyone can use it and there is no rendering time so it is a feasible for architectural firms to begin using software packages such as sketchup when presenting their ideas. The next artefact will be looking into transition by following an interior architect student and look at the stages of development of their ideas from the stages of blueprint to the final model, using both 3D studio max and Google sketchup to help in the presenting stages and final design stages.

Here are the some Screenshots of what i created with the use of a new software package

Artefact 5- Transistion in the workforce

2010-05-11T06:01:00.000-07:00

Transition in the work force -This artefact was to explore the pre-production stages when working the architectural work force. I had a client who asked me to design a 3D model for them for one of their projects in 3D studio max and they wished to have a test model to be supplied with it as well for their presentation. I was later advised that they had personally created their own test model with the use of Google Sketchup as they have recently been advised by the company. Designing the product on 3D studio max easy and when I had presented the final model the client was happy and when I was presented with their Google Sketchup model it looked basic. Overall the client was able to present four different types of design styles by using blue print design, a test model design with the use of Google Sketchup, a rendered model using 3D studio max and their cardboard model which was their final design. From this artefact I was able to grasp an understanding of how the production stages of how an architectural firm would run, and noticed that though companies will hire out freelancers or 3D design firms to create their final designs for promotional offers they would rather have one of their own agents to create the test model on a simple 3D software like Google Sketchup to save on such things as costs. For my final artefact I will be interviewing two individuals to gain a deeper understanding of the architectural industry and why companies choose to use 3D models to present and promote their designs before being built. One participant will be from a 3D design company and another will be a lecturer of architectural interior design who teaches students the use of 3D software.

2010-05-04T06:49:00.000-07:00

here is the final video for my client project

and here is a test model design which i presented to the client using google sketchup

Client project

2010-05-04T06:35:00.000-07:00

so heres a few images and videos for the client project that i have recently completed. I'm happy with the results and so was the client, however there are some minor errors that had occured inregards to positioning which could have been amended if i had created a few test renders earlier on in the project.

SPP- 8 images

2010-03-18T06:10:00.001-07:00

so here are the 8 images that i will be submitting for my SPP i find that these are the best pieces of work that i have to offer. Most of them are fairly recent work as i think that this year has been my best and so it should be seeing that its our last year so i got to give it all i got. Now for the write up.

2010-03-16T04:37:00.000-07:00

here are a few more screen shots for the kitchen, i'm near to completing the kitchen just need to sort out a few lighting issues and i should be ready to start rendering.

client- a few renders

2010-02-26T07:53:00.001-08:00

Here are a few of the renders that i have been meaning to put up, the client that i am working for is Howdens Joinery who have recently taken over MFI and deals with kitchens and bathrooms and as part of my final year project i am creating a walkthrough for their website and promotional DVD's

A few are for the 1st design for the bathroom and the others are part of the kitchen with a model of the hob a layout of the kitcehn and just a look at the kitchen cabinets.

2010-02-11T01:40:00.000-08:00

For my second artefact i have tested lighting within 3D studio max and it's effects and how it affects its rendering times when used within a scene. I have rendered out four 6 second scenes of the same shot 2 with lighting involved and 2 without and also different resolution outputs to test if the quailty is that much more noticable and if it is more time consuming to render it out. Through these experiments i am hoping to find out whether it is worth using these effects and resolutions for the architectural industry as time means money and theses uses could cost more to create.

I created an office scene that took over 2hrs to model and just moved the camrea from one side of the room to the other.

Here is the 1st scene, this is without any lighting and is a resolution of 768x576.

This scene took 2hours and 33mins to render

Here is the 2nd scene, this is with lighting and same resolution of 768x576 with these scene we can see more depth into the scene with the shadows on the wall and shadings on the table.

This scene took 2hours and 35mins to render

Here is the 3rd scene this is a resolution of 1280x720. This may look similar in quailty to that of the 1st scene but when played on full screen there is a noticable difference in which it is alot more clearer and smoother as it plays.

This scene took 4hours and 46mins

Here is the final scene with lighting and at the resolution of 1280x720 yet again you will not be able to notice much difference until you view it at a maximized window but the quailty is yet again more clearer and smoother when it plays.

This scene took 5hours 11mins to render.

I looked into the resolution that trinetram are using, they are a expert and experienced 3D Designers, capable to visualize and convert designs into Photo Realistic Rendering, Architectural 3D Design. Not one of their images that i viewed were exceeded 800x600.

From what i have gather though the quailty of the rendered scene is more favourable due to clear and smooth video it takes almost double the amount of time to get this effect. which makes me wonder is it really worth it?

Fidelity within visualisation

2010-01-28T05:43:00.000-08:00

One of my artefacts is based around the subject of fidelity within 3D visualisation within architecture and how the audience can tell what is real and what is not and why should we settle for something fake when we can actually have the real thing. As i have said in my RPP essay. "With the use of 3D architecture we are able to create buildings from a small house to a city scale. The use of 3D architecture is not trying to make you believe it is real, but what can be created, how a building will effect its environment before it is even built, help the industry as a whole with the changes of customers tastes and keep up with modern history."

My first artefact is to show a few images and conduct a research questionnaire asking the public if they can tell what is real and what is created with the use of 3D visualisation. I belive that this will be beneficial to my research to show the benefits that 3D design has within the architectural industry

digital piracy

2009-11-26T08:04:00.000-08:00

Here is the end product with sound hope you like, i was happy with it though the soundtrack sounds a bit weird but it it'll do pig, it'll do..

Screen shots for simulated

2009-11-26T07:54:00.001-08:00

so here is my 5 environments i've done a bedroom, an office, a cafe, a prison cell and a park with the city in the background, what i wanted to do is show to the audience that peer to peer can occur anywhere and the consequences of illegal file sharing. so far i am happy with the models and the rendered stills of what i have created and now moving on to putting on a few final touches with the lights and rendering it out to see what it looks like on a time-line.

Useful quotes

2009-11-02T08:47:00.000-08:00

So i've been reading up for my PRP paper and i have found a useful book to help with my research topic.

For those who do not know my question that i submitted was 'How has 3d visualisation helped develop the architectural industry and it's move away from model disign?' and a good source i found for this was "Made of Light- The Art of Light and Architecture" by Mark Major, Jonathan Speirs and Anthony Tischhauser.

Here is a quote that i thought would be quite useful when discribing how 3d visualisation can use artifical light to create a sense of realism. - "Light reveals shape, surface and colour, it informs our individual perception of the world abd provides us with a common language"

Time management

2009-10-30T07:54:00.001-07:00

i've created a gnatt chart to help with my time management for the client project, hoping that if i can stick to the schedule i can have my work done early enough to go back to fix any errors or add any minor touches that may help improve my project. Though the chart is not clear on the post i have a copy to hand which will remind me where i should be in the project.

Client- simulated

2009-10-26T08:12:00.000-07:00

So we're back for the final chapter and we've been given a bunch of stuff to get on with and heres the a taste of whats to come.

We've been given a simluated project, an advert warning about what file sharing is and it's consequences and part of the brief is to create 5 environments within the visualisation pathway.

Here is one of the five environments. I'm aiming to create environments on where file sharing can occur and my first thought was where else but your own bedroom

Bullwell academy

2009-03-24T03:04:00.001-07:00

here's the first floor to our block for the bulwell academy client project. This is a group project that includes myself, cliff, maggie and leslie. at the moment we have not added any textures onto the building as we are still making sure that everyhing is in the correct place and all in the right size.

this is the 1st floor, so far we've been told that most rooms are offices and the larger room is a common room for students with computer facilties.

will post the full building with the roof once i get hold of leslie as he has built the roof

mask

2009-01-15T07:56:00.001-08:00

starting to play around with some ideas that i have for my term 2 project for animation, at the moment i'm just trying to create a mask or some sort of face gaurd. this is something that i thought looked pretty cool, it looks like optimus primes bottom face with alot less detail. still working on it so i'll keep this updated.

visualisation

2008-12-10T06:38:00.000-08:00

here's the intro to my visualisation, think it looks pretty sweet however i could have done better by adding a better environment, however i was aiming for a virtual game instead of an actualy board game so i guess it works.

2008-11-25T08:59:00.000-08:00

here's the building for the chess board project for visualisation i think it looks pretty nice and a has a futuristic look to it, however i need to add some wires going in and out of the building make it have abetter theme to itwith the whole robot theme or maybe make like a solar panel some where as an addition to the building to make it seem like the chess boards source of power is from the sun

Chess board- final

2008-11-23T19:04:00.000-08:00

Here's the final look for my chess board with all pieces completed. I think it looks pretty sweet with all the materials added on to give it a futuristic look to it however it took nearly a whole 2 minutes to render this pic so i'm not sure whether its my computer or just too much reflectiveness going on.

any comments that may help me with this problem would be much appreciated

Maze

2008-11-23T14:15:00.000-08:00

Here's the maze for my board game for animation, gonna create some hands aswell to move the maze around and hopefully have a crisp animation for the ball too.

chess board with pawns and knights ( knights on wrong spot ^.^*)

2008-11-18T06:20:00.000-08:00

brass knight

2008-11-14T05:59:00.000-08:00

here's the character's i've created for my board game for virtual environments, i've created them by simply creating spheres for the joints and extruding the centre polygons for arms and legs. I've also used mental ray for the materials with the brass material and applied it to the whole of the character which i think works really well.

a deeper meaning

2008-11-07T05:51:00.000-08:00

this picture is desgined for the public to make awareness that these people are not wanting money but wanting a change in lifestyle. i think this intended design is very well layed out. the statement is a very powerful one and encourages a new way of thinking and has a deep meaning to it.

Hand

2008-11-03T06:54:00.000-08:00

here's hand i animated at class, so what ya thnk? i found it fun and eductional as it helped with learning more about animation and kinetics

SSP task

2008-10-31T07:29:00.000-07:00

“Using your own personal experience, write a few lines that describe how a personal contact has provided a creative opportunity for you”

When thinking about the how a personal contact has provided a creative opportunity for me the 1st thing that instantly came to mind was when i was at work before i even started the course at NTU on multimedia, my friend was at the time studying at NCN doing Multimedia there and wanted a hand with some work and with helping him come up with idea's and designs. When his end of year show came around i saw his work which was very impressive, in which encouraged me to want to pursue Multimedia at uni. I guess in a way, i never really thought that this would ever really become a passion or something that drove me, but what seemed to be a hobby, which infact it has really grown on me.

Trainwreck

2008-10-30T08:57:00.001-07:00

here's my train, i haven't really played with it too much as i need to really sort out the materials for.

here's the stantard colours used, it looks rather dull but i think with some materials added on it would make it more life like.

materials- visualisation

2008-10-30T06:49:00.000-07:00

here's a tree i found in the markey square, the importance of this feature I find is that it show's life in the centre of town, though everything seems busy when observing the city centre you can appreiciate the calmness of the tree's and grass that have been placed in the market square. The wood feels brittle and that you can snap pieces of easily with your hands.

Here's the bottom of a lamp in the city centre, i thought it looked really well designed with the patterns that has been put on it and the shape of the base of the lamp. i think this stands out rather well in the city centre as it shows signs of boldness and strength with it's shape and the material it is made of. it is hard, and feels cold when touching it.

Summer job....

2008-06-03T00:28:00.000-07:00

so i've been looking for a summer job, though i have one a part time job at the momement i think it's a good idea to try and get into the multimedia industry at an early stage as possible to learn new things.

For my pathways choice i decided to pursue something in the field of virutal environments which include such things as animation and character, virtual worlds and game environments.

Now i've found a few vacancies in SquareEnix company who are based in london, one job role is an english online game tester which basically is testing out games, looking for faults or glitches and proof reading material to suit the english market.

a second job role is an english localisation tester which is to do with quailty assurance and is similar to the job role above.

I have not applied as of yet due to it being based in london but i am looking to get in contact with some friends to find me accomodation over the summer or try and find a summer job closer to home

ZOMG!!! WE ARE MOVING TO CANADA KIDS!!!!

2008-06-02T04:09:00.000-07:00

Tax breaks are causing game developers to flee overseas to Canadian soil. Copy this link to find out more...

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080528-game-developers-flee-uk-for-canada-tax-breaks.html

Pathways...

2008-05-26T03:33:00.000-07:00

I've been thnking about my pathways pretty much since I was told about them, at first I didn't pay it too much attention as i intially wanted to something in AV production, however after having our identites project i was very keen in something in the area of games designing or character creating. Here's a link to something someone had made which i thought was very nicely done. The actions were smooth and the character's very well designed, Plus it was very entertaining.

Identites - changes made to box

2008-05-26T03:15:00.000-07:00

I decided instead of using a vending machine for my Navigating Identites project that i would use something i made in photoshop with some screen shots i took of a few games charaters from final fantasy. I'll be using each character as a "box" in which you can click and go and enter something new such as AV, Pixilation etc.
I think i'll put my logo on this front page too, more then likely at the bottom left hand corner as it is going to be most visible there.

Practitioner presentation

2008-05-21T04:04:00.000-07:00

Hironobu Sakaguchi, a games designer is most famous for his creation the final fantasy series selling over 80 million units of video games world wide.

Sakaguchi was orginally a part time worker for the new company Square, when Sqaure became an independant company Sakaguchi had moved up to being a full time mployee and as the Directing of Planning and Development.

His 1st project was unsucessful and decided to risk it all on his final attempt of making a success by using the rest of the companies money to fund his final work in the industry, naming it final fantasy. It was a very popular across Japan and the Final Fantasy was developed into a franchise under Sakaguchi's supervision. Final Fantasy series has now reached up to number 12 and is in the process of finalizing number 13 which is to be released on the playstation 3 in sometime in 2009.

Sakaguchi is now the president of Sqaure in USA and in 2001 he founded a new video game development studio anmed Mistwalker which in 2004 got financial backing from Microsoft and has now worked along side with Microsoft Games studios to create 2 RPGs for the Xbox 360 (Blue Dragon and Lost Odyyssey).

Sakahuchi has been a big inspiration for me as he creates such amazing games with great detail put into each games, character/s. The amount of games he has been involved with and the number of units they have sold has put Sakahuchi in the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame.

Here are some of the games he has been credited for with some SS too

Lost Odyssey-

Kingdom Hearts

Final Fantasy XI

Chrono Trigger

My site

2008-05-16T04:25:00.000-07:00

hers my box, hope you like it. I had an intial idea of creating a cending machine for my box but i decided to use an image i had made through a few screenshots etc.

Hope you like.

E:\Box~ ident\box.html

hackey-sac!!!!

2008-04-24T16:35:00.000-07:00

My logo

2008-04-22T13:29:00.000-07:00

Was thinking about my logo and something that represents me or identifies me and the first thing that came to mind was my name, but a simple Jason Liu would be too boring as a logo so i decided to use my family name instead printed in chinese as it is the only word i know to spell besides 1-10. Shoclking indeed!!

I tried to draw it on paint, it'sabit messy but ill tidy it up and add some flare to it

My Box

2008-04-21T05:27:00.000-07:00

So i've come up with several ideas for my "box" for the 2nd project and here are a few of them that i presented to the letctures in my assessment week

Idea 1- Fridge- The reason why i thought about this idea was on the basis of it being in a similar shape of a box itself and also because it was something that is part of my everday life. We all depend on the fridge to store our food and from it being spoilt. Plus i thought it'd be something new and exciting to attempt on doing as a project.

Idea 2- Vending machine - Another thing which i thought would be of similar to the fridge idea but would have more of an interactive appeal to it as you can choose pick out which item you would like and it will then either play/animate. Plus another reason why i thought this was a good idea was that it also relates to the pathways choice at the end of year one, as we are open to choice.

Idea 3- My sketchbook- It shows my ideas and thoughts which i thought would be a good way to present to the world my work and who i am, my pictures and sketches not only shows what i can do but some also represents what mood i am in, how i feel.

Idea 4- Computer case - Another thing that i heavily depend on as an act of entertainment, interaction and education. It stores alot of things that is part of me such as photo's, music, video's, work, video games. If i were to have chosen this i would make it viewing the side of the computer case opened so it show's us the function of it and how it seems like a living being.

My design ideas for my avatar and environment part 6

2008-03-10T08:49:00.000-07:00

Here is a sketch i drew of the final design of my character and here is what it looks like on 3d studio max...

Doesnt look exactly like the pic, but you can see some resemblence.

My design ideas for my avatar and environment part 5

2008-03-10T08:39:00.001-07:00

heres a picture a drew from a cartoon, "The Boondocks" i like the characters from the cartoon and it has a funny plots. This character think could be fun to do on 3d studio max as there doesn't seem to be much detail on his facial features and the crazy hair looks like it could look really fun.

My design ideas for my avatar and environment part 4

2008-03-10T08:33:00.001-07:00

Heres somethign i sketched up during a long shift at work, it was somthing i drew to describe the day and how i felt.

My design ideas for my avatar and environment part 3

2008-03-10T08:28:00.001-07:00

So here was my orignal design idea in which i thought i was gonna use to create for my avatar, but i decided to go against it and use a differernt idea.

My design ideas for my avatar and environment part 2

2008-03-10T08:23:00.001-07:00

Heres a second design idea that i drew, another Guy Mckinely creation with a change to the hair style

Thought this looked really cool and would a fun prjoect if i were to have designed something like this. But with little knowledge of 3d studio max i think i'll create something less complex for now and decide later on in thr year whether or not to play around with 3d studio max and try and attempt to design this.

My design ideas for my avatar and environment part 1

2008-03-10T07:52:00.000-07:00

So i never got around posting my pictures that i drew/sketched up for my avatar. So here they are...

This was something i found in a book, a guy named Guy Mckinley drew it orignally and i thought it looked really nice attempted to draw it myself. I like anime/manga cartoons and i thought i could attempt to design something like this on 3D studio max

V-side week 2

2008-03-10T06:32:00.000-07:00

This week my plan was to explore more into the world of v-side and the features it has to offer to members of V-side. As far as i know it seems to be a general community for people to log in and communicate with new people and meet new friends, current friends and enjoy the surrounds. I asked a few random people what they seemed to like about using V-side and it seemed that most liked the fact it seemed a more interactive way of communicating with friends then using instant messenger and face book.

I also found out that you had to pay real money for "creds" to purchase new clothes on v-side which in my opinion seemed really ridiculos due to the fact its not real, but many members seemed to do it because when i was walking around many could tell that i was new to the server due to the clothes i was wearing. There seemed to many that were attracted to other avatars from their virtual apperance, which led my to my next question.. Had anyone become partners through their virtual avatar?

It seemed that there were infact a few who had become real life friends and some even couples in real life by meeting through V-side. Which seems really bazaar, but i guess theres a long process before people actual become close.

From my experience on V-side i have noticed that its basically used as a social centre for people around the world to new meet, listening to music and explore around the virtual world. I would not say that i particualry enjoyed it has there didn't seem to be much for me to do except walk around and talk to random strangers. In my previous posts i have mentioned that i am currently playing an MMORPG made my Square Enix, Final Fantasy XI. In theory it too could be used just the same as V-side except not based on clubs and music but fantasy and adventure. I did notice one similarity in that in both V-side and FFXI people are judged on their clothing/gear, and if not dressed in a certain way they are judged negatively and in a way outcasted by those who are well equipped.

V-side...week 1

2008-03-07T16:10:00.000-08:00

Hey hey hey its me... as a pixel, started my second self on v-side as 2nd life seemed to be giving my compter problems every time i tried to d/l to software. so i've been on it for a week now for ranging between 10mins to 30mins a day depending on what there is to offer @ the times i log in to it. This week what i was aiming to do on V-side was to find out about what there is to do on v-side, and to do that i've been walking around and chacking out the environments there. It seems like there are several zones in which you can go into, and some seemed to be locked, so i'm not sure whether the server is being under construction on whether its for the members who pay for their subscription which may give them a better package.

Here are some shots of me in v -side and convsering with other virtual people.

and here's a picture of my avatar...

seems that you can change your clothes whenever by clicking on on the avatar buttonand also skin colour which seems very amusing as i can get a tan within 5 seconds, oh the wonders of today.

I've made a few friends and mainly by accident due to asking them how i do several things like walking, entering differnt zones and what is the meaning of their existance in v-side.

It seems that mainly most people join v-side because they felt lonely or wanted a new experience of interaction instead of the usual facebook,myspace, and instant messenging.

Next week i aim to meet some people, ask them a few questions about v-side and see what there is to do for fun besides do funky dances, which brings me to my final pic for today's post

check the moves... i'm like a young Michael Jackson lol

change of plan

2008-03-07T16:03:00.000-08:00

So... i was looking into the idea of making my avatar as a computer model, but when working on the idea and playing around with 3d studio max, i began to enjoy making a 3d model of one of my idea sketches that i made. So far i've completed the body and now working on the head soon, however i find it really weird how some times when you have ideas in your head it doesnt come out the same way on paper, but this is like what i plan on paper doesnt actually come out the same way as on 3d studio max. But hey, lets not frown upon this as its my 1st time using this software, and i throughly enjoy every minute of it.... so far

I'll post more updates of my up and coming work when i feel there is more to explain or when i have done suffient amount of work to jot down my thoughts.

It's all about memememememe.....

2008-02-17T17:08:00.000-08:00

So... haven't posted in a while so thought i'd let you all know i'm still alive and have been thinking long and hard on what i want to create as an avatar. I've seen a couple of things that i like and i've done a few sketches on design ideas which i will be posting in the week when i can reach a scanner.

I'm torn between 2 ideas at the moment which i think represents me quite well.
1.) a avatar that is made out of hardware from my personal computer. i.e monitor = head, computer case = body.
Reason why i would choose this as a possible avatar would be because it is something that is apart of me as i am surrounded by computer technololgy, whether it be at home,work or in school. Another reason why i would choose this design idea would be because it is something i enjoy spending my time on as it has various uses such as research, communicating with others via e-mails or instant messaging, entertainment and also to build a social network between myself and millions of different people around the world wheter it be friends or strangers i have never met.

2.) Another avatar design that i am quite keen on was a 'MANGA' me, from a young age i have enjoyed manga/anime/western cartoons as they have always appealed to me. And what could represent me better as a 2nd self then another me ^-^

anywho.. i'll be posting some of my designs once i reach a scanner

Who am i?

2007-12-10T10:10:00.001-08:00

So for the new year we'll be starting our new projects on identities, one of which is to start a secondlife character to online to show (to what i'm lead to believe) what our other side is like, for example we could be a very outgoing person on the outside, but on the inside we could be very lonely or angry or any other types of negative emotions.

I will be setting up a secondlife character once

a) i figure out how to do it on my home computer as it is not allowing me to do so.
or
b) when the university has updated the computers to allow students to do so at campus.

I have however been involved into online gaming, as i am at heart, a big kid.

The game is FINAL FANTASY XI online, created by Square enix and is a very well established company and has over half a million of the population are regularly logging in each day.
So far in my online experience seems to be of an interesting on as communicating with people that do not actually speak a word of english seems kind of insane, but with Square Enix's programming you can use something called an "Auto-translate" key to communicate simple words to others.

My character is named "Ragingmonkey", was a spur of the moment thing as i did not think i would participate too long into the whole online addiction. But 2 years later i'm still around from time to time.

It's your average MMORPG (Massively multiplayer online role-playing game) like World of War craft. Missions, Storylines, Socialising and having fun seems to be the most part of this game, once i gather more information on "identites" i'll post more on here to let you know my experience with my "second-self"

snowboarding is cewl!!!

2007-12-10T09:58:00.001-08:00

So heres something i've been playing wih on flash,

i played around with it on illustrator and flash, what i did was got a random snowboaring cartoon from google, put it onto illustrator and changed the file into a PNG, then messed around with it on Flash. Took about an hour to do, but it seemed like a fun outside project for me to do as it got me to play around with flash abit more.

You'll need to click on the link below to view it as i did not know how to update the thing onto Blogger >.<

file://homestud-01/8$/N0108780/outsidework/snowboard.html

ONE SHOT, AND I'M DONE!

2007-12-10T07:11:00.000-08:00

So it's finally here, my one shot film has been completed...

It was a fun piece to do and enjoyed the filming very much, we did have a few issues with the lighting and seemed to have casted alot of shadows on the walls as you can see throughout the film, but hey, it was our 1st try at this so i'm sure in the future it can only get better. There was alot of things that i wanted to do with this but had limited time to do it as i had very little experience with preimere. One of the things i wanted to test out was to make the whole movie in black and white but still keep the colour Red in for the colours of the cards. I was told it was possible but no one seemed to know what the effect was... i guess ill read into it sometime and test it out on this to make it visually more interesting.

The casts..

2007-12-06T05:47:00.000-08:00

I've created my character for my interactive narrative piece, since the narrative is revolved around drugs and the outcomes of it i have decided to create pills for the main character and have filled in the colours differntly for differnt characters and also resized them. Heres a screenshot of what it looks like from flash

So here is the main character which is what the narrative is based around on him having choices on taking drugs and what will happen to him when taking drugs. This i find is a very fun character which may appeal to children and could be used as a learning activity for kids to understand the outcomes of taking drugs.

Urika...

2007-12-02T14:44:00.000-08:00

After thinking for days on end (this is no joke) of this prjoect for interactive narrative, i have come up with my narrative. I have decided to make my interactive narrative an educational piece on drugs and the fundamentals of its outcome.

Next on my to-do-list is :

Draw images/take images
Plan on how to structure my work on flash

Daddy, whats a narrative?

2007-11-28T10:45:00.000-08:00

So we've been set our final brief for this term which is heavily focused on narrative, and after hearing from Jools that our previous 2 projects did not follow the breif in showing a narrative to the pixialation and one shot film i began to ask myself, what is a narrative?

So i looked to find out what the definition of narrative is:-

"A narrative is a construct created in a suitable medium (speech, writing, images) that describes a sequence of real or unreal events. It derives from the Latin verb narrare, which means "to recount" and is related to the adjective gnarus, meaning "knowing" or "skilled".[1] (Ultimately derived from the Proto-Indo-European root gnō-, "to know".[2]) The word "story" may be used as a synonym of "narrative", but can also be used to refer to the sequence of events described in a narrative. A narrative can also be told by a character within a larger narrative." - Wikipedia

"Narrative is a specialised form of communication resulting from an attempt to record and transmit information in order to explain" - Benford and Tallyn (2005)

From what i have read and heard from Jools that the basics of a narrative is a series of events that has the whole cause and effect placed in the story.

Interactive Narrative

Our final project given to us by Jools is to do with Interactive Narrative which is mainly to do with the consumer's choice and control of what they want to happen to the object/people in the story. A good example of interactive narrative would be related to role-playing games on computer's, many of which you can choose which path you wish to take or how you wish to act will lead you to different paths in the game and have different endings to it, this may be one of my ideas into making my project but i still need to think of a narratve that will work well.

Visual aesthetics

2007-11-18T15:20:00.000-08:00

I have chose to discuss the visual aesthetics of the Wii controller, as a owner of the Nintendo Wii

i must say that this is a very interative entertainment system with it's exciting visual effects and their new family games that have been introduced and targetted to the older generation of the public. The look of it is very simplistic yet amazingly visually pleasing with its clean white look. Also with a well designed grip for the consumers with a strap that has been introduced to prevent the consumers from losing grip of the Wii and hitting their televisions.

The controller can be held upwards like the 1st image or it can be tilted so that you can hold the control on both ends like your original console control. There is a sensor that is to be placed ontop of your television so that it can detect the motion of the control to send the signal to the console on where the gamer is moving their control towards.

One shot film- Plan

2007-11-13T04:22:00.000-08:00

As a group we have decided to base our one shot film on a poker game involving 1950's style New york gangsters. We've booked out the studio for our location and have several props our homes which we are going to bring in to increase the realism through the use of mise en scene. Through editing i can filter the color to give a black/white color for our one shot film to make it a film noir, which again will give the audience a clearer image of what the genre is.

Synopsis- so...

2007-11-05T05:51:00.000-08:00

So like wheres all the books gone? Been trying to find books in the libary, which to my surprise most books from the reading list has been booked out or on request. Then i march towards our neighbourly bookstore "blackwells" and the 4 books i wish to purchase none are in, so winner -.-;, then finally i go towards what i think is the answer to all my problems, waterstones and again "nope, nope, nope, nope, we don't seem to have any of those in at the moment, would you like to order them in?" So my days going pretty "well" if only you can read sarcasim in text aswell as you could face to face or by the lovely tone in my voice.

So, with apologises i have not got much of a synopsis on a book as i have none to hand but have spent a whopping £73.96 on books incoming soon.

I did manage to borrow a book from a fellow class member, naming no names (thank you dave), on Basics of video production, by Des Lyver & Graham Swainson. The chapter is on "Location lighting".

This chapter details the introduction to the way we should consider our lighting depending on the location in which we choose to shoot our film. It also gives us aid on what tools and equipment would be useful to give us better lighting in certain locations. Such as battery powered lighting, which gives the lighting supervisor indendence from the mains. It does cover the pros and cons of what certain lighting techniques may have on your video production.

The chapter does cover alot of insightful things in which most of us should be paying attention to when considering making a video production. The book itself i have not covered fully but there is a number of techniques and hints of what can help us maximize our quality of work.

There will be more added once I recieve the masses of books i have ordered.

WAHOO!

2007-11-01T09:36:00.000-07:00

At last it seems i have finally finished my stop motion project, now i'm not sure if it was just me but this project really did make me go crazy at times. If it wasn't the fact that all my kept on disappearing somehow, it was that i could not open the folder or trying to add tracks to my movie clip. But somehow, with a little patience, alot of keyboard banging and alot walking around aimlessly i have finally completed it... so yeah me *'.'*

It was a fun project shooting it, not so much editing it because i'm not very skilled at using the software, but i managed somehow and it has turned out (in my opinion) alright. A main problem that we had was our location, it wasnt the fact that it was congested with people but it was that the camera man (me) took most the photos in the middle of the road and when cars came by we had to try to re-poistion ourselves.

Anywhooo, enough of my jibba-jabba here it is, hope you enjoy

Testing 1..2..3..

2007-10-25T04:30:00.000-07:00

Hello, been a while since I last posted on my blog so i thought i share something i've been working on recently, we've been given as multimedia students a project on pixilation and now that we've been out and about taking our random photos we need to start editing them to make them be presented the best way they can.

At the moment i do not have the original photos on me, but i've taken a random photo from google images and played around with it on photoshop, by doing this i can just take notes of what i have done to this photo and add the same effects to the ones i wish to put on in my project.

Heres the oringial photo, its a picture of the streets of San Francisco, with an elder lady walking by and a homeless person sleeping on the streets.

Now what i wanted to do with our photos is to make it look slightly more dated and set in the style of a comic book and this is what it turned out to look like..

The effects i used to edit the original photo was 'film grain', which makes the image look old and to give it the comic effect i used 'Poster edges' and by adjusting the edge thickness, edge intensity and posterization it has seemed to have worked rather well. I also used 'Photo filter' which gave me the option to change the color of the photo and allowed me to give it a sepia tone which i thought worked.

If you think theres anything you think i could have added please leave a comment of what other tools i could have used.

Whiteboard Animation

2007-10-09T04:14:00.000-07:00

Hello, it's me again... so here's another thing we did during our introduction to Multimedia. It's suppose to be a 10 sec clip of us moving a box from one side of a tree to the other side of the tree within 120 frames as each frame is 12 frames per sec. Well enough with the technical stuff and moving on to the prjoect. Me and my groups work is abit into the clip, but you'll notice it as we signed it at the end.

I was happy with what we did, however we got abit carried away and forgot that it was a 12 frame per sec and at some point of our project we began to put speech bubbles into it, which makes it look like some scribble appeared for a moment then disappeared. I guess we'll learn from our mistakes and take that into consideration for furture projects.

My wonderful disaster with Pinhole cameras

2007-10-08T03:45:00.000-07:00

Hey there guys and girls, my 1st post... scary! Well to the point heres my attempt of using a Pinhole camera, hope you enjoy it

There were one or two others that were taken, however I have somhow managed to misplace them somewhere. I thought the photo was not too bad, but i did ruin it by putting all my fingerprints over it. If you can't see it too well, its a picture of our wonderful building Waverley. I don't know how but the picture seems really dark compared to the others I took which seemed overly bright which was kinda weird. Well thats me pretty much for today's post, til next time. Oh! I'm Jason by the way, nice to meet you ^_^