Tuesday, 5 April 2016

Changing software

Changing Software;

So after using it for weeks and creating my intial colouring challenge in it, Edge decided to stop working all together everytime I opened it, it would crash.  So this left me with a big issue a month away from final submission I had to learn a whole new software to create my application.

I had never used Animate CC before I heard it was just a rebranded flash but I wasn't even that comfortable using Flash when it was the main animating software.  So for the past week I have been learning how to use Animate cc and it turns out that it actually works out better for what I need to do I have learnt how to create a small colouring game using it and also a drag and drop game for the other challenges.

So my next task is to recreate what I managed to do in Edge in Animate and hopefully it all works smoothly with out the issues and able to just create the game without the external codes.

Friday, 25 March 2016

Mark 2

Mark 2 Presentation;

The Mark 2 Presentation didn't go as smoothly as the Mark 1, I showed off all my stuff I had prepared but I was starting to have issues with Edge again because everytime I closed Edge or close over my MacBook the app would stop working and I had to rebuild the entire thing.

But apart from this everything went as smoothly as it could of I got some good feedback again and this time I even was given a few suggestions where to go with my project next, which helped because I was struggling to think about what I could do with the next section of the story.  So a suggestion I was given was to only use colours in the next challenge with the reds taken away and let the children colour in using only the colours someone with Protanopia could see, and to do the same with Deutanopia.

These suggestions were good and I decided to have a look into them to see what I could do with the choices.

Friday, 18 March 2016

The Story

Working on the Story;

So with my working prototype finished or at least the colouring bit working, and the Mark 2 Presentation only a week away I decided to start working on the story and how everything fitted together so I could go in and be able to show them how it is all going to work.

The Story or at least the start of it;

Welcome to Woogleton,
The town is known for its margical colours, friendly towns people and its marvolous cakes.

Woogleton may seem small, but that adds to its charm.  With its small size everyone in the town knows everyone, and if you ask anyone who has had the chance to visit, they would tell you it was full of friendly people alwyas willing to help.

But sadly not everyone in this town is friendly or happy to be here.  On the far side of town where the colours turn to greys and storms seem to rage, there is a house where one such person lives.

This is the house of Doctor Watzit, the mad doctor was born with the colour missing from his world and the town didn't understand.  His only friend was also from a world of grey.  Badar the Scary Moon, his only friend lighting up the night sky and removing all the colour from the land with its darkness.

This gave Doctor Watzit an idea.

He worked hard to creat a machine that when finished will change woogleton forever.  His machine will not only strip the colour from the land but for some places he will just change it.

"Mwhaha, it's finally finished, for all thos eyears I will finally show Woogleton what it's like to lose all colour."  Doctor Watzit said he pointed the ray at Ella's toy shop, "for you my sweet dear Ella, lets see how santa feels about you when all the red is removed."

He then followed suit by pointing it at Isla's Fruit and Vegatable shop, "Let's see how your shop does without its greens." Doctor Watzit said while laughing.  "And for you little Natalie, who will purchase your world famous cakes when all colour is taken from your bakery."

So with the base line for the story created I think I am ready for the Mark 2 Presentation

Friday, 4 March 2016

Start of the Animation

Adobe Edge;

So it has been a week since the Mark 1 Presentation and in that time I have managed to finish the design for the cake shop and I am ready to start the animation process to allow for colouring in.

The first step of this process though starts in Illustrator not Edge.  First of all I had to go in and manually select each part of the cake shop and insert a piece of coding in the svg interactive menu, I had never coded in Illustrator before and even though it was one line it still surprized me that Illustrator had a section had coding but then again for the case of SVGs it did make sense.

Once I had done this, luckily for me I didn't need to save each part seperately I was able to just do a simple copy and past into Adobe Edge.  Now that this was in Edge I needed to go to the edgedocks website to get a link to the edgecommons where the jquerry I needed to get the colouring in working and then the fun part of the coding began.

Although I managed to get it to work I noticed a few issues that were obviously arrising due to the fact that Edge was no longer getting updated or maintained anymore and I sometimes stuggled to get onto the application itself.  I would of switched to animate cc which might of been easier to do but I had never used it before and was worried that it would take too long to learn.




Tuesday, 23 February 2016

Mark 1 Presentation

Mark 1 Presentation;

So yesterday was the Mark 1 presentations and due to the lack of time I had for actual design work I felt I had enough to start but at the same time I felt it was slightly lacking in detail and I could of had alot more done if I didn't have to wait for the Primary School to get back to me.

That said for my Mark 1 I managed to present what I had which was my designs and where I was planning on going with my project where I felt I needed more work and also where I managed to get what I needed to complete my task.  With everything I submitted for the Mark 1 I was worried that the lecturers would of thought I hadn't done enough for the submission in hand but they said that I had done more than they were expecting and that where I am to go next is exactly where they think I should be goind and also mentioned how they would like to see a working part done by the Mark 2.

So the feedback I felt was good and now I am ready to get to work on the next part and hopefully have the application working or at least part of it working by the Mark 2.

Friday, 5 February 2016

The Starting point

Application Design;

So now that I finished my workshop got all of the information I need it is time to start work on the actual project itself and to start I need to design the actual application itself.  So what I have done is I drew a few scenes in my sketch pad to show how the application is going to look scene to scene, once I had done this and was happy with what I had, I decided to move into adobe Illustrator to start designing the first challenge which I have decided is going to be the cake shop and it will be based on Mono-Chromacy.

So now that I made this decision I was deciding how to do the cake shop and what else I could do for it.  So while I was drawing the cake shop in Illustrator I was also thinking how this linked up to the story and how the story affects this place and how it ends up colourless.  While also deciding if I was going to use the same colours I had specified earlier on or if I was going to add more to the swatches.

In the end I decided that the colours I had were enough since they were the basic colours and they would still be used to create a nice image.  So with colours in mind I also needed to find the hex code for the colours to make it easier for me to find the exact colour I need for my project.

Friday, 22 January 2016

The Workshop

Design Process;

So on the 15th of January I had a meeting with the Head Teacher at the Primary School where I am doing my work shop at and explained to her what it is I am wanting to do but also explaining that in my research no names will be published of the school or the children due to safety reason.

So after the meeting they said I could do the workshop on the 22nd of January, today, and said I will be given a slot in the afternoon. 

So when I arrived I was shown to the classroom where the children were, and while they were getting a story read to them, they allowed me to set up ready to go when they got back into their seats.

Since time was limited I had to cut some of the taskes I was orginally going to do with them, so I decided to stick with the colourblindness test and the Character design.  So first of all I showed the class a series of Ishiara plates and asked them to write down the number they seen.  Once this was completed I noticed how difficult it was for some of them to get answers for but this didn't mean they were colourblind it just meant they struggled to see.  Once we had collected in the answers and handed out more pieces of paper I asked them to draw a character for the story and while they were doing that also asked them to think of a name for the character and what type of job they would do.

Once this was done it was about time for me to go so I asked the class one last question and that was to help me create the name of the town the story was going to be based on, and after giving them a handful choices they decided on Woogleton.