Week 12 Outside of Class

This weekend I changed the storyboard with the tips I was given on Thursday.

Week 12B

Today in class I finished the storyboard and had a mini critique.

I was told to possibly add a frame after “on his WONDERFUL DREAM ADVENTURE” with a picture of Tony riding the shooting star. Also, I was told to maybe change the villains on the frame and have them eat the words. I am a little hesitant about doing that because I am not exactly sure how I would animate that in After Effects. I was also given the tip to add more game play of Tony collecting a letter after the frame saying “and collect the LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET.” I worked on some of the tips in class today and will see what else I can get done this weekend. The typeface and pictures are still just for placement because we have not completed the logo and game yet.

Week 12A

Today in class I worked on the Illustrator version of the storyboard.  Here is what I got done:

It is not done yet.  I still have to add two more frames.  This is just the in progress.

Week 11 Outside of Class

This weekend, I fixed the branches and nodes and finished the storyboard.

Week 11B

Today in class Kira and I worked on our Branches & Nodes.

I also went through the Stencyl Review and took notes.

“Scenes are where everything in the game takes place.” Scenes don’t always have to be the actual levels, the main menu can actually be a scene.  Scenes can be thought of as a story, or states in the game that you transition between.  The building blocks of a scene are usually the terrain of the game, which is typically made up of tiles. You can use these tiles and virtually create any kind of landscape. You can also use the custom terrain tool on a game that is not tile-based. You can also create layers in the game to make sure that your main character goes in front of an object instead of behind. You can use the Layers Pane inside the Scene Designer to manage layers. Every element in a scene has a position, which consists of an X (horizontal) and a Y (vertical) component – each corresponds to the top left corner of the element (the higher the X value – moves you towards the right, higher Y value – moves you to the bottom).

Each scene has boundaries that you define which controls how far the camera can travel. Going beyond certain boundaries is either not permitted or leads to death. Scrolling is the act of changing what part of the scene is visible. You can use the “camera follow player” block to have the camera follow the player through the level.  The camera can also be moved in two different ways: set the camera’s (x,y) position, make the camera follow and actor (Scene>View>Camera). To make an off screen actor active use (Actor>Properties>Misc.). You can also have the camera follow a dummy actor, which means the player has no control over the camera.

You can create a tile by going to File>Create New>Tileset. Then name it. You will then see a window – 1) Click “Choose Image” to pick out the tile sheet you want to import. 2) Pick out the Tile Width/Height (most cases is 32×32 or 16×16. Click Add to finish the import. You can also animate tiles.

Regions are invisible areas of a scene that detect the actors. Regions could be used for entering doors, healing/hurting zones, stepping on a switch. To create a region – inside the Scene Designer 1) Pick the Region tool. 2) Click and Drag to place the region. Then go to the Events page and add a “Specific Actor Enters Region” event. Then you out the event with your desired values – ex. it detects when the hero enters the region. There are 3 types of regions: squares, circles, and polygons.

Stencyl uses bitmap fonts to display texts, which is a special font that is pre-rendered to pixels. To create a font you use the Font Editor. File>Create new>Font. Heads Up Displays (HUDs) usually display statistics and is a graphical dashboard that is displayed on top of everything else.

Changing a scene involves 3 parts: 1) What scene you want to go to next. 2) The exit transition. 3) The entry transition. In Stencyl you can use 7 different types of transitions: fade, blinds, bubbles, spotlight, blur, box, or crossfade.

You can import music and sounds by going to File>Create New>Sound. You can create looping music for your background. You can create channels when you want to switch the music when hero approaches an obstacle or foe.

To import a background 1) Create a new background. 2) In the background editor, click the dotted box to choose an image. 3) Click Attach to Scene button.

You can customize your actor to do special behaviors. To customize an actor, left click on the actor, and click the Inspector Pane tab on the right of the screen. Then check the “Customize” box. You can 1) Modify an actor’s set of behaviors. 2) Modify the values for those behaviors.

Week 11A

Today in class we had a class critique on our game concepts, character/villain designs, and type treatments.  Then we had the rest of class to work on our project.  In class today, I went back through the WordPress blog and added notes into each post. Professor Pannafino told us that each post should have at least a couple of sentences explaining what each post is and why you did what you did.

Week 10 Outside of Class

This weekend I was in charge of the final colored villains and background.

Week 10B

Today we had all of class to work on ideation and sketching. These were my sketches.

The three sketches above are ideas for villains that our character would have to defeat before retrieving the letter. For example, he would have to defeat an ant before receiving the letter "A".

This was my idea for a static background.  So it would be the same background and would just scroll with the screen.  Then we could add our own trees and bushes to the foreground.  There would also be a bar at the bottom of the screen for the letters of the alphabet. Each letter would light up when he retrieved it.

Week 10 Outside of Class

Outside of class, we finished our game write up.

Tony is an 8-year-old boy who is tucked into bed to go to sleep. He falls into a deep sleep and his adventure begins. Tony is riding through space on a shooting star. He notices an object far off in the distance. As the star travels closer, Tony realized that the object is the moon filled with the letters of the alphabet. The shooting star keeps getting closer and closer and Tony realizes that it is going to crash into the moon. He catapults off the star just as the star is colliding with the moon. Tony then releases his parachute and as he is floating down to earth he notices letters of the alphabet raining down around him. Tony reaches the ground safely and looks around. He has landed in a beautiful meadow filled with many trees and bushes. He unclips the parachute and begins to walk around. As Tony is walking, he comes upon the letter “A”, nestled in a group of flowers. He picks up the letter and puts in into his pocket and keeps walking. He comes upon a tall tree filled with vibrant green leaves. As Tony is looking up at the tree he notices the letter “B” sitting peacefully on one of its branches. It is then that Tony realizes that when the shooting star crashed into the moon it scattered all of the letters of the alphabet around this meadow. Tony had already found letter “A” and was standing just below letter “B.” He decided to roam and search the whole meadow for the rest of the letters to complete the alphabet. He knew it was not going to be an easy task since he had already come face to face with his first obstacle, retrieving the “B” from the tree. Tony bravely climbs the tree and obtains the “B.” He then continues his quest through the meadow until he has found every last letter.

Week 10

Today in class we did different group exercises.  We made a list of retro side scrolling games:

Duck Hunt
Tetris
Sonic
Donkey Kong
Frogger
Pac Man
Street Fighter
Pong
Zelda
Speed Racer
Super Mario III
Space Oddessy
Snake
Mind Sweep
Ships/Aliens
Deer Hunter
Lion King
Road Runner
Super Mario I
Super Mario II
Aladdin
Toy Story
Bomber Man
Burger Time
Crash Bandicoot
Smash Brothers
Tom & Jerry
Bugs Bunny
Rugrats
Dexter (Cartoon Network)
Dragon Ball Z
Ms PacMan
Pop Eye
Astroids
Galaxy
Pit Fall
E.T.
Barbie
Daffy Duck
Mickey Mouse
—————————————-
At this point, Professor Pannafino didn’t believe we had enough games and allowed us to search for games on the internet. 
The list continues with:
Kirby
Q-Bert
Ghost Busters
Jurassic Park
Tic Tac Toe
Team Fortress
Wreck-It Ralph
Jetsons
Wonder Boy
Sonic 2
007
Simon Says
Duke Nukem
The Amazing SpiderMan
Batman
Captain America
Mega Man
Hercules
Escape Plan
Incredible Hulk
Mortal Combat
Power Rangers
Star Wars
Grand Prix
NBA Jam
Space Jam
Soccer
Fifa
Tecmo Bowl
Flying Hamster
Ninja Turtles
Tempera of the Dead
Prince of Persia
Puzzle Bobble (Bubble Shooter)
Addams Family
Moon Racer
Looney Tunes
Star Trek
Sponge Bob
Thrillville
Exit


We did a mind map of anything we can associate with "Tony Dodges Bad Spelling."

Then we created stories using dice.

Create a story after throwing 9 symbol dice as a group.

Once upon a time…
There was a poor lonely girl that wanted a friend so she found a pen pal. She though it was a normal boy, but the pen pal revealed himself as an alien. They discussed finally meeting face to face. The only way the lonely girl could reach the alien at his planet was by traveling on a giant bee. She then realized that there would be obstacles in obtaining the bee. The bee was secretly hidden in a locked underground lair and the lair was guarded. The only way to obtain the key was to scare the guard and distract him to steal the key. This key unlocked the bee. The lonely girl was able to travel the galaxies to finally meet her alien friend. 

__________________________

Using your game words (Tony Dodges Bad Spelling) create a story the same way.

There once was a boy named TONY. Tony was tucked into bed and shut his eyes and dreamed a dream no one had ever dreamt before. He was riding a SHOOTING STAR that was about to collide into a misspelled word. He jumped off the star and released his PARACHUTE to safely travel back to Earth. Tony landed safely in the branches of the largest TREE in the forest. He remembers that he has to get home in TIME to do his spelling homework. Tony FOLLOWED the CLUES to travel HOME safely and overcoming dangerous obstacles. 

Story 3:
Divide the die, and add a sentence from each person going around in the circle.

Little Susie realized she was missing a key ingredient while making a blueberry pie. It was too late to go into the store because it was dark and and was scared aliens would eat her. Out of no where, a Chef Genie popped out of her fireplace. The Chef Genie gave Susie a flashlight to travel outside and to not be afraid of the aliens. The genie gave her a key to get into the store. As Susie was travelling, she took a wrong turn and becomes lost and scared. A magical/mystical rainbow appears and gives her a friendly message saying she can travel safely on a cloud to get to the grocery store. The cloud was trustworthy and delivered her safely.

Then we had the rest of class to work with our group on a 300 word game summary.  This is what we got done during the class:


Tony is an 8-year-old boy who is tucked into bed to go to sleep.  He falls into a deep sleep and his adventure begins.  Tony is riding through space on a shooting star.  He notices an object far off in the distance.  As the star travels closer, Tony realized that the object is the moon filled with the letters of the alphabet. The shooting star keeps getting closer and closer and Tony realizes that it is going to crash into the moon.  He catapults off the star just as the star is colliding with the moon.  Tony then releases his parachute and as he is floating down to earth he notices letters of the alphabet raining down around him.

Week 9 Outside of Class

This weekend I created a WordPress and invited all of the group members to join the group. I also created a half page game proposal for my game idea.

            My game proposal for motion design is for a game with numbers.  It is geared towards a four-year-old child.  The child controls the character across the screen to find numbers.  Each level has ten numbers to be found.  Level one would be numbers 1-10, level two would be 11-20, three would be 21-30, and so on.  Each number would be shown in written form instead of number form.  By doing this, you are teaching the child to count and to spell/read each number.  Each number would not be shown in the correct order in the level.  What this means is that the first number seen in the level could be seven instead of one.  This means that the child has to go find the word one before moving on to two and three.  Therefore, the level would not be that big because the child would be moving left and right and backtracking a lot through the level.  Each level would also take place in a different location.  For example, level one could be in the jungle, level two is in the desert, and three could be on a beach.  The main character is playful and cartoony or could even be an animal.  The child would control this character around/over/under obstacles to pick up the numbers.  There would be 10 levels, with numbers going up to 100.  Along the way the child can pick up fruit to gain more points but should avoid the monster-like items that will deduct points.  The final boss could be a monster-like character that is defeated by feeding him junk food.  Children would pick items out of a list to feed him.  They could pick from fruits, vegetables, and junk foods.

Week 9B

Today in class we were split up into our groups for the game design project.  We then participated in a group bonding activity by deciding what 12 items we would bring with us if our plane crashed and we were stranded on an island.  Then we spent the rest of class watching a movie on the history of gaming.

Week 9A

Today we had a full class critique.  Some of the feedback that I received was to add some time to the end of the video so that you have time to read everything on the screen.  People voiced that they liked that it was just black and white because it reflected the atmosphere of the restaurant.  I was given the tip that for my portfolio it could be a good idea to create another one or two variations of this animation focusing on different aspects of the animation.

Week 8 Outside of Class

This weekend I finished my logo animation.  It is an end tag for Bianco e Nero, a high end Italian restaurant I created for my Type class.  "Bianco e Nero" translates to "white and black" in Italian, so my logo and name are just in black and white.  The whole restaurant is a black and white theme.  It is a high end Italian restaurant so I wanted to portray elegance in my end tag.  That's when I came up with my idea to focus on a place setting and then a wine glass and bottle.  My logo reminded me of how wine looks when being poured into a glass, so that is how I portrayed it in my video.  Everything being "drawn" on with a white line was created by using a stroke in After Effects.

Week 8B

Today we had all day in class to work. I changed the "Bianco e Nero" from being handwritten to just fading in because the handwriting did not look that great and it was taking too much time in the video.  I also slowed down the beginning so that you can make out the place setting better.  I also added some sound.  I still have to edit the sound to fade out.

Week 8A

Today we had all of class to work on our video.  This is what I got done in class.

I feel that the beginning is a little too fast and might go back and slow it down.  I am definitely struggling a little with the time constraint.

Week 7B

Today we had all class period to fix our storyboards and start animating our videos.  I spent most of the class fixing little things in my storyboard and putting each element into its own layer so it could be transferred into After Effects more easily.

Week 7A

Today in class we went over our symbolic scoring for our videos. Then we had the rest of the class to fix them. Some advice that I was given was to clean up the wine bottle at the top of the screen to make it look more like a wine bottle and to add a silver/grayish gradient to the last two frames. Also I was told to clean up my layout from 5 frames to 6. I finished that in class.

Week 6 Outside of Class

This weekend I finished my symbolic scoring, both the sketch and on Illustrator.

Week 6B

Today in class we were introduced to our next project, logo animation. We had most of the class to find a logo that we want to animate and start thinking of ways to animate it. I had the idea to animate a logo that I created in my Typography class. This is the logo:

It was for my menu project. Bianco e Nero means "white and black" in Italian. My restaurant was a high end Italian restaurant. The logo reminds me of how wine looks when it gets poured into a glass. How it creates a wave like motion.

So for my animation, I was thinking of starting with a plain black screen and having a single white line draw the silhouette of a wine bottle, wine glass, and a place setting (like a plate with a folded napkin on it). Similar to the Frazier show opening. 

 

Then I would zoom in on the wine glass and have a wine bottle start to pour wine into the glass. However, when the wine entered the glass, it would create my logo. Then the background would fade into white (making the wine glass disappear) and only leaving my black logo. Then I would have my restaurant name be written underneath the logo. This animation would be shown on a channel that focused on food, such as The Food Network.

Week 6A

Today in class we had a full class critique of our quote videos.

Week 5 Outside of Class

This weekend, I finished my quote video. Here it is:

My quote is "The first to apologize is the bravest. The first to forgive is the strongest. The first to forget is the happiest." The feeling I get from the quote is very heartfelt and deep but also calm. I used the color blue because it is a calm color and I wanted to use a script typeface to give the quote elegance. I used a bold typeface because I wanted to give the quote a bold feeling also. Then I chose the background because I felt that it had a calming feel to it.



Over the weekend I had posted my first video to get feedback from other people. The feedback that I got was to make the script handwriting a little faster. Here is the video before my changes.

Week 5B

Today we had all of class to work on our videos. Today, I got the last two sentences of my quote animated and finished. Then I began to look for a background.

Week 5A

Today in class we went to each person's computer in our row and found out where they used foreshadowing and recall. Then we had the rest of class to work on our animations.

Week 4 Outside of Class

Earlier this week outside of class, I completed putting my quote into Illustrator. This was my final product:

This weekend, I completed my symbolic scoring sketches. Im pretty sure that a lot of it will get changed once I see it on the computer screen in motion but here are my sketches:

I also transferred these sketches into Illustrator:

I also watched the After Effects videos on Lynda.com. Here are the notes that I took:

Understanding Precomposing:

• Precomposing is when you take a series of layers and group them together into another composition
• Select all of the layers you want, go to Layer, and choose Pre Compose. OR command + shift + c
• can now operate all the layers as one
• command + d to duplicate that layer

Navigating Through Compositions Quickly

• You can group pre-comps into more pre-comps
• Shift + arrow keys to jump from composition to composition
• the big composition is called the parent composition and the pre-comp inside that composition is called the child composition

Creating and Editing Text

• Point type is when you just click with the type tool and start typing - it creates one long line of type - or you can use the text box
• the character and paragraph panels are what is used to edit text

Animating Text Manually

• Use the text drop down instead of the transform
• Use the Animate button in the text drop down
• When clicking a property in the animate drop down creates a Range Selector and a section for the property you selected - both of these are grouped into a file called Animator 1
• only the text that is in the range selector will be applied with the property
• you can add more properties into the same Animator 1 file by using the Add button

Using Work Areas

• you can create a work area by dragging the yellow bar to where you want your work space to start and end
• if you double click the work area bar it resets itself
• you can press the letter "b" for the beginning of the work area and "n" for end
• Shift +home will take you to the beginning of the work area and Shift + end will take you to the end
• You can render just the work area

Creating Markers

• markers are a way to create notes for yourself or your team
• there are markers for the layers and markers for the whole composition
• select the layer, go up to "Layer", and click "add marker"
• OR click the "*" key - then click the * key again to end
• click on the shield on the right hand side of the screen and drag it to the left to create a comp marker
• double click markers to name them

Replacing Layers

• select your current layer, hold down the option key, and drag the layer that you want to replace it with down to where the first layer is

Mastering Timeline Navigation

• can zoom in and out of the timeline with the + and - keys
• to press "d" it will center you on the timeline
• option + scroll wheel will zoom you in and out of the timeline and Shift + scroll wheel will scroll you back and forward in time

Creating and Using Masks

• select the layer you want, select the rectangle tool, click and drag on the screen until you have what you want
• there are different mask modes
• if you open up the masks drop down menu, then click the "Add" drop down menu, and change it to subtract

Exploring Mask Options

• if you press the letter "m" you can reveal basic properties about the mask
• you can animate the mask path by clicking the stopwatch on "mask path"
• if you click "m" twice you will reveal mask properties and all mask options
• mask path, mask feather, mask opacity, and mask expansion

Masking Objects With Other Objects

• make sure you can see the modes column
• select the layer you want, in the "track matte area" and choose "alpha mattes *layer name*" - outline
• OR click the layer you want, in the "track matte area" choose "luma matte *layer name*" - brightness

Off Campus Artist Talk - How To Land A Job

Tonight I went to the artist talk at The Candy Factory about How To Land A Job.  Some of the things that Linda, Lauren, Justin, and Christine said about
First Interviews:
They said that in the first interview that you would most likely contact the creative director but would most likely be talking to more than just one person.  They said to ALWAYS BE PREPARED!! You should have more than enough resumes, arrive early, and dress appropriately.  Also, you should know the company that you are interested in.  During the interview, you should talk about yourself as much as possible as long as it pertains to the conversation. One big thing that they kept going back on was that you should make sure this job is a good fit for you and that you will love it because nothing is worse than having a job that you hate.
Their Favorite Questions To Ask in an Interview:
Some of the questions that they said they like to ask are what is your favorite game to play and why? What is something that you could have done to make your previous job better? What would you have changed if you were the boss? If you were in a circus, what position would you be? They ask questions about previous jobs or employers to see what the interviewee's tone is about that corporation.  They like to ask questions about previous projects you have done and environments you have worked in.
Questions For The Interviewee To Ask:
The panel said that some questions they would like to hear the interviewee ask would be why the job is open? What does the interviewer likes about the company? They all said that the interview should bring your personality out and that you should be yourself.  One thing that I enjoyed that they said was that interviewing should be a two-way street. You should be able to ask the interviewer questions to decide whether that job is the right job for you.  They also said that you should never say something that you don't mean because you might be asked to elaborate further.  Because you might be asked to elaborate, you need to be prepared to back-up your statements.
Talking About A Job You Quit/Fired:
The panel said to never harp on a topic and to never be extremely negative towards that company or boss. They said a good response would be, "it just wasn't a good fit for me." They said to try to stick to the positives and not the negatives.
How Can Candidates Set Themselves Apart From The Crowd:
The panel said that to set yourself apart from the crowd, your resume and portfolio are really important. Your resume should stand out from others but not be over-the-top. Justin said that one thing that makes people stand out is if they have the ability to think. This means how they ask and answer question and how they make the conversation fun instead of awkward.  They also said that you need to show up early with your resume and portfolio with you. Your portfolio needs to be organized in a way that shows that you respect your work. They all said that you should be enthusiastic. Even if you don't get the job at the time, the interviewer will remember you and your personality and maybe call you back for a future job. Less is more and you should ALWAYS follow up the interview with an email thanking the person for the interview. It will leave a big impression with the person. Your work should be accessible offline because there is a good chance that you won't be able to connect to their WiFi. When going over your portfolio, you should always end on your strongest piece. Justin said that you should have web and print and that you NEED to learn code to get ahead of the rest of the contenders. They ended by saying that one big thing that could help you get a job is to find a company that you want to work for and ask them, "What do I need to do to work for a company like you?"

I really enjoyed this talk because I felt that I was getting information that other people don't know and that it will help me get the job over those other people.  I loved how each panelist was laid back and willing to do everything they could to help us and give us every tip they could think of to help us get a future job.

Week 4B

Today in class we critiqued our quotes in Illustrator. Each row critiqued the peoples' that were in their row and voted on which they thought was the best. Then then the ones that were voted the best presented theirs to the class. Next, we were shown examples of what our final product would look like. Then we were taught what symbolic scoring is and how to do it. We had the rest of class to sketch out what we wanted our video to look like using symbolic scoring. Personally, I had a hard time sketching it out because I felt that what I was putting on paper might not look good on the screen and then my whole sketch would be wrong. Because I was having trouble thinking of ideas of how to portray my quote and struggling to get it down into a sketch I did not get very much done in class. This is what I got done:

Week 4A

Today in class we briefly critiqued our rhythm movies. Then we learned about foreshadowing and recalling. Then we were to find a quote or sentences that we liked to use for our next assignment.  The quote that I chose was "The first to apologize is the bravest. The first to forgive is the strongest. The first to forget is the happiest." We then had the rest of the class period to start putting our quote into Illustrator using typography, color, position, etc.

Week 3 Outside of Class

Outside of class, I finished my rhythm homework assignment. Here is my finished product.



My thought process was to make the word look similar to a wave. I wanted it to look like the whole word was connected (like a rope) and that the R was making the rest of the word move. (Similar to the waves a rope would make when oscillated back and forth.


I also finished the second part of our homework assignment. We had to do the same thing as before, just in Flash, instead of After Effects. I ended up making 3. The like the first one but it was a little too plain. I like the second one even better, however, I'm not sure if it shows enough rhythm. Therefore, I created my last one. Here are all three:

Week 3B

Today in class, we ran through how to use Flash again. Then we had the rest of the class to work on our homework.  Our assignment was to use the word "rhythm" and show rhythm. However, instead of using After Effects we were supposed to use Flash.

Artist Talk - Alumni

On Saturday, I attended the Alumni Portfolio Day. Some of the things that people said that stuck with me were:

Alicia Taylor:

• start looking for jobs now
• networking is very important

Kate Anderson:

• agencies are a lot of work
• "stalk" companies
• never take a raise without knowing what the raise is for - are you being given more responsiblities?
• learn how to use InDesign and Photoshop

Erin Good

• get organized
• keep a list of studios you are interested in
• become an AIGA member
• be overly prepared for interviews
• send thank you's 
• ask a lot of questions

Michelle Winey

• freelance could be an option

Chris Willet

• make sure to have a website along with your paper portfolio
• cast a wide net - apply to a lot of places
• have to ask yourself "what are you willing to give up?"

Aaron Chu

• know what is going on around you in the world
• smile a lot
• don't put anything work related on Facebook
• Google is your best friend

I definitely enjoyed this talk.  Some aspects scared me.  I was thinking to myself that I would never be as good as these people, which means I will never find a job.  But then some of them said they were thinking the same thing and now they have jobs.