The power of colour!

The Eagle is one of my favourite animals, and i have chosen to demonstrate the power of colour with this photo. With its natural colours, the photo of the Eagle "swooping" portrays its beauty and elegance.

With a simple adjustment of the red and yellow midtones and highlights in certain areas of the picture, the eagle becomes much more fierce and intimidating. Colour change can change the way a photograph is viewed and interpreted!

"The Hitman" FINISHED!

The Hitman by ~Birdman2989 on deviantART




After all the blood, sweat and tears of learning to use Flash, my very first creation using Flash is complete!

The Hitman puts the audience in the shoes of a convict who has been brought out of prison to do the bidding of a crooked London "gangster".

After letting numerous peers play through the narrative and improving it on what they suggested, i am pleased with the finished product. I am especially happy with the usage of audio in my piece, during the weapon select scenes if the user rolls the mouse over a weapon, an audio description is read out stating the weapons features and numerous other facts. This will hopefully point the audience in choosing the right weapon, as a wrong decision will end their game!

Uploaded to deviantart - http://birdman2989.deviantart.com/art/The-Hitman-105984171

An analysis of an existing interactive Narrative

http://ray.freeonlinegames.com/

Ray is an interactive narrative that places the user in the shoes of a hitman and forces them to make decisions based on the situation Ray finds himself in. Depending on how you react to the situation you are given a number and at the end of the narrative the numbers are added up and the user is given a rank. According to the creator of ray, if the game is not played through 4 times, then the user will miss out on over 40 different scenes.

When creating my interactive narrative, i hope to present the user with situations which cause them to become emotionally involved and empathise with the narrative. This is more likely to trigger an honest response from them. I would like my narrative to tell a story, much like Ray does and offer seperate endings depending on the choices the user has made. A prototype of my narrative may be necessary to determine what responses are taken by the audience. I aim to have developed the structure and plot of my narrative by the end of this weeks seminar so i can begin production for next week.

THE SUPER GREATEST FIGHTER

After reviewing my youtube account i came across an old video me and my friends made last summer parodying a kung fu film! We hope to film episode 2 this summer coming up!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=07qZd3bH_FU

Enjoy!

The Meating uploaded!

Check it out!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=c0Jc4Nh8m1A

THE MEATING - Complete!

Finally finished the final edit of our one shot film, The Meating! I am pleased with the result!

I actually created two main edits and got my family and friends to critique what i had done, and they seemed to prefer the one which i have uploaded! I hope this is popular opinion!

When editing The Meating, i wanted to give the scene a realistic, empty sound much like in real mens bathrooms. I did this by actually editing the mp3 file i used as a soundtrack and using Adobe Premieres lowpass tool to remove certain frequencies of the song and i just applied a massive reverb aswell to make it sound as though it was echoing through the room. These two effects, combined with lowering the level of the MP3 in conjunction with the film created a perfect ambience for my film. When the homosexual enters the toilets, i used keyframes to slowly make the screen become tinted red and even more so when the "well-endowed" individual enters! The accompanying Barry White soundtrack seemed to fit the mood and helps carry the humour.

When reviewing the footage, i noticed a couple of frames had been dropped during certain parts of the film, however i liked the effect this had as they are actually in places that fit the music and so i kept them in to keep in touch with the overall strange feel of the piece. I like The Meating very much as there is such a contrast from the beginning of the film to the end of the film, it really shows how a simple situation can change in such a short time!

Link will follow when its finished processing!

A short post regarding The Rule Of Thirds

The rule of thirds is a photography term, a rule of thumb regarding focus points within a picture. If you divide a picture with two equally spaced vertical and horizontal lines, the points where they cross will be the points that the human eye focuses on in a photograph. This can be used when taking the photo to "line up" where the points of focus should be. I think the below image (the grid has been graphically added) demonstrates the rule well. Many digital cameras now come with the grid pre-installed onto the viewfinder so before you take a picture you can line up the image perfectly!

More stills!

More stills from our short film! These shots show how the lighting looks on the actors, we decided to use the ambient lighting from the toilets instead of using our own spot lighting as this gives the sketch a more "natural" feel. The below picture shows how our camera operators worked co-operatively to decide on the best positioning possible.

MUST REMEMBER

Contrast!
Repetition!
Alignment!
Proximity!

DONT FORGET THAT CRAP!

Still for one shot film!

This is the interesting setting for our one shot film, the mens toilets! The idea "less is more" really appealed to our group and so we have decided to play on the stereotypes seen in the mens toilets. Hopefully the comedy element will appeal to our audience!

One shot film, play with lights!

Today i met up with my group for the one-shot film project and we spoke a bit more about our first film that we shot last thursday. We agreed that the setting and plot was perfect, although it needs a re-shoot due to some bad acting!

The minute and a half long sketch deals with the psychology of males in the bathroom and how they deal with strangers who are using opposing urinals. This sounds strange but it works rather well and creates humour successfully! I will upload some stills of where the camera is positioned for our piece when i can find the data cable for my phone!

Our seminar today was really interesting as we got to play around with some spotlights and we all had some really creative ideas, we basically had to light a subject who was sitting on a chair but with different filters and positioning of lights you can create some really interesting variations of shadows!

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

When addressing this question, i think back to last week when i purchased a pair of Skullcandy headphones from zavvi for £40. At the time of purchase, ebuyer were offering an unbranded, standard pair of headphones for £5. As human beings we are superficial in many ways, being attracted to exceptional/innovative design as opposed to the norm. The reason i spent £40 on the Skullcandy headphones was because i found them appealing to look at, this means that not only do they function as headphones, they almost become a fashion accessory.

In my opinion, technology has recently begun to tie in with fashion. Apples range of products such as the iPhone and iPod are now all common household names and the attractive and innovative design makes the person who uses these products more stylish in some way. This has caused other designers to follow suite, and the Skull Candy Lowrider headphones are certainly trendy to look at. The ergonomics of the product are also convenient however, with a plush leather frame that would not be found on other, cheaper headphones. The consumer of today requires their product to exceed its basic use and become an accessory.

Pixilation finished!

I finally finished my pixilation piece! It's called The Artist, and the basic idea is there is an Artist whose images come to life when he draws them. After drawing a few objects he draws a man and the figure comes to life!

I used the live performance of E Il Sol Dell'anima by Luciana Pavarotti from his Rigoletto opera as the soundtrack, he was a great artist and so i found it fitting for my piece. I also found, as it was a live recording, it gave a vintage aspect to the flick and contributed to the quirky atmosphere.

Aside from the soundtrack, i used several other audio sound effects thanks to the wonderful www.findsounds.com and a muzzle flash courtesy of www.detonationfilms.com which i used a luma key to transfer onto my footage. I will post the link shortly when it has finished uploading onto youtube!

HERE IS THE LINK
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=i9fvZoKNXjM

BUSY BUSY BUSY!

"You got a dream... You gotta protect it. People can't do somethin' themselves, they wanna tell you you can't do it. If you want somethin', go get it. Period." Chris Gardner - The Pursuit Of Happiness.

Been busy working this past week, playing round with processing my photos for the Pixilation work i am doing, its a piece i call The Artist and should be finished around next week so i'll post it up on here....i am quite pleased with how things are going at the moment!

Havn't been out much this past week, saving money really! Gym is going good, need to start doing more cardiovascular exercise as i am just weight training at the moment.

That is all.

The Dunia Game engine

The Dunia Game Engine
Chris Swann

After two years in development, the Dunia engine, making its debut with Farcry 2 in europe on October 24th 2008, presents one of the most advanced and immersive game engines created.
It was developed by the Ubisoft Montreal team specifically for Far Cry 2 in an attempt to tie in with the games large map which the player can explore. Around 3% of the original “Unreal” engine used in the original Far-cry made it through to the sequel, which just gives some impression of how different the gaming experience will be. The Dunia engine was developed to take full advantage of the multi-core CPUs that have been released recently to the PC gaming market. Developer Alex Amancio says that this allows them to create one huge world instead of the traditional ‘levels’ seen in other first person shooters. The Dunia engine was developed with a realistic, ever-changing environment in mind and it is impressive to say the least. The A.I (Artificial Intelligence), when handled with the Dunia engine will develop a personality. Not only will they try and stop the player from achieving their main goal, they have personalities. Kill one of the enemy soldiers brothers for example and you could find him acting recklessly to finish his grudge with you. They will take lunch breaks, retire to camps at night and become weary as the day goes on. The dynamic weather effects created by the Dunia engine are always changing and this will have an effect on your environment. For example, a few days of rain will cause extra vegetation to grow, allowing the player to hide in the grass and stealthily kill his enemies. As the wind picks up, grass will blow and this will affect the trajectory of long range bullets the player shoots. Dust is also affected by the wind. If the player leaves a vehicle on a dusty road then it will be covered in dust after a couple of hours. This is also the case if the player drives fast down a dust track, the vehicle will handle differently when it is caked in dust.

The Dunia engine is a very exciting release in the gaming world, and the scope it brings to new developers could be endless and very impressive indeed. Many players have been comparing the Dunia engine to the Cryengine 2 featured in Crysis due to the open world game-play and the advanced physics. If played on a PC, the criticism is the Dunia engine will require a very expensive gaming computer to run, with top of the range multi core systems costing well over £1000. With an anticipated title such as FarCry 2, there is often pressure on gamers to upgrade their computer just to play the game, especially after all the hype surrounding it.
The main point I am trying to make about the Dunia engine is its flexibility and potential for new developers to make use of, I believe that some brilliant games will be created off this advancement in technology.
Chris Swann

Sunday....

"Young men... The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step... Average is just not good enough.... period" - Coach Ken Carter

So, sunday morning i wake up with the familiar, hungover feeling i've been used to this past week. Freshers week has certainly taken its toll on my body, my performance in the gym has been lacking this past week to say the least, and that's why im using today as a full stop to the drinking and partying, and i'm about to begin my journey, my journey to becoming an educated young man and being the best i can be, freshers week has been fun, but now the real journey starts, and like Ken Carter once said, Average is just not good enough. With my first lecture on Tuesday, i'm ready to start learning.

(Of course, i'll begin my journey when i have finished visiting home to get one of my mums sunday dinners!)

What do i hope to get out the course?

"Get Hench Or Die Trying" - Dean Butler

After applying the above quote to my sports and gym work for the past few years, im ready to apply it to my knowledge. MY KNOWLEDGE WILL BE OVERPOWERING!

From my time at Trent i hope to improve my skills and be the best i can be, at the moment my interest in audio/visual is driving me however trying other pathways is also tempting so who knows what i will be thinking this time next year!

All i know is i'm going to work to the best of my ability and continue improving.

What did i do in the first week?

"Usually drink, usually dance, usually bubble" - Wiley

Did a bit of work, learnt how to take pictures using a can, some duct tape and some photo paper! Met new people, got ridiculously messy almost every night of the week and am still attempting to survive this accumulating hang-over.

And the rolex sweep.