Week 12 - Final Assessment

This was the big day. The powerpoint presentation had been created by the other team member I think she had done a really good job of it.

The presentation seemed to go quite well and our machinima was well recieved by the group. I had thought that it would be better to show the machinima first and then describe the events. However, this point was picked up by the assessors saying that we should have explained the storeyboard and the events of the video. I felt quit guilt about this because this is how the original presentation had been planned and I had been the one to insist we changed it.

Week 11 - machinima

This machinima project has proved harder than I had imagined, we have encountered problems at every step of the way. This has taken over my life. These problems and set backs will be well documented in my final report so I won't go into them here and now.

Because the filming and acting have taken so much of my time, I have been unable as yet to develope my scripting skills sufficiently to get a liquid to pour from a can.

We have downloaded a free recorder package called CamStudio. CamStudio records all events as they occur on the screen.

The video clip below highlights a number of the problems encountered while attempting to film a car race. My car is virtually undrivable but we have got some fantastic crash shots. There are only two of us in the team and it is just not possible for us to film the vehicals interacting with each other from the front. The cars move quickly and the environment can't keep up (not shown in this clip) we also keep filming pop up messages.

Week 10 - Audacity

This week we were to download and use Audacity for editing sound.


This is free versitile audio editing software, allowing the addition of multi tracks and sound effects. Each track and effect can be edited seperately but are combined into one track for export.

Week 9 - Machinima Filming

This morning second life was finally permited on four of the college library computers. I had previously been on one computer for one of the other students only. I really would have made a lot of difference had this facility been available earlier in the course.

I have been looking at scripting in second life and have followed in world tutorials to make a sword that thrusts when I walk forward and a helmit that I can comunicate with. The helmit doesn't look very good but I can hide it so that it is not visible. The helmit will inform me if other avators come within 30m. The sheild tells me if it has come into contact with anything. Its not that cleaver so if I walk into something it informs me.

Scripting in second life is quite a bit like Java, using a similar format with paired braces { }

Now I need to learn how to use scripting to make oil pour out of the oil can for the Machinima

This Roman equipment was achieved using the scripting tutorial at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kings%20Bishop/183/205/113

Week 8 - Create groups for machinima assignment.

We have devided into groups, I am paired with Tina.

We have decided to film a race for our machinima project. The music is yet to be decided as all uncopyrighted music sources have been barred by the systems administrator at the college. We have agreed an outline storey for out project. The jist is that our aviators will race against each other using vehicals in second life. My aviator will try to cheet by thowing nails infront of the other, she will turn round to watch the effect of her action and crash. Tina's aviator will win a gold cup.

I don't want to fill this website with moans and groans but I do think it is worth a mention that I only recieved clearance to access second life from the college computer adminsitrator for the final 1/2 hour of the session. So really I had to sit doing nothing waiting for them to sort it out for me. I do feel disadvantaged by this.

Week 7 - Building and structural content

This I found the hardest task to date. I had no end of problems with this. Somehow I got traped in an area and could not move around to work on my house. I got repeated messages to say that objects couldn't be inserted because the parcel was full. I asked other aviators but none of them seemed to recieve that message.

I had random objects apearning in my house as it was created and I found texturning an absolute nightmare. No matter what I did, I could only apply a texture to the whole prim and not to one side only.

However, with percerverance I did manage to achieve the following, incidently the little box is nothing to do with me and I can't delete it. I just had to work around these random shapes;

Week 6 3-D Drawing

This week we were required to create some 3D images in second life. I created the chess piece inserted bellow.

I created the chess piece following a tutoral guide. The piece comprises of different shapes which were then linked together, given colour and texture. I took a snapshot of the completed piece, still in the Anglian Ruskin sandbox. However, I din't link all of the objects correctly so that later when I tried to retrieve the piece one of the crosses from the top was missing.

So I created another chess piece, this time I gave it a different texture (waterfall ) and added two base colours yellow and grey.

Chess piece mark 2

Week 5 - Second Life

This week we were instructed to join second life.

We were required to read all the community guidelines especially section 2 and 4 propr to joining. This in itself was no light bedtime reading!!!

My second life I D details were emailed to my tutor, then I spent quite a while on Orientation Island and with the second life tutorial.

I was not able to join the Anglia Ruskin Computing group and I have not recieved an invertation from my tutor to join a Huntingdonshire Regional College Group. I have however visited Anglia Ruskin Island.


I have visited the following shop to buy some free clothing:

The SURL of the site I found for free clothing, you could also obtain shoes, hair jewellry etc.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Gallii/129/89/33

I found this area which distributed free textures;
This site contains all sort of free stuff including Darth Vadar, clothes, costumes and gestures

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sooseunhwa/33/95/59










This is a huge shopping mall of stuff, really it contains so many things that I couldn't possibly list them all here. I obtained loads of free items from;

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Orellian/245/18/24



including the torch shown below;

Week 4 - Inkscape

This week we were introduced to inkscape.

I spent a lot of time working through the tutorials to learn different techniques, creating various pieces of modern art in the process.

The task given was to create a logo for a canned drink. This task proved to be much more difficult than I first anticipated.

Initially I created the can out of a rectangle and two ellipses, formed from Inkscape's drawing and editing tools on the vertical tool bar. Then I used the union tool to create the body of the can, leaving the remaining eclipse as the top. I used the path editing tool to adjust the base of the can shape slightly.

The colour was created using gradient fill and I attempted to create a ring pull using a further eclipse and adjusting the width of the border.

The label was created using a yellow gradient filled rectangle and text was added. The kernelling of the text was reduced to look more label like, using keyboard short cuts. Then the letters Y and Z were raised to produce a designer look using the path edit tool. The whole text was rotated using the rotation tool.

Finally, gradient filled bubbles were added to the can.

As this was my first ever attempt at this type of project I was pleased with my initial results.

Week 3

This week we were given a picture of Austin and had to place a beer in his hand and find him an alternate suitable setting.

I selected austin using the lasso tool and pasted him onto a new layer.

I then found a picture of beer on the internet from the following site http://www.sdluxurytransportation.com/sitebuilder/images/beerglass-223x269.png

This image I imported into a new layer and changed the scale, I then merged it down into Austins hands but I found it hid his fingers, so I undid it and then using the lassoo I selected his fingers and copied them onto their own layer.I mereged the beer layer down onto the picture of Austin and then Pasted the fingers ontop of the glass I found that I had to rotate, flip and invert them.

I then deleted the background layer and added the new more interesting sceen. Obtained from Photo bucket - space stars http://media.photobucket.com/image/space+stars/arthoward/16.jpg?o=65

Week 2 More Gimp

This week in Electronic Content I had to make a logo using Gimp. This proved problematic for me, I'm not sure if this is because I was too tired but I found the tutorial very difficult to follow and had to improvise and restart my work far too often.

So after a whole afternoons work, here is my effort.

This image was created in 4 layers, a background layer, text layer, colour layer and a shadow layer.
The image does have a transparent background, however when it is lifted onto the blog the background appears white. I am not sure why this has happened


The next task was to create a snowman. Well the weather is not that bad yet so here's a couple we created earlier;

I decided that a beach scene would be more appropriate for the snowman at this time of year; he is obviously taking an autumn break.

Using Gimp I used the lasso function to select the snowman, I enlarged the picture to make my selection as accurate as possible. I was unable to use the magic wand for this because there was not enough differential between the foreground and background colours.

I added him to the beach scene using a separate layer. Again using Gimp, I added him to the beach scene photo, obtained from the internet, by opening the scene on as a separate layer. I then copied and pasted the lassoed snowman over.

Week 1

This week we were introduced to the course.




To get us started we downloaded Gimp the GNU image manipulation program. I had a number of problems with the program crashing, once when I had just completed the image but not saved. This was a good life lesson, I have now learned an important life lesson, to SAVE, SAVE and SAVE. Well at least I've learned this at the start of the course.

After finally completing a worksheet I created the image below.

Multi layering was used, together with a range of tools such as painting using gradients, inserting shapes and images, blending, smudging and perspective tools.

The image was then exported from the program and saved as a jpg image.