PPP conclusion

Copyright

When creating work to be shown on the Internet, it is important to know about copyright. When everything that you create belongs to you, uploading should be generally fine. However, if you use someone else’s music or footage from someone else, it can go against copyright and be taken down. If you can acquire permission form the original owner to use it, you can use it, however it is rarely that smooth.

You usually have to pay to have permission to use music or footage; sometimes this can be very expensive. There are resources that are free to use called royally free recourses, these can be used without any repercussions. You can also produce content under the creative commons license, which means you can freely use the content, so long as you don’t alter it and give credit for the source.

There is some content which has had it’s licence expired, which means it is free to use. When 70 years have passed, you are free to use music form that artist, this used to be 50 years, until Cliff Richard changed it as he was losing money on music he created 50 years a go!

Creative Industries in Leeds

In Leeds there is a variety of creative industries that can help me in my education and my future job prospects, especially with the Yorkshire Content fund which is pumping 15 million pounds into creative industries in the area.

 One of these things is Light Night, which is something I actually attended. For one night a variety of performances were happening all around Leeds, including interpretive dance, collaborative art activities and NES era video games being projecting onto the walls of buildings. I was a really interesting event to attend and I would definitely like to go again next year.

Other creative industries include Munroe house, which is being set up to contain a variety of creative companies. It will also be available for use to brand new start-up companies and to use as performance space.

There are over 723,000 people working in Games, Software development & Electronic publishing in the UK but only 60,000 working in Video, Photography and Film. This is great for people wanting to work in the games industry, but not fantastic for me, who wants to work in animation.

Elephant in the Room

The theme for the next round has been revealed as 'The Elephant in The Room'. This is an interesting theme as I can take it in multiple directions. I could take it literally, using an elephant, or I could take it metaphorically, going with the idiom and having someone ignoring a blatant truth.

I personally think that the literal method is a little too lazy and obvious, but directly going with the idiom is also a little too obvious.

This theme seems to lean well with comedy and dialogue, so I would like to go against this. This will help me stand out amongst the judges.

I will have to think about this theme carefully, especially with such a difficult opponent that I have for this round.

I Got Through!

I got through to the novice round in NATA!

This is very exciting! I genuinely didn't think I would get through to the next round so I am really surprised!

32 animators have all been placed into brackets to start the tournament proper. Unfortunately I have been placed with a very tough opponent for the first round. 'Vie Rickend' Came second in the judges choices for open rounds and also produced the highest ranking animation in the tournament. The odds are not in my favor it would seem.


However this doesn't mean I am giving up. I am going to try my best to get through to the next round, having such a tough opponent has inspired me produce a really good animation for the next round.

Paradox Pandemonium

I have finished my  animation for NATA. Paradox Pandemonium!

I finished it with two days to spare from the deadline. Though things didn't go quite as planned during the making of it. I skipped out on a couple of days as I was burned out, so I had to make up time at the last minute by waking up early and spending my entire day working on the animation.

I also had to cut some scenes out of the animation, as I feared I wouldn't be able to finish it on time with them. Despite this, I feel I have done well for an animation created in under 25 days.

If I get through the Open round (which I think is unlikely) I will most definitely do some things differently. I would make my next animation less verbose and have more of a focus on movement, as it is an animation tournament after all. I would also make it a bit shorter, as it took almost all my time to create a 3 and a half minute animation. Making something shorter would mean I have more time to relax and more time to focus on the quality of the animation.

We will soon found out the results and see if I have gotten through to the Novice round!

NATA Animatic

This is the rough animatic for my NATA animation, which I have named 'Paradox Pandemonium'. Unfortunately it glitches out at the end and the sound quality isn't very good but it identifies what I want to show well enough.

Although it is rough it allows me to identify timings and the positions for the animation. I have worked out I need to roughly do 14 seconds of animation a day, taking away days I am working on college work. It is going to be difficult but I am sure I'll be able to do it.

NATA

I have decided to enter the Newgrounds Annual Tournament of Animation (NATA).

I saw the original post for it on Newgrounds and decided to enter on a whim. While I don't think I have very good chances in even entering the Open round, I think it will be good practice for my animation skills and good dicipline for working to a deadline.

The deadline for the Open round is May the 10th and the theme for this round is 'Discovering Time Travel'. I have already thought of an idea and will begin working on it straight away.

Sectors and Services

Sectors are an area of economy with related products and services. There are four services:

• Primary - Extracting natural resources E.G. mining, farming.
• Secondary - Manufacture E.G. factories, pottery.
• Tertiary - Services + Knowledge E.G. education, entertainment.
• Construction

Within these sectors they are further split into three categories:

• 1st - Public Sector - State owned E.G. NHS
• 2nd - Private - Privately owned businesses E.G. Cocacola
• 3rd - Non profit - Charity organizations - E.G. Oxfam

There are also Service industries such as Real Estate, Education, Health and Defence. The Service industry which is most relevant to our course is the Creative industries. These include:

• Advertising
• Crafts
• Film and Photography
• Publishing
• Architecture
• Design
• Games
• TV
• Arts and Antique
• Designer Fashion
• Music, Visual and Performing Arts
• Radio

It is important that I know what is withing the Creative industries as there are a lot of useful resources at my disposal there and a lot of organizations that can help me in my education and future job prospects.

Values - Andy Peers

"It's not hard to find what you love when you know what your values are" - Roy Disney

A couple of months ago we had a guest speaker visit us; Andy Peers of Love Enterprise. He spoke to us about the importance of values and how they should be taken into consideration when looking for work. Peers explained that through his experience, he had built up many values. He has then since tried to reflect these values in his work in Burger King, The Big Issue and ultimately Love Enterprise.

He then asked what are own values are. My values include having a sense of humor, having every be treated how you want to be treated and that work should be something that is enjoyed. It is important that I avoid businesses with values that directly go against mine, as well as applying my own values to places of work which don't have any.

"You've got to find what you love. The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking and don't settle." - Steve Jobbs

Evaluations

Evaluations are a check up on what work we have done, analyzing the product we have made, the process of making it, what went wrong, what went well and how I could of been made better. Evaluation is an important aspect of all my modules as they all are worth 10 points in total and could be the difference between two grades.

It is important that when creating evaluations for my modules that I need to assess the quality of my work and performance when working, how I worked in a team, my professionalism and my progress as a learner. I need to make sure that I focus on the main points which cover the entire module, as I only have around 500 words to write it in.

Evaluations will allow me to figure out what went wrong in a project and make sure I do not repeat the same mistakes in another project. This is useful to me in a professional manner, as I can identify what mistakes I am making frequently and correct them for future work. This will make my work higher quality with less errors and more attractive to potential clients and collaborators.

Animation practice

Today I decided to do some animation practice with morphing shapes

Every frame is redrawn using Adobe Flash. I am quite pleased with how it has turned out.

Social networks

Social networking sites are very useful to me. They help me keep track with friends and keep tabs on what people are doing. However, I can also use them in a professional manner. For example, 'Linked in' is considered the Facebook for professionals, allowing you to create a much more formal profile for employers to see. Other social networks allow content to be uploaded. I already use Youtube to upload all the videos I create personally and at college, I also use Blogger to post my college work and Tumblr to post my own personal art. I have a Twitter account, letting me easily keep up to date with people I follow, it is really easy to follow someone I admire and look up to.

Facebook does not have to be just for my friends, I could also us it to get in touch with more professional people. I would have to make sure my Facebook stays clean and formal, however. I wouldn't want things I say to my friends visible to people I want to work with!

I would have to make sure to make full use of social networking sites to give myslef the best chance of getting a job in the industry.

Stop motion Ryan - Toast

Recently I decided to have a go with stop motion animation, using myself.

This is not a string of photos, instead it is very small clips, edited from one part of film. For the beginning part I got up and jumped up and down, moving slightly each time. In the post edit I cut out most of the footage, leaving just the few milliseconds of me in the air.

I am quite happy with how this turned out, I have learnt a lot from practicing it. Muck like all animation, it takes a long time to create a small amount of work, it took about three hours of combined work to produce 30 seconds. It is also important to keep the time of each frame consistent with each over, I cut my attempt a little clumsily and it sometimes looks a little odd. It is also important to have a lot of frames, to ensure smooth animation.

It is also quite tiring to jump up and down over and over!

The Binding of Isaac: A game review.

So hey! Let's review a game! Something I have never done and have no experience in! And hey my first review will be in The Binding of Isaac! What could possibly go wrong!?

Oh, wait.

Before we enter the terrifying world of amateur reviews, I feel obliged to mention how I actually acquired this game. It is nothing so petty and bland as just buying it, oh no, that is far too predictable for the amazing life of RYAN LANCASTER!

I got this game from the brilliant masterminds behind The Humble Indie Bundle, specifically, The Humble Voxatron Debut.

The Humble Bundle is a care package of games which become available for a limited period of time. You can pay whatever you want for all the games within the bundle, even 1 cent!* All the money can be divided by you to go straight to the developers, charities or the company behind the Humble Bundles themselves.

Not only can you you pay any amount for these games, they are all cross platform and all DRM free, you own the games forever on purchase. Basically, it is amazing.

I am a huge fan of the Humble Indie Bundle; It gets a lot of lesser known developers and there games a lot of attention, it is good for charity, it bypasses a lot of middle men so you don't have to worry where the money is going, and you get a while bunch of games for a bargain price (or however much you want to pay)! It's a refreshing breeze in a world of cold calculating business and totally deserves all the positive attention it is getting!

I purchased The Humble Voxatron** Debut before The Binding of Isaac was part of it, it was only later when  I received an email that The Binding of Isaac had been added retroactively as a bonus did I actually acquire it. So I technically got it for free!

But enough about The Humble Bundle (as awesome as it is), let us actually get back to the main topic at hand, that being The Binding of Isaac and why I've been playing in addictively over the past couple of days.

The Binding of Isaac was created independently by Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl. Mcmillen was the mind and artist behind Gish, Super Meat Boy, and Time Fcuk, his art style and sense of humour is instantly recognisable in all those games and the Binding of Isaac is no different. The graphics are very 'cartoony' and the humour is pretty dark.

You play Isaac, a naked child who has chosen to flee into the monster invested depths to escape your Mother, who has received a message from God to kill you in sacrifice. Naturally with a title like The Binding of Isaac, there is a lot of references to Christianity and Religion in this game, it certainly doesn't pull the punches when it comes to the 'dead baby humour', so people who are quite sensitive to such topics might want to give this game a pass.

The Binding of Issac is an odd mixture of game genres to say the least; combining the old NES Legend of Zelda dungeon crawling with Rogue-like 'Permadeath' and random generation. There is certainly very few games similar to it, you go through each room, killing a variety of monstrosities using your tears to fight them off. Occasionally you will pick up bombs, keys, pills and tarot cards to help you on your journey and improve your stats.

You will also pick up a variety of items throughout the game, which the vast majority change the appearance of Isaac quite drastically, there are over 100 items available to collect, including your Mother's Bra (freezes enemies) and the Necromonicon (Kills all enemies in the room). 

Playing through The Binding of Isaac is no easy task. Lose all your hearts and it's game over, which will happen often with the tough enemies and unpredictable boss patterns. However it never becomes frustrating as starting up a game is very quick and is different every time. With the random generation and the vast array of items avalible in the game, you never play the same session twice, this is probably why I've have been playing it a lot in my spare time.

 

I wouldn't consider myself a completionist as I don't think you need to finish a game 100% to fully enjoy it. However I feel compelled to continue playing The Binding of Isaac long before my first finished play through. All of the items are interesting and often morbid, changing the game style with upgraded stats or giving you a certain power-up, it is always fun to find a powerful combination and see how far you can go with it.

I want to find every ending and every secret in the game, I'm not quite sure why though. Perhaps I am morbidly fascinated with the grim story and aesthetics, or I'm compelled to find the best item in the game. It certainly helps that the game is really fun to play, the controls are intuitive and easy to learn, though hard to master. It is really satisfying to see Isaac progress and be victorious in his escape after many (many, many, maaaaany) deaths. Though it should to be warned that the multiple endings you can acquire are not exactly 'happy' to say the least.

 

The Binding of Isaac is a really fun and unique game that I'd recommend to anybody, the grim aesthetics and the 'dead baby humour' takes a little getting used to and may be a bit grim to some people, but once you get used to it there is a great game to be played here. The game can be bought on Steam for $5, which considering how much content is on offer in this game, is a complete bargain! Go play it!

* If you actually only paid 1 cent for any of the Humble Bundles them shame on you. SHAAAAAAME!

** Incidentally, Voxatron is pretty fun to play, for an Alpha at least. Luckily the purchase comes with all of the updates for free, but right now there is precious little content in the game. Still, looks promising.

The adventures of PHOTO BEAR!

For the last two weeks we have had photography inductions to get us used to the SLR cameras the college has. For this induction we had to bring a 'treasured item' to take pictures of, I chose the teddy bear I have had since I was 6 (Ted!).

In the Induction we learnt all about shutter speeds, aperture sizes, white balance, lighting and depth of field. Once we were taught about these technical terms on a camera we were told to take pictures of our items, here are the six favorite ones I took!

Here I used a wide aperture to get a small depth if field. I also used the cameras focus points to keep Ted in focus. Totoro looms in the background, waiting...always waiting.

Here I used a strong studio light on the left side of Ted to create some strong shadows on him.

I used a wide aperture and the camera's built in monochrome picture style to take this black and white photo. Ted is all alone. ;_;

I used a wide aperture to focus on the leaf in front of Ted, making him out of focus in the background.

I used a Narrow aperture here to get a lot of the foliage around Ted in focus. I also used a white balance suited for the cloudy weather outdoors.

Here I used a very slow shutter speed and shone a small blue LED all around Ted, the effect is a ghostly neon blur which looks really good!

I learnt quite a lot in these inductions, no doubt I will be utilizing these techniques for future projects.