Research Topics.

After completing the websites we made for the Year 10 students, we were told to begin the documents entitled 'Research Topic 1' and 'Research Topic 2' on the IST website on StudentNet. After finishing up these documents, they have helped me to gain a better understanding towards the various types of devices we use in our daily lives today and just how effective and essential they are. All my completed research can be found on my Student Work folder in StudentNet.

Virtual Gallery Custom Template.

During the time we had to create these websites, we had the chance to be able to create our own templates as a base for the Virtual Galleries. With my group members Anjeli and Justine, we had created a template entited 'An Artistic Mindset'. This template contains features such thumbnails featuring images at the front page, as well as a sub-page entitled 'Collection' where all images can be viewed in larger size and higher quality. Other features include sub-pages entitled 'Statements' for any descriptions of artworks the artist may like to display, as well as 'The Artist' where a short biography or profile of the artist may be displayed. (https://sites.google.com/site/anartisticmindset/)

September 2012.

During the IST lessons we had whilst we were of in the month of September, we were given time to work on the Virtual Galleries of the Year 10 Visual Arts students. The purpose of these websites is for these students to showcase the various artworks they have created throughout the year, as well as play the role of a convinent source for the teachers as well, so they may be able to mark and overlook their students' artworks. For this mini-project, we had to form groups to create a total of 3 websites each. The people in my group consisted of  myself, Justine and Anjeli. Since we were in an group equal to the number of websites we were instructed to make, we split up the load by each choosing one student to create a website for. I had chosen a Year 10 student named Jaide. Afterwards, we began working thoroughly on our individual websites, using the pre-made template we made entited 'An Artistic Mindset' based off the already made template on Google Sites entitled 'Non such
photography'. Prior to creating and customizing these websites though, we were each 
given the artist's artworks to display. Some of these types of artworks included Lino 
Prints, Drawings and Paintings. The process did take up quite alot of classtime, but 
in no time at all, we were all able to complete them. The website I have made can be 
found at 'Jaide's Virtual Gallery' (https://sites.google.com/site/jaidevirutalgallery/). 
From this project, I have learnt quite a few things. First of all, I became more educated 
in how to manage, customize and create a website, learnt how to create my own 
template on Google Sites, and futhermore a gained a better understanding of the 
specific type of multmedia known as a website.

1st-3rd of August 2012.

1st of August, 2012.
Today in class, we discussed about using our newfound skills on Google Sites to create a virtual gallery/website where the Year 10 Visual Arts students can display their artwork projects and their artists statements online, which will be more convinent for them, instead of having them physically hand it in to their teachers. Today, we began with finding page templates for the websites, so that they can be places that can easily navigated through, and places that are convinent for the students themselves to be able to upload their artworks and artist statements.

3rd of August, 2012.
Today in class, we continued to work on our websites for the Year 10 Visual Arts students. While working on the website, I had found a few templates I thought would be flexible, yet interesting for them to showcase their artworks on. We then started applying these to our websites. The template entitled 'Non such photography' (Which can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/nonsuchphotography/) is just one out a few templates I am planning to use.

23rd of July 2012.

Today in class, we discussed about multimedia and how it has contributed to today's society. We also had to create a website using Google Sites, to experience how we can use other types of media, apart from transfering files from USBs, to share files with not only those closest to us, but to an audience consisting also people from all over the world.
While using this unfamiliar type of multimedia, I learnt about creating and managing my own website. I also have picked up the skills to create my own pages on this website and how to add different types of content onto it. Through manging this website also, I have learnt that there are a various amount of options that can be used to customize a website in which I have realised that using a website to share files is very flexible and can be done to an individual's own preference. I have also found that this part of the process in customizing my website very helpful in creating the website into one that is my own and has made me aware of the possibility that I can use this type of multimedia in both my school work and for my own personal interests.

Synopsis of Video.

Our video, created by some computer programs and shots of drawings, focuses around the topic of Augmented Reality, through covering the basics of the topic such as what it is, what it can be used for, the advantages and disadvantages of using it and through using the developing google glasses as an example of augmented reality. The purpose/goal of our movie is to educate and help our target audience (which is the class in this case) to understand this new and advanced developing piece of technology.

Gantt Chart.

This is the gantt chart that indicates our group's workflow for the whole assesment. So far, we have closely been following this chart and working according to plans.

Final Storyboard.

This is our final storyboard for our video project, containing a combination of all our individual storyboards put together. The lines in green are Anjeli's narrations, the lines in red are Justine's narrations and the lines in blue are my narrations.

Storyboard FINAL

6th of June 2012.

Creating a Storyboard
Today in class, my group and I split the components of the project between us to complete a storyboard on. I have the topic of What Can Augmented Reality Do. Below are the storyboards I have created for these components of the presentation.

What Augmented Reality Can Do

Sequence: #1
Shot Description: Oblique Shot
Transition In: Pixelate
Video Image:  Props including Google Glasses, Cockroaches and a Gaming Set
Audio Recorded: Narration/Script
Added Audio: Instrumental Music
Transition Out: Flip
Estimated Time of Take: 1 minute
Narration/Script: Augmented Reality can be used for a various amount of reasons. One example, is that it can help with overcoming your fears. You may not believe this, but it’s true. Take someone who is afraid of cockroaches for example.  Augmented Reality can help this person overcome their fear, as when they look anywhere, like a screen for example;  Augmented reality will automatically project the surface with cockroaches. The idea of this is that it will expose this person to their fear (by controlling the amount of cockraoches they want to appear) to gradually extinguish it. This does not only work for cockroaches however, as it can also help other fears such as flying or falling. Another example that augmented reality can be used for is to enchance gaming, which is currently the most common use for augmented reality. How, you may ask. Well, it can change gaming by bringing your game out of the screen and into the real world, by projecting it in places around you, making you the main character of your own game. These are many more uses for this upcoming advanced piece of technology and the possibilities are endless.

Disadvantage of Augmented Reality; How Expensive It Is

Sequence: #1
Shot Description: Close up Shot
Transition In: Crossfade
Video Image:  Props including a Person, Money and a Company
Audio Recorded: Narration/Script
Added Audio: Instrumental Music
Transition Out: Pixelate
Estimated Time of Take: 20-30 seconds
Narration/Script: With many individuals going through financial problems in today’s society, it may become difficult for augmented reality to be sucessful in sales. This therefore, can come as a disadvantage to both consumers and the manufacturers of augmented reality. It will affect the manufacturers itself, as if they don’t sell their products sucessfully, then they won’t be able to make a profit and creating these products may be considered a waste of both time and materials and it will affect individuals as they may not have enough money to afford this sophisticated piece of technology.

Advantage of Augmented Reality; Advancing Today’s Technology

Sequence: #1
Shot Description: High Angle Shot
Transition In: Flip
Video Image: Props including Technicians, Hospitals and People
Audio Recorded: Narration/Script
Added Audio: Instrumental Music
Transition Out: Crossfade
Estimated Time of Take: 30 seconds
Narration/Script: Augmented Reality has already been in the process of development for decades and is now currently on its way to entering the market. This can pose as an advantage for augmented reality, as through releasing  this newly developed and sophisticated technology, it could help in increasing and advancing technology in specialised places such as hospitals, where it would not only help in the survival of the sick patients but it can also be a source of entertainment and education for them while they are there. Releasing augmented reality also increases the standards of future technology, therefore challenging other manufacturers to also create and develop new and advanced technology that will sophisticate the future.

1st of June 2012.

Today in class, my group & I have planned out the structure of our video project. Below is the layout, including the titles & sub-headings we will be presenting in order for this assignment.

Topic: What is Google Glasses/Augmented Reality

Layout:

1. Introducing 'Augmented Reality'; How it works & POV shots.
2. What it can do/Functions; POV shots, More things it can do (List).
3. Advantages; Advancing technology, Endless possibilities & Multi-purpose.
   Disadvantages; Health, Privacy & Price.
4. Google Glasses; Case study / example; Design, Appearance, Structure, Possibilities, Development, POV shot.

9th of May 2012.

Today in class, since Mr Cavill was absent, we continued to experiment on Audacity Portable. While experimenting with this application, I have developed a basic understanding on how to use the application properly.

Below is a few of the skills I have learnt during the duration of the lesson.

Skill 1: How to record using Audacity Portable

Basically, by pressing the button with a red circle in a centre on the toolbar, you can easily record whatever you like. After recording your piece, click on the button with a gold-ish square also on the toolbar to stop recording activity. Click the start of the piece and press the play button to hear your final recorded piece.

Skill 2: How to import audio files using Audacity Portable
Importing audio files in Audacity Portable can be very challenging, but it can be done in a small amount of easy steps. Firstly, you have to click on the file option on the top bar of the window. Once you have clicked on this, you should have many options avaliable to you. The option you have to press however, is the link that says import. When this is pressed, you can import files from your documents, USB etc. When you have located the file you want to import, select it and press the open button located near it.

Skill 3: Editing sound
Audacity is a software that provides many different tools to edit sound. These tools can be found in the toolbar beside the record, play and stop buttons.

These are the tools and their functions:

Selection Tool
This tool can be used easily and effectively for highlighting any part of the sound that you wish to edit or delete.

Envelope Tool
This tool is one that is able to adjust and change the volume of any part of the audio, just by dragging the blue lines that appear in and out.

Zoom Tool
This tool is useful as it helps to zoom into your track, therefore making it easier to edit your piece of audio.

Drawing Tool
Using this tool gives you the ability to move the individual handles in your audio piece.

Timeshift Tool
This tool can only be used when you are using more than one track and gives you the ability to move the track to wherever you want to.

Multi Tool
This tool gives you acess all of tools at once.

Skill 4: Deleting sound
You can do this by selecting the part of the sound you want to delete. Afterward, just press the delete button on your keyboard.

Skill 5: Adding effects to the sound
You can add effects by pressing the effect button in the menu. Then, select the effect that you want to add from the drop-down menu. You can then experiment with the effects on your sound.

Here are three effects I experimented with and how they alter the sound file when used.

BassBoost
This effect basically allows the audio to increase the bass frequency.

Change Pitch
This effect allows you to change the pitch of your audio without changing the tempo of the audio. The pitch change can be altered in four different ways. The first is by musical note, the second by semitones, the third by frequency and lastly by percent change.

Reverse
This effect reverses the audio so that the end of the audio will be heard first and the beginning of the song will be heard last.

30th of April 2012.

Today in class we discussed about an application that we will be using quite a number of times during this unit called Audacity. I finally have installed it onto my USB with ease.

Questions
What is a portable application?
A portable applcation is an application that can be carried around on a portable device, such as a USB and can be used on any computer.

The advantages of portable applications.

• You can take your applications anywhere with you, as long as you have a portable device.
• You can set it up in any way you like.
• You don't need to worry about the computer losing files or setting up differently.
• They are free so you don't have to worry about paying for your application.
• There are a variety of applications that are avaliable as portable.
• Portable applications clean your registry.
• They are secure in computers and thumbdrives. 

The types of software avaliable as portable applications.
There are many types of software avaliable on the internet as portable applications. They can be put into many different categories. Some examples are stated below.

Accesibility

• Firefox Accesibility Extension
• On-screen Keyboard Portable
• Virtual Magnifying Glass Portable

Development

• AkelPad Portable
• Database Browser Portable
• Frhed Portable
• Geany Portable
• Notepad ++ Portable

Education

• BPBible Portable
• Celestia Portable
• Gramps Portable
• Marble Portable
• TypeFaster Portable

Games

• Big Solitaires 3D Portable
• Brutal Chess Portable
• Cube Portable
• Frets on Fire Portable
• Get Sudoku Portable
• Puzzle Collection Portable

Graphics

• Blender Portable
• Dia Portable
• GIMP Portable
• Inkscape Portable

Internet

• DamnVid Portable
• Google Chrome Portable
• Juice Portable
• Maxthon Portable
• Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition
• Skype Portable

27th of April 2012.

Today, in our first lesson of IST for Term 2, we began our new unit on sound. We were allocated to do the activity Audio Sampling Rate and Sample Size for this lesson, as well as Installing  Audacity Sound Editor.

Task One:

Making Sound- Questions

1. Sound moves through what medium? Sound moves through the pressure waves of air.
2. Briefly describe how a microphone works, in particular what does it gather and what does it produce? A microphone works through vibrations and electrical signals. This process occurs as microphones consist of small membranes that vibrate, as well as a mechanism that gathers the vibrations of the membrane and produce them into electrical signals.
3. What unit is used to measure sample size? The unit used to measure sample size is bits or decimal digits.
4. What unit is used to measure sampling rate? The unit used to measure sampling rate is Hertz (Hz) or samples per second.

Audio Bit Depth Sample Size and Sampling Rate- Questions

1. How does sound quality vary with sample size and sample rate? Sound quality varies with sample size and sample rate as the quality of the sound is dependent through the sample size and sample rate.
2. What is another name for sample size? Another name for sample size is sample format.
3. From the above information which offers better quality sound, FM radio or AM radio? As evident above, the better quality sound can be produced by FM radio is at 96 kbits. This because it's bitrate value is higher than AM radio's, which is at 32 kbits and it is the closest to the Standard Bit Rate quality which is at 128-160 kbits.
4. Why not record all sound in extremely high sample sizes and sample rates? The reason why not all sound can not be recorded in extremely high sample sizes and sample rates is because large files can not be transferred as easily as small files can.

Describe the creation process you followed. (PART 2)

29th of March 2012
With only one more day until the assessment is due, I have decided that I will erase some of the ideas I had planned for my assignment. I have decided that I will remove both sections of my animation where storm clouds will appear and also that I will not add a girl into my animation, as I think that creating these sections of my animation will be time consuming not only for me, but also for my animation. Even though I had no IST lesson today, I managed to get a few frames and a post on my blog done at home.


Here are some frames I managed to get done today:

30th of March 2012
Today, our assignment is due at the end of the day. I managed to get all of my animation done today, as well as all my posts on my blog. I wish I could have managed my time better, but I am relieved that I have completed it satisfactorily. 

Final Product.

Here is my animation to submit for the assignment:

Overall, I'm proud of my final product, but I wish I could change some things such as managing my time better so that I was able to add more detail and frames to my animation.

What difficulties did you encounter and how did you overcome them?

During this assignment I did not encounter any major difficulties, but mainly minor ones.


Some of the problems I encountered included not being able to open Inkscape at times, difficulties in erasing bits of the animation that weren't needed any more, learning to find the locations of some functions that were needed, managing time, choosing the proper tools to suit the part of the animation I was creating, deciding what format to save my frames in, difficulty in drawing objects, moving objects equally so that they flowed smoothly when they were animated, changing the position of objects so that they suited, etc.


I solved these problems by trying my best to manage my time, asking the teacher when I am troubled, asking for the help of my peers, spending time at home to try and fix these problems and also by referring to the internet's sources for assistance.


I managed to solve most of these problems, and I'm overall proud of my working skills and finished product.

What is the final size of your animation in MB?

The final size of my animation in MB is 1.89MB.

What frame rate were you aiming for?

The frame rate I have used for my animation is 0.10 seconds per frame. 


The reason why I have chosen this frame rate is because if I was to put my animation at anywhere above this rate of seconds per frame, my animation would be at a very slow pace and therefore take up time just to view. Another reason I have chosen this rate to process my animation in is because it flows my animation smoothly and makes it look more effective and quick. 

What image format did you save your frames as?

The image format that I saved the frames for my animation as is PNG.

PNG stands for Portable Network Graphic. This type of image format has many factors similar to GIF and JPEG images. It is unique though, as this format supports an alpha channel/ RGBA colour space. This alpha channel is added to the three standard colour channels (Red, Green and Blue) and can provide 256 levels of transparency. Therefore, a PNG is a better format to save images in than GIF or JPEG format, because it benefits by letting an image fade into a transparent background than a specific colour. 

The reason why I have saved my images as PNG is not only because Windows Movie Maker does not accept the provided SVG format, but PNG images are high in quality.

Describe what software you used and why you chose it.

The software I have used for creating my animation for this assignment is Inkscape. I have chosen Inkscape as the program for creating my animation because Inkscape is very resourceful and provides many different applications and tools that I can use for the various frames I need to create to present my assignment as a whole.

These tools and applications are divided into many categories such as Path/Drawing Tools, Text, Extensions, Layers, Filters and many more. Many of the tools I have already used while creating my animation which I find very useful and are only on Inkscape include:

• The calligraphic stroke tool, which has helped me draw nice brush strokes for the various components I need to draw for my animation.
• The gradient tool, which I have used to create the background of animation.
• The extension tools, which have also been very useful as they have assisted me in creating a better effect to my frames for my animation.

Describe the creation process you followed. (PART 1)

16th of March 2012
Today in class, we were given the opportunity to work on our assignments. Last lesson we were assigned our task, which is to create a 15 second, or over animation of our choice or creating an animation which relates to our house symbols - the Dobson dolphin, Cartias lion, etc.
For my assignment, I have decided to create an animation of a little seed turning blooming into a big flower, which then gets cut off by someone. After that, process will restart again.
Last lesson I managed to get two frames done. This is what they look like:

19th of March 2012

Today in class, I managed to add more to the progress of my animation. This is what it looks like so far:

So far, while progressing through my animation, I have remained strong and have not shown any weakness.

28th of March 2012

Today in class, I worked some more on my animation. Here are some more examples of frames I have created for my animation.





After finishing this part of the animation, I am planning to create storm clouds which will then discharge some heavy rain and will cause the flower to finally blossom, I will draw some puddles on the grass to indicate that rain has come. Then I will create a girl who will come in with a pair of scissors after the rainty day and cut the huge flower down. Another set of rain clouds will come and then the animation will repeat over and over again.

2nd of March 2012.

Creating an Animation.
Today in class, and for the past few lessons, we learnt about Animations. We were also taught how to create these animations and had to put what we learnt into practice.Using some samples left in Student Net, we extended upon the dropping of a ball from a high platform. Here was the result:

Strengths:

Overall in this task, I think that I did very well when creating my animation. I managed to get it done in a short time period, even though there were plenty of difficulties that came my way.

Difficulties:
While progressing during this task, I was met with many difficulties. One for example, was that the link to my sequenced images was broken, and therefore left a blank in between my animation. Also, I was disorganised and my files were scattered everywhere, making it hard to locate them and add them onto my animation. I also did things the slow way, and I changed the time setting of each image independently, instead of in groups, which slowed down the process.

15th February 2012.

Comparing Paint.Net & Inkscape

Today in class, we discussed and experimented on two different types of editing software - Paint.Net & Inkscape.

Paint.Net;
Paint.Net is a software program where images of all formats can be edited by using different sorts of tools provided, including paintbrushes, the option to add text, adding effects, adjusting the brightness of the image, etc.

Inkscape;
Inkscape is a software vector graphics editor program where images of all formats can be edited & altered, using tools such as brushes, text and effects such as blurring.

Similarities;

1. They both are types of editing software.
2. Images of any type can both be opened on Paint.Net & Inkscape.
3. They both have many different varities of tools to use.
4. Both give the ability to add text to your image.
5. Both have a wide variety of effects to use on your image.
6. Both have a little window/toolbox with a set of different colours to choose from to use to paint/draw with.
7. Images from places like the internet can be opened onto these two programs.

Differences;

1. In Paint.Net, when you draw and zoom into your image, you can clearly see the pixels that make it up. On Inkscape, you can't see what your scribble is made up of.
2. Inkscape & Paint.Net both save their files in different formats.