Making websites smaller

Several images on my website were high quality JPEGs so I got the file for each one and opened it up in Photoshop. I simply saved the image as a JPEG again but this time lowered the quality to 4 or 5 then replaced the file.

After I did this for each image I cut and replaced each image back onto my website.

For videos I placed on my website such as a background movie clip I needed to compress them.

Other videos I used by streaming them straight from YouTube.

MP4 TO FLV and Camtasia exporting

I recorded a video on my desktop using the software known as Camtasia 2 but I could not save it as a movie which was annoying as I wanted to put it in my website. On the Camtasia document I went to 'Share' - 'Export' and exported it as an MP4. 

The problem here is I wanted my video to loop on the Flash document I was placing it on and in order to do that I needed to put the video into the SWF timeline. This could only be done with FLV formats.

I dragged and dropped the MP4 file of the video into Adobe Media Converter CS6 into the queue then selected the drop down arrow to the left of the file now in the queue and selected FLV the clicked the tick in the top corner. 

Now my I have an FLV file I can place it into the timeline of my Flash document.

The file will need to be compressed.

Character easin buttons

For the movie total recall (2012) I wanted a button for the main protagonist. I got a picture of him and used the marquee tool to make a square image of him by shift clicking and dragging the square marguee tool over the image to get the square picture.

I saved this and imported it into Flash. After importing it I made the image a movie clip then went INSIDE the image.

Once inside the image that is now a movie clip I changed the layer to be called 'image'. Make a new layer called 'border' above the image layer and made a square box by making an invisible box and making the stroke black and 3:00 in size then shift drag the box over the head of the character.

Make a new layer and name it 'mask' then move this layer above the image on the timeline
(remember to still be inside the original image)
Name the new layer 'mask' and make a box with no stroke inside the borders of the border stroke covering the face of the character then right click on the mask layer on the timeline and select 'mask'.
The box should now be a mask which can be hidden by clicking the eye on the timeline.

On the border and mask layers insert frames on the 10th frame on the timelines

Right click on the frame of the image layer and create a classic tween then make a keyframe on the 10th frame. On the 10th frame resize the picture only to be inside the box border. Click on the middle of the image timeline then change the ease out to 100 (on the right). Open the actionscript panel and write in:

stop();

Go back to scene 1 and make a new layer called 'as' then name the image. In this picture I called him 'guy'. Because we don't really know his name in the film. He doesn't know his real identity. Nah im just fucking with ya, I didn't know the characters name.

SO, write the following code into the action panel by opening it with F9 or on the MAC FN+ ALT+ F9:


onEnterFrame = function ()
{

if (guy.hitTest(_xmouse, _ymouse, true))
{
   guy.nextFrame();
}else{
guy.prevFrame();
}
};

Now when you press CTRL + ENTER or for the MAC CMD + ENTER you should see the characters face until you mouse over it and the whole image will appear until you mouse off.

You can add text INSIDE the image on a new layer so the text is a classic tween on frame 2 above the border layer then on the text timeline move the text inside the box and move it out on frame 2.

Not moused over.

Moused over.

Multi SWF sites

Open up a new Flash document in 900 x 650 then make a new folder somewhere (maybe on the desktop). Save the document into the new folder as 'background'. CTRL + ENTER to publish it.

 This will make the SWF for the layer in the folder, do this for each layer after making changes, layer 0 is what was last published.

File New - make a new document in 900 by 650 also and save into the same folder as 'nav', then CTRL + ENTER again.

On this new document use the text tool to make page1, page2, page3, page4 and page5.

Change each one to a movie clip and change their instance names to either p1 - p5.

Create a new document and name it page1, save that into the same folder and publish it (CTRL + ENTER). Make sure there is no gaps or capital letters. make 4 more pages doing the same process and name them pages1-5. Save them all to the folder and publish each page.

Go to the 'nav' page and press F9 or if you are on a MAC press FN + ALT + F9 and type into the action frame:

loadMovieNum('nav.swf',5);

On the 'nav' page make a new layer and name it 'as' then type the following code into the nag page action frame:



p1.onPress = function () {
loadMovieNum('page 1.swf',1);
}

p2.onPress = function () {
loadMovieNum('page2.swf',1);

}

p3.onPress = function () {
loadMovieNum('page3.swf',1);

}

p4.onPress = function () {
loadMovieNum('page4.swf',1);

}

p5.onPress = function () {
loadMovieNum('page5.swf',1);

}



Make sure all the pages are spelt correctly and make sure that each page is published and that the background is published last so it is layer 0. Everything else is on layer 1 and will be swapped out when another page is selected.

Making the ZERO wallpaper

This wallpaper was made in Photoshop CS6 based on the character called ZERO from a popular video game called Borderlands 2.


I started off with an image of the character:

I used the pencil tool to give him an outline, right clicked to remove the anchor point and 'make selection'. With the marquee tool I right clicked on the selection right click to 'select inverse so everything around ZERO was selected instead and I deleted the background so I was left with the character. I wanted to give him a cold look so I got a steel texture background and enlarged ZERO to place in front of it. Then I selected 'FILTER - RENDER - LIGHTING EFFECTS' to give ZERO a shadow.

I changed this metal layer to 'pin light' and added a second layer as an 'overlay' to make this:

The wallpaper would not be a Borderlands wallpaper without the famous vault symbol so I placed it behind the two metal layers. I then used a text called 'Jacinto Sans' that I downloaded for a nice rusty style for the 'ZERO' then used impact for the large 'THE ASSASSIN'. On 'the assassin' I did ctrl T and held down ctrl (or CMD on MAC) and moved one of the corners of the object to give it the tilt.

To finish off I snuck my name in the corner.

Spinning 3D text in Adobe After Effects CS6

When creating a new After Effects composition I made sure the width and height were 900 by 650 in pixels and the frame rate was 25.

I used the text tool to write out a word like this:

In the lower left corner I ticked the 3D box (at this point it is optional to tick the motion blur box for effect) then copy and pasted the layer 30 times. You can see the two boxes ticked here:

Next, select all the layers (click top layer and shift click the bottom layer) and press P, now the position for each layer should come up. Unselect all the layers. Change the last two digits (0.0) in each layer to go up from 0.0 to 58 by going up by 2 in each layer. You can now select all layers and press P again to hide the position.

Next go to Layer - New - Camera and select the camera and press OK on the window that pops up. Do the same but selects a new Null Object. It should be looking a bit like this now:

To make that null object the 'parent' of all the layers you will need to select all the layers and use the tool that looks a bit like a pigs tail from the top layer of the text (not the camera layer) and click and drag that whip tool to the null object layer like this:

Make sure to tick that 3D box and motion blur for the null object like it is for all the layers. Now select all the text layers between 30 and 1 (29 to 2), go to Effect - Colour correction - Brightness and Contrast, then turn down the brightness. It will make it look like this:

Now go to the null object and bring out the 'Transform' by using the arrows to the left like this:

You can use the X, Y and Z Rotations to add a spin on the object. As the null object is invisible and it controls all the layers when the Null object is rotated the entire text moves as well. Move the dial along the timeline to about 3 seconds along then click the stop watch symbol on the Y rotation. Only then you should change the Rotations that you want. In my case I want it to spin sideways 3 times so I changed the Y rotation to 3x+0.0* while still on the 3 second marker and that Keyframe selected. For me it looks like this:

Bring the time head back to 0 then press SPACE. The animation will render until it is completed then if you don't make more changes it will spin smoothly.

To make the composition a bit tidier for future work you can highlight the text layers 29 to 0 and click on this symbol for one of them then click the big one at the top:

This will hide all unnecessary layers. Go to the region of interest tool which is directly under the composition and it looks like a box inside a bigger box and make sure all unnecessary space is outside the box and that every frame of your spin is still inside the box then go to Composition - Crop composition to region of interest.

Now the spin is finished to save it you will have to go onto the end of the timeline and pull the two yellow ends on the seconds part of the timeline to 3 seconds so the animation loops when it hits 3 seconds instead of going all the way to 30 (or what the timeline was set to).

Make a new folder somewhere, maybe on your desktop then go to Composition - Add to Render Que.

Click on 'Lossless' and change the Format to JPEG Sequence Save composition 1 to a folder as a JPEG after Rendering it.

Open Flash (Actionscript 2.0) and make a new movie clip. While inside that movie clip go to import, choose the folder its al saved in, choose the first image and import the sequence to stage. Now go to scene 1 and bring the movie clip you just made from the library.

Copyright and Intellectual Copyright

When any idea is thought up and put into physical form such as a photograph, music, film, drawing, piece of writing, copyright is automatically placed on that person's creation to protect it from others stealing or copying it. The copyright lasts for 70 years after the known author's death but if the author is unknown the copyright ends 70 years after the known time of creation of the item. People can use anything that has an 'expired' copyright for their own personal gain and claiming it to be their own. When people know who the original author is despite the creation no longer having a copyright is a reason to use the 'three moral rights'.

The Moral Rights are not official laws but many laws are based around them. They are:

1.  The right of attribution - When the creator of the work has the right to be identified as the original author. People must be careful when using other people content on their blogs and videos as they can have them taken down for copyright infringement.
2.  The right of integrity - The work may not be changed or altered without the original authors consent. It may be bad to have frames with parts of other websites in your own.
3.  False attribution - This is when someone says someone else made what they created, so if they do not like their own they 'point the finger' at someone else. This is illegal as you can not simply give others ownership of your property.

In the interactive media copyright can stop people from using music, pictures and similar content to copyrighted materiel such as videos, websites and games. This will affect people trying to complete projects as you will have to find music that can be legally downloaded and make sure all of your content is original. Copyright will prevent you from copying others work so you must use all your own content to avoid copyright infringement. This will make it harder as you cannot always use content you want.

Any creative work such as music, an invention, a piece of software or a brand that has been developed into a certain stage and captured in a permanent way such as on paper and can be owned as physical property is called 'Intellectual property'. The owner of Intellectual property has control over it and owns it entirely and would be expected to be rewarded for its development and use. For anyone to create their own idea they would have the right to benefit from it. Any intellectual property can be used just like physical property, sold, bought, hired or licensed like any other property.

There are four types of Intellectual Property 

• Patents (for inventions) - When people make something they have ownership of the design.
• Designs - People cannot re-use designs such as the coca cola bottle.
• Trademarks - This is company logos and names and brands. Anything that has TM after is is trademarked.
• Copyright - Anything made by someone is automatically copyrighted to that person.

If someone wants to share their creation copyright stops them from doing so as they are automatically given copyright of their creation as soon as they have made it. However, an organisation has created 'Creative Commons (CC) that allows copyright holders easily allow anyone to use their work in the ways the author is comfortable with.

Below is the list of options copyright holders can use. The range of labels is brilliant for the media industry. The most commonly used is Non Commercial, mostly used by music producers who allow people to use their music in their videos as long as they do not place any adverts or benefit from the video with the music.

When looking for images you can use Google to filter what label you are looking for so you can find pictures you can legally use and modify. This is great for the interactive media as they can find and use content labelled for commercial reuse with modification for their projects. This is how you would use an image on your blog as you will filter out any copyrighted images when using the Advanced search in Google.

Many people see internet piracy as theft, like downloading a movie illegally is just as bad as stealing a DVD.

The Pirate bay lets people download games, music and videos. This is good in a way people do not have to pay for everything but for the media its bad as they lose sales and producers lose income. Stores like itunes online suffer greatly when the songs are illegally downloaded. 

This is a creative commons image:

I know this is available for my own use because I searched for it in Google's advanced settings of 'usage rights: free to use, share or modify, even commercially' and the picture was licensed under the following:

• to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
• to Remix — to adapt the work
• to make commercial use of the work

There are many different views on internet piracy, consumers who buy the products (movies, games, music etc.) agree that piracy is good because they may not be able to afford the products and they can share things they like with friends. On the industries side this is not good as they are losing out on money. Movie industries try and stop piracy by advertising it as theft such as putting adverts in purchased DVDs, while many games companies such as Rovio entertainment LTD. who made the popular game Angry birds have 'embraced' piracy and have made free versions of their games with advertisements which still give them income from people playing their game while rendering it pointless to make a cracked version of their game as it can be downloaded for free. Many app makers reward people for buying their apps by giving them extra features on purchase.

Reasons given for pirating are:
- They would not buy or they could not afford all the products anyway.
- More people find out about the game because people show people they know so more people would purchase the product.
- Professional software can be pirated from people who need it but can not afford it, such as students in college who can use the software to excel in their profession.
- Eliminated 'money grabbing' online passes game producers put in the game to stop people sharing their game with friends because they are not getting money from pre-owned games.
- It is just like sharing games and films between friends that has been happening for years.
- Hard to find games can be found easily from online sharing.

Reasons given against pirating:
- Many industries lose out on large sums of money, "My big fat Greek wedding" lost 50 million dollars and "Forrest Gump" lost a lot of money and so did "Beverly hills cop 2".
- Music piracy is costing the US economy $12.5 billion every year.
- Jobs are lost because of loss of money in piracy.
- It is like stealing everything someone spends time and money to make.
- It is is illegal for a reason, it is theft on a large scale.

Privacy is highly controversial as most feel they have the right to know information kept away from them while personally they want their own personal information to stay private. Celebrities are in the public eye and millions want to know about what they do. However many agree all personal information should be kept private. When celebrity super injunctions are broken the it heavily affects the persons life. Personal information should be kept private but many phone and application companies breach these privacy laws and reveal users locations and personal details. In no way what-so-ever should websites and devices/apps that are allowed to know private information from users such as facebook be allowed to sell information to advertisers and other users.  However this breach of private information has has helped police find criminals.

 It is different when the Government has secrets unveiled because they are responsible for the whole country. There is a positive side of keeping information from the public as it may prevent wars and widespread panic and it may keep lives from being in danger. But if the information kept from them does not put anyone in danger and is more of a personal matter to the Government then it makes them look bad in the public eye.

A while ago a video was posted of a 'star wars kid' using a stick as a light-saber and it soon became a worldwide viral video. The media posted his full identity and location despite his requests at keeping that information private. His was becoming very unhappy and his life was being ruined because he was a worldwide joke that people just kept sharing with more friends. However the Wikipedia users had a debate weather to post his full name onto the page for the 'star wars kid', a debate which the media never even considered, and they decided to not use his name on the page not because they could be sued but out of common courtesy at the request of the parents of the boy in the video.

When prince Charles went to the front lines newspapers published the fact he was over there which made him a high valued target. Newspapers are very different to the internet as online people can make anonymous accusations whereas newspapers always have a known writer that will always represent the paper. Newspapers are usually not allowed to post private information without the accused persons permission but on the internet anyone can post anything without anyone knowing who they are, pictures and videos can be posted such as sex scandals for celebrities.

If you post certain information on your facebook page you can go to jail. You should not be put to jail but instead have your account banned. Laws should be different from normal privacy laws online to stop accidental breaching of laws but those who repeat privacy breaches should be taken to court. This is difficult however as people can post anonymously.

The website called 'Wiki leaks' posts any and all private information it can find such as footage from wars and Government secrets and scandals. 'Wiki leaks' is good for revealing crucial information such as money being taken from charities but the website can genuinely put lives in danger such as troops in wars taking on secret missions that can be exposed by the site.

A contract is a legally binding agreement between two people when one signs the contract with their signature. People can either be permanent workers or contract workers. Permanent workers get paid no matter what but contractors will have to work for their payments putting in the right amount of hours and labour into work.

A non-disclosure agreement makes sure those who signed the contract can not talk about what they are doing. This is mostly games companies as to make sure their staff do not give away important details about the game and 'leak' information. This is popular in foods companies as well so recipies are not stolen by staff telling other companies how their food/drinks are made.

If any contract is broken they must agree to the consequences on the contract they signed. The consequences in non-disclosure agreements can be heavy as companies can sue people for everything they have for 'breach of contract'.

OFcom and BIMA:

OFcom is the communications regulator who regulates the TV and radio sectors, fixed line telecoms, mobiles, postal services and the airwaves which wireless devices operate. Their main legal duties they mention on their website: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/about/what-is-ofcom/ are to ensure the UK has a wide range of elctronic communications services such as broadband, that there is a wide range of television and radio organisations making different programmes appealing to a range of tastes and interests and listeners and watchers are not exposed to offensive or harmful content and being threatened and protected from having their privacy invaded, also a universal postal service provided in the UK and finally make sure the radio spectrum is used in the most effective way.
If a consumer is upset by the content they have been exposed to they report it to OFcom

BIMA or British Interactive Media Association is an industry body that represents the entire digital industry in the UK made up primarily of digital agencies. Anyone can join the organisation, it costs £30 for a student to join and takes a few hundren for a company to join. They host awards and celebrate excellence within the industry across a variety of categories.

Photoshop techniques

Some techniques I used to create this:

i got  the picture of a friend and cutting out the background by using the magic wand tool and turning down the tolerance to select the background then delete it. 

We went to Filter and Liquefy then played around with the image. I got an image of lizard scales and pasted it over my friend, changed it to overlay on a new layer and erased all the parts outside his face and on clothing, eyes and mouth. I used a green brush with the opacity to add details around the mouth eyes and neck.

Too create this I used a lot of filter tools and played around with the sizes and opacity on the text a lot.

To turn the STORM TRACKER 7 i went CTRL T then held down CTRL again and selected the corners to make it 3D. After copying the image I made it one colour and turned the brightness way down and added some filters to it.

The lightning, clouds and rain were used by playing around with the Filter - Cloud.

The software development cycle

The cycle of software development has six steps:

1. Analyze
A company may want a game for their product like Sunny Delight, so they send out an advertisement in this case to a media magazine for someone to make their game. A game company will see the advert and send in a pitch of their idea for the game and how much money they will need for the development and how long it may take. Another way of doing this is the product company want a specific game to be made and when game making companies pitch their design on the game they asked for they choose their favorite.  More successful companies would pitch their own ideas within the company itself such as Epic games who thought up and made gears of war in their own studio.

2. Quote and Approved
If the company like the pitch the game company sent in they will fund the game company to make the game and approve the development of it. Companies such as Bungie who made Halo would pitch their ideas to the project manager who will approve the development team to produce the game if they like it.

3. Mockup
The game company will use the money they recieved to design the game and start making ideas for it. There would be no point to start the mockup earlier becasue the company may refuse their pitch so it's best not to spend to much time on the game before they have approval to make it. This is where the company starts the design and art style. 343 Industries who made Halo 4 had to re-design some enemies hundreds of times before getting the right stye.

4. Create
The development team will desgin the coding, art style and gameplay to make an Alpha version of the game. They will design all the character, models, buildings and play style. This will be done by Programmers, Scripters and Artists. Throughout all the creation of the game the Programmers will make versions of the game to be Alpha tested until they have a stable game which can be put into further testing by targeted public. Many of the game developers played with game testers during the creation of Halo 3 while the game was in Alpha and Beta.

5. Stage and Test
While testing the game they may keep going back to stage 4 as they find things wrong with the coding and gameplay and if the production manager looks at the final product and does not like it they will refuse to pay money for it and make the development team re-design it. When Alpha testing is complete the game will be put into Beta where the company may release an early version of the game for the public to test. E.A. Games released a free to play beta for battlefield 3 so they could get feedback from the public.

6. Release
Once the project manager and the company have approved the final version of the game they will allow the game to be released. There still may be problems in the game that testers missed but this is where day one patches come in to play and the game will finally be released to the public. Many players exploited glitches and mistakes missed out by game testers in Halo 4 until 343 Industries released an update stopping these exploits.

BTEC subsidiary diploma in interactive media 12/13

Job roles

Game designers
   Game designers are responsible for the idea behind a game, how it plays and what the game consists of. Everything in the game will be thought up by the game designers and they often come up with the concept or premise of the game. They will design the characters, story, items in the game and what the play style is for the game. In larger projects there will often be a group of game designers with a lead designer, usually the person who originally thought up the game itself.
Game designers are responsible for the vision of the games world, setting, story and all the games elements, for example what vehicles and weapons would be in a first person shooter or what items can be placed in a building game and then communicate these ideas over to the development team. In groups we have designed a simple flash game based on internet memes and re skinned a game. While pitching ideas for the first Halo they orgininally made it a strategy game until they decided to make it an FPS (first person shooter) and make the story of master chief. After the game designers had thought up what game they wanted to make they pitched the idea to the development team to make it.

Programmers
   Programmers are often confused with scripters but programmers are a step above them. Programmers create the game engines and tools for scripters to create the game. Programmers are the centre point for any game. They design and write the code that runs the game writing custom code and pre-set code to create the games engine. They often create the physics, AI (artificial intelligence), 3D engine development, interface and control systems. They may work with code other programmers have made and work in groups under the supervision of a lead programmer. They may create many builds of the game to work with the testers so they can identify any bugs within the game and coding so the programmers may fix it. The team of programmers will create custom tools for art and level designers. There are separate titles for programmers; Games, Graphics, Tools, AI and Middleware programmers. How everything works together, character control and how the AI works within the game is all created by the Programmers. We have created a game in GL BASIC where you must avoid and collect falling objects by writing in code. When programming Mario the programmers gave each 'panel' or 'block' their own properties and variables such as if Mario could break the block, use it, what enemies do and how they affect Mario when touched and so on. They create each item and the artists make the texture for them, then after the programmers had made level designing software, the scripters go ahead and make all the Mario levels.

Scripters
   The scripters are the part of the team who uses the game engine and tools created by the Programmers to create the game. Modern scripters use a game editor made by the programmers to save time with coding and for easier editing. The game editor is also developed by the scripter/game developer. The scripters are responsible for level and map design for multiplayer and the story of the game. Level design includes mapping, detailed layout and building of the environment in which the level is played. With the use of a mega Mario editor we were able to easily place blocks, enemies, coins and objectives to create several Mario levels. The animators are responsible for how each AI, vehicle, object, weapon and character moves. The scripters will design how the AI act to situations around them and what characters and objects will do when something else happens in the game. For example when a grenade lands near an AI in the game 'Halo' they roll or jump away from it and in Hitman if someone catches you acting suspicious they will alert other AI companions to help hunt you down.

Artists
   Game artists create the images in the game, all the objects, buildings, landscapes, characters and textures which make up the game world. In more modern games the style is a very important feature. Borderlands is a cartoon style first person shooter that originally had a realistic art style but they changed it in the last months of production which ultimately lead to their success and went on to make a sequel. Game artists often work with 3D design and modelling. Animators and Artists use 3D modelling and animation packages to create 3D models to be placed in the game and complete their animation with such software as 3DStudioMax. There often different groups assigned to design and make different parts of the game such as player models, buildings, skyboxes and texture artists however they usually take on multiple tasks, for example one person could be doing building and vehicle design. The work is usually watched by a lead artist or art director who takes overall responsibility. In Bungie who made Halo 1-3 there were lead art designers for vehicles, weapons, characters and levels who each lead a team of artists.

Sound designers
   Those working in audio and sound design are responsible for all the sounds in the game from explosions and vehicle sounds to dialog. There are usually many sound designers working on large projects who work together to create all the sounds effects needed for the game. Many of them will go out and record their own audio like cars driving, people shooting weapons, running sound effects and combat noises. They will also record dialog from voice actors to place into the game. The sound designers will usually get a composer or musicians to create the music for the game. The Audio engineer creates the soundtrack for the game which is music and sound effects. For battlefield 3 sound designers went out to a fireing range and recorded actual gunfire, while Citeron games go out and record every vehicle they use in their games such as the Burnout games.

QA / Testing
   The QA (quality assurance) are the game testers who play the game to test for bugs in game builds made by the programmers and they will be communicating these bugs in the game to the development team in clear ways after hours of playing the game. It is up to the testers to find anything wrong with the game and in later stages find anything that may exploit the game such as uneven maps/race tracks and weapons. Sometimes glitches are missed in testing like Crackdown 2 which had a few glitches such as AIs not acting correctly to situations caused by the player.

Producers / Project managers
   The project managers are the overseers of the entire project. They are usually there to scare everyone into working hard towards the deadline of the project and make sure everyone is completing their tasks on time. External Producers will be more focused on the marketing and selling of the game. Both the project manager and external producer are responsible for budgets, schedules, milestones and reports.

Marketing
   The marketing is controlled by the External producer who is in charge of the marketing for the game and to make sure the maximum amount of people will be reached to in the right places, for example if the target audience is young children they will try to get advertisements on children's television channels or if the target audience is teenage to young adult males the best place would be in magazines and advertisements on online sites such as YouTube. More successful games such as the Call of Duty franchise have a large enough advertising budget to put their adverts on daytime TV on channels such as Sky and BBC.


Information for each job was gathered from the site 'creative skillset':

http://www.creativeskillset.org/games/

What preproduction is needed for Website Design and are the elements important?

When given a task to create a website the first thing you immediately want to do is start creating the website straight away, this is what I did and it did not end well. If you and your group works like this then the project is going to fall apart. Before you do anything you must sit down and do extensive planning for the focus of the website. If you do not plan how you are going to do the project you are going to be unorganized and confused as you get closer to the deadline. 

You must decide what the purpose of the website is going to be and what you want to focus on in the project, plan out your goals and make a way to know you have reached these goals like a tick list. This is where you can look back at the focus of the project and build from the ground up instead of trying to put the icing on the cake straight away. You must think about who your audience will be and everything about them, what are their ages, geographical location, learning styles, specific interests and do they have special needs? It's good to focus on your timescale at this point and plan out how you are going to do thing, what point it has to be finished by and if you are in a group then plan out what everyone will do, have plenty of deadlines before the actual deadline. You don't want to be cramming in all the work in the last few days.

You should plan ahead and have specific dates to finish tasks by and if you are working with a budget then base your plan around when you will be paid and how expensive it will be to do specific tasks and how much you can spend on them. You should get a timetable set up as soon as possible and write down everything you want and need to do and make sure to note what can be done at the current time with the current budget until more funding is acquired.

Things to think about with the budget are:

• Copyrighted material
• Purchasing software
• Hiring web/ graphical designers
• Purchasing website templates
• Hosting companies
• Computers for making the site
• Materials for designing the site

While thinking about your budget you should think what materiel you are going to use so you can make sure not to accidentally use copyrighted materiel or if you do want to use certain copyrighted content then you should try to get permission and/or look into how much it will cost to use.

Do some research on other websites with similar content to what you are making for inspiration for your project. Examine what content is in the websites, the structure and animations of the websites and the details they have used. You should not directly copy these sites but it is always good to get an image in your head of what your kind of website should look like. You should, however, go far away from the other styles of those websites and make your own but keep in mind what it is you are making. While designing the website think about how long the site will take to load, make sure to keep it light or users will get bored and skip your website if the loading times are too long for each page. Also make sure you keep the right size as many users may be on slow and/or small computers.

The next step is to start planning out specific features in the website once you have decided the purpose of it. Think of what animations you will have, what pages, login page, shopping cart for an online store, search bar and anything specific to the what the project is whether that is a web store, game site, branding website and so on. The more detail you have the better. Not everything may make it into the project, think about what is really necessary and what will not fit in.

After planning specific features about the website and what you want to have in the website you should start mapping it out. Before you get straight in with building the site think about how it will be organized and structured, what information, video, visual elements, what guidance will be provided for the users and what level of interactivity is necessary, which was a big factor in the last project I did. When thinking about your design its important to think about the accessibility of your website; how will visually impaired users access the flash website and are there suitable instructions and easy to use layouts for new users? This is where it can get difficult as Flash websites do get a lot of criticism for not being accessible to everyone because the text in Flash works differently to standard websites and alternative text can not be given. You can, however, use the accessibility panel to incorporate text equivalents for any graphical images on the site like buttons, animated text and navigation otherwise those with poor site will not be able to navigate or read anything on the site normally. When thinking about those with special needs you may need to create an entirely different copy of your website or build accessibility into the Flash project.

Once accessibility has been thought through you can start planning the website with paper and pencil then move onto photoshop to map out the structure of the major sections of you website. Draw a sketch of the home page and design and incorporate any animations you want. Its important to have an image and style already thought and planned out and have a vision of what the website will look like. Web pages are usually 800 wide by 600 pixels in height. Plan where the header, footer, navigation buttons and main content will be. Make sure the navigation in the site is clear and easily accessible. It's debatable whether you need a homepage on Flash websites but it is always good to have one so users are familiar with the layout of the site. On the homepage should be all the buttons with links to subpages.

The final content for the project is the most important part and the site is always based around it and the content makes the website effective and successful so when it is left to the end, the structure often has to be changed, that is why it should be done early into the design. So think about and write out what text, images, videos and other content are going to be put into the site and how you are going to incorporate it into the websites structure. It's better to make these changes early on rather than making changes close to the deadline. 

You should always have a style in your head that really suits the website and users will find easy to use and read by making your own design. However it may be beneficial for the quality of the website to hire a graphical designer or a web designer but it is also an option to buy a website template and save time and money. If you do design your own website you should create your own graphical content to avoid copyright infringement.

Once you have the style and the structure planned and saved somewhere easy to find you can actually start building the website. This should be at least a week into the project if not two weeks depending on how much time you have. If you have done all the planning and made the foundations for your website it will be a much easier process to build and do the coding for the site and there will be a much lower chance to need to go back and make changes. 

Once the website has been made the pre production is still not over, you still need to test the website and make a lot of changes from the data you will receive. Test the website by getting at least 10 people to use it and write down what they think of the website. Make sure you have made the website accessible for the visually impaired and those with special needs. It is a good idea to collect data in graphs and lists of changes you should make. In the pre production document you should write down any quotes that made you make visible and coding changes such as the design being changed or faulty coding being fixed or made to look smoother/ better. You should always be doing primary and secondary research for each project.

Once the website is built leave it for a couple of days and come back to evaluate what testers have said about it so you can apply the changes. It is hard to notice anything wrong with your website if you do not take a step back and let others tell you what they think about it and look into it yourself then make the changes.

All the pre production should let you easily make a website with:

• Clean easy to update design/structure so you can return to the website and make changes to make it more accessible and so you can update any content on the site in the future.
• Good usability in the design so it is easy to use and accessible for those who are visually impaired and those with special needs
• Fast loading 'light' pages, or the users will most likely skip your site because it does not load fast enough
• Intelligent use of technology, use the site for correct purposes not just to make fancy introductions and animations 
• The website ability to convey the meaning/message and purpose of the website quickly if not instantly, make sure the website has no unnecessary content

If you have planned your budget carefully you can get to a good hosting company to upload your website and register a domain name with leftover money.

Sources for pre production planning:

Website Production Management Techniques

http://www.adobe.com/resources/techniques/

Producing for Web 2.0 

http://producingforweb2.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=34&Itemid=53

The 8 steps of web design

http://www.killersites.com/articles_2005/techniques/eight-steps-of-webdesign.php

Website Publisher.net

http://www.websitepublisher.net/website_development/preproduction/

How to build Flash Web Sites

http://www.soyouwanna.com/build-flash-websites-26019.html

How to build a website with Adobe Flash

http://www.ehow.com/how_6665985_build-website-adobe-flash.html

Building Flash Websites.

http://eduscapes.com/flash/pdf/flash6.pdf

Production Research

What is production research?

When creating a game it is vital to do a lot of research. When making call of duty 4: modern warfare the production managers, animators, designers and more staff went to the middle east and watched actual soldiers practice warfare with tanks and makeshift towns. They did a lot of location research and saw for themselves exactly what the place they would base the game on looks like. While talking to the soldiers and watching them do training excercises they did both content and technical research, by watching how the men worked they were doing authenticity research like how do they talk, what would they do, what would they use and their tactics. Animators and writers took pictures and filmed them working and put their movements, gear, equipment, actions and communication into the game. This research by actually going out and watching first hand lets the game designers and animators make better AI (artificial intelligence) and realisitc and immersive animation and warfare.
Other games like call of duty 1 and 2 and brothers in arms have to do historical research to find out what the towns looked like, what the soldiers did and looked like, what the warfare was like. They must do a lot of research to make the game as historically accurate as possible.

Every company needs to focus on their organizational research, which includes:

• Defining their goals

The company must gather together and look at every idea they like and what they want to do with the game. They have to talk about the style of the game, the music they want, the gameplay. 

• Defining their scope on the project

After deciding what they want in the game they must highlight the ideas that will make the final cut and scrap tons of ideas and keep making improvements on those ideas until they know exactly what they want so they can make a good game. The halo franchise often spends most of their time making storyboards that go off in hundred of directions for the games story until they find the right path, and every game usually makes hundreds of designs for player, AI and character models until they find the right design, especially in Halo 4. They have to think how expensive will it all be to make including marketing, staff and copyright materiel and if there are any cheaper options. The most important part is knowing what platform(s) the game will be on, for example most Halo games are Xbox and Xbox360 and Little big planet 1and 2 are PS3 only, whereas most games like modern warfare are on most consoles and PC. The company should decide how much of their funding they can put into marketing the game and how they should do it, most games are putting adverts online, some more successful companies are making live action and gameplay trailers for TV.

• How long it will take

After planning what they will have they will need to know how long the story will take to write, how long the scripting will take for linear and non linear gameplay, who they want to voice act and how long the script writing and audio recording will take for them and how long it will take to design the game levels and game maps for multiplayer. Games like the more recent Halo games also use body model capture so they can implement actual movements and facial recognition into the game, so they have to thing about how long this will take as well. They have look into how long game testing will take, where it will be tested?, who will be testing it?, how will the gameplay be altered? How long will marketing take? Looking at sonic the hedgehog, they designed the character in Japan and the American sega team changed the design of the game and the character which people, especially in America liked much better. They must plan how long it will take, often so they can make a better game and release it before their competition. Like the call of duty and battlefield franchises who go head to head and try to beat each others sales.

• What staff they need

When planning everything about the game the company have to think who can do what and how many people it will take to do specific tasks. They will need researchers, technicians, artists, writers, scripters, map creators, production managers, game testers, musicians, music composers and advertisers. Many bigger game companies like Bungie, 343 studios, Activision and Epic for example have staff ranging up to the hundreds.

• What skills are needed

The number of staff hired is also decided by the skills required to make the game. Many companies hire many people to do one task, like creating 3D character models, designing levels, making the music, motion capture actors, marketing and so on. It would be extremely difficult for only one or two people to do such huge tasks.

• The timescale

It's important to plan ahead and heave deadlines for certain parts of the game to be finished by certain dates so the game can be finished on time and released before their competition. The faster they finish the game the more time they have to polish it. The game Borderlands had a complete art re-design in the last few months before release and this change made the game so much more successful. The company should always keep their work organized and make sure they get tasks done in time.

Tom Millen Pre production and web+video review

Rich media website - group assignment

 https://www.dropbox.com/home/Tom%20Millen%20pre%20production%20and%20review

 

Understand principles of digital video technology in interactive media

Understand principles of digital video technology in interactive media

The Internet has evolved from 1950s electronic computers to the ARPANET in the 1960s to the 1982 World Wide Web. Using this technology people have become connected all over the globe with the use of near instant communication by electronic mail, instant messaging, blogs, social networking and YouTube. With this kind of technology people’s lives have changed drastically in a good way and when YouTube was launched in 2005 people have become empowered to make a stand and be heard and everyday people have become famous. The Internet gives people a voice; anyone can now be seen and heard by thousands, even millions by posting a video on YouTube or a blog on a popular website. Site people use to talk and connect to people around the world and friends are:

·         Facebook

·         Twitter

·         Tumbler

·         Bebo

The website that has had the most drastic impact on culture, commerce and entertainment for the lives of millions is YouTube. Before YouTube, normal everyday people would not be heard or seen by the masses without using more unconventional methods such as holding signs at busy roads but now they can use a camera, make a YouTube account and post a video for free on the Internet for everyone in the world to see.  Normal people can become Internet celebrities and have millions of fans without ever having to be on television or be in any other form of advertisement.

Many businesses struggle to be know and seen in the media but now they can by having their adverts places on YouTube videos. If someone has over a million people watching their videos that means a million people will see that advert. It can be highly beneficial for a company to sponsor a ‘YouTube star’ to advertise for them. Before the Internet and websites like YouTube it was very hard for the media to get seen and thousands of jobs have been created online.

Many people have chosen the Internet and YouTube over newspapers or television because anyone and everyone can give instant feedback and give their own views on the subject at hand in comment sections or they can upload their own videos and blogs talking about subjects that are on the news. On TV or in newspapers the people take in the news and have to accept it. The trouble with this is the owners of such newspapers are very powerful and they can control what people are told only what they allow and we only hear the viewpoint on the papers or new stations take on the subject. “I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it.” -Mae West. The media is very easy to control, except the Internet. On the Internet everyone can discuss their own views and talk to other people around the world, talk about their views and their knowledge on the subject. On the whole, Internet sites like YouTube and BBC News make the world much more interactive and offers real time response from people paying attention to the subject at hand.

Many people are now opting for YouTube over Television as a source of entertainment because you can choose exactly what you want to watch and watch it immediately whereas television has adverts or commercial breaks and its on a schedule so you would have to wait for what you want. There is now Netflix and many sites like it where you can download entire TV series and watch it on your computer, tablet, phone and even entertainment system. YouTube offers a huge variety of entertainment from YouTube celebrities and standard videos and there are now exciting new high budget series’ that are exclusive to YouTube. Many famous ‘YouTubers’ choose to stay on YouTube rather that getting on Television as YouTube offers them a better pay for making videos.

 

Picture from Google images

YouTube has also given everyone his or her own voice. In many countries the Government don’t like outsiders to know exactly what goes on inside, like China for example. The Chinese Government tries to stop all media from filming and talking about the Earthquake that happened this year but the locals used hand held cameras and their own mobile phones to film everything going on and despite Government efforts it was all on YouTube and social networking sites for anyone to see in only a few hours.  Anyone can now share their videos and stories and higher powers can do nothing to stop this. Even if videos are taken down there is re-blogging, re-posting, re-uploading, there is no possible way to ‘control’ the Internet, despite many powers trying to like SOPA and ACTA acts. There are no laws and no restrictions, which is why people are being heard who normally would not have a chance to even cry for help without access to the Internet.

The ability to film anything at anytime means that it is no longer necessary to have a large expensive camera with you whereas a camera phone is practical and people will generally have it on them at all times. This also means governments are going to have a hard time trying to keep information confidential, such as wars that go on in third world countries and dictatorships in which the local governments will try to keep under covers and censor everything, because people can film everything that goes on with their mobile phone and upload it onto the Internet where people will find it. Despite governments banning and blocking websites, people still find ways around this through other web sites and URLs. It really shows how powerful technology and the Internet is when we see entire forums, websites and videos from countries in trouble.  “The Internet treats censorship as a malfunction and routes around it.”-John Perry Barlow. It is true, however, that this would mean nothing if nobody would look it up. “You affect the world by what you browse”.- Tim Berners-Lee. Recent videos have shocked the world like the video of Dictator Colonel Gaddafi being finally found and killed by Libyan rebels and filmed on a small camera phone on October 20, 2011, Sirte – Dates from Google search. Despite higher powers trying to keep the video hidden the video was leaked and was posted onto many websites which inevitably lead to news stations posting footage of the colonel in a bloodied state being dragged by rebels, but still censored anything too graphic.

YouTube has brought people together as many people who make videos end up talking to each other online and becoming good friends, like a group on YouTube who go by the name of ‘the creatures’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Picture from Google images

It is a growing concern that powerful companies like Apple and Google that have maps of the entire world, phone numbers and personal details on millions of people are becoming too powerful. But in today’s modern day society we cannot simply put down our phones, stop using technological communication and avoid computers. Our society has adapted too easily into using all this technology so fast that new generations don’t even know what it is like to not have the ability to phone your friends in a seconds notice, or talk to someone across the world on applications like Skype which is an online video chat application. “People are stunned to hear that one company has data files on 185 million Americans.”-Ralph Nader.

 

Technology now allows anyone with a camera on their phone to film low budget, anytime and anywhere because mobile phones are so portable. Users can now compete and distribute their own videos online with ease.  It is ridiculous how much technology has advanced over the last few decades. Now anyone with a camera can film and compress their videos on their computers, even on their mobile phones now, edit them in software such as adobe premier pro or windows moviemaker and upload them onto website such as YouTube. These videos can be uploaded in formats such as mpg, .mp4, .mov, .avi, .wmv, .flv, .swf, .3GP and .ASF.

The best video formats for YouTube are MP4, MPEG, MOV or FLV. The first video ever to be posted on YouTube was a video called ‘me at the zoo’ and it is the third creator of YouTube in an 18 second video explaining what he Is seeing at the zoo. The video is only in the resolution 240p which is very poor quality, however over the last few years HD has been introduced and YouTube has adapted to 360p, 460p and in HD 720p and 1080p resolutions. This allows anyone to make their own movies, show the world exactly who they are and show everyone what their life is like. There are more and more ways being made to make your videos in better quality visually and in audio for virtually no cost at all. Camera quality is improving drastically as we can now film in full HD 1080p with professional cameras and on certain smartphones and then upload these videos onto free to use websites.

 

Ways of recording can be:

·         Video camera

·         Phone

·         Web camera

·         Capture card

·         Recording software

 

There are three main frame rate standards in the TV and movie-making business: 24p, 25p, and 30p (as progressive formats). However, there are many variations on these as well as newer emerging standards. This video is a split comparison of 30fps and 60fps (frames per second): 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nU2_ERC_oE

In gaming the frame rate only affects the game itself in tow ways, one being low FPS does not give the game the illusion of smooth motion and this may effect the players interaction with the game, the other way being that animation is uneven and choppy. Most games keep their frame rate around 30FPS where it can hold a consistently smooth animation.

In the film industry amazing advancements have been made. Before digital storage and filming people had to manually ‘cut and paste’ the film reel together to edit parts. Now they can edit and use software such as:

·         Adobe premier pro

·         Adobe after effects

·         Windows Moviemaker

·         iMovie

·         Final cut pro

·         Sony Vegas

They can easily edit digital videos with ease and then make multiple copies in seconds. These movies can then be sent out digitally or stored on a memory stick or burnt onto a DVD, saved onto a phone or removable hard drive. Films are now being shot with HD and 3D cameras; we can use motion capture and digital editing to create amazing visual effects like the film Avatar. Many TV series today use the same technology as movie making companies do and they can add filters and special effects to the series to really give it the desired atmosphere, like the bleak gray scale feel of the walking dead.

But it isn’t easy to make such good quality videos and use large files, let alone many copies of them.  In order to run such software users will have to have a good fast processor and lots of RAM otherwise you would be stuck on a very frustratingly slow computer. Over the last few decades our digital storage has gone up from something using a gigabytes of RAM being considered a ‘supercomputer’ to a computer in today’s modern media using several gigabytes of RAM as a requirement to run a lot of files. Today we can carry around vast amounts of data in our pockets, on USB memory sticks or even smart phones.

Bit rate is a lot like download speed. It is the bits per second using kilo, mega,  giga or tera as measurements. Bit rate is the number of bits processed per certain unit of time

While compressing a video the compression can be lossy or lossless. Lossless compression reduces bits by identifying and eliminating statistical redundancy which should always be done when uploading a video to a website such as YouTube. No information is lost in lossless compression. Lossy compression reduces bits by identifying marginally important information and removing it. The process of reducing the size of a data file is popularly referred to as data compression, although its formal name is source coding (coding done at the source of the data, before it is stored or transmitted). It is optional to use lossless compression so no vital parts of the video are removed which is possible in lossy. –information gathered from Wikipedia.

Overall technology advancements in the interactive media have changed the way the world works and working with digital videos much faster and easier.