New buttons

With the new layout we can now finsh all the buttons for our graffiti application, we split the buttons up equally to make the work load fair.
We all decided on a font and style for the buttons in photoshop and all followed it closely when we made them so that they all look similar.
Here are the finished buttons

New layout

We Recently Changed the layout of our CD rom, initially we were going to have 10 pages and the navigation through the pages was going to be a 360 degree shot of a setting, we were then going to screen shot 10 frames of the 360 rotation and use the screen shots as the backgrounds of the pages so as the user clicks onto the next page the camera will travel left or right to the next page.

Mike got talking to one of our teachers and Broke up the 10 pages into 4 sub sections and showed us the idea, we all agreed that this new layout is better and more suited to our CD rom.
Our new layout is going to follow the same principle however instead of having one main section which has all the 10 pages on we are now having 1 main section and 4 sub sections so we are going to film four other settings as well as the main setting for the user to travel around.
The main section is the only place the user can get to the other four sections, so if the user is on a sub section they can't travel straight to another sub section they will have to first go back to the main section then to the desired sub section.
Here is a diagram to help explain the layout



As you can see in the image the home page is the main page and the red arrows show where the user can travel to and from, the home page will have 4 pages on with buttons to the other 4 sub sections and the sub sections will have pages within them with a link back to the home page.
We believe this layout will offer an interactive environment for the user to travel around and get information/ entertainment along the way.

video editing

For our CDrom application we are making a video each to be put in the video section, Mike is doing an interview, i am doing a 'related sports to graffiti' video and Kris is making a tutorial video on how to create graffiti.
I have almost collected all my footage, i just need another section on skateboarding then i will have it all on camera.
i have edited the beginning skate part and the bmx part so far using premier pro, after effects and photoshop.
















The screenshot above is of the program premier pro, aftre i imported the footage that i have so far i edited the avi file using the time line and the cut tool. Once i had the footage in the right order i added certain effects such as 'brightness/ contrast and exported certain frames that i wanted to edit in photoshop. On the bmx scene when a bike is in the air i edited the frame in photoshop using the gradient tool etc and imported the frame back into premier pro so in the video there is a freeze frame of the bike in the air.

NOTE to upload the preview footage below i used windows movie maker and the freeze frames of the BMX's in the air arent working properly (something to do with the importing into windows movie maker) so this will look a bit different to the final edit.



The screen shot below shows what one of the freeze frames should look like that didn't work properly when i saved the avi on movie maker.

the other three navigation buttons i am designing

Here are three more navigation buttons i designed myself for our CDrom












































Like the other two buttons (Video and Timeline) i drew out an outline image of the text and scanned it into photoshop where i edited the piece using gradient tools etc.

MP3 Player production and other work in progress

Recently I have been concentrating on the MP3 player.

We captured the footage of the Dj spinning decks at 3 different angles. The following video shows the editing and animating process i went through to get the video footage for the mp3 player.

Here are some pictures of us setting up and filming.

After filming the footage, i then set about designing the flash player. Here are a couple of printscreens that lead from Photoshop to Flash.

Actionscripting my flash player is a very tricky business, and to be honest its not completely finished. Sometimes i get the script right and the just the video works, and i've never had the songs working entirely perfect yet. But all the code is essentially in and just needs a bit of guidance from a tutor.

I made the player's layout and buttons by just drawing them in in photoshop and editing them with effects until they looked like they do in the final draft.

buttons for the navigation of our application

Our CDrom application will have 10 sections to navigate through so we will need buttons that contain the section name on them that the user can press and then be taken to the desired section, e.g. 'home' page will have a button that says home on.
Me and Chris split the job role of designing these 10 buttons between us so we are designing 5 each.
Here are my first two buttons






















We all agreed that the buttons are going to be done in a graffiti style and that the user must be able to clearly read the titles so that they know which button takes them where, we also agreed on a bright colour scheme.

To get the gradients of colour on these buttons i used the Gradient fill tool (on Photoshop) and made sure that the gradient went from a fill colour to transparency, this gave me the ability to add shadows and darker colours to the text.

Finished GANTT chart

Here is an image of our completed GANTT chart.

Music player Images

Here are some more images taken from the making of the music player movie screen.

Music player still images.

Here are images taken from the making of the music player video screen. We are going to have a music player playing a soundtrack, from a few selected songs that we have individually chosen.

The music player will be featured on every page of the CD-ROM and will include short video clips of a DJ playing records on a turntable. Depending on what button is pressed E.G the play button, a short video clip of a record being played will be displayed on a video player right above the music player buttons.

Photography of graffiti in Nottingham

Here are a few images of graffiti that i have taken in Nottingham. I think they are very interesting as they are advertising to remind people to recycle, but they are doing it in a way that people who may be littering may pay attention to as it is a clear message on the wall in the form of graffiti with bright, colourful images on the wall in places that littering may occour.

I think this form of graffiti can be justified as it doesnt offend people with offensive language, doesnt insult people and it atractive to look at. Although this is a large scale image people may say that it is visual polution, littering on the hand is a much larger problem as it destroying the planet and is potentialy harmful if a needle or broken bottle were to injure someone whereas this graffiti is not harming anyone.

Graffiti photography in Leeds

Heres a couple pictures of graffiti that i have taken in Leeds.

Although these pictures arent the most attractive that have been created they were taken at high level, out of sight for most passers by.

fine art graffiti

While researching graffiti artists i came across this video





What i like about this video is the quality of the piece and the overall speed that the artist produces it, this shows people that graffiti is also an art form and not just writing on street walls that is mainly frowned upon.

My contribution so far...

I have been focusing mainly on my portfolio for the first few weeks of the course and am happy to say i am only about 10 pages away from completion. i have filled sketch pad with designs and research and it is very close to the standard that i hope it to be. i put all my effort into this as 1) i was waiting for Ali to complete the logo so i could begin work on the animated intro and 2) because i intend on doing a lot of work on the flash file in the later stages - as this was the key skill that i was chosen to bring to the group.

The picture on the right is "Canny" our 3d animated company representative. After sketching out ideas for Canny and discussing him in our meetings, I created the 3D character in the 3DS Max. I then began to animate him using squash and stretch techniques, until i had enough animation to edit with later on. I next placed a green-plane behind Canny, so that i could extract him from it in a picture editing software later on.

After greenscreening all every key-frame in 3DS Max, i then imported the sequence into AfterEffects. Here i chroma-keyed out the green from my image sequence, and then replaced the background with an image-based stage; a pavement and a brick wall. I needed to do the animation this way because its impossible to synchronise an AVI in 3DS max with moving objects - as i plan on making my character spray onto a brick wall.

I then made a very flexible mask layer with lots of points on the frame so that i could easily manouver it with the actions of my spray can. In the next screenshot you can see me editing the pictures into sequence.

Finally, below you can see the finished AVI file of my animated introduction. The sounds on it are copyright-free samples from www.freesamples.net - as I have a lot more work to do and don't have the equipment or time to record my own samples for this project. I would have prefered to use my own stuff but time is a factor here, and i must press on with storyboarding my debate video.

second logo design

I designed two ideas for the 'aero-soul' logo, i already edited the first design in Photoshop so now i edited the second line drawing using Photoshop as well.
As you can see in the images below i used the gradient tool with a range of colours gradually getting deeper and darker for the words 'aero soul' on the piece. Once i had added the colour to the lettering i used a filter called 'Spatter' to give the text a textured surface. To get the brush strokes effect seen on the pink parts of the piece i used the gradient fill tool and then added a filter called 'Rough Pastels' to give that textured surface look.



The image below is the final piece, to complete the image i just added the relevant fill colours and added shadow to the bottom side of the piece, we aren't going to use this piece for the introduction because we already agreed that we would use the other piece however i could put this in the slide show of graffiti section of our CD rom.