201 Hand In

I have now handed in my 201 project, a day early might I add… I will post the video up onto Youtube when I have shown it to the others on my course.

Titles explained

I never intended the animation to have these pausing moments, when I was playing around with the clips I thought that this slowed the flow of the animation in a benificial way. So, I have included lots of breaks in the animation, this is to give the story a little more narrative. The animation now takes the viewer on a pleasant emotional story which hopefully grasps the users attention a little more.

Feedback on 1st draft from Katina

With the animation into its final stages of completion, I recieved positive feedback from Katina, I was advised to slow a few things down and make some scenes a little shorter. I was glad it was only minor adjustments which were carried out earlier today.

Eden Project Feedback

Today we received feedback about the facebook application, to which they liked it. We still need to get the Flash sent to them, the AI needs tweeking Aqeel says that Mike is sorting that out. Hopefully we will find out if we can use this project as a part of Hugo’s module for the 2nd term. The project entails making something for the Eden Project anyways and then they will choose the best one out of the groups, essentially we have done this and completed it in a very professional manner dealing with the clients needs on a one-to-one basis.

Feedback 201

This morning after I handed my essay in I was able to show my animation to a few frineds from university. All postive feedback and nothing was said like ‘Oh, you should have done this…’ etc. I’m happy with the two renders that I have produce everyone prefered the one with more sounds, although the music is powerful enough to carry the animation through without any sounds.

I will shouw these both to Katina later this afternoon and hopefully she can advise me what changes to make if any need to be done. All in all i’m very happy with the outcome, and I think the mixed media works well together.

Storyboards will be posted soon.

Essay hand in

Well I handed my first essay of the year in today, now I can get started on the second part of it which shouldn’t take to long hopefully. One minor problem is the structure of the lectures, the more useful lectures seemed to be delivered when we needed them most. Apart from that everything is good.

Editing Screenshot

Here is an image of me using Adobe Premier CS3:

Animation Finished!

Well today i’ve been a busy bee. After trying out a plethora of different sounds I have come up with two versions of the animation, the video is the same but the sound on both are slightly different. I’m a little undecided on which to choose so I will take them both tomorrow and show some of the guys in University tomorrow. Katina might get a peek aswell. Although, the AI part of the Eden Edge Project isn’t working very well. The rest of the group are upset because we didnt really have any control over that part and now that is hindering us finishing it as soon as possible for Howard.

On to finishing off the essay… It’s done just needs proof read again.

Reminders for IDAT201

Sounds I will need for the animation:

 aircraft
 walking robot
 aerobics/daft punk
 robotic movements
 whiring noise
 going through the roof noise
 wind flapping
 helicopter
 clock ticking
 car noises

 Music for dancing:

  Daft Punk – One More Time
    Around The World
  

Main Theme Music:
                             Curse of the Golden Flower –  Theme of the Empress
                                       Again
                                       Mother & Jai
                                       Fight of the Sickle Troops
                                       Wan’s Last Moment
                                       Curse of the Golder Flower
                                       Ending Title(Near the End)

The Eden Project LIVE!

The Eden Edge Project that we have been developing has now gone live, the facebook app is now up and running and the voting begins on monday.

Check out the Flash App now:

http://i-dat-fusion.plymouth.ac.uk/sites/theedge/www/

Titles for Animation

Now that the animation is pretty much complete I have the luxury of adding in some decent titles into the animation. The animation is around 2 minutes long, this is without intro and credits.

To make the titles fit with what I have done i’ll try and explain my thoughts behind it: the reason I have chosen the chinese symbol for love is that in general robots and most electricals good are made in china… also to fit with the eastern music aswell I feel this is appropriate… thats the link.

Colours, again relating to my thoughts in my sketch book, the colour red has meaning for British people (Danger), Chinese people (Luck) and I can assume robots with emotion. In general red is a colour of danger, it is used on most technical applicances to make the user aware that something is dangerous.

Using more titles on the animation can give me a little bit more narrative as the clip has no reference to the english language.

Todays happenings…

Well today we had another HCI practical, a good one at that! We also got an extension on our essay because of the whole Eden Edge thing, John was very helpful. We then went to PSQ to work on the Flash side of the Edge Project. It’s looking amazing! Just need to get the AI sorted, this area is still a bit unclear and with some people saying they will help then spring stuff on us isn’t really helping.

We have loads of deadlines… an exam tomorrow, the essay was to be in on friday but now its Monday for us 6 and then Katina’s animation project next thursday. I know some of the guys in our group are struggling, I say struggling I mean just have left the essay a bit late, i’ve finished the essay and have done katina’s animation so i’m in a fairly comfortable position and I’m making lots of progress.

Sound For IDAT Animation

So, I’ve been looking at sounds for my animation. I needed some sort of starting point and inspiration so instead of watching endless movies like Robocop or Robots, I decided to have a browse on Youtube:

Bjork – All Is Full Of Love.

Robocop.

Another very good website is FlashKit.com, this site provides alot of todays online content with regards to sound. The sound libraries are free to use, I think this will be the best place to look for sounds. But, if I can use sounds from a movie then that will also work the only problem would be the background noise/music i.e. robocop has a low music track playing under most of the film.

IDAT Animation Project

The last scene is now ready to be rendered. I will be scanning in my workbook to get my sketches and thoughts onto digital form. The project will be in the position by tomorrow to be compiled in Adobe Premier. I aim to have it finished by the weekend, balancing time between animation, essay and the Eden Edge project are all time consuming projects, which i’m thoroughly enjoying.

The animation will hopefully last more than the time given, then by the time I have added the title sequence and the end credits. It should take the overall time upto about 2 minutes. Last week Katina mentioned about adding more hidden dialog, the casablanca part in the last entry… I have been looking for appropriate sounds which i think will fit, the only real issue is the musical piece that I have chosen to lay over the animation, the piece is somber about love and lust. With the sounds of mechnical robots walking I feel it might detract from the moving composition by Tan Dun.

I have deliberately left the sounds till the end, I realised when I chose this style of animation that the sounds would be the most difficult to do because of the context that i’m placing the robots in. I will wait until I am happy with the final composition before laying down the sounds.

Main theme for Animation

I’ve been thinking of appropriate music to play along the entire animation, here is what I quickly came up with while in work. I think that these choices are perfect for the mood the a need to create.

Meeting with Howard

 Howard Jones meet up with us today, I initially thought he was here to give us an ear bashing because of the vagueness of our output. But, we managed to win him over and he loved our ideas. We explained that we have loads of deadlines when he wants this ready. Aqeel explained that the facebook was near completion and our ideas towards the flash site. The AI was my main concern, I have never really worked with it before. It will be a challenge but i’m sure we will pull through nicely.

Animation update

Had a brief chat to Katina about my animation, I’ve shown her some samples of what i’ve done so far. I recieved very useful tips… try and add a bit more depth i.e hidden background, for exmaple, casablanca where the lights on the actors face presumes that he is in a bar outside near a road. Also, think about sounds, if i can make a car drive past make the lights move across the figure with some sound.

I’ll keep thinking of nice little touches that I can add to the animation, I want to give the characters a good sense of realism and make the background have a sense of life. Maybe I could ass bird sounds, traffic, planes flying over or just gereral country life.

Breaking into the Media

Today we had a lecture structured open day, where every hour we had a panel of 5 or 6 people and they came in and spoke about there experiences and how they got to where they are now. John Lilley from the BBC, Shireen Ward from TwoFour, Bill Martin Editor of The Herald, Pippa Quelch from BBC Radio Devon, Bernie Schaeffer from TwoFour, Dimitri Houtart from the BBC and Peter Griffin from Westcountry News. THese were the ones that impressed me most and came across in a very professional manner.

When I was sitting there I was determinded to get a contact, so, I hurried over to Bernie Schaeffer and asked about applying for placements and work experience etc he gave me his e-mail address and I was told to contact him and he would be more than happy to help me out.

Bernies’ area of expertise is very much like mine, the only difference is I am not 100% sure in which direction I would love to go, I asked him about the showreel he created andwhat I could put in mine.

Essay update

Well I have now starting writing my essay, iphone and multi touch malarky etc etc…
Rendering is bobbing along nicely just need to animate one more part me thinks then I can start assembling it in Premier.

Direct Manipulation

Definition:
Visual Model of the world
Visual objects that can be operated on
Results of actions are reflected in the objects immediately.
Objects, once operated on, can be further operated on.
Term coined by Ben Shneiderman
Original system: Sketchpad from 1962
“Object-oriented” from user’s point of view
As opposed to “function-oriented”
Usually select object, then give command
Hollan argues this user feel more important to DM than Shneiderman’s methods
Pros and cons:
+ User initiated
+ Easy to learn, intuitive, analogical
+ Fast to use for object that are on the display
+ Easily augmented with menus and forms
+ Provides closure of actions and gesture.
+ Errors can be avoided.
+ High subjective satisfaction (fun).
- Can be inconvenient and slow if user knows the name of an undisplayed object, but must find it anyway.
- Limited power; not all desired actions have a DM analog.
- Difficult to provide macros, other user extensible/customizable features.
- Difficult to implement.