Interactive Narrative - Character Design

The design of the main character is an important part of this project, as it should look good and appeal to the user. However, as the character will appear throughout the narrative I feel that simplicity will be the key to it's design, as this will make it easier to draw repeatedly if necessary. It will also help when it comes to animating the character as a complicated design would result in complicated animation.

First of all I decided to just start sketching out a few random designs for different cats using a graphics tablet. I love the way you can set the pencil mode to smooth the lines you draw in Flash, it just makes everything look a lot more clean and crisp.


Of course, these ideas are really just doodles, I wouldn't have the character actually looking like any of these in my final project.

I decided to try and develop the design of the cat drawn in orange, as this next image shows.
I like this last development of the kitty, he looks a lot sharper and more detailed, while still retaining the simplicity that I was going for. Here he is, full sized!
I need to add in some shading to the final version, but other than that this is the final design for Ry the cat as he will appear in his first adventure.

Colour Experimentation

I have edited this photograph of a flower using Photoshop in order to change the colours. The petals of the flower are now a bright, garish purple, and the centre is yellow in order to compliment this. I have also made the background slightly orange, as it is a warm colour and so are purple and yellow, so I thought I would stick to this theme.


The colours of this photograph also have a theme of warmth, using the complimentary colours blue and orange. The original of this image was very dull, cold and dreary so to contrast I tried to make it the opposite.

Interactive Narrative - Cat's Journey

I have decided to make my interactive narrative project about the story of a cat at night time. The user will play the role of a cat on his way to the weekly 'cat meeting' and will have to make various decisions on the way. At first I thought I would like the user to have the option of picking from two different characters, such as a male and female cat, with each of them having a different story. However, upon further reflection I think I may be over-complicating my idea, as this would be even more time consuming and involve a lot more images which I will have to draw. I have to take into consideration that we have a very short time scale for this project, so one character will probably have to be sufficient.

Unposted Videos

Final Pixilation video



One Shot Film

Interactive Narrative - Ideas

Just brainstorming a few ideas for my interactive narrative project. Some of these are a bit weak or boring. At the moment I've decided on the idea of a cat's journey at night time. Hopefully I won't change my mind.

The Rule of Thirds

The Rule of Thirds is a compositional rule used in most areas of visual arts and design, from photography and painting to graphic design and cinematography. The rule states that any image, a painting, photograph, or whatever else it may be, can be divided into nine equal parts. This is done by placing two equally spaced horizontal lines and two equally spaced vertical lines onto the image. Important elements of the image should be placed along these lines, as this can make the image more interesting, visually appealing and can also portray a certain theme or mood associated with the image.

The Rule of Thirds is demonstrated in the short video shown below.



As you can see, the statue has been placed (somewhat roughly) along the second vertical line.

Why Design?

The Apple iPod is one of the most popular designed objects today, a piece of technology that no music fan can do without. Although it is just an Mp3 Player, something that there are many different types, brands and designs of, the iPod is the most popular, and successful, of them all. This is because Mp3 Players before the iPod were all too big in physical size or maybe even too complicated for everybody to use. When it was released in 2001, Apple aimed to keep the iPod simple, with a minimalistic user interface and by keeping it quite small in size. These aspects are what helped launch the iPod to popularity, making it now the market leader in digital audio players. However, it's not just practicality and functionality that have made it so successful, the actual design of the iPod has become iconic, a stylish and 'cool' accessory for the current generation.

The iPod shown in the picture above is my own, a 3rd generation iPod Nano. There is actually a now a newer version of this, the 4th generation Nano, as shown to the right. Personally, I am not the kind of person who will rush out and buy the new version of something, just because the old one is now outdated. However, there clearly are people who do this or Apple would not release a new design for their iPods each year. I even knew someone at Uni last year who purposely tried to break their current iPod so they could claim off their insurance to get the new updated version. There are never really any dramatic changes to the actual hardware of the iPod, and only a few new features are added to the software and UI, so essentially it is still just an Mp3 Player like any other. This leads me to believe that people who are willing to pay money for the new model, especially when they already have one of the previous ones, are only doing it to impress others or look 'cool'.

Pixilation - First Attempts

Over the last few weeks we've had some seminar sessions in which we've been creating and editing our own pixilation animations. Here I have three of my own attempts, though they are very short and hopefully my finished product will be a lot better.







The quality of these videos is pretty bad, they look so pixelated you can hardly tell whats going on. But nevermind, like I said, these are just first attempts. My finished animation will hopefully be better, and should be on here within the next couple of days.

Pixilation Stuff

I've been looking at a lot of pixilation animations since we started our small project on the subject for the narratives module we're doing. Maybe it's about time I actually put something about it here!

I love the stop-motion shorts created by PES. They have a lot of simple ideas but are executed in a really clever way. Western Spaghetti is a good example of this, using lots of really simple techniques to create something quite brilliant. The way they use everyday objects to represent something else works really well, such as the colourful pick-up sticks as a substitute for spaghetti, which then turn into elastic bands as the pasta is 'cooked'. Another little thing in this animation that's pretty nifty is the candy corn used as fire on the hob, I find it really visually pleasing. The animation titled Roof Sex is an amusing little short showing the secret sex lives of two armchairs. It's pretty clever in the way the chairs are shown to be performing different sexual acts and positions. The Human Skateboard is a pixilation animation showing a guy riding through the streets using another guy as a skateboard. Though I imagine it may have been pretty time-consuming to shoot this film, overall it looks pretty simple, though still effective.

Another interesting pixilation animation I have found is this piece titled Mirage. It is pretty simple, featuring people dancing in a natural setting. Although it is a simple piece of animation it has a somewhat surreal feel to it, created by some of the editing and effects used as well as the movements of the dancers.

MovieMobz - Cinema on Demand

Half social-networking, half movie distribution, MovieMobz could be a revolutionary new advancement for cinema-goers worldwide.

Or at least in Brazil, which is where the company founded by Fabio Lima, is based.

Their concept is fairly simple; users sign up to the MovieMobz website, pick their local cinema and are then able to make a ‘wish list’ of films they would like to be shown there. Once a film has enough votes from different users, a screening will be booked and an email is sent out to the users who voted for it, letting them know the details such as the time and date.

The idea is to get more independent and art house films being shown in more cinemas, so that they can reach communities that would not normally get to see them. But why stop there? If enough users want to revive a classic film back on to the big screen, or see a recent hit that’s finished screening they can do so. MovieMobz can provide all this while creating additional profits for the cinemas themselves.

So how does it work? The movies are distributed to the cinemas digitally, with the company using their own private BitTorrent system to speed up the process. Using digital copies saves on the cost, as it only costs one tenth what it costs to make a 35mm copy.

The way in which cinemas currently work is to book films from their distributors for a number of weeks. Although this is the way it is commonly done, it is not always practical. For example, if a film was booked to screen daily for three weeks but the seats were all empty after the first week, the cinema would obviously be losing money. With the MovieMobz concept, films are shown as individual screenings, so the cinemas would be able to fit the number of screenings around public demand.

Although this idea of cinema on demand may not be life changing, it could have some impact upon society. Small and independent cinemas could become much more profitable, as these are the kinds of places the MovieMobz concept is aimed at. If the company were to spread globally, digital distribution may also become much more popular, pushing out the old 35mm film, especially since it’s also a cheaper option. Also, the makers of the actual independent films could take in more revenue if there was public demand to see their films in more cinemas. Lastly, the public themselves may benefit from having access to movies that they may normally not have access to, such as foreign films or documentaries.

With plans for the company to move in the UK and US, we may just have to wait and see.

What have I been doing in my first week at Trent?

Not a lot. It's a lot different being a local student. I moved away to Lincoln University last year and did the whole freshers thing, but hated the place so I decided to come here instead. Last year I was out til all hours of the morning, drinking myself silly etc. as everyone else here seems to be doing now, but to me it just seems strange doing that in my hometown. Like, I've done it all before here, it's not as much of an experience. Plus I'm not living in halls like last time, forced into the situation where you have no choice but to make friends with the people you're living with. It's nice meeting the people on my course though, I'm sure they're all lovely. And I'm sure I'll go out and get wasted at some point...

What do I want to get out of my course?

The most obvious answer to this question is a degree, haha. But aside from that I want to improve the skills I have already attained in the different multimedia areas. I think I mainly want to concentrate on website design, though I am eager to learn other things. I would like to become capable at using 3d Studio Max because that program hates me and the feeling's mutual. Animation, film/video and photography are also things I want to try out, as I've only had a bit of experience with these.

Making some new friends would be nice too.