Wednesday 30 January 2008

Second Life - Diary


Yay second life works on my laptop at uni so I can play on it yay!!! and its so much fun. Today I managed to make friends with a few different users and managed to get off the orientation island. On my first blog about second life I had just entered into the world and started to learn the basics.


Today I carried on my lessons which included appearance and speech. So I have gradually changed my appearance, its basic but you have to start somewhere. I can now talk to other people and from who I've spoken too there are quite a few students doing coursework (apparently).


I briefly spoke to two people who were in the same situation but I managed to work out how to do it and that was to click on the different signs guiding people to the other islands. And thats how far I got and so you have to wait until my next blog to hear what Sicily Halcali (my avatar name) gets up to.

Monday 28 January 2008

Colour and Light - Tutorial

In our last tutorial we were set the task to take an image that showed alot of light and colour and to analyse them plus other group members work. I had taken some photos when we went on a trip to Barcelona and two in particular I feel show light and colour.


This image is a bit out of focus how being taken at night time I feel has really bought out the colour's and lighting. When you first look at the image you are immediately drawn towards the bright glare from the lampposts which bring out the bright and vivid colours of the trees. What I really liked about this image is the strong reflection in the water which shows the lighting and colours, I feel that the balance between dark and light works well.

The image is easy to the viewers eye and in my opinion is not too busy (easy layout) When you look at the photo your eyes are immediately drawn towards towards the brightest light in the foreground and is then guided down the row of lights leading to the background of the photo until the lights are out of focus.

It could have a bit more colour but I feel that having just the one colour works well giving the photo a more bolder effect.




Now, this photo is probably my favourite because of the bright and bold colours that users are immediately drawn to. This photo does lack the lighting but when I took this image I used the natural lighting because I felt that the colours were so powerful that I did not need to provide lighting.

The photo spills over the frame and so it is quite hard for the viewers to know where to start looking but I like the way that the colours blend and complement each other. When I look at this photo I also get a sense of warmth because of the strong reds and yellows used in the photo. This photo is a flatter then the other photo however this photo shows different textures from the fruits and being more in focus shows alot more stronger detail.

Like I said above this photo only really lacks lighting but I still feel that the powerful colours balances this out.

Interactive Narrative

Ok I know we did this project in our last module but I've been browsing other peoples blogs and found this site (www.swfup.com) This site allows users to upload any swf files to the internet, so this is the direct link to my interactive narrative.

http://www.swfup.com/uploads/swf-112605.swf

Like I said in my evaluation this was a basic interactive narrative but I look at it this way, I have to start somewhere and I can only improve on it.

Sunday 27 January 2008

2nd 3D Max Seminar

This week we had to create a moving octopus now I understood the task and could do it quite easily but as per usual I always do something wrong that always gets me annoyed. For example I some how managed to program 3D Max to only allow me to select a certain piece of my work, don't ask me how I done it but I did.

This was the piece that I created in my seminar:



I found the task given pretty straight forward. What I found most difficult was to actually create the shape. Every time I tried to make a curve it would I either curve too much or not at all, eventually got the hang of it and managed to get on with the task.

I really enjoyed making this piece and want to enhance it more so I've uploaded my first piece on the octopus and will continue to improve it until next weeks seminar. This will include some background drops and add some more images to the octopus. What I enjoy about 3D Max is the different things that you are able to create, in the future I would like to try and create a some more technical pieces i.e. poeple.

Another reason why I would like to do this is so I could getting my identities project going, now that I am starting to get the hang of 3D Max I would like to start designing things that relate to my identity and my avatar.

Thursday 24 January 2008

Joseph Cornell

At the end of last term Roma did a lecture on the new module 'identities' and one particular artist that was mentioned was Joseph Cornell. He was an artist that really reflected what our module would be about so I thought I would do a bit of research in him now to get a brief idea on what his work is about and, also how it could inspire me.


Now, looking at this piece of work I relised that it isn't like the usual art work that I like to analyse because on first impressions it looks to me as if Joseph Cornell just stuck some objects in a box however, doing the project that we are doing this is a very good example.

To me it looks as though Cornell has thought about the layout of the bow thoroughly. I like the choice of colours, Cornell has kept to very neutral colours except for a few bold and eye-catching colours that catches the users eyes straight away. When I first looked at the image the bird in the center of the box was the first thing that I noticed and then moving around to the yellow ball.
There is also a slight sense of depth to the box with the help of shadows, which is what I need to do.


This is another piece by Joseph Cornell. I chose this piece because it is alot less compact and more simple then the other piece yet still has the same effect. Like the other piece Cornell has kept to neutral look but having a bold colour (blue) the difference between the first image shown and to this piece is that the bold colour is set in the background giving the image a source of depth, rather then the shadowing.

Looking at these pieces more I am starting to like them more but the only thing that I cannot see in both image is emotion/feeling. When I look at the two pieces I don't see any impression or theme that gives each piece of artwork a story. This is something that I would like to try and achieve with my pieces. When people view my work I want them to know what I am like and understand it.

3D Max seminar

This was a piece of work that our group created in our seminar last week. I thought that I would upload this piece before my next seminar. The aim of the task given was to create a basic piece of jumping text with some impact at the end using the piece of software called 3D Max.

My outcome is shown below.



As I have never used the piece of software before I was unsure on what to expect but in the end I was very surprised at how easy I found using 3D Max. With a little help from Andy I gradually managed to understand the basic icons on 3D Max i.e. modify, shapes etc the icons that you would need to know to use the program.

Even though I found the set task quite straight forward a big problem occurred whilst working on the piece but I still do not know how it happened. Whilst I was rendering my finished piece 3D Max shut down without no warning, I had luckily rendered my piece so I assumed my piece had been saved, so I reopened the program and and tried to find my work, I found it in the rendered output file but it would not allow me to open the work. So that was very frustrating but instead of getting moody about I just created the piece again and quicker because I was use to the piece of software.

Having done this piece of work I am really looking forward to doing the next task and I am now even considering on continuing this next year because I am really enjoying the work.

Tuesday 22 January 2008

Second life Intro

Ok so I went home this weekend and I got onto second life!! What we have found out is that our internet server that the Halls use doesn't allow second life to be used so I tried it at home and it worked!!! When I entered the site I was straight away put on the island where you start off, having to learn the basics so far I've completed two tasks and I am in the process of changing my look. It took some time trying to get use to the different instuctions but it looks pretty straight forward, I'm just looking forward to going into the real virtual world that is second life.


This is the basic image of the Orientation Island (where I start) it is split off into different sections where each user can gradually learn the basic on how to use second life.

My opinion of second life? I feel that it is a good way to communicate with other users and a great way to learn about the world of avatars. I'm back in nottingham now so I'm guessing that the second life won't work anymore which means I will have to go into uni and work on it which is a bit annoying because of the 20 minute walk but, in the long run it will be worth it.

My Review

Ok so I've had my review presentation a couple of weeks back now (I know it was ages ok but I want to write about it) and I have to say that it was really helpful. Andy and simon were the ones talking to me. The presentation was what I expected to be like but, I found it to be a lot more informative then I thought it would be.
Rather then just talking about how my work should be improved they both gave me information on how to improve my work i.e. different books that could help me. Another thing that I liked was that they answered any questions that I was worried about.
By the end of the review they came up with three targets that I have to complete by the next review and these targets were:

- Make blog more visual i.e. design experiments
- Be more dramatic, visual drama.
- Upload images of sketchbook.

I am going to start doing this as soon as possible so it will hopefully improve my work in the future.

Tuesday 8 January 2008

My Avatar

Well its a new year and a new module however I feel that my project hasn't got off to a good start. As we all know we had to start and create an avatar. Second life was the piece of software that we had to create our identity on but I have been trying and trying but the program doesn't seem to want to let me log in, it excepts my details but when it comes to letting me log in it keeps telling me that its failed to open. So whether the program is down of its my laptop I will soon find out.


HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!