Day out

We went to a university career's fair at Bradford, something free for a change. The stalls were quite frankly rubbish but that was compensated with free pencils. (Well I was told they were free) We then went to a lecture only because that was the only thing going that resembled any relevance to our course. But the lecture was seen as an necessity to waste time for the workshop. But the lecture it's self was interesting one of the lecturers from "Pipeline Productions", "Phillip Charles" was interesting as a person and gave good advice if I were thinking of becoming a rapper, he had a weird obsession with a Rubik cube, but maybe that was his way of focus. Which the next lecturer "Amy Hield" needed, as she seemed nervous, but I don't think that affected her performance as either way it was terrible, I just don't think she was prepared for the presentation.
http://www.pipelineproductions.co.uk/

We were a team of three which compiled of humans, Steven, Luke and yours truly who was the brains of the operation. Our idea was to create a set of two characters that would interact with each other, because we wanted to achieve a humours effect urine was present.As you can see there were good times because of the involvement of Play dough, and the mention of a 25 quid prize. The objective was to create a claymation production using stop motion something I'm familiar with. We only had 50 minutes to compile a short production, but with money in the mix we had the motive. We were spilt into 4 teams of three's and four and with the help of "Rozi Fuller" and "Bill Beaumont" From "Distant Future" who were running this workshop. We were entrusted with cameras and laptops to allow the completion of the claymation. The software used was interchangeable from "Monkey Jam" to "Adobe Flash", which I stuck with Flash only because I was familiar with the software and Monkey Jam was really just a really limited version of Flash, but it is free to download. http://www.distantfuture.co.uk/
http://www.rozifuller.co.uk/

Using Flash we imported images and sound and this is our groups final achievement I exported it as a GIF but below is what we completed in the given time, but with no time to remove the pen.

So a good day all together, and a excuse for a McDonald's.

Undated 24th March
Just to let everyone know our team won the prize money of £8.33 each in real cash. and was spent on food, naturally.

Another Evaluation

Unit 63 assignment 4 LO4 - Reflect upon own web animation work

In this project I was instructed to create a web based animation for a company of my choice, which I eventualy chose the Limited company 'Studio Deen', who produce and out source Japanese Anime.I began this project by researching actionscripts for use in Adobe Flash, after getting a basic understanding of how actionscripts work, I browsed the Internet for already configured actionscripts to use for my animation, while planning I had originally thought everything out, but like always nothing went to plan, because I ran in to problems at every step. My original plan was to create a series of puzzle games connected though a leveling system and include a platform to make my game more appealing to my audiance. I new this wouldn't be easy, but even with tutorials and completed actionscripts the completion of a fully functional platform would take too much time for me to finish. I decided to stick with the idea of having a couple of easy to make puzzle games connected by a menu instead of my previous leveling idea. I didn't use most of my concept images because I believed them to look unprofessional and thought I could do a better job second time round. Although I did keep the original title name of "Puzzle Parody" and the start screen image which I edited. (See Below) The creation of most of my graphics were done in Adobe Photoshop including the buttons on the menu, the backgrounds were completed using default ASL styles in Photoshop, the images were found on the Internet and then I used a layer effect "Bevel and Emboss" to make the images look 3D.

Sources;
Pikachu : http://www.pokemon-pearl-diamond.com/characters/pikachu.jpg
Frog : http://www.davinasteel.com/gallery/portfolio%20frog.jpg

Text was also imported to give the buttons an authentic look, the Studio Deen avatar pictured at the top was used consistently, apart from the button I used it as a background for one of my games and also in my visual themes, which I used in my main game. As you can see the three buttons were imported into flash along with my other title screen which was completely original, I used Flash to fade the title in and out and then fade in the menu, the buttons were then connected to there respective games via action scripts. My main game is shown by the size of the button as it is bigger than the others. The main game has more interactivity as it was constructed using Actionscript 3 which allows you to do more while the other two were created using Actionscript 2 which is more restricted with its effects. The first game which I named "Space Frog", this animation is more of an interactive animation rather than a game, it is a continuous interaction with a Space Invader like actionscript which instead of a spaceship has a frog and smaller frogs that represent enemies. The frogs were created in Photoshop using simple 2D shapes and colour fills, which were then imported to Flash and made into Movie Clips. The Second game named "Pikachu Maze Game" which is basically a maze but if you were to go out of you would be brought to the beginning, the avatar is a GIF, which is controlled by the arrow keys. There really isn't a end but I think it is enjoyable. The thrid and final game is my main game with a theme which is associated with Studio Deen the animation is an avoidance game while the enemy, avatar, and backgrounds had anime characters that were produced by Studio Deen.

This image was used as a animated clock on the bottom right of the game screen, it is from the Japanese anime Hell Girl. Studio Deen were the Animation Producers. Source: http://www.seeklogo.com/images/H/Hell_Girl_fire_symbol-logo-A76EC49CC0-seeklogo.com.gif

This is the avatar used in my main game and is one of the main protagonists named Sachiko Ogasawara from the anime Maria-Sama Ga Miteru. Studio Deen were the animators. Source: http://yasashiisekai.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/sei-yumi-sachiko.jpg

This image is the head of Bomberman, who plays the enemy of my game. Studio Deen were the Animation Producers. Source: http://i.neoseeker.com/p/Games/Playstation/Classic_&_Puzzle/Puzzle_Games/bomberman_pe_profilelarge.jpg

I think I managed my time efficiently, as at first I had planned everything out, so my previous problem was then addressed. My time was spilt into fours sections as pictured. (below)

The creation stage was also split into sections, which included three stages the editing and creation of images in Photoshop the importing and arrangement in Flash and finally the writing of actionscripts.

My audience is a Japanese audience that enjoy anime, I believe that because I have Incorporated a lot of anime characters and themes, so I know it is appropriate, and therefore hope to attract my intended audience, which tents to be a young male audience.

I came across a lot of difficulties which included the actual upload of my finished animation, because the completed animation contained 24 files; 4 Swf files, 2 MP3s and 18 AS files this was a problem as all files had to be together for the game to work, but it was hard to find the right site to upload all files that allow them to communicate with each other, but after a while I did manage to find a site to upload the animation, Find it here at; http://Helix.fileave.com/GameMenu.swf

Another one of my problems happened earlier on in the creation of the game, I didn't know how to connect my main game to my menu because actionscript 3 worked differently than actionscript 2. In the end I didn't find out how to do it in time for the assessment but will complete it down the line.

My inspiration for this project came from "Studio Deen" as there site didn't have really any interactivity apart from the menu, but being a follower and admirer of there work I decided to make this the company to base my game on. http://www.deen.co.jp/

Another thing that inspired me was the art style used to portray anime characters known as "Chibi" meaning small, this adds a humorous quality.As you can see there pretty cute and inspired me to use a chibi version of Sachiko Ogasawara for my avatar.

Finally to finish this evaluation if I were to do this project again I would do more research to allow my knowledge to expand to create something of better quality.

Play My Game

http://Helix.fileave.com/GameMenu.swf

This is my game that I have been at for a few months, not perfect, but completed... It contains Two mini games using Flash action script 2 and a main one that I used action script 3.

Screenshots (Below)

Lost in Space (I made this)

Make Your Own Game for Free!

Last one I promise, I just went a little crazy with this one, I have dubbed it un-complete-able

RoboMaze (I made this)

Make Your Own Game for Free!

I found this epic site that allows you to make games using templates, it doesn't aqquire a lot of imagination, but it is fun.

Enemy Line (I made this)

Make Your Own Game for Free!
^
F*ck Flash and it's fancy action scripts, Vist this site..

The Magic of Photoshop

I have been playing with the overlaying affect in Photoshop and come up with some interesting images. Now I knew that this was possible, but I've never had the opportunity to play with it.

So now presenting the freak show, of UNREAL humans, look at them, stare at them and chuck stones at them, (see above) Luke (last name with held because he's shy) and the exorcists future spawn. (Above) The freaky-ist of them all, meet PikaLee, Revenge for the amount of times he's said he'd rape me, and for calling my dragon a cat.!"£$%^&*%£ .

A boring night in what do I do, Calligraphy

Helloooo, during one of my crazy alnighter's I decided I'd do something different and after looking in a few boxes I found my old calligraphy set, and I've never actual tried it before, but a thought it was just a fancy way of writing.... turns out it is pretty hard. Now after a bit of reading I decided to try the Sho-do styles of calligraphy, which are just types of handwriting. Oh, because I was stupid enough to think it was easy, I ended up wasting all my calligraphy paper, (see Above) so when I actual got better I had nothing to draw on, so I ended up writing in an old school exercise book.


Above is my try at the Sho-do style Kai-Sho, which is basically the more oftenly used one in modern china and Japan.

This style is a faster version, called Gyo-Sho. According to me book, the most important thing in mastering calligraphy is posture because you have to hold the brush upright.

This is the most impressive type of Sho-do named So-sho which looks like a load of scribbles, but is actual the hardest one to master. Oh by the way all the previous three symbols read "Mizu" which in English mean Water. To actually get started you need an ink stick/Sumi, Ink Grinding Stone/Suzuri, Brush/Fude, a water bowl and finally some calligraphy paper or newspaper will work. I recommend you give it a go it's a lot of fun, but not fricking cheap.......