17th to the 22nd Feb

Tutorial

In the tutorial today we looked at adding movie clips and audio clips. Yet again we started the lesson with a handout which we had to follow. We then had to download the requires elements off blackboard. I then tackled the exercise.

Lecture

Danial stated the lecture by explaining about the blog results up to Christmas. He passed a sheet around with all the results. I was quite nervous. My coursework has been pretty good.

Once we had this out the way, Danial started by showing us a multimedia palette. He discussed the function and headings of the palette. We then looked at using audio.

He explained that audio was a common feature and that sometimes audio was the only way of conveying certain information. Delivery difficult due to large file size. We also have to work out where will audio events occur. May need to edit the sound files. Testing the audio file to syn properly with other media events.

Production was also a key factor. We need to script and compose the audio file. To make appropriate to the use. We may need to get permission to use the audio clip.

Different Audio Types

• Speech
• Music
• Other Real world (animal sounds)
• Synthesized Sounds

Danial explained that we need to keep voice clips short and relevant. Integrate them with other media. He then talked about illocutionary force, accents and age.

At the end of the lesson Danial discussed how sound can be annoying or overused.

Personnel Reflection

Having sat through the lecture and listened to Danial talk about the importance of sound. It has me realised that having sound on an application or video can add dramatic effect to your work. Using audio files in the correct places can correct a totally new environment. When designing my coursework, I am going to put in extra sound effects to give it that added dimension.

http://www.findsounds.com/
http://www.seaworld.org/Animal-info/sound-library/index.htm

11.02.08 to the 15.02.08

Lecture

We got given our coursework today.Looks good we have to create website to sell dvd and music...

Tutorial
In the tutorial today we looked how to add a database to our homepage. A booklet was given out which we had to follow. Firstly we had to download the required information off blackboard then we were ready to go. We started out by changing the text file into a asp file. This allowed us to edit the information in dreamweaver. It was a database on a pet shop. The table was already filled for us all we had to do was add the price to each animal by adding an extra field. This is all we had time for.

My website is


Reflection

No flection

04-02-08 to the 09-02-08

Lecture
This weeks lecture Daniel continued to talk about the use of text. He firstly talked about the different text styles. We looked at weights, widths, typeface and different strokes. Daniel went into these different styles in depth and gave examples.

He then told us that we should look our layout when creating text.He discussed some valuable points we must consider when typing text.

- Computer Screen is small
- Too much left is unpleasant
- Put text into scrolling field
- Break text into fields

Danial then told us that different types of text can actually give a completely new meaning.

Text is important in the computer world. As this is the main way a computer informs the user. If the text was not able to read then user may produce errors when inputting key data.

Tutorial

In the tutorial today we looked a creating are on website using CSS templates. These templates we found on the web. We then add these templates into dream weaver. We then followed a sheet which explained what we had to do in today's lecture. We made alteration to the template using some basic html coding.

We added the title and changed the colour and made other small adjustments. Unfortunately i did not have to time to finish the sheet.

I will finish the sheet in my own spare time.

Personnel Reflection

Using templates as a guide gave me a much better understanding on creating a website. The template gave me valuable information when starting a new website. I realised that producing a website of a high standard would take time and patience.

Week 21st - 25th Jan 2008

Lecture

The lecture this week we looked at mark-up XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). These two topics i had never come across in my time with a computer but i had heard of them.

A mark-up language is a set a set of mark-up conventions used together for encoding content. There is a four step process when using mark up.

1. Element identification

2. Mark-up selection

3. Mark-up insertion

4 Mark-up interpretation

Danial then stared to talk about HTML coding (HyperText Mark-up Language). These was necessarily the building blocks to a web page. He discussed the pros and cons of the HTML.

We also looked at CSS toward the end of todays lecture. CSS is used to give the user the ability to edit the colour, fonts, layouts and menus of there designed web page.

Tutorial

Reflection

In this weeks lecture Danial has given me the information that i had been waiting for, the abilty to create and design my own website. Danial discussed the 2 key points when creating a website. Having looked at HTML and CSS i believe that I could with time and coaching create a website for the world to see.

Week 14th - 19th Jan 2008

Lecture

In the lecture today we looked at different types of file formats. Such as JPEG and GIF. We looked how the two different file formats have various pixel sizes. The same goes for different moniters and screens. 800×600 and 1024×76 are some of the common display resolution. We measure dots per inch (dpi) and pixels per inch (ppi). The number of distinct colors that can be represented by a pixel depends on the number of bits per pixel(bpp).

8 bpp, 28 = 256 colors
16 bpp, 216 = 65536 colors (Thousands)
24 bpp, 224 = 16,777,216 colors (Millions)

JPEG is mainly used for Photographs and GUI is used for Poster Type Image's. Jpeg has a colour depth of 24-bit and Gui has a 8-bit.

Tutorial

In the tutorial we used photoshop. We had photo shop images to download off blackboard and had to arrange them and edit them in photoshop. We had a final image and had to resemble that imagine as best we could. We edit the pictures in various ways like using the magic wand and picture effects.

Personnel Reflection

This week i realised that photoshop is a powerful tool in the multimedia industry. The way you can man manipulate images to make them work for you in different ways. I feel that coming to grips with a program like photshop will enhance my learning and achieve the results i want.

07-01-08 to the 11-01-08

Lecture

Todays lecture was all to do with the introduction to graphics. Multimedia is all to do with communication. Danial then started to to talk about what decisions we would have to make if we were the designers. We need to think multimedia as not just simple text. There was a whole list of decision but these are the main ones i spotted.

- Design decision
- Technical decision
- Client requirements

We then looked at a multimedia palette this was really interesting as it showed which objects were static and which were dynamic.

Danial then started to talk about different graphics such as images and high visual images. We then looked at how we gain these graphics from the real world.

Digital camera
Mobile phone camera
Digital video

we also looked electronically produced graphics to. We then talked about different ways we could use these graphics.

Tutorial


In the tutorial today we started with graphic designing on Photoshop CS3. I was quite excited as i haven't used photoshop since my 6th form days. So i was ready to go. Our research student gave a booklet out with information on todays work. We had to download various images of blackboard and re arrange them and edit them in photoshop to create the image they had in the booklet. I raced through the booklet making sure everything was correct. We then flattened the image. I then saved it various formats. this allowed me to upload it as a web image if i wished to do so..

Reflection

This weeks lecture was a big reality check for me as a been using graphics for lots of years now and never really stood the principle of them. Hearing Danial talk about all the differnt sources and meaning was extremely interesting.

I loved working on photoshop as it really interesting and exciting to try and create new ideas from scratch. Even though we had to follow a set guideline it became a apparate to me that i would never found out half as much i found out today if I was to carry out the task on my own.

03/12 - 7/12

Lecture

I was not able to attend todays lecture due to my house buddy having a serious car accident that morning. It was lucky to say he survived and is getting back to his usual daily routine.

Tutorial

In todays tutorial we looked at different ways we can target a path in flash. This seemed and sounded difficult to do. Geenen left us a guidelines to follow on blackboard. Geenen's notes are easy and simple to read, Once again i worked through Geenen notes quickly but accurately. Within half an hour i had done the work. I was not happy though, i feel that i could of improved my flash file. Instead of using 2 buttons to starts and stop the program. i took one of the buttons out and added a if statement to the action script. This allowed me to start and stop the file using one button. Thats all i had time for this week.

Personnel Reflection

This week i found that i have learned enough flash to carry out simple tasks with out the help of the staff at the university. The Christmas term is just a week a way, to keep my self occupied i am going to continue my learning of flash through out the holiday. Hopefully Santa will put me a flash book in my stocking.