Flash Contact Form

http://www.scotflash.co.uk/blog/?p=13

Contrasts in Design

Design, especially in web design can swing between form and function. There is a balance between functional and flamboyant design, between html and Flash. Now I shall take an opportunity to briefly analyse these difference and see where they cross over.



indoorheroes.com -
I found this a particularly interesting website to briefly study as I indirectly know the designer. Indoorheroes.com was both built and designed by Joey Rabbitt, a freelance web designer. Personally I find this website brilliant in terms of functionality, the website is primarily a web comic and there is clear emphasis on that with a large display and clear navigation buttons in both internationally recognisable symbols and written text.
If you are looking for more than a web comic, there is obviously a lot more information to be found here, including a blog, a secure comment system so fans of the comic can interact with each other and the author and a news and articles feed. If you want to further browse this additional information there are drop down menus for filtering and sorting content, making it very easy to find something specific.

The website also crosses over and overlaps with other aspects of design, for example the option to choose from various themes. Users or clients have the ability to change the visual style of the site to suit their own tastes; this appears to be achieved through java script and css. The only flash elements used are for advertising in standardised banner sizes, although at present all banners are static jpgs.



locoroco.com –
This website promotes the Loco Roco game series for the Sony Playstation. Being flash you immediately notice that it is difficult to navigate through content quickly as you are constantly waiting between menus and as a result waiting through preloaders. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the web site is very attractive but some times the visuals can be a bit much and confusing in terms of finding specific content.

Again there is a cross over, where Flash can achieve the impossible compared to html or css. The Loco Roco website has essentially recreated a part of the game on the website, perhaps like a demo, which is invaluable in this specific context. Potential buyers would love to get to grips with the game before buying it.

Evolution of Hexademic New Media

Whilst browsing through the OEP Ning, I found Shaun Belcher has added an Industry tab. Here I found several links to new media firms in the east midlands, one in particular called Evoluted. At first I found the website a little corporate and stale but after viewing their portfolio and reading through their content I realised I could learn a great deal from these guys, especially in terms of features and functionality. Hexademic New Media needs a website and I think this has finally inspired me to start building it.

Edit: I also found this very interesting www.erskinedesign.com

Web Design Assignment

I've started making progress on the web design assignment (a three page html site with three flash objects). I have been drawing up designs in CSS using my new scratch built CSS template. Its proving to be a faster way of drafting designs than photoshop. See my current progress here.

http://www.erebusstyx.co.uk/about/

G.I.R

After painting a Mighty Mugg to look like Master Chief, I think I rekindled my love for painting (in a very unconventional sense). I brought some paints and started painting once more, perhaps in a more traditional manner this time, on a canvas. I painted a character called G.I.R from a cartoon called Invader Zim as a gift for a very remarkable person. I plan on attending several life drawing sessions at the Waverly building to further hone my abilities as a artists as well as a designer.

CSS Template

I have produced my own CSS template for when I wish to quickly produce simple websites. As much as we may hate to admit it, most websites will boil down to some sort of header, sidebar and content area. I have used a set of my own labels for class and id tags which I will now try and standardize every time I build a site or style sheet. I have also told Phil who I work with on Hexademic projects about my CSS template so he can not only quickly interpret my style sheets but edit them also.

View my Template here: http://www.erebusstyx.co.uk/css/

View my style sheet here: http://www.erebusstyx.co.uk/css/style.css

Touch Browsing

Touch screens are evidently the future of computerised interaction, its simply a more natural ergonomic way of working with something. As a result designers, including myself, don't necessarily need to know how to produce touch screen software but design with it in mind. I need to start asking myself, how would somebody viewing this page on a Iphone or other hand held, receive this website? Obviously the first thing to consider is page sizes but there are several other issues to address such as plug ins, will this flash object be visible? Do I need an html version for other users?

It would also be wise to start thinking about developing a touch screen based Flash .swf or even an application, perhaps using something like Coco, as used by the Iphone. Currently my coding skills don't go far beyond html and css but it would be good to at least try and get involved in some of these exciting new projects by contacting the professionals who work in this field.

Un.Titled

http://un.titled.co.uk/

Active Ingredient

Active Ingredient is a Nottingham based design firm who work with interactives, web design and more... Their website features full page flash and many interactive elements including a drawing tool and image gallery of other people’s drawings. As the current 3 page HTML/Flash assignment is almost already achieved through my existing projects (such as the NTU Gamer Society website) I have been asked to look into more advanced ideas, such as the projects that Active Ingredient are working on. Although I am still very much a PHP rookie and I would like to devote most of my time to OEP Web Applications, Flash cannot be over looked especially in terms of interactive features. In the near future I will further analyse the work of active ingredient and the importance of interactive design in the multimedia industry.

CSS Zen Garden

During a OEP seminar, Shaun Belcher was teaching us how to embed flash files into an HTML document. We felt this exercise wasn't particularly relevant to me (It's more than likely what ever site your reading this feed from has a Flash element already embedded in it.) so shaun showed me a site called Daves Notes. It features several online presentations about web design from more of a basic coding stand point. After reading through a few of the presentations I found they helped fill in the gaps in my understanding of basic web design (for example the difference between HTML and XHTML). What I found really interesting on Daves Notes was his links section, a web site called CSS Zen Garden. This website has a set of links that reskins the website with fantastic examples of CSS, it really shows you how much is possible with CSS. Perhaps sometimes we're to quick too use flash for presentation. Anybody interested in CSS, I strongly recommend you check this out...

"Change Has Come To America"

Barack Obama has become president of the USA, quite frankly I'm relieved. I won't delve into my politics too much but if this is anything to go by, I think the right choice was made...

Fire Service... Call the Police!

I was looking at the Fire Service website looking at firework safety for the interaction design task and noticed a bit of internet plagerism. The Fire Service website favicon (the little logo in the tabs menu of your browser) has been stolen straight off Feedburner.com... It's exactly the same!

Interaction Design - Firework Safety

Much like my fireworks banner, my flash lecturer David Downes has set me another design task. This time a multiple slide flash animation promoting firework safety. The project must have between 6 and 8 flash sections that include both animation and interaction.

I have several design ideas already, all of which are centered around "The Firworks Safety Code" that I found on saferfireworks.com.

My favourite idea so far is a virtual safety guide, a book that you click on to open and presents you with the 10 rules of the fireworks safety code. I have literally just been set this task so of course no ideas are set in stone yet, I will post some initial ideas when I have them.

Flash Banner

Here is the flash banner I worked on for David Downes with Anthony Wood. This to me, primarily seemed like an opportunity for our lecturer David to see our basic abilities with flash. I had more experience in flash so we designed and planned with Anthony and I lead work on producing the Flash. We looked at web compliant banner sizes at Simply Grafix, considering we endded up choosing a fireworks banner, a tall thin (vertical tower) banner appeared most appropriate after a little experimentation.



.swf file coming soon...

The Plan

For my mini/sub site I would like a subtle on-going theme, I decided I like this wallpaper effect background. I will have an interactive room, perhaps looking through a window, this window will be the clickable part of the page, all still objects will be static html while some features will need to stand out. On the side of the window will be a banner to link back to my main portfolio page. Inside this room will be some nice flock wallpaper, myself, a television and perhaps an object of value to me, maybe a photograph. Most objects will link to other pages with information about myself but the television will be something else. The television will be a sort of image gallery viewer with a static effect when you change image, This can be achieved using an updateable xml file using a flash component I got from flashotaku.com. I will post some concept drawings soon.

OEP Assignment

Our first OEP assignment is to produce a 3 page html website featuring several flash elements. Over the summer I had a unique opportunity to build websites for several clients and while immersed in the multimedia world I had to learn quickly. I have since produced several sites with included flash elements such as teamtrimite.com and gamersoc.co.uk. Although this task may appear like it could be done in an evening, I like to think of it more as an opportunity to experiment and try more ambitious themes as I was never presented with this opportunity with client projects. Last year we we're asked to build an interactive flash piece that we felt represented us. I felt like I missed out on a good project last year as I was too wrapped up in 3DS Max to focus on the idea of self. I would like to produce a mini/sub site for my personal portfolio erebusstyx.co.uk about myself, a more personal approach than my portfolio.

Another thing I would like to experiment with is how I approach a client project. Before I have always inadvertently wire framed my ideas, first sketching on a white board, then building up an image in photoshop, then buidling up simple bordered divs in HTML/CSS to build an idea of how things will look. From this point it's almost a case of fill in the divs, making everything a lot easier from a web developer standpoint. As opposed to an alternative to wire framing, this time I plan on using card sorting to improve the usability of my mini site.

"Interface design is the physical expression of the interaction design: the skin over the muscles and bone. Interaction design says, 'We need a button to turn on the siren.' Interface design says, 'The button should be here and it should be red.' They are deeply intertwined, since you cannot have one without the other."

-Dan Saffer.

Clearly interface design is an essential aspect of web design and although I have considered it before, it has never been the driving force behind my design ideas. This time I hope to pay increased attention to interface design using card sorting to help improve the ease of use of the mini site. Card sorting presents a sample of potential users with several cards representing content, users are then asked to arrange these cards into groups as they would expect to find the content they represent on a website.

"Identifying trends in users’ mental models about a particular subject; that is, learning how users think about something."

- Joshua Kaufman

Hail To The Chief

For my friend Fergus' birthday I brought a Luke Skywalker Mighty Mugg and painted it to look like Master Chief, as he is a huge fan of the Halo video game series. I worked from a mighty mugg that had already been painted like master chief that I found on google, using it as a rough guide. So here is the finished piece...

Pixilated Nostalgia

When ever I see a pixilated stop motion film I always think back to that first project last year and because of that appreciate it so much more... Especially when it's video game related! Enjoy.


Found on Kotaku.com

Webreview Part 2:

Birdman

Birdman tries to do a lot, some would say to much and I would agree as it took what felt like a life time to load, most people looking for a portfolio would have given up after a minute of loading time but I'm looking to review so I stuck with it, with a loading time like this it has to be good right? ...right?

I was introduced by a very poorly preloaded opening cinematic that kept jumping so I skipped it only to be shown another lengthy loading screen. After another lifetime I was shown another pointless cinematic and finally a pretty basic looking interface. I clicked on a link and surprise surprise another load screen, it wasn't worth it. The portfolio is technically very impressive but very unnecessary, 3D panels float around representing clients and projects and I felt like it was almost a challenge to click on the one I wanted because they kept moving around so much. Finally I chose to turn the sound off, although this stopped the music the links still made clicking and popping noises which were very annoying. A classic example of interesting design ruined by an over ambitious team thinking perhaps too far from the box.

Samsung Music

Initially the samsung music website shows off its phone and MP3 player in a very clear and simple fashion, choose a device and simple relevant information is presented to you. If you want more information you are redirected to a html page, capable of dealing with more info; the flash page is left clean and uncluttered. After you've looked at their wears the website presents you to play around with a bizarre musical sound scape where the user drags different shapes onto a 3D plane to create sounds and loops. It all seems very pointless but charming none the less.

Webreview Part 1:

Ideo: "We help companies innovate. We design products, services, environments and interactions."

First thing I thought when I saw the Ideo website is why should I trust them to design for other companies when their own homepage is stifled by images and bizarrely structured menus? A harsh first impression, after a while there was some method to their madness, the constant menus at the bottom made things easier to navigate even if the options had pretentious sub titles like focus, thinking and approach. The most appealing thing about the Ideo website is this subtle blending of HTML and what appears to be flash or Java to create a strange interactive hybrid. Ultimately Ideo's design is flawed by at its attempt of originality by presenting a lack of consistency, ease of navigation and negative space.

Sony.co.uk

Initially I quite liked the look of the Sony site, a nice clear simple uncluttered presentation but it all went a bit pear shaped when I clicked on any of the three main links at the top. Clicking on said link would not change the page, instead it would pull down a small page over the top of the original page and presented you with new information. This function serves no benefit what so ever, the information underneath is no longer useful as it is almost completely obscured and the new window is compressed into a small space for no reason. I felt they really shot themselves in the foot with that one. The Sony.com website on the otherhand, while the initial display was a little bit almost "coverflow" (but that seems to be where design is heading), the navigation was simple and straight forward.

Apple.com

The apple is a classic example of effective website design, everything is clear, consistent and easy to navigate. The website has a connecting theme through out, although there is no default template there is a clear connection between each page making them familiar and non-threatening. A clear menu at the top defines and categorizes content effectively making it easy to find what your looking for. The apple website appears to adequately sum up the apple design ethos of simple yet effective design. Although I don't like the look of the new Mac books... but that's just me.

NTU Online Workspace - NOW

To be brutally honest, I really hope that there is some kind of long term plan for now because presently NOW is step backwards from VLP. All the information the average student is looking to find is hardest to find, i.e email and time tables are in tiny font above the website header, when they would be far more suited on the front page as expandable widgets in the sidebars, like before in the VLP. Visually speaking, NOW does look a lot more presentable but it's the functionality that students are looking for, not the presentation. Facebook is never going to win a beauty contest but it's probably the most viewed website by students today.

Joel Schafer: 'I'm into minimalistic clean design'

You can Schafer is into minimalism by the brief concise answers he gives during his interview with designinterviews.com. Unlike the interview with Saffer I didn't find much to take away with me from this interview, Schafers answers are almost all a given for example look at the work of others (although he does give a nice list of specific sites). Apart from that I agree that its worth pre-planning a site before you get stuck in and I've already had issues with photography. Schafer states its always good to know a photographer and to use your own source imagery. While working for Lydney containers I was taken around their manufacturing plant to take photos for the site, I had brought my first camera tripod the day before...

How Can Personal Contact Effect Our Success In The Industry?

I was asked this last week, I believe all of my success so far has come from personal contacts. For starters direct contacts with my old school teachers, lecturers and peers and indirect contact through the work of people I aspire to be more like within the multimedia industry. Clearly these are a given, more direct responsibility for my current standing lie with my dad who got me loads of web developing opportunities over the summer. A colleague of his at work needed a simple website and my old man suggested I take up the job (this was HR Business Dynamics). From there the interest snow balled and Hexademic New Media was born. If it wasn't for my dad getting interest through his company I wouldn't have four work experience projects underway and quite frankly would be a bit worried by now if I didn't. Since Hexademic, I've had a lot more contact with clients and have since gained more client interest and job opportunities through my business partner Phil.

Something To Get Us Thinking...

The essential point of networking is human contact; business has killed networking by making it something for the career orientated. Discuss.
First thing I thought of this statement is even if networking has become no more than a business tool it still exists so It hasn't been killed, rather it has taken on a new role. Of course networking has become an invaluable part of the business world but social networking is currently at it's peak with the worldwide success of websites such as myspace and facebook. It appears there are two sides to the networking coin and they appear to co-exists quite comfortably.

Gears 2 Teaser Trailer

100 posts. Anyway, video games in my opinion are possibly the best example of multimedia, fusing interactives, sound and visuals. The next few weeks will prove very fruitful for the gaming enthusiast presenting such titles as Fallout 3, Fable 2, Dead Space and Little Big Planet to name a few. One title that has particularly caught my eye is Gears of War 2, so I thought I'd share this trailer with you all...

An Interview With Dan Saffer

Dan Saffer, an experienced design director at the design consultancy Adaptive Path, was interviewed by designinterviews.com mid August. The interview starts by discussing the benefits of self directed study and learning under tuition. "You need a (for lack of a better word) Master standing over you while you do your apprentice work." I found this to be the case last year whilst learning 3DS MAX with Andy Love but as do I Saffer finds value in learning things on your own. I learned a lot of the summer teaching myself HTML and CSS but as Saffer says "he doing is important; you can read every book in the field and be a terrible designer. You have to practice it, live, preferably with a client and (eventually) with users." As Theodore Roethke noted, "I learn by going where I have to go." As well as reading about HTML and CSS, I really put it to work and worked on a few sites for companies such as hrbusinessdynamics.com.

One thing Saffer mentions I have been coming across ever more frequently, understanding Interface design. I have helped build a message board forum for the gamer society website (Which I also built) and have received some concerns about interface design by the users. "Interface design is the physical expression of the interaction design: the skin over the muscles and bone. Interaction design says, 'We need a button to turn on the siren.' Interface design says, 'The button should be here and it should be red.' They are deeply intertwined, since you cannot have one without the other." Although a client/user has hired you/uses your UI, you can still learn a great deal from them.

Another issue I empathised with Saffer is getting to attached with your creations. "I'd say there are two mistakes that new designers make: one is not coming up with enough variations—or, more accurately, not being able to come up with more alternatives. Which is to say, falling in love with one direction and not being able to see others. Often, this is direction is something familiar, that the designer is comfortable with. It is hard to kill your babies, but sometimes you have to." Last year I felt like I missed the chance to create something great by hanging on to some 3DS Max animation just because it took me a ridiculous amount of time to make.

This interview also made me reconsider interactive design. I initially thought only of web design but technology appears to be ever leaning towards touch screen, motion sensor or more anthropomorhphic methods of interaction. "If you don't already, you'll probably own a touchscreen device or a Wii or at a minimum have used a public restroom where you put your hands under a sink to turn it on. Learning about how these work and how you could design them might make you a better designer." Even if I do focus on web design it appears interactive design will be unavoidable, I think this is a good thing.

'The Way you know is not The Way.' –Tao Te Ching

'A body in motion tends to stay in motion.' Newton's First Law

'If it was easy, then everyone would do it.'

Back to Nottingham

Today I'm moving back to Nottingham and unfortunately I won't have the internet while telephone lines etc. are installed. Give it a week or two.

EDIT: I am now back online.

Lydney Group LTD

I've essentially finished my work on Team Trimite and have now handed over the majority of the project to Phil for coding and functionality. Whilst he is doing that I've started work on our next project at Hexademic, Lydney Group LTD. Lydney group produce large containers and modular buildings for both government and private sector, Their old websites (www.lydneycontainers.co.uk and www.lydneymodular.co.uk) where not targeted effectively at their target consumer and the web designer working on the projects was difficult to make contact with. My goal in terms of presentation is to make the website as easy to use as possible as I found the existing websites very confusing. I've have been to the Lydney Group head office to talk with their managing director Andrew Burrows as well as their sales team where we discussed how maximize the websites effectiveness.

The key points we concluded were that the site shouldn't be entirely flash as you won't have an initial paragraph for search engines to pick up on, the website must be easier to use and be aimed at a set of key target consumers.

You can see my progress here.

Podcasting

Lately I've been listening to a lot of podcasts such as IGN Game Scoop. I think it's a great way to present news and entertainment so I found out how to make my own. I thought it would be a good idea to make a podcast for the Gamer society to spread news on upcoming events. I found a tutorial here. Now my podcast is up and running, you can even subscribe to it on iTunes.

Gamer Soc is GO

The Gamer Soc is confirmed for 2008-2009. We'll have a booth at freshers fair and everything, so I have decided to start building the Gamer Soc website, check it out here.

Hexademic First official client

After seeing HR Business Dynamics Team Trimite asked us to build them a more advanced website. Team Trimite have just won the Avon Tyres British GT3, they need a website to generate cash to help fund their efforts to enter the Le Mans race event. I have recently started to finish off the front end of the site which you can see here, Phil is currently at Camp Bestival on the Isle of Wight but when he's back he'll start the back end.

HR Business Dynamics

A while ago I was approached by one of my Dads colleagues to build a website for them as I mentioned earlier. I contacted my friend Phil Howell who is studying computer science at Nottingham University. The results were much greater than expected, so much so we have decided to start a small web design company called Hexademic New Media. Here is what our first client said about our service...

'I approached Phil Howell and William Thomas of Hexademic New Media to create a website for me without much of an understanding of the requirements for this sort of project.

I supplied Hexademic New Media with a few pictures and a very general idea of the types of colours I preferred for the site. The results were phenomenal – they were able to tailor my website just with the information I had provided them and produced an extremely professional look and image. They registered the domain name and set everything up from scratch.

They designed it so that I’m able to access the site and make any amendments that I believe are necessary at any time of the day or night by using their own hosting service.

If you’re looking for a company to produce a website for you and have very limited knowledge of what is required, I strongly recommend Hexademic New Media. My personal experiences of them have been that they are extremely professional, conscientious, and committed in their approach to work. They far surpassed their deadline and all my expectations of them.

Thank you for a fantastic service and website."

Trimite Instructional Video

Here is a training video I made the other day for Trimite Metal Pretreatment. I went to Trimite in Uxbridge for the day to film this video at their chemicals laboratories. This film will be presented to customers using their products and services. This video was edited in Adobe Premiere and added functionality applied using Flash AS3.

Check it out here and on my online portfolio here.

Current Projects

Although I have no content on my portfolio web section as of yet I thought I'd share my works in progress here.

1. Antiarm (band) Flash site: /antiarm.html


2. New media project concept site: /mega.html


3. PHP test site: /phptest2.php

Please let me know what you think.

New Media Project

I've been asked to produce a simple website for one of my dads colleagues. It only needs to be static html but lately I've been discussing setting up a new media project with my good friend Phil, this seems like a perfect opportunity to test the water. I will produce the front end in html and css and Phil can add administration functionality. This meaning the client can update and maintain the site himself. If all goes according to plan this new media project could involve into something more substantial. It is also possible that we will get another offer from the clients other colleagues for a larger project which I should keep a secret for now. Either way expect to see some substantial content on the web page of my portfolio by the end of the year.

Microsoft at E3

I'm having mixed feelings about my xbox 360 at the moment. On the one hand GOW2 has never looked better and Final Fantasy XIII has been announced for 360, no longer a PS3 exclusive. On the other hand the new dash board is going to look like this. Players are going to have their own miis avatars designed by Rare and the new dashboard looks very "Vista". It is all too evident that consoles are increasingly trying to hold the attention of the casual gamer. To be fair this update isn't all bad, in fact there are a lot of good new features including integration with Netflix and faster load times. Perhaps I'm not feeling so mixed after all, I just really liked the classic "blades" dashboard.

Read the whole article on Kotaku here.

Edit 17/07/2008: Ok I take it back, the new dashboard looks great. Well I'm still not sure about the avatars but look at this...

Rice-Megatron Gaming.Multimedia.Web

I watched a Korean film called "I'm a cyborg but thats's ok" and loved it. The film is a bizarre comedy about a girl put into care as she believes she is a cyborg and refuses to eat. There was a mention to something called a "rice megatron", a fictional device used to convert rice into energy for cyborgs. I liked the idea of a "Rice Megatron" so much I'm considering renaming my portfolio, I have temporarily put up a mock-up "Rice Megatron" logo on the site to see how it looks.

Problem Solved

http://www.erebusstyx.co.uk now works on Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer versions 5.5-7.

Dramatic Switch Around!

I've decided to get my act together and sort out all the shifty CSS in my website, things like negative values in relative positioning (for example my intro paragraphs used to have to be a certain length for the page to look right). In Mozilla and Safari the site never looked better but Internet Explorer everything is horribly out of place. Anybody visiting the site in I.E, I'm sorry, I'll work on it in every waking hour. Until then you could just try using a better browser.

PHP Is Go!

Now I'm using Phil's server (after he very kindly set me up with some storage and a user account) I figured it would be time to start learning PHP. I'm currently learning off PHP 101 by Vikram Vaswani, a free,very informal, easy to understand, multi-part tutorial. I'm attempting to put these lessons into practise on a test page erebusstyx.co.uk/phptest.php, there isn't much there yet, something like hello world but keep checking back for progress.

Net Render

As I mentioned the other day, different browsers can present a web page in different ways. My good friend Phil told me about a website called http://ipinfo.info/netrenderer/, simply type in your URL and it will present you with your website as it would be displayed in Internet Explorer versions 5.5 - 8.beta. Very useful for Mac and Unix users.

Domain Name Purchased

At last I have purchased erebusstyx.co.uk. Tomorrow I'm off to Slovenia to attend Metal Camp 08 and see Sasa of Ophion Paddles. When I return on the 10th of July, I will finish uploading the rest of the content for the portfolio.

Stepping Up with HTML

I've decided to start my online portfolio again from scratch, I wasn't happy with the old one, it was bogged down with images, only worked in firefox and the content was arranged sporadically. I have since learned how to format my work more effectively and how to code for multiple browsers using "CSS cracks", this allows you to fool certain browsers like "Internet Explorer" into displaying information differently to other browsers. You can find my new portfolio here.

EDIT: Link redirected to new URL.

Gamer Soc

Jay and I have decided to start a gamer society for next year, so far for people who want to meet up play some lan parties, enter a few tournaments at Glo bar and even make their own games. At the moment we're looking for a minimum of 15 N numbers to make it all happen, you can sign up on the facebook group here. In the mean time I have developed these logos for your viewing pleasure.



Post me if you think you know where every letter from the word "gamer" comes from for the top logo.

Identities Down, SPP To Go

Several weeks ago I handed in my navigating identities project, I'm currently working on my SPP essay and end of year presentation. I think the second part of my ident project went a lot smoother than the first. With the avatar project I found my time was spent familiarising myself with 3DS Max, where as in the second I already had the experience and as a result spent more time actually developing and refining my work. Because of this I managed to actualise my original development plans. Regardless of my lack of Flash experience I had, I found I still knew everything I needed from David Downe's seminars and advice from peers and friends.

Box Progress

I haven't posted much on the progress of my flash box, so here it is. This is the chess game where you have to take 5 pawns in order to reveal 5 things about me. These include...

• A drum kit


• A song by my band


• My avatar


• Photos of me and some friends


• A short profile about me

Here is the title screen...


This is the main interface...


Here is the short profile about me (check out the awesome blog URL)...


Everything is pretty much going according to plan, although I'm having a little difficulty getting sound to work. It appears AS3 focuses more of the use of externally sourced sound, all I can seem to find is this...

var request:URLRequest = new URLRequest("track.mp3");
var your_sound:Sound = new Sound();
your_sound.load(request);

EDIT (06/05/2008): After talking to Tom Pearson he quickly resolved this sound problem for me. It appears sound doesn't have to take part in action script, sound is simply dragged into frame and properties set to play or stop.

Looking At Portfolios - Preloaded

I looked at Roma's PDF on portfolio design and under a list titled "ten great portfolio sites" I saw a company called "Preloaded". I soon realised this is the same "Preloaded" one of my best friends worked for this easter and last summer, in fact I had been to their London based office and seen their work space. It is evident from their clean, crisp design and impressive clients list (including the BBC and Coca Cola GB) that preloaded is a premier web design service.

Also looking at Roma's PDF a saw a few list of skills that multimedia employers look for, these pretty much all included...

• Flash Action Script


• Java Script


• PHP


• HTML and CSS


• Structured Query Language (SQL/MYSQL)

Fun With Google Analytics

I'm using Google analytics to assess how many people visit my blog as well as some of my other websites. Its a great tool because, not only do you know how many people are visiting, you know where they are visiting from and for how long. Apparently somebody from Washington was looking at this very Blog for just over 3 minutes! Amazing.

Makibishi - Website Review

Today I was looking at the favourite website awards and found a site for Dodge the car company. It seems they are trying to break into the Japanese market and as a result hired a company called Makibishi to make a flash game called Dodge Quest. The game is a traditional 2D RPG much like that of "Zelda Links Awakening" or "Secret Of Mana", you can find the game here. I initially thought this website would be very short being essentially an advertisement but Makibishi insist that it is not an advertisement, but a tool. As a result the game actually looks and feels like a genuine old "NES" game, with 8-bit 2D graphics and midi sound track, it also takes several days to complete (your character sleeps in real time, "carry on the adventure tomorrow!"). The games story centers around a depressing tool salesman (played by you) who secretly loves a flower girl called Lucy, one day he over hears her say she could only marry a man who owns a Dodge, but your character doesn't realise this was only an excuse to deter a creepy suitor. So obviously the rest of the game is spent trying to build copious amounts of money to buy a dodge and win the heart of the flower girl. I'm only one day in so I don't know what happens but I will post back when I'm done. Anyway I was very impressed at just how much they managed to squeeze into a flash game, especially as it is really just an advertisement or "tool".

I also visited the Makibishi website, which I must say was one of the strangest things I've seen in a long time. After navigating my way through loads of meaningless text, a second page of bizarre images came up and after that found myself here. I don't know if that was the site I was supposed to go to for all my Makibishi needs but it is certianly what interested me the most. It turns out that this site is another game, but a very different one, from what I understand a group of ninjas are trying to hide from a shadowy character called the "Ashasin". After that I found myself searching for magic stones on a far away planet to activate a giant robot to stop a giant gas mask wearing tattooed baby from producing hundreds of replica ninjas out of its behind.



It all sounds very abstract, and it is, but oddly it's very compelling, so compelling in fact, that I wish there was a walk through guide so I could finally find out what it all means. Until then it will just reinforce the idea that all Japanese people love robots, ninjas and wacky plot lines.

To find out more about Makibishi you can read their blog here.

Antiarm Website

I'm currently making a website for one of my bands called Antiarm. You can check out my progress here. Although my HTML skills are improving quickly I feel this website would work better as a Flash site, for example when you choose an option from the menu the hand could move and reveal a new page. To make this site I would need to learn how to create updatable and downloadable content, preloaders and picture galleries.

My Gantt Chart Sense Is Tingling

According to my Gantt chart, this is my busiest week this term. I will be developing my HTML and Flash skills as well as finishing off my 3D renders for my "Navigating Identities" box and start putting it together in Flash. On top of all that, I will be evaluating my HTML and Flash progress. This will certainly be a busy week, also I need to catch up on my missed review post.

Check out my Gantt chart here.

Erebus/Styx website under constuction! Friday review late!

After developing an understanding of HTML thought it necessary to build my own online portfolio... So that's what I did, you can find my new website here. It's still very much under construction but check back regularly for updates.
In other news my new found pledge to deliver reviews every Friday fell a bit short, perhaps I'll start the lazy Sunday with a cup of tea review day.

Roses Are #FF0000, Violets Are #0000FF

I've been messing about with HTML all day and although it's very daunting trying to remember all the different abbreviations, codes and things, I'm finding it very enjoyable. Online Environments is looking ever more attractive with my new found web skills. I think I will work on these test sites a lot over the coming weeks so check back regularly.

My first HTML (CSS) Based Website

In a pathways lecture yesterday Andy Love talked how about how an old student wanted to choose a pathway regardless of a lack of prior experience. This made me think about my own choices, I'm currently torn between virtual environments and online environments, I've made plenty of 3D models but never independently made a website. This morning I looked various tutorials and produced this website.

EDIT: just thought I'd mention this website uses external CSS (Cascading Style Sheets, not Counter Strike Source), check out the tutorial here.

Friday Review April 11th

This being my first Friday review I will break the review into three sections, website, game and film.

Website:
I'm going to start with a relatively recent phenomenon, the social networking site Facebook. Firstly the most striking thing about Facebook is how it compares with its rival social networking websites such as Myspace. Most of these website allow the user to change the backgrounds, colours and everything else making it very personal, because that's what that type of social networking is about, where as Facebook is all blue and white, although the user can rearrange display boxes and add applications. What I'm trying to say is it is the actual technical features that has made the website so popular. For the average website user, they can easily share photos with friends by tagging them (a feature that other sites like Myspace are starting to incorporate) but more importantly, companies that advertise with Facebook can pinpoint their target demographic, for example if Microsoft wanted to send out an ad about an x-box 360 they could choose to send it exclusively to their target audience, perhaps males aged 16-35 with gaming in their interests list. I think is a fine example of function over form, very often websites are so concerned with presentation its often hard to find what your looking for quickly and effectively.

Game:
I recently purchased Sega's "Condemned 2: Bloodshot" a first person survival horror for the X-Box 360. It's been a very long time since I've purchased a Sega game because almost everything after the Genesis (Mega Drive) fell horribly short, but this game looked different and it got above 80 on Metacritic so I thought perhaps It's time I gave Sega a chance to prove their worth. Fortunately I was right to give them another chance or should I say give Monolith Productions a chance, as I found Sega is only the publisher,. Either way this is one of the scariest games I've played since Resident Evil (GC Edition). Condemned's USP is its combat system, a first person game that uses mostly melee attacks, that revolves around chains of combos and parries. After playing Oblivion (that has similar combat) I wasn't expecting much, but Monolith really surprised me and put together a System that really works. Graphically the game is quite stunning with excellent character models and immersing environmental effects, that are so important in the survival horror genre.



Although sometimes the lighting and fog effects are so extreme you find yourself unable to see beyond your fists, it often produces a appropriately eerie atmosphere. There is the occasional glitch like guys running straight through pieces of furniture but thats to be expected. Possibly the most terrifying feature of the game though is the sound, a overbearingly creepy soundtrack is embellished by the sounds of shrieking psychopaths and brutal cracks as steel pipes collide with human bone, not something to be played on your own in the dark to be sure.

Film:
Coming Soon

Friday Is Review Day!

I had my review week session today, Although I took a lot of valuable advice away with me I felt like a lot had gone over looked. I was expecting to be asked about my latest progress with my identities project and Discuss my improvements in 3DS Max, but instead I was asked vague questions like "how has your understanding of aesthetics developed since the beginning of the year", produced from some old analysis practise question.

Apart from that, I was reminded I have yet to take advantage of the library and that it never hurts to review the work of others. So in the end two key issues arose that I will have to address.

1. Take better advantage of the Library, anything from text books to fiction to DVDs.
2. Review the work of others, perhaps a review a week.

So the first action I will take is to declare Friday "Review Day".

Free Time

I arrived to my review session early so I made this logo for myself in the Computer room.

Easter Work: Navigating Identities Concept Complete

In February I came up with a chess board idea for the Navigating identities project. Over the easter I developed the idea and produced this 3D animation in 3D Studio Max. I think this will work for my final Idea.

More fun with 3D Studio Max!

Here are a few more things I've done in 3d over the Easter, some examples of high polygon modeling, another attempt at my avatar and using IK chains in animation, enjoy.

Crayon Physics Deluxe!

Find out more here.

Video Games as Art

April Fools

Today I used my new 3DS Max skills to put together a little April fools gag for my brother's web comic www.rpg-tv.com. Check it out here.

Fun with 3D Studio Max and Tutorials

I have been furthering my understanding of 3DS Max with online tutorials, effects such as particle effects, environment, lighting and UVW mapping. I found many of these tutorials here.
Here are a few of my efforts.

Identities part 1 Assessment

Apart from the 2 aforementioned concerns I was very comfortable with this project. I got to grips with 3d studio max quickly and enjoyed using the application very much and its something I think I will carry on for years to come. The pretense for my video game character avatar may have been a little flimsy, but it was something I really wanted to do and as a result I think that in itself shows my identity. So everything was great apart from two major issues, the first is that my film was kind of like 2 different halves bolted together to make a whole, this a result of the second issue. I didn't allow enough time to review and revise my final render, i foolishly ignored the time management part of the assignment and as a result suffered the consequences. So in the end I learned the hard way, hopefully now I will be more careful and attentive with my time management in future.

Final Avatar

Here is my final render for the avatar part 1 project. I feel the short film is split into 2 parts, the beginning has a very different style to the end and these styles don't appear to mix. This is partly due to both parts taking along time to produce and my unwillingness to let them go and a lack of time preparation, not allowing myself time to review the film and correct it, I will elaborate on these errors in my next post about the assessment presentation.

Cogito ergo sum

I like to think my work for the first part of the identities project is based on René Descartes statement "I think therefore I am". This originally meant that if one doubted their own existence they were think and therefor must exist, this proved to be the foundation of western philosophy. I took this expression and made it more literal, if I think "x" I am "x", or, if I think "x" my avatar is "x". It was then just a case of what do I think about, I thought about where I had seen avatars before and i thoughtin video games.

Finished Avatar model, Original designs and bad internet

At the moment the internet where I live is terrible so I am unable to upload a bunch of video I was planning to post this weekend, it is most likely they will go live Monday when I can use the university internet. So for now I will post as normal and insert the relevent videos at a later date. Any way I finished my avatar model that you will see in the video below, its a short (about 10 second) video of the model rotating 360.



I am very pleased with the level of detail in the render but it still doesn't compare to my original concept pictured below.



The 3d render still looks a bit cartoony but otherwise I am pleased with it, I feel I have come along way since my first master chief attempt. This render will only be featured in my final animation for a short amount of time. I plan on a camera quickly zooming into the avatars eyes to reveal a more surreal avatar.

Cube Concept

Here is my 1st attempt at my cube idea. I'm very happy with it so far, but there is still much work to be done. Tomorrow I'll slow it down, add lighting effects and change the path of the camera in the later part of the film, Also I feel the original avatar doesn't fit in with the rest of the visuals so I may exclude it and present it as a separate video.

Goals

Today we had a lecture about careers in Multimedia, it was pretty scary thinking about how we are essential solely responsible for ensuring our future prospects. So I was thinking as I can't really go about work experience right now I should work on expanding my skill set, after all I don't wanted to be limited in my decisions next year because I am limited by my capabilities. So I thought I should get a little more Pro active, by the end of the term I will have wanted to start the follow activities.

- An advanced flash tutorial, the basis of a platform game in order to recreate the amnesia series (my video game) in flash.

- Export a film from 3D studio Max and edit it in premier.

- Expand on my HTML script.

- Find a popular multimedia blog and read it... every day.

That's it for now.

EDIT: I've tried finding a blog but it is proving a little difficult, I want to find something similar to Kotaku but about multimedia in general not just video games.

Cubes

I just thought of a an idea that I had to get down on paper or the internet or something. I will recreate my original pixelated video game character exactly as he is but out of "3d pixels", each pixel used to make the sprite will be a 3d cube. These cubes can then fall away and create new forms, for example the chess board, or the other way around.

Passage: A Second Life In 5 Minutes

Today I found An art game called Passage by Jason Rohrer, he says :It presents an entire life, from young adulthood through old age and death, in the span of five minutes. Of course, it's a game, not a painting or a film, so the choices that you make as the player are crucial. There's no "right" way to play Passage, just as there's no right way to interpret it."

You can find the game here...
and read the explanation by Jason Rohrer here.

My Own Avatar

I decided to stop pursuing the "perfect" Master Chief and start doing something a little more personal. I decided to keep a video game character, but one i made myself, a very long time ago. To the left you can see a little sprite drawn guy with a rifle, thats a 2D video game character I devised about 5 years ago, he doesn't have a name but was in a game I made called Amnesia that I have remade many times over (mainly because the files get corrupted or there are too many bugs to iron out etc.). So I decided to finally attempt to make the jump from 2D to 3D now that I have the skills to do it. I feel this character is appropriate because I made him and have developed him for a long time and also its something I enjoy (making and playing video games). So i started off with the head...



So he has the spiky hair, head band and face/jaw guard thing but he doesn't have that cold calculating look I imagined him having. I decided to give him some goggles so you can't see his eyes making him appear distant, I also added some bump mapping and started the body...



Now he is starting to get there. As for making him significant to me I created him and developed him over a long time, I'll also animate him running through a level with objects, memories and thoughts relevant to me sneaked into the background.

Flash Seminar

Friday was my first Flash seminar, we are now starting to move into areas beyond cutting and pasting relevant terms into templates.



Apparently there has been a fairly recent shift from Action Script 2.0 to 3.0, people familiar to the older version will have to forget what they know and relearn the new Adobe code. I suppose its fortunate for me I didn't know the older way so I feel less like I'm taking a step backwards, although I think 2.0 was largely based on Java, another useful tool. Anyway a lot of code is involved and I can see it taking me a long time before I can create something without having to look up every other action on a help tutorial. For next weeks seminar I need to create a set of multiple choice questions that tally a score at the end.

Second Life "A glorified 3D chat room"

In a recent article on kotaku.com, they compared the new Playstation Home with second life, saying "We've had our doubts that Home may ultimately be nothing more than a prettier Second Life, a glorified 3D chat room, one that only makes getting to the games we actually want to play a bit of a chore.". I would agree, as a consumer that has paid for no additional content, there is very little to do other than talk with other second life users and customise my existing character with a limited selection of UVW maps.

3D Studio Max Progress: Detail

Here is my latest 3d studio max render...



Although This helmet is a lot more detailed than my previous efforts (note the indents on the visor) I am still not happy with it, for example the cap on the top of the helmet could be a lot better. I don't know if I am being too ambitious but every time I recreate the helmet I'm not happy with it and have to remake it, each time getting closer to a worth while replica.

Box Items

I thought of a few things that could go in the box or in this case rise out of the floor. I'll have the music player and a film, then for the game I can create a 3D X-Box 360 that has a screen attached to show my own Halo 3 replays.

Also I could create a 3D drum kit that plays a short drum solo that I can record on my electric kit at home.

Chess Board Concept

I'm finding this chess board idea more and more appealing, although this means I won't rule out any future potential ideas. The first thing that strikes me about the chess board idea is that when you first see it, it appears to be 2D (even though it will be a 3d render) then upon interaction the camera will pan about to reveal it is in fact a 3D object. As Shown.

Also by doing this the camera can go right up close to the chess pieces and make them appear huge, by going from a birds eye view to a worms eye view. This will make people question their initial perceptions, what appeared to be a normal chess board is actually a giant one. I like this idea because too often i find myself to judgmental only to realize the true value of something much later.

Another idea for my chess board is that in order to interact with it you must click on the squares that would be an obvious chess move. The idea behind this is not necessarily that you have to know chess to know me but that I like games and it is through games that I know some of my closest friends. Also I can represent a challenge and sometimes I think I can be challenging person.



Now I just need to think of some interactive pieces to put on the chess board. My idea is that upon clicking on the right squares the chess board panels will fold away to reveal objects that elevate out of the board, for example my avatar could be one of these objects . I know that I want a music player that plays one of my bands songs and a video player that plays one of my favourite films or a clip from a game because obviously media such as music, video and interactives are important to me.

Navigating Identity

The second part of the identity project is titled "navigating your identity". This project is inspired by the work of Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), an American artist who created or found boxes and placed objects of importance of symbolism inside of them, similar to the old cabinets of curiosity. The idea is to make a virtual box and attach interactive elements (as opposed to objects) to the box in order to navigate my identity.


In one of Roma's lectures we were shown a website about Joseph Cornell that works in this manner, a picture of a box divided into several sections, each box was a different link to information about Cornell's work. I could not find this site but i did find a similar one called the Joseph Cornell Box.

I have also now been asked to start thinking of original ideas for my own interactive site. This must include 5 sections, one must include my 3D avatar that I am currently working on and an element of AV. I have a few ideas, for an example a chess board where the squares fold open to reveal interactive elements.

The Century of Self

Yesterday I downloaded the full series of the century of self from the BBC (as shown in Roma's first identities lecture). I have since watch the entire first episode which addresses propaganda in the first world war, the birth of public relations and how this effected America 1930-1940, Nazi Germany and present day living.

During the first world war Sigmund Freud's nephew Edward Bernays was asked to go to Europe and convince the masses to support president Woodrow Wilson in his efforts to support the war effort. After his astounding success he realized that propaganda could be used to control the masses in peace time, he called this public relations and set up an office in America after the first world war. Bernays looked to his uncles studies and took the idea that under the surface of civilized man are strong irrational forces from natural instinct. Bernays advised business that in order to sell their goods or service they must appeal to mans irrational desires rather than the logical mind.

After the success of Bernays techniques politicians began to think if man is irrational, how can he be trusted to vote responsibly within a democracy? Germany seemed to have a solution to these underlying primitive urges, an alternative to democracy, Nazism. It wasn't considered a form of autocratic control but a way of centralizing the desires of the masses to bind the nation together under service not self. In the west the answer was fulfill these desires and make the masses happy and docile, President Hoover called the public "Happiness machines", this meaning that the citizen had become the consumer, driving the economy whilst remaining content and unlikely to revolt.

I see Edward Bernays as a Duchamp figure, he could be considered a great hero or an terrible villain. Bernays is responsible for the emotional link between product and consumer, he incited the idea that one can express themselves through their dress and possessions. Bernays broke down social taboos such as women smoking in public but is equally responsible for the thousands of advertisements aimed towards our irrational wants and desires that we see everyday. Are we really slaves to our most basic instincts, or can we be held responsible for thoughts and actions in a democratic society?

A Shameless Plug?

I thought it would be a good idea to demonstrate my ability to produce a music track, I suppose audio editing will come in use on a multimedia project. This was equally an opportunity to shamelessly plug my band. You can Hear more tracks and see the band art work that I've been working on the myspace page.

Reinventing Ones self

This morning i found a interesting video on Kotaku.com a short 3D animated story about a computer game character who gets fed up with playing the same villain roles all the time. I found this video had significance because it was animated in 3D relating to my work with 3D Max and being about character and identity it links in well with the avatar project.

3DS Max Animation

Here is a short video of my master chief render waving...

Becoming an Interstitial Node

Last week we had a lecture about modernism v post-modernism and what it means to be an interstitial node. Firstly an interstitial node is a point i.e me, a person connected to various other points i.e the rest of the multimedia community. The idea behind this is that by being connected for example via social networking (blogs,facebook,myspace,forums etc.) on the internet creative thinkers can easily share thoughts feelings and ideas and learn from one another.

This is where modernism and post modernism comes into the lecture. Traditionally the concept of modernism centers about the author, the creative individual who will create, invent. This individual will take the credit for the discovery and hopefully it will benefit mankind. Post Modernism however celebrates the death of the author and is about how a society of creative thinkers can feed off others ideas and findings, combine or rework them to create something new. Manuell Castells a post modernist sociologist speaks of the hyper text, a way of linking relevent text in an encyclopedic knowledge (much like wikipedia), he says the hyper text is a vehicle of communication, a provider of shared cultural codes. This means we can gather information from various standpoints and cultural backgrounds and from this we can establish our own beliefs and then share these with others.

Simon Perkins claims that Modernism is much like an old quarry, most of the precious resources have now been extracted and it is now very difficult to think of any new inventions, as if we have reached our original creative pinnacle. Rather than extracted new materials from this metaphorical quarry we can combine our existing resources to create something new and exciting.

I do not feel this is totally true as no idea is truly original, all things are inspired by something right back to nature, post modernism is another perspective. This is pretty much what post modernists believe except working in a collaborative society rather than a individual or a team. Regardless I think post modernism has relevence now more than ever considering the recent leaps and bounds made in social networking thanks to the internet.

3D Studio Max Progress: Complete Model

I finished my attempt at making a complete master chief. I have essentially used the same methods of building as before but using a few slightly advanced techniques for example extruding via polygon as opposed to by face, when making the fingers on the hand. Next week I will try and animate the model and I will continue to improve on this render and make another master chief in the coming week from scratch.

Johnny Lee projector tracking and Wii-mote technology

In one of Deborah Tuck's lectures we were asked what potential infrared tracking had in our society, she showed us a video demonstrating this technology presented by Johnny Lee, a man who's work I had seen before and found very interesting. Here is the video...



The video shows how a projector can project a image onto a specific surface within a projection field at any angle. Johnny demonstrates various practical uses of this technology already, for example, a fully interactive drawing or writing tool that can be projected on to a board (with sensors for the projector to track from) or even a web browser. Also he has a plan photo of a city on a projection field that changes to a map view where a tracking board is held over it, making the map interactive much like in google maps but not on a computer screen.

In a more commercial aspect this technology could be used to project advertisements on to moving objects that pass by a projector field in a public space. The advantages to this being the image can be projected at any angel and various objects i.e buses or trains etc. could carry these tracking boards and a image could be projected on at stations and bus stops where vehicles would move more slowly.

You can find Johnny Lee's other amazing projects using a Nintendo Wii-mote here.

3D Studio Max progress

I have been using 3D Studio Max for about 3 weeks and each week I have tried to recreate master chief from Halo to monitor my progress.



First I was only interested in form, trying to get a basic shape as seen below. There is no attention to colour (master chief isn't even red). I have only used extrude and bend (as used in the first seminar) from the modifiers list, when i was finished i used turbo smooth, This doesn't work very well as master chiefs armour is fairly blocky anyway.



Then the next time I rendered master chief I made just the head so I focus on it in more details. This time I also looked at using the materials editor, using colours and textures to create a more accurate depiction of the helmet. I made the visor yellowy orange and highly and reflective and the helmet green.



In my third render I had a lot more experience with 3D Studio Max so I could create and render a lot faster. I focused on even more detail (the grenades on the belt) and smoothing off surfaces like the sides of the helmet.



I will continue to develop my render up until the 6th week.

Eagle Vs Shark

Yesterday I watched an amazing film called eagle vs shark, a independent film from Zealand. I found it because a actor called Jermaine Clement stars in it who is also in a band called flight of the conchords that I have been listening to lately. Anyway I found a brilliant example of pixilation in it like I did last term.

This film is kind of like an arty version of Napoleon Dynamite and if you haven't seen that I recommend that too.

Second life

I've changed my character, I think I'm happy with my avatar now. It looks nothing like me, I thought I would go for a change like my Habbo character. I also found out I can bypass the training segment of second life, so i didn't have to complete that flying segment that I was having difficulty with. The actual world in second life is very large and rather overwhelming, I really don't know what I should doing. I've walked around a lot but haven't really found anything so I just talk to random people, so it's just like a 3d chat room so far.

Comment on Colour and Light

This picture is by Jay...

Jay's Photo

This is my comment...

The reflection on the water and the shadow behind the sea wall clearly indicate there is a strong sense of light coming from the right. the way the light falls across the surface of the water brings out many shades of blue from a flinty blue to a more vivid cobalt.

Scream Colour and Light

For a tutorial I had to take a photo that screams colour and light in response to a tutorial we had on colour theory. Here I have purposely put various contrasting colours in one photo, such as the green dog and the red sofa as well as the blue jacket and the orange sunburst guitar. These colours are lit up by a combination of outdoor (from the left) and indoor lighting (the surrounding right), I also turned the Christmas lights that still haven't been taken down yet. The colours are vivid and saturated (apart from the black and white poster, but this is given colour by the christmas lights).

Getting acquainted with my avatar

I'd been having a few problems with my second life account so In the mean Time I set up a Habbo Hotel account www.Habbo.com. This is similar to Second Life but not quite as in depth, you can create your own cartoony avatar and go about a large hotel talking to other people or "Habbos". Below is my Habbo "Erebus Styx" who shares my internet pseudo name that I have used for the last 5 or so years.



With my character I ran a little experiment, I approached a Habbo called emogrl525 and asked her about her avatar. I asked her if she thought her Habbo was a true likeness of herself and she said "of course". I then asked why she didn't want to make up a bizarre avatar like mine, she responded with "because that would be gay." then she left.

Eventually I got my second life account working where I was dropped into some sort of training area where new comers like myself learn all the skills needed to live in second life. Here I went through various tutorials and spoke to many other new comers who thankfully where just as clueless as I was. Unfortunately the tutorial has a flying section where the page up and down buttons are needed, as I have a Mac I don't have these buttons so I called it a day, I will need to complete this tutorial in the Waverly building. Below is a picture of my avatar "Erebus Tolsen".

3D Studio Max

I've just starting using 3D Studio Max again, I had it home a few years ago and got very annoyed with it but this time with proper tutorials etc. I think I'm getting the hang of it. Its not what I initial expected at all, now I find many complex shapes can be extruded out from a sectioned cube, or at least this way works for me. I've been thinking in terms of extrusion, for example the biggest size cube I could fit inside a head and extrude it in various sections to make a 3D Portrait. Although the model making is almost as arduous and time consuming as i thought it would be, the animation seems a little easier as 3D studio max method of animation similar to "tweening" in Flash. On Monday I attempted to recreate a character called master chief from a game called Halo, my efforts were pretty much fruitless but I believe if I reattempt the model from scratch ever week a progression should be evident.
Here is my first attempt...