Jammi_Fox's World

New blog

2010-04-16T07:17:00.001-07:00

Moved to mitzymouse.wordpress.com for a fresh start

Friday 12/03/10

2010-03-12T08:42:00.000-08:00

I've just left my lecture and realised I forgot to sign the register/anything like that so making a note here that I was there and that I made my ERD and did logins and sessions :)

Here's my ERD for the concert venue before I lose it...

Bandname 1-N reviews
type
music
M

1
Concert
Name
date
time
price
1

N
customer
id
name
concerts booked
password
1

N
reviews
customer id
band
date
time
rating

I've decided it would be easier to use paper next time.

I've also decided to use this blog a bit more since I'm oh-so-terrible at keeping it updated.
Now to get back to work on this website... screeshots to come soon hopefully!

Task 12

2010-02-10T16:17:00.000-08:00

Using the Iomega site as an example;

I noticed that they used a lot of white space, which gave it a calm and clear atmosphere.
They used a red colour, which isn't particularly calm but it gives it a signature look, whilst retaining professionalism.
It's simple to understand and take in in one glance.
Bold and subtle at the same time. Very clear-cut, but using colours that go together well (for example- standard white and the gradient gray)
Easy navigation and informative bites of text. Very spread-out.

The designer's style seemed to be going for simple and elegant theme. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the designer's name to compare against his or her other work. Iomega did, however, appear to employ several web designers for different aspects of their work (for example Ben Peck and Dean Sawyer).

Website Update

2009-11-26T17:12:00.000-08:00

I've now decided on what looks to be a final design of the webpage, but that means there will probably be many redesigns in the future :)

After a lot of deliberation, I've decided to cut a lot of the initial wireframe and go for more simplicity as the wireframe looked too cluttered and out of place.

Set up all of the pages needed and the initial CSS style sheet. Now making sure I know how to make the javascript I've chosen and get down to it!!

Since I've never made a website before, it looks too amatuerish to me, but I need to take some pictures of Sherwood to add and then it will hopefully look more satisfactory.

Unfortunately since I don't find myself getting along with David's lectures and because of what seems to be illness after illness, I'm distracted by the worry that I'll get kicked out before I get it done. Now that I'm all better now, I guess I'll just have to attend as much of the others as I can...

Colour wheel 2

2009-11-13T02:52:00.000-08:00

BBC logo colour changed to reflect other effects it may have.

http://http//www.artyfactory.com/color_theory/images/colours/colour_wheel.gif

Colour wheel

2009-11-13T02:34:00.000-08:00

Colours are an important factor in logo design and implementation. Cooler colours, (e.g. blues and greens) have a more calming effect than the more vibrant (reds and oranges) colours. This should be taken into account when designing a logo.

For companies whose target audience are the younger generations, it is often found that they choose brighter, sharper colours. To appeal to younger children, many bright colours are often used to be eye catching and interesting. For older kids and teens, red is a common colour as it's edgy, vibrant and has an impact that gets adrenaline going. It's associated with people who are outgoing and popular; people that teens want to be-- and by using the brand that the logo represents-- become.

Greens and blues are more common for informative and conservative sites and products, green especially used by companies who want to appear "green" and good for the world.

Colours therefore have an impact on how people perceive things and would perceive a company or a product. This is what spurrs companies to not change their entire logo but only the colours (for example, Apple's famous logo; an apple with a bite taken out of it, but has had many colours over the years, starting with a rainbow stripe effect.)

Wireframe

2009-11-06T02:58:00.001-08:00

Current wireframe for December's exploring multimedia project

Moodboard

2009-02-05T16:58:00.000-08:00

Oops, almost forgot to upload this. I'm going for a very steampunk/victorian-esque feel to it, I think...

Identities, some more

2009-01-12T14:11:00.000-08:00

Identities online are strange in the way that it's a completely different environment to real life interaction.

I'm more used to it than a lot of people, and I still don't particularly like games like Second Life. I personally prefer more constructive interactions, again without the issue of navigating a character that has a particular appearance. Some bad experiences with it include: cyber stalking. Which is as creepy online as it is in real life. Except that they're chasing after a digital 'skirt'. This is a somewhat disturbing aspect of what I mentioned before- the release of inhibitions in an online environment.

Very scary stuff. Thus is life, though, I suppose.

I'm in the process of redesigning my 5 year old 'identity' for use in several new story concepts and also for this upcoming project. Updates are frequent- every couple of months to once a year- to reinfluence the design to how I am, what I'm wearing, what styles I'm into- etc, etc. One of my favourite past times when I have no other inspirations, I guess. I'll upload some sketches that I've had bouncing around my head soon.

Also a new character has been designed, who I'm quite proud of. I may use him in a project, or a personal project soon.

I've actually got a story idea for him- a look into stereotypes and how they can affect real life, as he's particularly guilty of this trait. It should be interesting. He needs more development, as do the other characters, but that should be fun. Sketching out his first few interactions with them right about now.

Inspirations right now are House (into the medical drama sort of thing. Unfortunately it gets repetitive, so one episode lasts for a long while of inspiration) and artistically;
Jakuu, Homoshiroi, NeonDragon, Shilin and Unknown-Person

Musically? I have no clue. Really need to find something new to really get motivated.

That's all for now.

Journal Task

2009-01-04T10:21:00.000-08:00

Played Second life a bit more, and have had several interactions with other users. Received items, such as a "vampire bite" that had the interesting effect of causing you to appear dead for a while... the chat system is alright, but a bit confusing because you sometimes don't know if someone's talking to you or to someone nearby.

Here are some screenshots of my developing character, including the interesting one where I lost my avatar's hair. :)

This isn't really new to me, since I've already designed my avatar to use in virtual realities, so I basically modelled this version on her already.

The way I see it is that your (or my) avatar is whatever you want it to be. It's how you see yourself in a way, because it will be the representative for what you say. It allows you to be how you feel inside without the restrictions of how you actually look. It's unique to the online world, where you're protected with anonymity. This is seen frequently in psychological studies where people in groups, or online, behave more aggressive because they are not 'them', have no background or reputation and there are, essentially, no consequences to their actions. Many believe this is because anonymity causes people to become more aggressive. I believe that this is not the case and that people feel freer to do what they please. I suppose what you could say is that the worst that could happen is that you get banned from a particular website, game or forum. Or rather, that your one (of many possible) identity(/ies) is banned, leaving you free to ignore it and move on or try again. This is the same in that your virtual self can live out how you really want to be without the threat of losing your job, your reputation or even death in some cases. There is a safety aspect, which is quite sad as it shows how honesty in society isn't valued as much as fitting in would be.

This is why identities are important in media such as games and online worlds, however, because now it can be our only outlet and true representation if we want to be completely socially accepted.

Identities- Second Life

2008-12-29T08:04:00.000-08:00

Excuse the absence from the internet and life in general; I've been down with a particularly nasty case of flu over christmas... Anyhow, onto my journal assignment progress.

I briefly forayed into the world of Second Life before now and was not particularly enthused, but decided to give it a second chance.

Unfortunately, not much seems to have changed. My issue with the game is that it is 'not bad', but ultimately 'not good' either. It's just alright. A couple of weeks in, and I've only been able to stomach getting past the tutorial section and another area (Korea).

The character design aspects are similar but inferior to games such as Sims2, although this is probably linked to the bandwidth and internet speed restrictions. The more graphics required (a LOT are required in sims2 to lag a new computer), the slower it will be and for an online virtual reality, this is impossible. However, I found it unappealing, possibly due to my experiences of better. I was about to start screenshotting my game, that is, until I accidentally lost my character's hair. I'll try and get that back and resume shooting.

I found the interactivity with other residents was about average. Being what I consider an internet resident, I found it no different to what you can get on, for example, DeviantArt (on which I already have my own avatar to represent me on the internet).

The only somewhat different aspect that I found amusing were the combination of the game and communication aspects, and the ability to 'fly' to different locations. Aside from that, it really did not seem any different and had an almost unwelcome intrusion to have to be regarded physically before actual intellectual communication could take place. On internet forums and 'chats', this can take place based on skill, intelligence and friendliness-- and not who appears to have a 'cute' avatar.

The avatars, I find, are much more fun after you've spoken to people first.

Overall; I was not impressed and did not find SecondLife fun or even tempting to go back to.

Final Animation (Interactive)

2008-12-14T09:08:00.000-08:00

Animation Link from DeviantArt

This is it.

A few words about it? Difficult to do at first until I figured out a bit about actionscript- the tutorials were more confusing than anything... Otherwise it was extremely fun to do. It could do with a preloader but the one I cam up with didn't work so I ended up omitting it in favour of catching the deadline. It wasn't my original idea so I chose to do a much simpler version. It's not too much of a loss, I don't think. I'll just attempt my other version when I don't have a deadline to meet.

The music was a nightmare. Trying to get more than one track to work at a time seemed impossible, so I haven't worked that one out yet. I wanted to use a separate track for each introduction of each character to give an added dimension to them, but what ended up happening was all of the tracks played at once or all of them stopped. So I just chose to have the one track throughout the entire animation. It seemed to work.

The only other thing I was disappointed with was the compression quality of the sketches as I transferred them over to flash- they didn't seem as sharp as I wanted them to be and were somewhat blurry. I guess I should have used a higher resolution and will try that next time.

Oneshot

2008-11-26T16:49:00.000-08:00

Well, here it finally is. I'm quite happy with how it actually turned out!

Figuring Light

2008-11-23T15:05:00.000-08:00

A piece by Rebecca Partridge, seen in the Djanogly Art Exhibition, Lakeside.
Although I don't know the name of this particular piece, it is one of the few that I particularly liked at the exhibition. The use of light is peculiar in the sense that the smaller shapes have dark, contrasting colours (such as red and green, for example) and appear further away due to it looking shadowed, when compared to the forefront shapes. These new shapes are light, pastel colours and appear almost translucent, but also use contrasting colours. This gives the unusual effect of the shapes passing through the viewer and therefore creating an ambulatory effect, unusual for a 2D painting.

In fact, these shapes form 3D cubes by lighting and use of different types of colour alone. The colours are stark, which provides the impression that there is harsh lighting coming from one direction (a warmer colour, closer to the red spectrum) and shadow, in another (a cooler colour, closer to the blue spectrum). The use of contrasting colours, therefore, gives the impression of harsh lighting because each colour is so close to its respective end of the spectrum. However, just to confuse things, some shapes also use harmonious colour schemes to create a similar effect, only lacking in the definite dynamic of stark light.

Of course, all effects used are amplified by the fact that the background is pure white, thus making all colour stand out.

Originals

I chose green originally to create a different world-y feeling for an area that's so commonly seen. The effect it gave was a sort of high-contrast, almost LED-lit effect that seems to fit a science fiction movie. The green highlights the lighter colours and darkens the shadows, creating a lit "grunge" effect on the much darker areas such as the door.

The purple picture is entirely the opposite as it is closer to the blue spectrum and purple is considered to lend a dream-like quality. The lighting around the edges is tinged darker, so there's a greater contrast. This allows a sort of tunnel vision effect. The high intensity of the light hitting the wall is a sharp white, and this causes a steep gradiation in colour towards the outer edges from the centre. The combination of the angle of the shot (looking upwards) and the tunnel vision and vivid tinting creates the feeling of helplessless as you're pulled along in a dream like sequence.

One shot film

2008-11-19T16:11:00.000-08:00

After many difficulties, it looks like my group film will not go underway, but I'll be spending the next few days working on my own separate version. At the moment I have several ideas which need to be further formulated to be usable and have only just decided to go it alone, finally.

My ideas include the typical response to hearing about a "meeting", such as business or board meeting to discuss some situation. I thought a good camera effect would be to zoom in for a dramatic moment, to focus the audience's attention on the main aspect...

But on the other hand, I feel that this is too cliche and 'undercooked'. I then started looking at ideas that involved alternate meanings for "meetings" and I'll have to see where that takes me. Using a one-action film, however, the scene would be limited to expressing one feeling... or so I think right now. With a bit more experimentation with lighting, I might be able to convey more than that, but not go too over the top like some of the older movies seen in the last narratives lecture (13/11/2008) ... I was thinking some colour replacement techniques.

As for roles, since I'm doing this solo, I will need to recruit some volunteers to be actors for me by this weekend. If not, then I'll have to try and do everyone with one or two people. This could be quite a challenge. If I fail, however, Daryl's offered to give me a copy of the footage they took.

Multimedia Pixelation Project

2008-11-04T09:38:00.000-08:00

After much trial and error, here is the version I decided to go with... that would finally load. Haha.

After remaking it three times that is. The joys of technology can be easily outweighed by the problems it produces.

As I said, not exactly how I wanted it to turn out (my original idea was that much simpler but it required knowledge that I'm gaining now to implement in the first place) but also a lot better than I originally expected it to. I liked the candles idea, and the fact that I could replace any item at will, but I think I should have been more bold about it. I think I'll do some seperate experimentation and see how this goes.

Pixelation Project

2008-11-03T18:04:00.000-08:00

My first project is fun, but it isn't really going so well.

My original idea came from a dream which featured candles that moved on their own in a somewhat "Fantasia"-esque sequence. This idea adapted with some inspiration from other stop motion animation sequences, such as Human Tetris and another few which I have the misfortune of forgetting the names of.

I decided to do this second one because I wasn't really satisfied with the group one, but I'm not really satisfied with either. It may be down to a lack of confidence with using photography or implementing ideas using my surroundings... it's all so new, and it feels like everyone's already ahead of me.

My animation is too short so I might try to add more shots to it, and it was never supposed to have any real story-sequence to it, so it was a little bit random. It was meant to feel almost like some sort of surreal magic trick, but I also wanted to implement the idea that I could switch any item at will with something else; something that is unique to stop motion animation. The switch could theoretically become flawless, but I don't think I have achieved that either.

Over all, my project isn't quite finished and I think that the end result is that it's heading towards something being more "pretty" than substantial. This is something that I want to work on, but the option to go for the more complex and mind boggling storylines still prevails...

On the other hand, I do like it in a way. It is something different and new and for a first attempt, I find it relatively impressive. I would like to try this again sometime, this time with more experience behind me.

Online Journal Task 2

2008-11-03T17:44:00.000-08:00

HP Pavilion DV thousand series. Marvels of design and technology combined into a sleek and (very) functional machine. My personal favourite, even though the one in picture isn't my model... mine is slightly newer

1) Why is it that we want our belongings to do more for us than function well?

Our belongings are statements about ourselves. Whatever we have is a display of how we think, how we feel, how we've felt and who we are at the time of purchase. Sometimes they have no relevance, but it's unlikely. No one who has the available resources would buy something that they think looks bad, because it would reflect themselves negatively and would make them feel negatively about themselves.

Each object is a display of someone's creativity and ingenuity that appeals to each of us, some more than others. We want our belongings to do more for us, because it is this that we have come to expect; that our belongings will represent the kind of person we are, by being what we like.

2) Why are we willing, as soon as we can afford it, to pay extra for things with appealing forms?

As stated in the above answer, our belongings represent our identities and who we think we are. Items with appealing forms are luxuries in the sense that not only do they function well, but they also have a psychological impact on ourselves and on those around us. An item that is both beautiful and functional is a sign that the user can be respected and can be a mark of status or power, whether it is academic, hierarchical or even simply the level of identity awareness that the individual possesses.

Questions

2008-10-07T04:29:00.000-07:00

What do you want to get out of the course in addition to passing?

I want to gain confidence in my abilities and finally use what I considered a hobby as... something but a hobby. With some authentic experience. For once.

What did you get up to in the first week?

Not that much yet. I'll get back to you at the end of that :)