The waterfall model is a sequential design process, often used in software development processes, in which progress is seen as flowing steadily downwards (like a waterfall) through the phases of Conception, Initiation, Analysis, Design, Construction, Testing and Maintenance.
The waterfall development model originates in the manufacturing and construction industries: highly structured physical environments in which after-the-fact changes are prohibitively costly, if not impossible. Since no formal software development methodologies existed at the time, this hardware-oriented model was simply adapted for software development.
Many argue the waterfall model is a bad idea in practice—believing it impossible for any non-trivial project to finish a phase of a software product’s lifecycle perfectly before moving to the next phases and learning from them. For example, clients may not know exactly what requirements they need before reviewing a working prototype and commenting on it. They may change their requirements constantly. Designers and programmers may have little control over this. If clients change their requirements after the design is finalized, the design must be modified to accommodate the new requirements. This effectively means invalidating a good deal of working hours, which means increased cost, especially if a large amount of the project’s resources has already been invested in big design up front.
The GUI is the user interface in which user interact through the application by making use of graphics. whereas in CUI the user has to interact with the application by making use of the codes.
So for simpluar terms CUI is like using the keyboard to navigate around the computer so button shortcuts, etc. GUI is like using the mouse.
Unfortunately we only had a few lessons on learning about the software but I knew a little bit of Maya so kinda knew how the software worked. To be completely honest with you and most people would say Maya is better but for someone like me that likes things simple but effective this does the job very well. I have learnt a far amount of things and hats off to the teaching all these things and making it interesting in the short time we had.
One of the lessons I liked was rigid bodies, in this session I learnt how to create domino following an invisible guide line and animating them to all fall down one after another like domino’s do. First you have to get the reactor toolbar this allows you to access all the shortcuts instead of making hard for yourself. I created the first domino and then join the first domino with the guide line to duplicate the rest of them. to make the domino fall u have to active the react Havok 1 World to set the settings so the environment have gravity. You animate the first domino to fall and as long all the rigid bodies are selected not including the guideline by clicking the rigid bodied collection by playing with the settings you should be able to get the domino’s to falls how they are supposed to. This does also depend on the size and width of your domino you first created.
For my final piece I wanted to do coco pops falling into a bowl with the right sound effects and i wanted to place it on a website like an advert I want to do this in After Effects. I created the coco pops with 2 sprays guns and changed the settings to make the objects being sprayed out look rigid and look like coco pops. I then created a sphere and cut it in half using the bottom part of the cut sphere and made it in to a shell and then changed the shell settings to have a thinker outside rim to look like a bowl I then added gravity so the coco pops fell in to the bowl just as it would. I then create a hollow box to find the spray guns and to look like a cereal box. I to make the animation look more realistic I found textured pictures on Google images to add to the objects I have created so Yellow card because the coco pops box is yellow and to bowl ceramics like most bowls we use.
I realise this video is very fast and but I will slow this down using a time rap in final cut pro.
I will use my website I have on WordPress at the moment to template my advert.
Im very proud with the finished project and i feel works very well with my wesite template the only thing i have a problem with is the angle of the cerealing being poured but over all for a 10 sec 3d animation cereal advert with sound that i found and safely downloaded from soundsnap.com is not bad at all and i have enjoyed doing this project and i have felt i have developed my skills further.
There is two main documents that is asked of you when applying for a job
Cover Letter (this is meant to catch they eye and make them want to read)
Is a brief description about yourself and your passion towards having this job, where you found the job advertised if found in newspaper or online, So you have researched into the job like journey how long and additional information about the company to show them your very interested.
CV (this is to show all your skills, grades and past experiences/Jobs)
This a more detailed document on yourself showing your skills, grades, jobs, personality and personal details like number, email address never place references or National insurance number on there. This is NOT an essay and I should only be 2 PAGES long. Should have a nice layout most people use bullet points to detail the roles they had a work and typography can be what ever style you like but readable and simple. If your part of the arts industry then the best thing to have on you cv is a design and balanced layout to show the reader you are creative and want them to look more at you design if you can make and word document look good. so you can make yourself your own logo the display you name nicely which will make you name stick in the readers head over the others.
Left to Right: Most of us read from left to right, so reading a website or an article that changed that rule, would make us lose interest in it. The layout would not agree with the reader, as they have been taught from a very young age how they are meant to read.
Space: The right amout of spacing on any interface is very important, as not only does it look nice as a design and make reading easier and more comfortable, it also allows you to group and seperate text and images from other articles on the same page. Spacing also includes alignment, positioning and grouping which are also all very important to most interfaces.
Typography: This has to be clear, short, bold and quick and simple to read. For example, on a magazine cover the typography has to be big and bright to stand out and immediately draw the eye to read the headlines at a glance. If they are not clear or readable none would bother and they would walk straight past.
Background: A lot of interfaces have plain backgrounds because once you have a fancy typography and the right spaceing of text and images you don’t want the background to contrast or comflict, which would make the text unreadable.
The main point of design for interface is to quickly lead the eye to the focal points
Things grouped together and simiular should act in a simular manner by making it familier
Use of the same basic layout and colours make it easier to read without the mind having to switch
Whether we would like to believe it or not, certain colours and the way that things are done, is how we all like it. We are creatures of habit and we get comfortable with the way things are. Its easy. We notice very quickly when something changes and we automatically don’t like. It may actually be better and we may grow to prefer it if we persevere with it or are forced to use it. However, our initial instinct is to dislike it. Like web links that are blue until you click on them and on google where they rememeber what links you have clicked on in the past and they colour them purple. If that changed we would not think its right. Also with a bank machine (atm) we all tend to stick to the one bank we are used to. If we are used to using that companie’s machine, if we used another machine to get money out, the setup of the system would be different and this confuses us. Most people are suspicious of change.
First time I have stepped into a dark room. I was not developing photos. I now know how to do that but i was there to cast shadows on to the photo paper. This simple amazing photo was created by placing objects on plain photo paper and shine a big light that fills the whole photo-paper page for a few seconds and then place through the necessary chemicals to create the photo or if you lucky enough have a machine that will do it for you. The photo will be black and white, the white sections will be the shadow I have created. This can only happen when light is exposed to photo paper it will look black photo once developed. So by placing these objects on the paper im causing some light to not get to the paper. You could choose the light density and how long the paper is exposed for. I experimented and managed to get a double contrast by quickly exposing the paper moving the object/s and expose again. It worked very well.
I had the brilliant change to experiment with loads of things like photo paper under a clear watered dish with objects in the water and ripples. They did not turn out as fantastic as I had hoped but I got so brilliant pictures out of it.
From the Lessons we have had on actionscript we had a opportunity to create whatever we liked on flash using the actionscript. One of the lessons we made a form and I liked the interaction you got to have using this form.
Scripting
var usernames:Array = ["lucy", "toria", "alex"];
trace(usernames);
I had a few ideas of making a slide show screen saver but I wanted to challenge myself as I was struggling to get to grips with actionscript but heart was into making the quiz. I came up with the Pixar idea after I watched the short Pixar movies that have been made with the ‘BIG’ Pixar films.
I started to write every question down I wanted to use, I was thinking of using multiple choice but then I would like a difficulty level to this quiz as the questions are easy anyway. When I drew the designs to the quiz I first drew a plain and simple design using the Pixar logo and the colours with a question box which would be a label in Flash, answer box which would be a text box and a submission button. If you got the answer correct of wrong I was hoping to create a movie to pop up like a tick looking like its being drawn to say well done and a cross in the same style to mean incorrect.
From this design I realised is it wasn’t child friendly, my orignal design was simple and minimalistic so I thought I’ll add this pictures of the films I was asking questions about. This has made it pleasing to the eye and friendly for adults and children. I created the background in Photoshop then imported it into flash. I kindly got given O’Rileys actionscript 3.0 to help me along.
I really struggled to with the coding and I first didn’t know where to start so I used bits of code from past lessons to help. I was using parts of this and that and it was not working together and I was not confident enough to look through it and say this was wrong and there was so many things I was missing to the scripting to show on the quiz.
I got loads of help for my teacher and we was communicating through email as it was Christmas Holiday but we got there and I worked through the code and added more questions and answers. Also we used Add child for when your answer is correct or wrong for the little movie I wanted to add. I changed the idea of have a tick to a smiley face or angry. I had to play around with numbers of where the image would be on the page. It was a trail and error 10 minutes.
I added two Labels (question and well done), button (submit answer), Text box (answer). I felt my time with this project run out but that is my fault for bad time management and planning. I am happy with the final outcome and all works really well. One thing I would like to change is the amount of questions to a lot more and for the questions to get hard further along the quiz. I am not planning to use actionscript in my future but is always a very good skill to have and I may need to create websites using actionscript. So I am planning to improve and progress on my knowledge and skill of actionscript so I can be more confident and do not have to turn to the book or internet incase its a very complicated scripting.
I started on storyboard a character similar to Morph. This character was shown with Kids television presenter Tony Hart. This little character of mine was going to pull play dough off his body to create something to entertain himself with so he didn’t feel lonely.
I didn’t like the idea and looked to do more research to get inspired.
I came across this video called Muto done by somebody called Blu and i love the idea and the style and very much reminds my of the dark humour of Banksy. Something like this would of taken ages so much time and each frame he does parts have to be repainted able to move onto the next frame.
He has a website with more of this work and a blog of what he is doing.
http://blublu.org
Banksy is the pseudonym of a British graffiti artist, political activist and painter, whose identity is unconfirmed.His street art and subversive epigrams combine irreverent dark humour with graffiti done in a distinctive stencilled technique. Such artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world.
It really got me thinking how could i do a stop motion like Muto with out trying to get permission and not as messy also even how much i would like to do something as big as that i do not have that much time. So got me thinking what is easy to draw on and clear to start drawing the next frame. I thought of paper and have the camera over my shoulder like its watching me draw.
I then had an idea of showing life out of my window by drawing on the window so i first drew a bird shaking on a tree branch looking out the window in my room, then flying away. I late on tried to draw a fox and it did not work at all. i tryed and owl, squirrel and all did not work at all.
so i went through a few ideas still sticking to drawing on the window.
So i thought i take a break form this and have a think of it whilst i was sorting out my room as i have only just moved and i came across some old work which was a speech/ poem close to my heart. so i decide to do a stop motion to that still drawing on the window but the images will not tell the story will make you understand the story more so u have the best of both worlds which is speech and images in stop motion.
One of the projects i was looking forward to was making a CD cover for a song. The artist of the song it Tom Rush and the song was called ‘If i had a boat.’
I feel to create a cover for a song its best to research slightly in to the artist, listen to the song or know the genre. Here is a few examples.
Both of these ablums shows the the unique crazy style of the artists. Mika’s song are all about happiness, joy and experience.
In his song you can tell that music is his life as it a source of expression and its the best way to interact with fans making remembable tunes
So on the ablum you can see there is a lot going on and that expresses to me that he/his songs have so much character. the only colours used is bright cheerful colours to match him and his songs.
If you look closely you can see there is objects thats are an importance of his songs like the curvy woman in the bottom right. “Big girls are beautiful”
Tom Rush
Rush was born in Portsmouth. Tom began performing in 1961 while studying at Harvard University after graduating from the Groton School. He majored in English literature. Many of his early recordings are versions of Lowlands Scots and folk songs. He regularly performed at the club 47 coffeehouse (now called Club Passim) in Cambridge.
This isn’t the song i have to do the cover for but its to give you an idea who and what Tom Rush is like, as i was not able to place the really song on my blog. I also emailed Tom Rush to see how he felt about the song and what was his views was then he emailed me back say he did not compose the song he was only covering it the original artist is Lyle Lovett. Over the holidays i was watching Interpreter the song was playing most of the way through the song which was very strange and i think i noticed the song more because i had been enlightened to it, thats why i recognised it.
From the song i got the feeling it was about dreaming and wishes so i wanted a soft dreamy feel but western style to match the artist.
Here is some of my sketches and first ideas i would like to develop
Then i came up with the idea of looking into the mirror like wishing for what ever they desire sometimes its windows looking out on the nothing but day dreaming. Then i thought i could faintly placeing a boat in the mirror to look like the daydream.
This design does not look as good as i would liked it of to the writing that was done on the mirror then taken a picture of with a black background to show up more in the photo. did not show up once i place the baot in the background. so in photo i thought i would erase the written area to show up more but then the whole picture did not work and looked like a child playing in photoshop not my best work i have done so i went back to the begin and went from there. I still wanted to keep my idea of it being a dream so i need to have a flowing design but it be a balanced size with the typograthy.
Here is some of my begining designs
I had loads of trouble getting the right size for the inlet of the cover so i had to keep printing out and worked out the sizes with the cover placed into the actual case. I had a few troubles but i got there in the end. I had a friend in class say there was templates on the internet to download but i was not able to so.
In this picture there is all the print outs and concepts i did to get to my final idea and size. I didn’t hit to many problem in this project apart from size and printing the cd covers out as the print at home was not installed to my laptop.
I feel i have used the perfect typography type which is from Free 1001 fonts called west test. I first of all placed the writing in the middle but it did not look right at all. so i played around with the text and resized and moved it around till i felt it look good and looked balanced on the picture. I designed and created this CD cover in Photoshop.
I have felt i have really enjoyed doing this project and would really like to do it again in my very near future. I am very proud and pleased with the finished design.
Director, Producer, Time Manager, Editor, Sound and Designer.
Toria Trinity.
Actress
Jennifer Trinity
I am going to be taking about my animation/film, which is called ‘Can’t Climb’. I have done a lot of research and concepts, which are all on my blog.
Since I started this term I have had been giving the chance to do this Animation/ Film. I catch the train as my transport to University and I read the metro like 1000’s of other Londoner’s which gave me the idea of comic stripes in to a film like many other, Snoopy, Garfield and so on. So I created my own story based on my own life experience at University. It’s my second year at a new University and I thought all my class mates was on a high platform than me and I had to climb up to get to them but I couldn’t and had to work hard and pull my socks to get there but did in the end. I gave myself a timeline in which to create the animation in CS4 flash. I was shown how to use the new bone tool in flash and it would have been very useful but I created my character in Illustrator then imported it into flash as a bitmap, which meant I couldn’t use this tool because my character didn’t have a shoulder and elbow joint. I had to import every part of the body at every angle and each object had to have its own layer on the timeline. I created the tree and the backgrounds also in Illustrator. Everything else I made in Flash. The animation took quiet a while to do move every section to how and where I would like, even so it run over the time I set. I did not realise how much time it was going to take. I knew it was going to be a challenge and I could have done a short Drama/ Film but I wanted to push myself.
I wanted to add real movie to the final product as well, of someone reading the newspaper to make it clear that it’s a comic stripe. I have to make a short divert from the storyboard to add a few typography sound effects to give you the feel of an actual comic. Once the filming and the animation were complete, I place the two together in CS4 After Effects and pieced the two together. I had a few problems with rendering, as I wasn’t sure what to do or what the movie settings was best to use. I also had a problem with the raw footage I had been jumping once rendered I sorted that by re importing the raw video footage then replace it in After effects.
I have an idea for a chapter two to continue the story on and it be making a ladder for him to climb and a tree house to make friends but finds out that isn’t the way of making the best of friends. It would be great to have an on going series of the possums. Similar to some online shows that are like mini soap operas.
I’m highly happy with the finished product the only thing I would change is in the raw footage with my sister in I would have liked to have her on a tram or train to have the full effect also that is has my idea sprung up and inspired me to create this lovely like character and story.
If i had the chance i would change the song choice on the movie but apart from that i pretty happy with the final piece.
