Capstone Menu

Today I worked on my capstone menu. I finish animating the word 'Graffiti' by making it flash to white and back to its orignal color (gradient fill). Then I put in some info. of my capstone/senior project into the slideshow. I only have page 1 so far done but I made the next and back buttons with a simple black rectangle fill box. Then I put in stop action in the desired places of keyframes. Here's what page 1 looks like.

Work! and more work!

Today I worked on making my eel music player and try putting in the code for that but it didn't work out so well. It is not done being colored but I got the basics down. The buttons are made and I just need to put in the coding for music player audio. I hope it will turn out pretty sweet! Here's what it looks like so far.

Then on my capstone menu, I started making more graffiti letters since it relates to my capstone project. Here's what I got so far.

And that's it for now!

Working on Interactive Resume

Today I actually was very interested in continuing my Interactive Resume.

First, I put in another portfolio piece onto one of the tentacles/arm of the octopus and convert that into a button and put the code in for it to go to another page to show the complete portfolio of piece of it.

Then I asked about how to fix my bubbles and I realize my motion tween of the bubbles were broken so I had to make sure that each bubble was by itself and that I convert them to a graphic symbol. I did that to all the bubbles (I think there were like 20 bubbles). There were lots of keyframes which is showed below.

Afterwards, I took a break from the portfolio menu and went to do a sidework of the capstone button. I made it with graffiti like letters using the pen tool changing the stroke size to 5 so it looks more bubbly. Then I animate each letter to different colors on different key frames so it looks like it is flashing then stops. Here's what the keyframes of it looks like below.

I accomplish a lot today! I'm proud of myself =] but I'm still not close to being done =[

interactive resume!

Worked on the portfolio menu again with the coding. I was trying to find a way to where when the person clicks on one of the portfolio piece, it will pop up and stays there.

I asked my friend Shae for help of how to do it cuz I didnt know exactly where I should put it. But now I know! =]


So I'm doing that now. Kinda frustrating when you mess up.

IRES work

Today I am trying to finish my portfolio menu. Everything is all done w/ the tracing, placement, colorization, and etc. But all I had to do is finish animating it.

I finish putting the bubbles in their different places on each different keyframes that I chose. It looks like this...

It took me a while because I accidently deleted all the keyframes earlier and I had to re-do it :(

Can't wait for Friday..

Oh I misread the assignment for the summary so that's why it is not very how it's supposed to be but oh well.

Anyways, I'm so tired today so I decided to take draw for my portfolio instead of working on my interactive resume (even though I should catch up a bit since I wasn't here yesterday). I get kinda sleepy when working on my Interactive Resume for too long.

I decided to try drawing out the 'Drawing Squirkles Around a Tree' on drawspace thats in the intermediate section. It doesn't look that bad of what I have so far. I just just need to darken certain parts that is the shadow by squirkling over first several squirkling some more.

Summary

Well first off before I start my summary, I would like to tell Mr. Fitzer to get well soon. So get well soon! And I have your money haha.

In the future, I hope to attend a college (such as CCAD, ITT, or Devry) for graphic design and media studies. I like to work on the computer, but not all that geeky stuff (no offence); but more of using it for designing. I just absolutely love art in general and I like to work on the computer. When I heard about graphic designing, I knew it was something I would love to do. And it was true! I never thought there was such a job like it before to be honest and was excited when I found out about it. Although I may not do my best in IMD when designing things in class, but I know I have talent for it =] I may not be the best but I'm sure I am not bad. And I like helping others out so if I do become a sweet graphic designer, then I know I wouldn't mind helping others out when doing my job.
As for media studies, I don't want to be on the computer all the time. I like to move around too (and it helps me stay awake haha). It would be a great opportunity to work with others in a group and working media would be fun for me since I think making/producing media is cool and for it be on tv or other would be cool to see my work and my group's work out in public. I would be proud of myself. (I hope that made sense haha).
Oh and one of my dreams is to own a huge place that's kind of like a dance studio yet a club also at the same time but not exactly club-ish if that made sense. [I love dancing (especially hip hop although I'm not very good at it haha. But I love watching it).] It's like in the movie 'Step Up 2' where dancers of the streets can come in and have a dance off, have fun, and there would be no alcohol and kids can be off the streets so they won't get into trouble. And it's not just for kids from the 'streets', it's for everyone also! Then I can design my own business cards and banners which will be cool =]
Hopefully I'll get all 3 jobs. But it will be a toughie tryna do all 3! But I probably wouldn't mind.

Today on working on my interactive resume, I finished up the animation of the bubbles on my portfolio menu. There were 25 layers of each bubble so it took forever! But I finallly finished animating all of the layers of the bubbles and almost all of them went up to 70 keyframes.

Actionscript coding. Yes or No?

When incorporating the various different types of codes into the interactive resume, it will help change it with a tremendous impact. I think the use of the various codes for my interactive resume will be a huge benefit because then you will be able to transition to another part of the interactive resume and see the animation that will appear before you, click the buttons for something to happen for miscellaneous things you want to happen, and much more. Although it is really hard to remember the coding and type in every specific word and/or numbers, using reference to put in the code helps and will make the coding of what you want it to do become more to what you desire.

Incorporating the coding into my interactive resume would help make it smooth so that everything will go as how I want things to act and it will be easier for the person to interact with the file so that they won’t be confused and have some fun with it. So I am definitely going to use the coding to help build my interactive resume to a cool, fun, and structure piece.

BPA Competition

Yesterday when we went to the Eastland Career Center for our BPA competition, we all first waited in the cafeteria room until it was our time to come. As we patiently waited, Dante and I got some food from the vending machine since we were both hungry and thirsty. Then I got onto the laptop that was provided to us that Mr. Fitzer brought in to see if our website on flash was working (which it did).

After that, my group mates Shae, Stephanie, and I walked upstairs to the 2nd floor mezz lobby area to await our turn about 10 minutes prior to our time. When they lady finally calls our group up, she said that we can now present but then we came to a slight problem. The junior Web Site Design team was still presenting theirs and they had the laptop, so we either have to wait for a while or get another laptop. Shae asked the senior 3D animation team if we could use their since there was already an open spot for us to go but Nick said they’re about to go in a few minutes so it couldn’t be possible. Then Nick decided to call Mr. Fitzer about what we should do. Soon, Mr. Fitzer came with another laptop. But once he got there, the juniors were done and came out. So we called Fitzer up for nothing! (Sorry Fitzer!) But he wasn’t upset which was good.

Shortly after the juniors came out, we finally got to go inside the room and present. As I walked in, I noticed that it smelled good lol. And it was a small room where all the chairs were put on top of the tables. Since it was already set up and on, Shae easily loaded up our site after he inserted the flash drive. We then introduced ourselves to the judges. Surprisingly there were only two.

So I started the presentation of the process of developing the site and how I made the banner. But I think we lost maybe a point because I think I made a pause that was too long. I was trying to find my notecard. But I finish the rest with ease. Then Stephanie presented her part. I think the only part she made a mistake on (but it wasn't really something be be bothered by) was when she was explaining how she worked with me on the banner but accidently called me by my nickname Sam and not my real name Sothavy. (I introduced myself as Sothavy). Mrs. Ragusa told us earlier that might confuse them so I don't know about that. But I think it wouldn't take any points off for sure. Then Shae presented his part very well. But unfortunately he talked the most.

After we finally finish, the judges asked us several questions. Such as:
- "Why did you decided to use the pictures of the city and not western?"
- "Why did you decided to just only flash?"
- "What makes you decided to just kept the text/info. in just one box?"
- "I bet you used a lot of layers for that banner. How many layers did you had before flattening the image?"
Uhm..something like that. And probably a few more but I can't remember. I think we did a pretty good when answering the questions. But unfortunately they asked Shae more about the flash part. One of the judges asked if he was the flash guy lol. So it wasn't bad. I'm very proud of my team mates =]

Finally the presentation was over and we unplugged the laptop and left saying thanks. Stephanie left with Steven as Shae and I decided we could bring the laptop down. We went all the way to the elevator but we found out we needed a key! So we went back to the stairs and had to carry it down. How horrible! lol. But it didn't kill me of course and we brought it back down safely with a help of Nick...uhm...a junior.



So that was my interesting experience.

Another Day of BPA

So I forgot to post a blog yesterday of the 3 activities I worked on for BPA.

Well my group is doing a web site of 'Top 10 Things to Do in Dallas, Texas'. Exciting huh?

Well the 1st activity I decided to do is one of the most boring but easy jobs; researching. I typed in top things to do in dallas in the search engines and collected the information of places I saw that pops up a lot on the many websites and search engines and pasted it into word. Then I also copied the link of the information I got it from. Just in case I need to go back to it in the future. It's all in my word document.

Then my 2nd activity was to make a sweet header for the site, but I drew it out first. It was just a skyline of the city w/ a pond in front. Then I gave it to my teammate Stephanie. She wanted to trace it.

Finally, my 3rd activity for the BPA is looking and collecting sounds for the buttons on the site. Since the theme is technology based, I tried looking up computer, beeps, electronic, etc. sounds. I found quite a good amount. Now I'm decided which one we should use and maybe lower down the pitch if the sound is too loud.


So there you have it. Go IMD II! lol