DTC 375 Blod #9 DTC Showcase

I have 2 projects that I thought were amazing. They are the Titancraft animation and the Not so Serious Ski Movie. I’ve taken animations classes this past year and I enjoyed it. I constantly hate on my work because I could take more time and do it better. Titancraft is the perfect example of what needs to be done in an animation to make things look incredible. Is showcases smooth animations and dedication to the craft of animating. I think the atmosphere of Minecraft combined with the high action and unique movements of a game like Titanfall brings out what clean animation can do over flashy textures and high polygon count models. I really wish I had a bit more patience and motivation to create products like that. Not so Serious Ski Movie is a great example of superb editing. I’m a big fan of great editing and wish I had good content to edit. I think that the editing and film crew wanted to make something that harkened back to the old school ski movies. I think they captured the feel of those movies and brought them to the modern light for everyone to enjoy. The camera work was also amazing and the cuts flowed extremely smoothly. It is obvious to me that the editor was extremely motivated and dedicated to producing a high quality video. I took a video editing class to complete my DTC minor and I’m glad I did. Honestly I like each of these things for different reasons. Clean animations is always nice and fun clean edits are extremely enjoyable. If I had to place one above the other I would so the Not so Serious Ski Movie is the winner to me. The editing outweighs the animation to me because editing brings out the immersion to the project to me.

 

Comments:

Blog 10: DTC Showcase Reflection

Post 9: I Had a Really Bad Dream Last Night

DTC 375 Blog Post #8 Music

Music is amazing in what it does. Music brings out people’s emotions and memories. Music sets up the environment for games. To me music is one of the most important parts of any production. Music is a big part of my life. I’ve played music for such a long time I can’t even remember when I started. I’ve played piano, sax, violin, guitar and bass. I’ve dabbled in drums and other instruments. Music is such an incredibly interesting subject that I can barely dig into it. In my opinion I think that everyone should at least try playing an interest in some capacity. Music conveys such emotion that it can change the tone of a setting in a heartbeat. Changing a chord from major to minor is such a shocking change that people don’t even realize how strong it is. In reality that change is just a one note being changed but it has such a powerful effect. Music in video games really allows for the immersion that players are seeking. Some of my favorite music is from video games. If I played the Super Mario Brothers theme in a class and asked how many people recognized it I bet all of the hands would be raised. Music is iconic. Music is cultural. Music is pretty much the thing that truly immerses people into games and movies. Music is everywhere and anything can be turned into music. I did a project for my DTC 355 class where we took every day sounds and turned them into music. It was one of my favorite projects and I think it turned out spectacular. Music is what brings together a project and it brings together people in such a way that nothing else can match it. Music is such an important thing in life that everyone needs to appreciate it if they aren’t already.

Comments:

Post 8: I Really Don’t Think Facebook is all that Bad

Blog 9: Freestyle

 

DTC 375 Blog #6 Old school Tech

So you are about to start college? Great! Are you a fan of movies? Did you know that movies used to be stored on tapes called VHS? Music also was stored on tapes called Cassette Tapes. Computers also used tapes but that is before my time. Basically the information for a movie or album was stored on a physical tape and the VCR player or Cassette player would translate the tape into a movie or song. An important note about tapes is that they had to be rewound after being finished. I remember renting VHS tapes and having to rewind tapes because people are jerks and didn’t rewind them before returning them to the rental stores. The relevance of this all is that storage information is constantly improving. I remember a 256 mb flash drive being great but then bigger and better flash drives came out.  I’ve gotten free 16 gb flash drives at career fairs approximately 10 years later. The most important thing, especially in terms of technology and computers, is that storage and other parts improve. Every single part of human technology improves over time to be more efficient. Going back to videos, editing used to require direct manipulation of the tape that it was recorded on. Now we use digital means to edit. Back to the tapes though. Tapes like this brought movies more into home and made songs easier to listen to on the go. Previously records that were massive were record for music and large projectors for film. Technology will keep getting better. Efficiency and size are important aspects of technology and if you want to go back and look at stuff like the first computer or the first camera. You will see what I am talking about in how things improve and get reduced in size.

 

Comments:

Blog 6:The Motorola RAZR V3

Blog 7: Freestyle

DTC 375 Blog # 7 Online Subcommunity

Apparently I had my order wrong so Blog #7 is before Blog #6. Woo, go me…

Reddit is an extremely intriguing social media site with several subcultures. Reddit is a message, image and video board, and also a forum. Reddit is made up of several subreddits. Each subbreddit has a theme or topic. Examples of this are gaming, science and even drugs. Reddit uses a system called karma, which are imaginary online internet points, to show how “good” a user’s posts and comments are. Personally I just lurk around Reddit to get news about subjects that I care about. A lot of people care a lot about these online internet points. The community as a whole votes whether a post should be “upvoted” or “downvoted.” It’s simply amazing how people react to a “reward” system that they perceive as relevant. They get a sense of gratification just by speaking their minds or making jokes based on these karma points.  Most of the time people will fully type out what they are thinking instead of using shorthand. There are mobile versions of Reddit available so there is some overlap in language being used. Most posts on Reddit are hosted through imgur and frequently the files are gifs. Occasionally YouTube videos and tumblrs are linked. Pretty much any message goes but it is based on the subreddit. There are moderators to ensure that a subreddit’s specific rules are being kept. I’ve seen people banned for not following a style guide in a certain subbreddit to make things flow easier. Most of the time the bans that occur are to keep personal information safe and to keep things relevant to the subject but it really depends on the subreddit. Compared to other sites like 4chan or 9gag Reddit is far better in my opinion. Reddit has because my primary news source and is an amazing site for online discussion.

Comments:

Post 7: Mommy Blogs are my Thing

Blog 8: Freestyle

DTC 375 Blog Post #5 Classroom Technologies & Attendance

Technology is extremely prevalent in modern society. Technology is going to be my livelihood in the future since I am a computer scientist. And being a computer scientist I use technology in class every single day. Most of the experiences with classroom technology has been fine. I’ve seen laptops overheat and have no battery life too but that is really just dependent on the person. I find it odd that the EECS building’s classroom computers don’t have the correct programming software installed. This means my professors take laptops everywhere with them. I’ve seen plenty of programs run perfectly like Visual Studio. Recently I’ve seen issues with programs like iClicker. One of my professors that I have two classes with uses iClicker regularly. And it seems once every two weeks the program either freezes, crashes or just refuses to work properly. I find this hilarious since it was “required” to have the remote for these classes but the program that I have no control over refuses to work. Of course there are going to be buggy release for programs and I have had my fair share in hunting down those bugs, but you would think that a college level professor would have tested the program thoroughly before using it in an upper level class. In regards to class attendance for larger classes like Chem 105 where there are only one or two lecture times, my attendance is really based on what the class offers. I have a class where I feel I am not learning anything and the lecture slides are posted online. I feel no obligation to attend if I wake up late. My reasoning behind this is I have everything available to me aside from small thing the professor would give us in class, I will be fine for tests and homework. Normally for tests I also get a sheet of notes which further harms my attendance.

Comments:

Post 5: I Can’t Do Digital Reading

Blog 5: Freestyle

DTC Blog Post #4 Game Design Rants

Game design is very near and dear to me. I’ve played games ever since I can remember. Recently I’ve looked into game design and I want to pursue a career in game design. Lately I’ve been a huge fan of League of Legends and the way that Riot Games handles game design is exactly how I would handle it myself. Essentially Riot cares about keeping things fun. But what does that mean? The way Riot keeps things fun is by avoiding “antifun.” What that means is that Riot wants the player to have fun with their abilities and wants their opponents to have rewarding and fun counter play. Compared to other companies like Blizzard that have a large and extreme buff/nerf cycle. Blizzard will over buff the classes in games like World of Warcraft but this leads to a lot of problems. Blatantly overpowered classes requires more strong buffs and the power creep just keeps going. Defense of the Ancients has what is called a hard counter system where the game can be decided before the match even starts. Certain heroes directly counter other heroes. To me what is the point of even playing a match that is decided even before the game starts. League of Legends handles this so much better in my opinion. League has a soft counter system where certain champions will play better against other champions but won’t completely shut down the lane. This allows the countered player to still have a chance and enjoy the game, no matter how rough it will be. Being able to enjoy the game no matter the circumstances is key to what makes a game fun to me. I don’t mean to hate on DotA and Blizzard games, I spent a long time playing World of Warcraft but I strongly prefer the way Riot Games handles their balancing.

Comments I made:

Post 4: Games and Rants and Chess

Blog 4: Freestyle

DTC 375 Blog Post #3

User interface is such an interesting subject that I can barely scratch the surface of it. I’m currently taking a class on Human-Computer Interaction, which is the category, that user interface is filed under. Humans form connections naturally and it was what allowed us to adapt and thrive in this world. There are plenty of games that allow for detachment from the world. Any single player game is designed to keep people focused on that game and nothing else. An example of this is The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim.

This game is completely focused on story and not about a multiplayer experience. The user interface is just displaying the information for the game. Nothing about what your friends are doing or what is trending online just your health, stamina and magika bars.

 

An example of a user interface that promotes social connections is the World of Warcraft user interface.

Since the game is more about social interactions and the multiplayer experience World of Warcraft needs to have a good attachment platform. A chat box is included in this user interface and there are tabs for different social interactions such as friends and guilds. Since these games require different interactions and connections it is very obvious why the interfaces include and exclude these things. When I’m playing a single player game I don’t care what my friends are doing I just want to experience the game itself. But in a social game I care about what my friends and guildmates are doing, because I generally want to do these things with them. This is where the Human-computer Interaction aspect really comes into play. We want to display the most relevant information to the player as easily as possible. And since we can observe the lack of social interaction or detachment in single player games we can design around that. We can also design around the increased social interaction in games too.

 

Really late comments but here they are:

Post 3: Connecting With The Sims

Blog 3: Freestyle

DTC 375 Blog Post #2

There is an obvious disparity in spending between college students, Pullman natives and professors. Most college students are on a lower budget than either natives or professors. This means that they will routinely have to cut corners as best as they can. For me that means fewer name brands, less pop and getting my parents old furniture. As a student I really can’t afford to get the newest gadgets and games unless I want to be cutting in close for my bank account until my next paycheck. Most of my shopping is at Walmart where a Pullman native or professor can afford to shop at Safeway, Dissmore’s or even Costco down in Lewiston. Part of the reason I shop at Walmart is because it is the closest Grocery store to my apartment. I have to eat out less than I used to before and I have to avoid pricier options in stores. I can’t really purchase alcohol unless I allocate the amount of money for it and have a sufficient reason to do so. For Pullman natives and professors, they normally have the appropriate level of income to buy name brands and have luxury expenses. I’ve seen several students stick to debit cards and cash over credit cards, where Pullman natives and professors are more established in their lives and use credit cards instead. I am guessing this is related to the fact that a lot of students don’t have jobs and most credit card companies and bank require a proof of employment to apply for a credit card. A similarity I have seen is that almost no one pays by check anymore. For me my checks are only for bills. Back when I was in the dorms I only saw college students eat at the dining centers with RDA or Cougar Cash. I never saw a professor or Pullman native eat at a campus dining center.

My comments on other blogs:

http://jakelotzgesell.blogspot.com/2014/02/blog-2.html?showComment=1392856026757#c6769704525320544790

https://laurelanddtc375.wordpress.com/2014/02/03/blog-2-having-to-do-with-goodfellas/comment-page-1/#comment-8

DTC 375 Blog #1 Profit

Technology is always advancing and with it so are money and profit. A product that is being produced that will streamline money is called Coin. Coin is a programmable credit card that holds all of your other cards. Coin deactivates if it is too far away from your phone making it secure. I can see companies wanting to charge fees for products that like in the future. I feel that profit methods will gravitate towards all in one products in the future like Coin. An example of this shift is the Xbox One. The Xbox One is designed as a multimedia console with both an HDMI in and an HDMI out. Further along the line I expect to see biointegrated products similar to Google Glass becoming extremely popular. The potential for an empire in this field is immense. There is the potential for a cultural empire that could ostracize people without biointegrated products. And of course there is the potential for the financial empire of a company dominating the market for these products. Situations like this are prevalent in SciFi movies like Gattaca. Societies that force people into certain job situations based on their genetics. Controlling people based on their genetics will lead to immense profits by giving people a “genetically superior” child or placing them into jobs that they are “better suited” for. This can create a genetic empire in theory. A genetic empire can start discriminating against the “genetically weak” population and cause several problems. I also can see blood and “better” genetics becoming a currency at some point. I don’t see this happening for a long time and I expect the government to attempt to prevent this from happening but I think it will be inevitable. I believe that profit is something that every human is going to strive for subconsciously.

My reply links for this set of posts:

League of Legends Focus (Pending Approval)

Coin/Target (Pending Approval)

Telling a story isn’t something that the average person can do.  It takes a lot of ingenuity to be able to make someone else visual what you are describing to them at that time.  The flickr group Tell a story in 5 frames (Visual story telling) is trying to accomplish that in 5 pictures.  I decided to look at a story called Modern Family. Picture 1 is showing the initial family.  Everything seems happy and life seems normal. Picture 2 is showing a conflict in the family.  This is done by showing a shaking motion which is really just a long exposure for the shot while either the camera or the subject was moved around. Picture 3 is depicting the departure of one parent who I thought was the father due to the collar of the piece.  Picture 4 shows the blue piece in what is its new life with a different yellow piece.  This can be seen as either a random encounter to a forced encounter.  Picture 5 shows how no matter what happens life has to go on and the big red piece is still caring for the small red piece.  The last frame is open to interpretation on how things can end.  I see it as happy but I can also see it as sad.

I really like the simplistic approach the storyteller took with telling their story.

For my story I decided to tell a tale of a boy getting a balloon.  I opted for Microsoft Paint and I wish I had stronger drawing skills.