Health & Safety

To work efficiently I must be aware of several laws and guidelines to work legally and efficiently. This can range from diet and exercise to child safety laws. 

When working as a freelance I will need to take into consideration that I might become ill and thus not be able to work. You can also become ill from work related issues for example stress which can lead to more serious illnesses. Many of the stress related can be avoided by watching and monitoring your lifestyle. A contract employee gets around 3-5 weeks minimum of holiday and obviously working in freelance will mean you can manage your time more accordingly. It is also worth mentioning that flights and holidays are normally cheaper during school term times relating back to stress related illnesses it is recommended that you take time off before becoming overloaded with work and becoming ill from it, so yes, you should plan some holiday to keep yourself sane.

When working from home you should also have the appropriate equipment to work with, for example a suitable chair and a decent desk of the correct height and such. If you have health insurance of some kind they can easily become void if you decide to spend all night working or you feel like working upside-down for a while, or anything that would be considered to lack a better word, stupid.

Because you are working as freelance, although you are working for a client you are still your employer and the employee, so you do need to fill certain needs such as not being able to work for long periods of time with no break. Although you are protected yourself, as you have to paid within 90 days of finishing a job, while you and the client might agree to receive payment within 30, they do not legally have to do it within that time so long as it is within 90 days.

This website provided useful information on what problems to expect and some ways to prevent or help. To find more information I could simply Google the problem and look at popular/common results or look around on forums related to my problem.

This website provides information about various workers' health and safety.

There are several health and safety laws which are meant to prevent injury, both mental and physical. There are legal requirements of companies to have certain working conditions for employees, for example a building firm should provide personal protection equitment for their workers and visitors, (Hard hats, hiigh-vis jackets etc). The same goes for offices and such work areas. There must be correctly lit rooms and adjustable chairs for workers to be able to sit correctly. Within industries such as I.T most companies show employees a health and safety presentation/lecture to show the workers how to position themselves. 

There are also laws to have a minimum amount of space per employee, this is to prevent unfit working conditions and over crowding of workers in an area. After 4 hours of work an employee is entitled to a 15 minute break. However after working for 45 minutes on a computer an employee is allowd up to 15 minutes break. 

As a freelance worker it is important to stay healthy and well to continue working. It is also important to stay physically fit by doing annual exercise. 


This website lists possible risks in the work area and provides advice on more topics which were not mentioned in this post. 

BIT.TRIP Runner analysis

The game begins with a ‘Press any button’ splash screen with the game’s main theme playing, the title being displayed with a pixel themed font thus introducing the game’s art style early on. The music changes upon accessing the main menu to a much quicker and more upbeat tune, continuation of the pixel theme across all menus. The main menu features a stage select (3 stages in total), credits, leader boards and options. The options menu includes a difficultly option which you can change as well as pretty standard graphic options and resolution options. The music does not change when changing menus thus making the navigation seamless. Whilst on the topic of sound, when you do navigate the menu a little chirp noise is made. Small details hooray!

The first stage is opened with a tiny cut scene showing a meteor (?) crashing into the world, then emerges the main character hinting he is from a different planet, or some sort of alien. The first level starts and you run, it tells you how to jump and gives you plenty of time to learn how to jump before any obstacles emerge. To tell you how to jump it displays the instructions/keys on an old NES styled controller and also has a little bit of text to tell you what button you actually have to press, I missed this the first time round and it wasn’t until I watched someone else play it, I noticed it. Still, I was distracted by the pretty NES controller thing!

The first level is relatively straight forward; you jump up and or over things. If you run into something you start over. Eventually you run into your first power up, thing it makes the music change aside from that I have no idea if it does anything. It makes it sound pretty though! The power up is gained by jumping into it, whether it’s first nature to jump into floating orb things for everyone else is another thing, although I’m fairly confident virtually everyone will be able to identify that as a good thing seeing as the game has not introduced any threats yet.

After each level assuming you collect all the gold throughout the level you get to play a bonus level! This is meant to be a retro mode whereas you just collect more coins and jump over stuff. The only sound on the level is when you collect gold which can become entrancing at times and thus causing you to screw up trying to keep a rhythm going. From previous playing of this game I usually end up killing myself on purpose on these levels just to advance in the real game quicker. The lack of music in the level is also odd consider the game is well known for its soundtrack, it feels odd to play a level with no music.

The second level is similar to the first, obviously trying to get the player used to jumping over things. Although in this level more floor hazards are introduced! Holes in the floor surprisingly mean you have to start over should you happen to fall into one! However this level is still very forgiving at a stage if you miss a jump and fall down you can continue running, you just don’t get any pretty gold or a power up. Still no idea what it really does or what it’s called.  The music on the screen which tells you how much gold you gained/missed is also nice. Very relaxing! Also if you don’t manage to collect all the gold in a level and not attain the bonus level the character looks down briefly as if he is sad. Not sure why, I still find the bonus levels odd.

Third level! This time round you’re introduced to the slide ability allowing you to apparently slide on the floor forever. (Yes, you can complete the entire level whilst holding the slide button, I tried.) The game also introduces more hazards! Giant worm things which you must slide under to avoid! Also upon collecting all the power up orb things you get a rainbow trail! The same one you saw the character had on the main menu, cool! Although I do fell the music builds up and once you acquire the rainbow trail it dies down quickly and goes into a chill mode. I was hoping for more awesome upbeat music to get me through the level!  If you slide with the rainbow trail it affects the trail as well, thus jumping and sliding makes a rainbow wave!

I was assuming the fourth level would just be the third level but with a more things to slide under. It was, there are now random little UFO’s flying about at points which you slide under. How… random although it dos tie together with the earlier suggestion that you’re an alien.

Onto the visuals of the game, they’re pretty great to be blunt. I do love how the character you play as is a flat 2D sprite whereas the rest of the world is in 3D, the path you run on, the things you jump over and avoid are all 3D thus making the character seem more out of place. Throughout the game the text is always the same style, pretty pixels! Which is lovely but I can’t read or make sense of some of the numbers at times. Although this isn’t that important, It’d be nice to be able to read what I’m looking at without having to stop and read it a few times. That might just be me though!

Continuation of paperwork. More dicussion on how the game will play, regarding lives and how much damage enemies will do. 

Presentation

We presented our game with this presentation, we didn’t need or have to include super serious information like budgets and schedules, just to pitch the game and explain our idea.

We presented the idea and our teacher suggested we make a “demo” version of the idea we had instead to make it fit within the project’s timescale which we agreed with. He also suggested we make a physical copy of the game (on a disk or something) and designing a magazine cover for it to be shipped with. 

LINK TO THE PRESENTATION HERE.

Lathe and splines. Also X's.

In today's lesson we were introduced to the 'Lathe' tool and 'Splines' within 3DS Max, from doing so we drew the outlines of half a fruit then using the lathe tool by moving the axis horizontally. 

Using the same technique you can easily make vases or similar items. This shall prove useful in the next assignment which is to make a full house (furnished).

To make the above images I first started with a rectangle then used the 'Bend' tool to change the angle, then I cloned/copied it several times and rotated them into the X formation. Then grouping them I applied textures and experimented. I also used planes for walls/flooring, two of the walls are mirrors, two are glossy black and the floor is birch planks. I then positioned a light within the X. Making for an interesting lamp.

If I could I'd like to change the X so it's one shape because currently you can see a square in the middle where the different shapes are. It would look much better if it was all one, flowing piece. 

3d

Today we made a table with glass and lightning.
I made things very, very shinny and glossy.

AS3 expanding banner

To help us with our projects we completed a tutorial on an expanding Flash banner in AS3. Here be a link.

During this we used masking and frame labels. Both of which I have never really used beforehand. We also had to use DreamWeaver to fondle with some HTML to display it.

Here's a dropbox link to see it. Bambi. Well, I can't show it because I don't have any real hosting, my bad.

This is the hot spot which triggers the animation (Which is a tween) to play. Essentially when you mouse over the hot spot it goes to and plays from a frame, it then does the same when you remove the mouse but to another frame, both the start of a tween making it look like a smooth animation.

New assignments

Well, we got piled with two real world client based assignments, a solo and group project. The solo is to design and create an interactive banner for something. I've chosen to do it for a friend of mine and his Minecraft Schematic viewer program he has in development. (MSchemV). I'm also going to have a go at making a logo for it.
The group project seems more like a "just make something for a client", my group has decided we're going to do some re-branding and a short video for Planetminecraft.com.
We still have to contact the site owner for the group one so we can discuss and work out some sort of a brief. Seems like I got my wish for more design based projects and these are both web orientated!

The History of 2D animation.

"2D animation figures are created and/or edited on the computer using 2D bitmap graphics or created and edited using 2D vector graphics. This includes automated computerized versions of traditional animation techniques such as of, interpolated morphing, onion skinning and interpolated rotoscoping.

2D animation has many applications, including analog computer animation, Flash animation and PowerPoint animation. Cinemagraphs are still photographs in the form of an animated GIF file of which part is animated."

Wikipedia article on "2D Animation" Found here. Last edited 9th January 2013.

2D animation has been around for a long time and has evolved greatly over it because it's industry is so large and diverse trying to summarise it would be impossible instead I'm going to mention and discuss  relevant and important events and information.

2D animation has existed for a lot longer than most people would assume. Earliest examples date back to cavemen who supposedly drew animals and such (Cave paintings) on the walls of caves trying to convey the perception of movement. However because there was no way to view it to make it actually seem like it was moving it technically does not class as a "true animation". With that said animations which actually looked like they were moving became popular in and around the 19th century commonly done with a technique which still exists today. Flip book animations. (Drawing an image of each page then flipping through them quickly to give the illusion of movement.)

Despite the previous paragraph many people think or related to Steam Boat Willie as the first or earliest animation. Granted it is a very famous cartoon which is also considered the debut of Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Although those were not the same characters, they look similar in design. Steam Boat Willie was also the first cartoon with synchronized sound thus giving it an edge over other cartoons from the era. (Which was 1928).  From then onwards Walt Disney has been a well known name within the animating industry, producing a lot of well known and famous films. Some of their earlier work based upon already existing stories such as Snow White and Robin Hood and thus they are very well known because they recreated such popular stories and tales giving them a new life and giving viewers a new perception of them from being able to see it animated and in colour.

In earlier animations like many early Disney films the animation was done frame by frame drawn by a person or team then pieced together this is known as cel animation. This is created by animators drawing out scenes on pieces of paper, each one slightly different to the last. Which are then moved onto transparent acetate sheets known as cells. These are then filled with colours onto the opposite side of the drawings. The final pieces are then photographed one by one onto a film. This technique was rendered obsolete by the 21st century with the increasing use of software and digital methods of creating animations.

Within traditional animation there is also several subcategories, one famous example of one, Space Jam being an example of Live-action and animation combined to create a seemingly real animation. Space Jam included Looney Toons characters and Michael Jordan (Famous basketball player) and combined them to create a film aimed at children with humour typical to the Looney Toons cartoons. Obviously acting within one of these would require the actor to pretend the animations are already there and that they were real to create a realistic effect for the viewers.

Due to some of the earlier films were also low budget ones, for example Disney's Robin Hood re-used footage, sound and voice actors from other films such as The Jungle Book, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and The Artistocats.

Limited animation is another type of animation involving less detail, famously used to create the Yellow Submarine film for the Beatles' song. it is also widely used in animation from Japan (Anime) which is still commonly used in modern times. It consists of using less detail and also reusing frames rather than redrawing them. Whereas traditional animation is time consuming and expensive because of it, limited animation is by contrast quicker and thus cheaper to produce, it was originally used to save money and still produce quality animations.  Another comparison to show the difference would be that traditional animation is around 24 frames per second and limited animations are often done on 12 frames per second and anime styled animations are done on 8. Excluding scenes with a lot of movement in which there would obviously be more frames. Due to limited animations having restrictions and constraints it allowed for abstract and unique animations to be published which are now well known. (As mentioned above)

Due to animation being such a large industry it has many uses and purposes in the world and  has done for awhile. Websites has cropped up to act as a meeting place for animators and to share work. Animations have commonly been used for advertising ranging from simple 2D ones to claymation, although this is not the history of 2D animation it certainly shows a trend for the near future as companies try to promote creative and different medias to try and push their brand out to a wider audience, or perhaps a company wants to appear friendlier and simpler by using an animation over a real person and or narrator. After briefing discussing the possible future of animations, it has slowly become more and more popular within advertising to use animations for reasons as mentioned before, although animations have often been used as opening sequences to programs and/or credits but they are commonly used with or without characters or lips syncing or things that would be traditionally related to animating. However because it's still animating something to then do something, it's still animating for example an old television show had an intro in which the camera would go through a keyhole and into a house and thus was animated.

When creating an animation there are obviously several different ways to do so, as mentioned earlier cell shading used to be very popular and most schools often get children to make flip book animations. However with the use of Adobe Flash animation can be done quickly and easily by almost anyone! (Not really, but it is pretty simple once you understand it).

As you can see above there is a snippet of a timeline in which you can see some frame by frame animation and tweens! Let’s revert back to basics, frame by frame animation is pretty forward. Quite simply you do something, move onto the next frame and do something else, doing this until you have a nice little sequence of something! For example the snippet is taken from an animation I recently re-did and I did some things using frame by frame animation and some I used tweens for. In this instance it was an object moving onto the stage. While a tween would have been easier by using frame by frame animation I was able to make the object do exactly what I wanted it to do. Where tweening would mean it would have to be in a straight line. Also if you want to vary speeds in a tween you can to make several littles ones and in this instance for a short tiny animation, it was easier to do frame by frame.

Then you can see the tween I have, again in this instance that is some text fading in by it’s alpha value changing between the two key frames. This could have been done frame by frame however changing and setting the alpha value over all those frames separately would have taken considerably more time and effort. Whereas a tween would automatically do it. To make a tween you first need a keyframe and something there, for example a square, now make another key frame as many frames away from the first as you wish. Then within that frame move the square you already made, you’ll notice that the first frame as stretched itself to the second you made. Right click on the first frame and select “Create classic tween” and bam! You’ve made a tween, from this example the square you made should move from where it is in frame 1 to where it is in frame 2. To change the speed you can alter how many frames apart they are or alter the documents frames per second. (The first is the better choice).

Over the ages 2D animation has been used and seen in a variety of ways. From early uses as communication and leisure to eventually ending up as advertising, the methods have changed dramatically with technology further advancing the industry in quality and creativity.