Gloria+Dzanjalimodzi+Unit+3

=Unit 3= Link to HOMEPAGE =__HOW AM I CHANGING?__=

__Task 1: INVESTIGATION__
=HOW CAN I SHOW HOW I AM CHANGING THROUGH ANIMATION?=

The Problem: How can I use animation to show how I am changing through emotional, psychological, mental, judgmental or knowledgeable. I have chosen that I want to show how I am changing through knowledgeable, psychological and mental ways, in other words how am I learning new things. I am going to need to show ways I am changing mentally in an animation. I may need to do some research on the psychological changes we go through as we grow older.

Ways people change:

 * Physical change:** Puberty, Height, Weight, Face. This can be shown through animation by a silhouette of someone growing up.


 * Emotional/Psychological/Mental change:** Sensitivity to issues around you, how you look at issues and think about them. How you approach problems and what tactics you use.


 * Health change:** How what you eat and do affects your immune system and health etc. This could probably be shown by making an animation of the human anatomy and how it changes if it changes from infancy to toddler to preteen to teenager and so on...

=ANIMATION=

Animation is required to be researched and understood in order for me to create an effective animation that looks good and hopefully portrays the message that I am trying to send out and show how if I understand animation enough to be able to produce a final project.

First is to define animation:

Computer Animation

"Is a subset of both computer [|graphics]  and [|animation]  technologies. It is the creation of moving images (animation) using computer technology. Computer animation is broken down into two categories. Computer-generated animation where the animation is designed solely on the computer system using animation and 3D graphics software, and computer-assisted animation where traditional animations are computerized." http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/C/computer_animation.html (accessed 1/8/2013)

=Design Brief=

My final product is going to be created in Macromedia Flash MX. My animation will need to have a layer per background for the transitions that will be carried out. My creation also needs to be at least 15 seconds since I have chosen to do my story boarding in scenes of six and each scene will have text that will need to be read or images that will need to be recognized long enough in order for my message to get through, so the running time may be longer. My animation will also run at 12 frames per second. The message I am trying to send out will be done using words and images. I also want my animation to include text to explain what my animation is about since it may be difficult for me to show psychological change with only just images.


 * DESIGN SPECIFICATION**


 * have a background that moves
 * have at least 5 layers
 * be at least 20 seconds long
 * play at 12 frames per second
 * have a morphing image
 * have pictures
 * have words
 * be about knowledge process


 * TESTS: **

Create a questionnaire based on the design specification (questions related to what is listed in the design specification). After creating this questionnaire it will be given to different peoplle for them to answer it and give comments.

media type="file" key="GloriaDzanjalimodziTest.swf" width="360" height="270"

=__**Design**__=

__**Design 1**__

__**Design 2**__

__**Design 3**__

__**Design 4**__

Plan
 * Action || Specification || Deadline ||
 * Creating all backgrounds for all the scenes. || To create each and every background that will be used in the animation adding in all transition e.g. morphing images, moving pictures, shrinking pictures. (If possible) I didn't consider that Macromedia flash expired on my computer so extra time may need to be spent on this particular stage while I am proceeding with the rest of the create stage because this process is particularly hard to go through with. || 26/02/2013 ||
 * A small review || Take time to go through work I have done so far and see if I am moving according to plan and if anything needs changing. The plan may need some changes made to because of anything I have altered to my design that doesn't specify in my plan or wasn't previously thought of. || 05/03/2013 ||
 * Creating ‘character’ or ‘presenter’ of the animation. || To create the animated character chosen from design two as the ‘host’ of the animation- this will describe what is going on in the animation. || 05/03/2013 ||
 * Creating and adding text. || Adding in the text to my ‘character's’ speech bubbles for the animation. This text is meant to be read by the viewer. || 07/03/2013 ||
 * Creating a questionnaire for testing my product against what I wanted it to be. || To create a survey based on my minimum design requirements mentioned in the investigation stage earlier on. This questionnaire will be passed on to the viewer(s) I have chosen as well as the animation so they can answer questions about it. || 11/03/2013 ||
 * Give my animation and questionnaire I have created to the viewer(s) || To give a questionnaire to a person/ people so they can watch my animation and then answer the questions about my animation based on what they thought it was like. I will also take part in evaluating my work as fairly as possible. || 12/03/2013 ||
 * Evaluating my product || To evaluate my product using the information I have gathered from carrying out my tests. I will go along with the reflection guidelines using What went well? What didn't go well? What could be done better? as the questions to ask my self about my creation referring back to my plan and my designs. || 14/03/2013 ||

The First thing I plan to do is creating my backgrounds along with all their transitions done and ready. When producing my backgrounds I will obviously start with the first in my animation design which is the introduction. The length of the introduction to my animation as well as other scenes in my animation will depend on the time it takes to read what is in the animation since I will have written text that will need to be read for a better understanding of my animation. I want(ed) that each scene will be 15 seconds this won’t be very complicated because I don’t plan to have anything else moving in my animation when the text is being presented for reading. The next thing to do in my animation will start creating my host or main character to the animation. This will have one layer to itself whereas each background has its own layer. After creating, copying and moving my character in the different layers I will then proceed to start creating the text that will go in my animations there will be small brief explanations of what is going on in each scene that will need to be read by the viewer which is why the transition time varies from scene to scene depending on how fast the test readers are.

This plan may work almost perfectly to a certain extent because it is planned for step by step. It is the most simplest way to create my design since it is simple and straight forward. The times I chose to finish each stages were also realistic e.g. in the first stage of creating my design I will start with creating all my backgrounds. Each background is an animated picture as described in the table below. Since each design is an animated picture that will be pasted onto the background.

The chosen design for creation is design 2 the table below is a description of each scene much like a basic layout in word form.

*Sometimes different tasks took more time than wanted because of what I wanted the outcome to be and it was difficult to get it to that standard. *Some scenes were also cut because of the time it would take for the entire animation to be played. *Time wasn't necessarily calculated properly. *I may have underestimated what was needed to be done for this animation.

PLAN EVALUATION


 * || Yes || No || Comments/Improvements ||
 * Does the plan have steps to it? || 1 ||  || The plan has steps but they are not necessarily detailed they state what the next step is going to be but they probably could be a bit more detailed. ||
 * Does the plan include resources? ||  || 1 || The plan includes very little description of what resources are going to be used during the creating process. This could be "fixed" by adding in what program is going to be used and what the aim is for the final product is going to be. It would've been useful to include resources in the plan to make it clear to to make it clear to the viewers so that they know what is being worked with. ||
 * Does the plan have a timeline? || 1 ||  || The plan has a timeline displayed in the deadline column. The dates are when each step to the plan is expected to be done by. ||
 * Is the plan logical? || 1 ||  || Yes to a certain extent the plan is logical it has slightly detailed process steps to what is needed to be done next. It isn't impractical and it is easy to follow. Since the resources are mentioned properly ||


 * DESIGN SPECIFICATION**

Have a background that moves
 * A background that either slides left to right or up and down at some point in the animation. This is placed in scene 1 moving on towards scene 2.

Have at least 5 layers
 * Each different "category" will have its own layer e.g. The character, each background the writing and text on the animation.

Be at least 20 seconds long Play at 12 frames per second Have a morphing image Have pictures Have words Be about knowledge process
 * < **SCENE** ||< **DESCRIPTION** ||< **IMAGERY** ||< **BACKGROUND TRANSITION** ||< **SPEECH** ||
 * < 1 ||< Scene 1 is basically the introduction to my animation and what is about the background is going to be an image of a pink cartoon bedroom. This scene is where my character appears explaining what the animation is about and what is going to go on. ||< A hand drawn scanned character. A pink cartoon/animated bedroom. After careful consideration I decided that my "character should instead just be computer generated instead of hand drawn because of time resources. ||< A sliding transition. ||< "Hi I'm Lorrie and I'm going to tell you about how throughout the years I've grown up and learned more over time" ||
 * < 2 ||< Scene 2 is the scene where it shows my character as a one year old and then her explaining what is going the text that will be entered will be decided later on but it mostly will be about what she was like when she was one years old and how aware she was of her surroundings. My problem is how am I changing psychologically throughout the years and how we are more conscious towards the world and our future how we understand things and learn as we go through. What is going to be said in this animation is along the lines of how as a one year old she never really thought of what she sees around her and what she understands about it and how she is beginning to learn and be more of a part of society. ||< A nursery room. ||< A morphing image. ||<  ||
 * < 3 ||< Scene 3 is when the character is a bit older and is now four years old three years older than the previous scene. In this scene the character has already started preschool and has learned the ABC's and basic things like that and has become more in contact with the world around her. The background for this scene is a preschool. ||< A hand drawn image of character as a preschooler. ||< An enlarging image. ||<  ||
 * < 4 ||< Scene 4 this scene our character has now turned seven years old. The background for this scene will be a playground. ||< A playground. A hand drawn image of my character 7 ||< A shrinking image . ||<  ||
 * < 5 ||< Scene 5 this scene Lorrie is now ten years old and the background is a normal year five classroom. ||<  ||< A sliding to the right image. ||<   ||
 * < 6 ||< Scene 6 this scene the character is now thirteen years old and is especially aware of what is going on. ||<  ||< A morphing image. ||<   ||
 * < 6 ||< Scene 6 this scene the character is now thirteen years old and is especially aware of what is going on. ||<  ||< A morphing image. ||<   ||



Create

media type="file" key="GloriaDzanjalimodziCreate.swf" width="360" height="270"

Evaluate

He transitions between young and old ||  || Evaluation Against Plan and Create The first stage wasn’t really necessary to put it there because it took way more time than it should have and it was a pretty complicated process. Overall the plan wasn’t completely full proof because time frames weren’t exactly calculated properly and some stages tended to overlap. I think that the end product wasn’t really what I wanted it to be. It didn’t necessarily show the knowledge process. Maybe if I had more time and concentrated more it would have been better.
 * **Question** || **Yes** || **No** || **Comments** || **Improvements** ||
 * Does the animation have moving or morphing backgrounds? ||  ||   ||   ||   ||
 * Is the animation at least 20 seconds long? ||  ||   ||   ||   ||
 * Does the animation have enough imagery? ||  ||   ||   ||   ||
 * Does the animation have enough wording? ||  ||   || No it would have been too long to explain everything al ||   ||
 * Does the animation teach you about the knowledge process? ||  ||   || Not really more about t
 * Is the animation clear enough to understand? ||  ||   ||   ||   ||