Im back!

WARNING: the following post shall be very long and may cause any of the following side effects: tiredness of the eyes, numbing of the lower limbs, an urge to drink coffee, minor brain hemorrhaging. take care.

So this is me finally getting back on track with the blog! This post is going to be a summarisation of the work i did in the week coming up to the deadlines in january, as well as a general summing up of my first semester at uni. Its coming a bit late as iv been distracted by "market research"...

... Playing video games is technically market research ok! Graphics and animation and all that stuff! so anyway yeah i got back in edinburgh on the 3rd of january after an enjoyable christmas holiday, however my lack of productivity across that period gave me much work to do to meet the oncoming deadlines later that week. Nothing to worry about however as i had it planned out in my head. The first deadline was Visual Literacy so logically that was the first thing i did. The last thing i had to do for that was my sketchbook, which i admit was looking shamefully empty as i had been lacking the inspiration to just draw whatever came to mind. But i got cracking and did as much as i could. And heres the extra pages i drew in that time...

There were also quite a few pages dedicated to showing my understanding the principles of animation and the elements in art (composition, colour etc), All my modules were placed in the one sketchbook partly due to lack of funds at the time, partly due to the other sketchbooks being crap and destroyed by rain, and partly due to me thinking "well some of the stuff i draw for dynamic communications and animation could also show my understanding of composition and such..." This did however mean that i was working on 3 modules at once for a deadline the same week, quite stressful.

So yeah i handed that in - victory pint with dan and some of his flatmates - nap - caffiene - work - then the last 2 repeat over and over until im done. Recipe for success!

For animation i realised i hadnt done an animatic yet (i had confused myself thinking the storyboard and the animatic were the same thing) so i got going on a quick one, nothing too fancy as its not required in an animatic, its just to show a rough idea of how your animation will flow, with the timings and such for each keyframe. And then i got cracking on the final animation... Dear god tornados are a hard thing for a first timer on flash to try and animate... this was my fourth idea, the most ambitious but best idea for the attempt at a tornado animation. The other 3 were just totally unconvincing and made me wince in pain to look at them judder across the screen in a mock tornado fashion. But Neil helped me come up with this idea, something i simultaneously thank him and hate him for, to draw a still tornado in one frame, and then draw it moved slightly across in the next frame and so on. This didn't seem as big a challenge as it actually was, for to make the tornado appear as if it was moving i needed to alter the "wind lines" in each frame. one by one...

...So after 6 hours the tornado was done to my liking! I had even used shading to better convey the 3D aspect of the tornado. So i could close the chapter on those 3 seconds of my animation (thats right, 6 hours to do 3 seconds, and not much procrastination in between!) Luckily the rest of my animation was nowhere near as complicated, and i had been starting to get the knack of the motion tweens and such on flash so it didnt prove too difficult. The "Dash" provided a few awkward little problems but i think i fixed them quite well. So lets see if this thing will let me upload my animation... hmm maybe later then

Dynamic communications next, thankfully that was the one thing i had actually managed to focus on during my holidays back in Edinburgh. I had the pictures, it was just a matter of making the video, so i opened windows movie maker and after a few hours i was quite chuffed with my end result, lets see if this will upload... nope maybe later as well

Lastly but by no means last, audio! On my last day in Edinburgh i had gathered some friends over to help me with the recordings for this, so at least those were mostly done and all that was left was to actually mix them together to make the advert. The vocals i was particularly happy with as well as the ending i decided on, however with more time i wish i could have made the beginning a bit better. I wasnt too keen on the "music" i created at the start. but at least it was done. As was everything else, AT LAST!

Such a relieving feeling handing in every bit of work you were given on time. However the aftermath is rather odd. Later that night i sat down at my computer and couldnt think what to do, i had got into a schedule of wake up, work, stay awake, work (eating inbetween of course), eventually sleep a bit. And now i was free to do whatever i wanted to do. But there seemed like nothing else.

Then i discovered Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, and iv become addicted to that! bloody hell its a great game - er i mean yeah thats good market research right there!

And then we reach the here and now, where i sat at my computer typing this blogpost. Had my first day back at uni yesterday to start my second semester, and first semester has definately taught me a few things to bring to the second. I plan to look after my time a bit better, and to sketch a bit everyday (already started!) everything shall be finished and handed in BEFORE the deadline, not the day of it. And i think/hope to stick by these. For my health and sanity

So im off to sketch some stuff in my new sketchbooks and then play some CoD MW2!

(apologies for any of the aforementioned side effects being enacted upon you poor souls)