project 2 - appraisal
I appraoched the project from the perspective of trying to enthuse kids about the interesting history that is in the building itself rather than just the exhibits. I tried to do this using stories. I decided that the best way to tell the stories would be to characterise a "guide" through my animation.
I struggled to find a way to characterise the walls talking, because I was finding it very difficult to animate speech realsitically. That's when I decided to try to use a digital camera which takes moving jpeg movies to try to learn about how my mouth would move while talking. While i was trying to draw frames from the jpegs, I realised it would be very effective to have the photos themselves slightly transparent against the wall rather than just illustration of the talking. This took alot of work to mask each frame, but i think it was worth it to set up the context of the story telling by the walls that can talk.
I wanted to use historical photos that i found at the state library, because I feel like it helps to realise how different yet how similar the building was over a hundred years ago, and to be able to visualise the history in the present location in the middle of the city.
I wanted to have simple multiple choice quizes to help engage the viewer in viewing the story less passively and thinking about objects and things in the stories. I tried using radion buttons and checkboxes, but I wanted an iteractivity with the quiz that was more natural, and more like filling in a quiz by circling and crossing out on the page rather than using computer sumbols of checkboxes and radio buttons. I think this was quite successful, and really improved the interactivity of the quizes.
I think I was successful in meeting my aims for the project. I think that the context of the wall talking works well to establish that there is more history to the building than is presented in the museum.
I have learned a bit about vector graphics, which will be helpful to me in the future, I have learned alot about masking, and thinking about breaking scenes down into parts that can be displayed within a masked section. I have also learned a good way to learn more about making realistic movement in my animation - to take little moving jpegs on my digital camera and take them apart frame by frame.
I have learned alot about thinking about interaction design and knowledge design. I want to be more critical about why I make design choices for interaction and knowledge design and think about how all design choices affect the overall aims.
I need to develop the sound more. I spent too much time working on the visuals that I didn't create a soundscape, but just used narration. I think that narration was an important part of my design, and i think it worked well, but I needed to create soundscape, I just didn't have time, and my file size was running away with me too.
posted by nicole @ 9:40 pm
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