Interactive Narrative

My interactive narrative is now complete.

I have uploaded it to deviant art and you can play the game yourself by clicking the link below.

The idea of the game is that you are trying to find your way back home and are being chased by a local gang.

The soundtrack for the game is also completely made by myself.

Enjoy.

The Radford Rudeboys by ~Woody7Figure on deviantART

P.S. - My one shot film is finished, but im having a few problems with uploading it to YouTube as the file size is huge and its taking way too long.

Light and Colour

"The Cloud of Unknowing" - Richard Kenton Webb

The painting I will be talking about is entitled The Cloud of Unknowing, and it was painted by Richard Kenton Webb. The thing that first struck me about this piece is the amazing amount of detail contained in the centre section of the painting. This detail then fades out and goes into an outline of the cliffs. 

Kenton Webb has used light extremely well within this painting in order to focus the detail in the centre section running horizontally through the piece. Having the cliffs as a dark strip allows him to use lighter colours to create a high amount of photo-realistic detail. 

The light colours used in the sky of the painting contrast extremely well with the dark colours used in the cliffs. This adds effect to the piece and is also another way of focusing the viewers attention on the detailed parts of the work. 

Light has been used in a very effective way in the sky, by using light colours at the top of the cliffs and making the sky get darker the further out you look, it creates the effect of a sunset, this makes the piece more interesting and gives the viewer something interesting to take in.

Colour Replacement

Above are the two colour replacement photographs I did in Photoshop.

Update

Not posted for a while as I've been doing numerous different things.

Mainly I have been ill and spent the majority of the weekend back at home coughing and with a bad throat which wasn't great. I also forgot my laptop which made the weekend pretty boring.

On the work side of things I've been trying to write a script which isn't as easy as it looks, and in about 15mins I'm off out to attempt some filming with my group.

Nice.

One Shot Film - Writing.

So today I've been doing the task of writing a script for my groups one shot film. Our film is going to be set in a sort of restaurant type place, and the idea of the film is a comedy sketch, based on speed dating. 

Doing this will allow us to bring lots of different characters into the film in a short space of time, and with only one person in front of camera for the whole time it means we wont have to come up with lots of ridiculous costumes for the people to wear. Having only the person who is in front of the camera being able to see the people they are dating means that we can add in audio over the top where they are thinking in their head about what the person looks like. This allows us to create a costume, without actually wearing one.

So now I will begin writing my script, something which I have never done before so am not expecting to be amazing!

Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds is a rule which is used to aid the composition of photography, painting, and other visual arts. The rule states that an image can easily be split up into 9 equal sized sections via the use of two evenly spaced vertical lines, and two evenly spaced horizontal lines. 

When these lines are put onto an image it creates four points around the middle section of the picture. These are used to align features of the image, for example the trunk of a tree could be positioned on the right hand line of the two vertical ones. 

It has been said that using this technique creates a better composition and gives the picture more energy than simply positioning the main thing in the middle of the composition.

When using this technique the horizon line generally is in line with the top or bottom horizontal line and other parts of the landscape, for example trees are lined up with the two vertical lines. Doing this makes the image more aesthetically pleasing. 

Reference; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds

My camera/ video recorder has been playing up this week so unless it fixes itself during the day then my video wont be up for another few days.

Pixilation Final

Below is my final pixilation piece. The idea of the video is to show different sporting activities, for example, long jump, and relay. 

The soundtrack for the video was also entirely created by me using my trusty midi keyboard and various computer programs. Enjoy!

Design of Items

The item I am going to be talking about is my MacBook laptop. When I bought this laptop it was primarily for the fact I knew the type of programs I would be running on it, such as Photoshop, and different pieces of music software, such as Reason, Recycle, and Soundforge, would be much more responsive on an Apple laptop. I've had problems for years with Windows PC's where they would randomly shut down or crash at just the wrong moment which would cause me to loose music, work, or other important things. 

When buying my MacBook however, I was also swayed by the look of it. The design is superb and the laptop just seems to fit together nicely. It a perfect size where it's neither too small, nor too big. It also comes with some extremely good built in technology such as the camera, and the bluetooth function which allows me to easily transfer files between my phone and laptop. 

People are generally willing to pay for things in attractive forms because the newer devices always seem to have more functionality built in. Take touch screen mobiles for example, some of them do exactly the same as mobiles without touch screens, but people are still prepared to pay more just because instead of pressing a button, they can touch a screen which is a new technology most people haven't had the chance to try. 

The Future of Sat Nav

In light of the award just picked up by British company SciTech, i thought it would be appropriate for me to look at the future of the Satellite Navigation. The competition they won shows appreciation for the smaller scale businesses which make use of the Galileo satellite positioning system. 

Galileo is a fairly new project and was designed to outperform the current systems in operation as it covers a larger range and is more accurate.

When someone mentions sat-nav, the first thing people think of is a box which you put in your car which tells you directions from one place to another. This is the most common use of the system and the European Satellite Navigation Competition seeks to find new and innovative methods of using the Galileo system. 

During the past six months the use of satellite navigation systems within peoples cars has dramatically risen and now a significant amount of people own one. Personally I think the idea of branching out into different areas which put the satellite navigation to use is a brilliant idea and it can be used for many different things.

The winning team in the competition had created a system which is put into a lifejacket. Once the lifejacket is inflated the system automatically turns on and it allows the people to be located. It also includes a communication system which allows the person to then talk to someone to give them even more details about their location. The unique thing about this system as opposed to other similar products available, is that it will be able to show the exact location of the person in the water, whereas previously it could only be seen where they left the boat and entered the water.

A similar product to this on the market is one which is used for diabetic people. It’s an ‘auto injecting’ pen which is used after the patient has suffered an anaphylactic shock, fitted with a sat nav device which informs a local center via a mobile phone network which then allows them to get instant medical attention.

In the future of satellite devices I can envisage them being placed into humans in a ‘Big Brother’ manner which will allow people to be located at all times. It could be used as an alternative to having an electronic tag on a criminals leg, it could be placed inside them and this means they would not be able to remove it easily. They could also place the device inside criminals released from jail so the police can track them at all times.

Reference; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7684027.stm

Inspiration

Below is a video which I have used as inspiration for the latest project. It's a music video for the song 'No Good' by Plan B.

The video uses the same process which I will be using and is a useful source and in my opinion an extremely good music video for a great tune.

Pixilation

During the session last friday we were set the task of taking pictures in order to create a pixelation clip, which is basically the animation of a real thing, for example a human. I haven't really done anything like this before and it was interesting to see how the pictures turned out. We ended up taking around 400 pictures in an hour and a half in order to get some sort of idea where I wanted this task to go. None of us really had any ideas about what could be included in the pictures but eventually we came up with the idea of a sort of 'fun olympic games' with a few different events. I like the idea and the pictures look quite good. This week I have been taking more photos and trying to come up with a title screen for the images. 

Also I have been thinking about what music could be used for the soundtrack, as music production is one of my main hobbies I've started making a few different backing tracks which could be used.

If anyone feels like a listen to my own music then they can check it out at;

http://www.myspace.com/w7f

Feedback is always appreciated.

Whiteboard Animation

One of the tasks from the two induction days was to create a short animation clip using board markers and a whiteboard, the video below shows the edited version of all of the groups animations;

I was quite pleased with how my groups animation turned out and I don't think it was a bad effort for saying I have never done anything like this before. I was impressed with some of the other groups animations, and from the quality of some of them it was evident that some people have alot of experience in this area.

First Lecture

Today I had my first lecture of the course, and was something I had been preparing for since I accepted the offer to study Multimedia at Nottingham Trent. It wasn't a great start when I realized I had walked to the wrong building but eventually I made my way to the right place and arrived on time. 

During the lecture we were told how to successfully complete the course and we were also given a little information about the essays and things we would be doing this year. It was a fairly interactive lecture which gave us opportunities to walk around and talk to other students and discuss different set questions. This made the lecture a fun and enjoyable experience.

First Week

What Did I Do On The First Week?

This week I have been exploring different parts of the University and the City. I have been trying to work my way around as many of the 'Welcome Week' events as possible in order to gain an understanding of what University life is all about.

What Do I Want to Get Out of The Course?

Through the Multimedia course I hope to gain a better understanding of certain creative arts. I also hope to be able to bring some of my musical production abilities into my work possibly through the use of soundtracks. Web Design is also something I have always been interested in and I hope through this course I can further my understanding of it and also gain new skills which can be used once the course has been completed.