RLJ 25/10/12 (2 months until Xmas, last day before half term!!!!!!!)

This morning we had to present our PowerPoint presentations we created yesterday to the class. Felt happy with my presentation, even though I knew I hadn't finished everything for this module that was required of me yet at this point, which Neil did point out, but I do feel I need to speak up when I'm unsure of anything and ask for help when these situations occur.

After the PowerPoints were presented, and because it's DEADLY DEADLINE DAY, it was time to finish stuff off! I have now rendered 3 images of my enclosure today, as well as improving our RLJ blogs, which for me, I had to put references into appropriate places in the blog, as well as talk about my influences outside of college, such as the paragraph about Avengers which helped me in one of the debates.

One thing I've felt today, maybe because of Neil's criticism, and what other students have said, I've noticed that I feel I am quite good at writing about things, especially in these blogs and in my spare time as well, and I was thinking that, after this course, it could be a possible thing to go into to improve on for maybe a possible career path.

MY RENDERS! I put these off until now because I do not feel confident in rendering, but it's actually one of the easiest things to do in Maya!

24/10/12

kjbvh`ksv kzndbvkzlmsdvjzkdlfvzkdf,nvbzhkdf,gbahierjgnaijelnrgbaiejrbgaiuoernv waifvuwirth

svfjfsjlfv (which translates to I AM REALLY TIRED AND I WISH IT WAS HALF TERM!)

Today and tomorrow we will have to finish off any work we feel like we need improving on. I started by trying to open the previous save files for my Penguin Pool project, because today I WANTED to rig and animate my penguin. However, the texturing of the penguin I had done at home in the week, which I used the unwrapping technique for, a technique that I learned on my previous course, had gone all funny when I opened the unwrapped penguin file at college. The unwrap of the penguin had gone all over the place, so this freaked me out a little, and this made me feel like it was unsafe to start rigging and animating so I left it.

My penguin UV Mapping

What my textured penguin looked like BEFORE I brought it to college.

What my textured penguin looked like when I brought it to college. I've had this problem before, so it didn't shock me as much as it has before.

Instead, I continued on texturing my enclosure, using the lovely ice textures I found in my spare time. I eventually managed to finish texturing the enclosure by the end of the morning, however, texturing the enclosure was more frustrating than I thought it would be, because after a certain point with my texturing (after combining the slide with the rest of the model) some of the textures just kept on disappearing when I went to Planar map the textures. I did manage to complete the texturing though, so I managed to get through it all.

I then had a bit of spare time in the morning, so I just did a little bit of spare 3D practice, so I thought it would be good to model SPONGEBOB!! I didn't get terribly too far with it though, but I felt it was good practice of the extrude and edge loop tools in Maya.

After lunch, Neil gave me some feedback for my blog, saying that I needed to put more references to research and talk more about things that inspire me to do with the course. He also said that it does get a little bit too personal in some areas for a college journal, and said that there was one point, which to be honest I couldn't remember typing up at all, that I mentioned what I had for lunch! Other than this, I don't think he had too many problems with my RLJ, and I think that if I put in more references in my journal and talk about my influences outside of college, it will improve my journal writing greatly and hopefully improve my grade.

This afternoon I also started to create a PowerPoint presentation on this module, Understanding New Media, which will include all the little projects I have done in this module, what I have learned from this module and also about the project I think I was most successful in, which in my case, is the Penguin Pool. I finished the PowerPoint this evening, ready to present for tomorrow, which I feel really pleased with and I feel that it will explain well what I have been doing over the past 6 weeks.

RLJ 23/10/12

Today at college we had to show our PowerPoint presentations to the class, which I worked on last night to perfect it as much as possible before today. I did complete it the weekend before last, but there was a lot of text on some of my slides before today, so I had to narrow it down a bit before I presented my presentation to the class. Each student was given a specific different art form or movement to study and make a PowerPoint presentation which should last for around 4-5 minutes each, so that all the students can present something.

My presentation was about Op Art, an art movement which was in force around the mid 20th Century that experimented with making optical illusions in art. I did find researching Op Art very fascinating, and genuinely interesting, which is what I was initially worried about when I was given Op Art to research.

I was 3rd to present my presentation on Op Art, which I feel went reasonably well, especially considering I find it quite difficult to present things in front of people and talk about them for a specific amount of time. My presentation included a brief introduction to what Op Art is, about the history of Op Art and the Op Art movement, some of the most influential Op Artists, such as Victor Vasarely and Bridget Riley, and some pieces of Op Art I personally like, especially one that links to a website where you can create music with Op Art!

I was very pleasantly surprised with how supportive all the other students in the class were towards each other, because the class applauded after every presentation, including mine, despite the fact I nearly forgot to eject my memory stick from the hard drive! I was also glad that I managed to finally learn everybody's names, apart from the New Media students, which I have already learned the names of.

Websites I used for research for my PowerPoint presentation on Op Art include:

http://www.op-art.co.uk/

http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/o/opart.html

http://arthistory.about.com/cs/arthistory10one/a/op_art.htm

http://www.theartstory.org/movement-op-art.htm

http://www.masterworksfineart.com/inventory/vasarely/vasarely.php

http://tonematrix.audiotool.com/

RLJ 18/10/12

This Thursday was quite an unusual Thursday, as we were only in for the morning, because the second years had got 1 to 1 tutorials with Neil this afternoon.

This morning I just did what I thought I'd be doing, which is working on my penguin enclosure and building a penguin in Maya. At the end of this morning I was really surprised with myself, about how calmly I was working, and how unstressful (don't know if that's a word or not, but explains how I found the work) I found working on the Penguin brief today. I was also surprised with how much I got done today as well, because I managed to pretty much finish modelling the enclosure AND the penguin this morning, so I feel I've done really well this morning, and I'm really pleased with my progress. I think I'm going to try and texture everything this weekend, ready to rig and animate the penguin on Wednesday. I had to be reminded how to copy over half of my penguin model so he's a whole penguin, by a process known as 'Mirror Geometery' under the 'Mesh' menu. I found that there was also a few minor issues with Maya today as well when making my enclosure. I sometimes found it hard to insert edge loops, as well as merging and bridging the platforms of my enclosure. However, I've enjoyed building the 'fun element' of my enclosure, which is a penguin slide!

How far I got with my enclosure today, which I was very pleasantly surprised with how far I got today.

How far I got with modelling my penguin today.

This afternoon after lunch (during lunch I spoke to someone who had brought a heavy bag to college containing two hundred comic books in it! That's crazy!) I decided to meet Lisa, my support, to talk about things that have been bothering me, and my progress at college from when I started college in the Interactive media years! She said that, despite struggles this week, that I have managed to overcome them and have done very well to do so, and was pleased that, during lunch, I just walked around the top floor of the Broad Eye Building where my friends from the Rome Trip work, and I will try to socialise a bit more with them if I can either next week or over half term. She also mentioned that I have coped with things a lot better than when I first started going to college, which, after speaking to Lisa today, I am now starting to realise myself what she means by this.

I feel this week started out to be quite tough, but I am pleased with how I have managed to get through it and that everything turned out to go quite well in the end.

RLJ 17/10/12

Because I was feeling worried about a lot of things this morning, and I was feeling nervous about today at college, first thing this morning seemed a nightmare. We were told we had to do another student debate, which I really didn't enjoy last time we had to do a student debate, so the surprise of this really got me upset, along with the other things that I was upset about before this morning and last night. I also thought we were just continuing with our penguin enclosures and stuff today as well, which was already stressing me out enough, because of all I have to do for it. I had to leave the room for a while, as it did take me a while to calm down, but when I got back into the classroom I actually found the research for this debate quite easy to find, which was about "Outsourcing," which is basically when a major company hires a smaller company to do a job for them for cheaper prices. Our argument was for why Outsourcing is a good idea, so I researched into the countries involved with Outsourcing.

Websites I used to research outsourcing include:

Pros & Cons of Global Outsourcing of Jobs | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/about_6586144_pros-cons-global-outsourcing-jobs.html#ixzz29Y1rwgiC

http://www.3drenderingindia.net/

I felt the actual debate went much better than last time. Even though I'm not the best at speaking clearly, I felt I spoke a lot more clearly and confidently, and had a lot more to talk about than in the previous student debates. Neil said that he was very pleased as well with how I got the social contexts of Outsourcing across in my argument, and my other classmates and Linda even said I had done well, and managed to cope with everything eventually.

After lunch I started to continue with my penguin enclosure in Maya for a bit, but 10 minutes later Neil wanted to talk to me outside the classroom because he could tell that I've found this half term quite difficult, in terms of work, socialising, and even things at home. I really appreciated this chat with Neil, and I feel I got a lot out of it, and I felt it gave me the chance to tell Neil how I've been feeling about a lot of things too.

Neil reassured me that I am doing well with my work and my RLJ, and also gave me constructive advice about my work, saying that it would be good if I started looking in books that could inspire me with my work (Neil knew I like Disney stuff, which I was surprised about, so he recommended some books, including Infinity and Beyond, which I have seen in the college library). He also mentioned referencing in my RLJ, such as inserting Youtube videos and website links into my RLJ too. Neil also mentioned that I will need to accept that I will need to respect other student's opinions as well, which I feel I do already, but maybe some people might think I don't. We talked about what I'd be doing after half term at college, which is making an interactive museum display, and mentioning that it would be good if, over half term, I visited a museum to see what kinds of things are there.

He also said, to help me, that it is important that I looked at the module handbooks, just so I know what to expect in the lessons, and that it is quite a huge difference in the intensity of the course from BTEC courses to Degree courses.

Another issue I've been having is that I sometimes struggle to know where to go or who to hang out with in my college breaks, and Neil did surprisingly give me some advice about this, his advice being to see what the people I knew from the Rome trip were doing at lunch, because the majority of them have their classes on the top floor of the Broad Eye Building, just one floor above us, and said that he's sure they wouldn't mind me just turning up outside their classroom on lunch breaks, something I was worried about doing, if I chose to go up there and see what my friends from the Rome trip were doing. This did make me feel a lot better about seeing the people from the Rome trip at college breaks, and I might go up there just to see what's happening tomorrow. One of the students, Alex, did say that if I did want to meet him or any of my other friends from the Rome Trip, that I'd be more than welcome to join them up there.

After the chat there wasn't really much time to do much more work, so I just typed everything up on my journal. Tough day, but turned out to go very well in the end.

RLJ 16/10/12

Felt very sleepy in this afternoon's lesson, today was just one of those days where I'm just tired from when I wake up to when I go to sleep. HALF TERM NEEDS TO HURRY UP!

In this afternoon's lesson, to start off with we discussed influences, and Neil showed us a lot of his influences from a wide variety of categories, such as non fiction text, fiction text, TV, film, places, buildings, people, music, even in dance! This did make me think quite a lot, because I feel I do have many different influences in a lot of different areas. Neil also handed out this student questionaire written by David Smith (I think that was his name) in 1953.

Also discussed ILPs as well as going through what is expected of us next week with our PowerPoints. I started and finished my PowerPoint I need to present to the class on Op Art this weekend.

Still feel bothered about a couple of things regarding college that wasn't much of a problem last year. I'm still finding it hard to make friends with the Foundation Degree students, and I feel that it's going to be hard to now because everyone now seems in a comfortable circle of friends. I do have friends in college that aren't in the classes I'm in but I only really see them by chance. I really wish there was more consistency in who I spend time with during my breaks at college, and I hope I'll still be able to get further help with this, and I feel I would enjoy and look forward to coming to college a lot more if I did have more consistency with friendships, because right now, I only really see the people I consider friends from other courses by chance.

RLJ 11/10/12 (Mum's Birthday!)

Because today was my mum's birthday, and we're sure to celebrate, I was hoping that today's lesson wouldn't be too challenging, even though we were gong to start a new design brief in designing an enclosure suitable for penguins, which will include us researching into penguin enclosures, environments and buildings made in 3D, and 3D animated penguins and other characters, which we'll have to use to design the enclosure, build it in Maya, and build and animate a penguin to go into the enclosure. And we have to do all this in 2 weeks! It's going to be tough, and a lot of work to be crammed into finishing before the end of October.

When I first got the brief, I started to think of a clear plan in my head of how I would manage my time in my project, because I was also thinking a lot about other commitments in my life, as well as other things. At first I was happy with this plan, because I didn't think that I would have too much to do at any one time but Neil did mention that I didn't leave any time for potential errors in this project, so I thought I would try to adjust my original plan slightly, and, after thinking about it, I feel that there are some things in my original plan I could try to adjust. I don't really want to spend too much time modelling my penguin, so I should be able to finish that next week.

As I was starting to research, I thought of a lot of things that I could use in the research at home, and I was thinking throughout that I would have preferred to do the research and development sketches at home, ready to build in Maya at college for next week. I actually thought of quite a few characters that could help me build my penguin though, and found a few good examples of enclosures for penguins, as well as researched into the penguin's natural habitat, the requirements for these fussy penguins to live in, such as they all need to live near water, and some species are adapted to colder climates, whereas others will live in warmer and more rocky areas. All species of penguin live in the southern hemisphere too.

Several sources that helped me with my research include:

http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/family-vacations-in-missouri4.htm

http://antarctica.kulgun.net/Animals/Penguins/HVzoo.jpg

http://penguins.neaq.org/2011/10/faq-where-do-penguins-sleep-at-night.html

File:Beijing Zoo penguin.JPG

http://nothingbutpenguins.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/London-Zoo-Penguin-Pool-Beach1.jpg

These websites all had decent enclosures I liked, that I thought could inspire my enclosure design.

http://www.penguins-world.com/penguin-habitat.html

This website discussed penguin habitats and living requirements, which really helped me to understand what kinds of things I need to include in my penguin pool in order for the penguins to live, such as water.

http://www.penguinstones.com/images/penguin.jpg

squidoo.com

topwalls.net

http://www.ask-gratitude.com/images/happy-feet-1.jpg

redmondpie.com

space.angrybirds.com

juliustamala.wordpress.com

These websites included penguin characters that I could take inspiration from.

I also gained primary research from the following places:

Wii Fit Plus (Penguin Game)

Ice Age 2: The Meltdown (Waterpark scene)

Madagascar (Penguin scene, "smile and wave, boys")

and also for inspiration for waterslides to make it fun for the little penguins:

http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/parks/blizzard-beach/attractions/

http://www.caravan-butlins.com/whatson.html

Seeing as I associate penguins with living in the cold, I want to design an enclosure best suited to the species of penguin that like to live in the cold, so I researched icy habitats, as seen in the film Happy Feet. However, as I felt a bit rushed to think of ideas today, I'm not 100% happy with my sketches of my enclosure designs so far. I also wanted to try and add an element of fun and creativity to my enclosure design, so I would like to try and include something natural that the penguins can play with, such as a slide or something along those lines. Maybe even a sledge made out of ice, because penguins can also be associated with Christmas, but that may not be very practical.

As I have said, I'm not terribly pleased with my sketches yet, as I've felt that I have been rushed for ideas, and a lot of information has been given out about what is expected of us in this brief today, and I would have felt a lot better if I had a bit more time to think of enclosure ideas, and I think this would produce better ideas. I have also noticed something significant about myself today. I have noticed that I tend to do things in my own way, rather than in the ways other people want me to do things. This shows to me that I am very much my own person and maybe quite free spirited.

RLJ 10/10/12

In today's lesson we were all trying to finish off and/or improve any of the small projects we have been doing over the past few weeks . Since I felt that my plane and animation from last week needed the most finishing off and improving, I decided to mainly work on them today, to try and finish them off and hand them in before 3pm today.


All I really had to do for my plane this morning was make and attach the wheels. Sounds simple, but was actually really tricky, even though I did try and find a source image of the plane wheels for reference. The middle wheels were the most difficult, and didn't really look right, but I felt it would be best to just leave it for now. It was only to show how good I am at 3D modelling and what areas I need improving on. I'm pleased with the overall plane though, and have enjoyed making it.

This afternoon I improved my 3D animation of the tennis match, which I wasn't happy with when I last left it. I was so pleased with how much more I had done to it this afternoon. I had not only finished the entire animation, but I managed to texture the ghosts as well as the stage and ball as well, by just basically using the planar mapping technique, but I now feel so much better and so much happier about my 3D animation.

Very good and productive day.

RLJ 9/10/12

Today's lesson started later than usual, so this afternoon's lesson wasn't too hard.

Today we had to review over what we have learned about the RLJs, and fill out a short and simple quiz sheet about them, such as what is a reflective learning journal, what you write in there, what is reflective writing etc. The class gave out quite a lot of good answers, and a lot of relevant points were made, such as the D.A.T.A cycle (Describe, analyse, theorise, act) helps with reflective writing, how we need to keep the journals relevant to our learning, and that we should update them regularly.

We then had to work in groups (I was with the first year New Media students) to comment and judge on other students previous RLJs, and say what we thought about the content (writing, images structure) write down a way to improve it, write down good things about it and say how it would influence our current RLJs. To be honest this drove me mad, because at this point I felt I was the only one doing what I was supposed to be doing. One guy kept the RLJ we were supposed to be looking at to himself pretty much, without really discussing what was in the journal, another was doing nothing but drawing, and another was watching/distracting/talking to the guy who spent all his time drawing, so it was very difficult to actually discuss what we were supposed to be doing as a group. At the end, the journal we were given to look through was quite poor, lacked any images explaining what it is he was writing about, and we noticed that he hadn't updated his RLJ as regularly as he's supposed to.

Afterwards we were asked as a group to grade the journal on our table, as well as the ones the other groups in the class were looking at, and then discussed with the rest of the class.

Afterwards, we briefly spoke about the PowerPoint presentations we will need to present to the rest of the class soon, in two weeks, and advice that could potentially help us in creating and presenting the PowerPoint, such as planning, practicing, keeping it simple, as we won't have long to present these presentations, only about 4-5 minutes, breaking it down and not getting too stressed about it. All very good things to remember when doing these presentations, or really, any work.

I think after today I have learned a lot more about keeping on track with my RLJ, as well as things that we are and are not supposed to write in them, and I feel myself from working in that group that I have learned how to be more assertive and I've learned I need to try and improve my leadership skills, and these are skills I want to work on. I also felt I was very patient with the group I was in, because at times, because they were mostly messing around, and this did really annoy me. I still want to try and make some close friends at college, whether they're people from my course/classes or not, and whether I know them or not, because I feel if I did have some close friends who I could see during my college breaks, I would be a lot happier at college. Jane, my support, was also a very big help today in helping me keep calm and coping with today's lesson.

RLJ 4/10/12

After yesterday I was still feeling a bit down and doubting my own ability a bit. To start with we were still continuing with our animations (not happy with mine, looks like a disaster)

Today Neil wanted us to make a 747 plane in Maya from an plan image displaying what it should look like from the front, the top, and the side. We had to separate these plan images in Photoshop and alter the scale of  these images so that they're all a good size to create a 3D plan blueprint for the plane. To do this, Neil went through how to import these images into Maya and then showed us a better way to make the model using the plan images, by creating a box that was size equivalent to our images.

Plan images we needed to edit in Photoshop before applying them for textures for our image boxes in Maya.

Learned how to reverse the normals in Maya, which basically means you can see the model from the inside out. We then had to attach this to a layer, similar to Photoshop, and make the layer a Reference type layer, so we don't keep on clicking on the box when modelling the actual plane from these source images.

An early development image for the plane in Maya, which shows a reversed textured image box, so that it's easier for me to know what I'm building in Maya. 

We continued to build the plane for the rest of the day, which I did really enjoy doing, and I am really pleased with the progress I have made today.

How far I got by the end of the day with my plane. I feel really pleased with how much I've got done today, and feel really pleased with my progress, feeling much better than yesterday.

However, one thing that's worrying me in particular is how well I'm getting on with the people on my course, because I feel I probably don't interact with them as much as they interact with each other, even though I feel that there are a few that I feel I get on with quite well. I've also been thinking about the possibility of meeting up with people I know in college from other courses during my breaks at college, because I've been very lonely during all my college breaks this week, which to be honest has affected my mood both in and outside of college. I spoke to Lisa, my support about this, and she  gave me advice in if I wanted to meet up with some of my other friends in college from other courses, I should try and message them over Facebook or something like that, asking if they did want to meet up during college breaks. I feel this is good advice, but I feel I would need some extra help in knowing what to say, and also finding the confidence in asking them to meet up during college breaks. I feel that gaining the confidence to ask people if they wanted to meet up during college breaks would be something I would really like to work towards, and also feeling sure myself that these people I want to meet up with also want to meet up with me during college breaks.

RLJ 2/10/12

In this afternoon's lecture we had to learn about essays, which we were warned would be quite boring and may be quite stressful, but I didn't find it too stressful at all. Yes, it is very hard to make essays exciting, but what was said today makes sense to me, and most of it was stuff I already knew from my previous course, as we had to write a few essays on the first year of my old college course (I wrote an essay about Dory from Finding Nemo on my last course, and had to describe in the essay what made her such a likeable character).

We reflected on different styles of writing, and what they involve, including essays, case studies (or, as I wrote in my notes, "cake studies"), evaluations and the RLJs, and discussed how essays are a lot less personal and tend to be written in the 3rd person, the opposite applies for the other styles of writing.

In the middle of the lesson we had to split into teams for this quick quiz which we needed to identify the artists of different artworks that they have created. I was teamed up with a very friendly woman who has got a teenage daughter who's going on a school trip to Barcelona, but couldn't really remember her name. We got on very well, which is good, because I still don't know what to think of the other first years on my New Media course yet, and if I'd consider them as friends.

After break, I shared some Haribo Goldbears with the class, and Neil then went on to teach us about referencing, something I have done before with essays as well as other projects that involve researching, but is quite difficult to get used to, knowing from my previous experiences, but Neil did try to make it as clear as he could. Jane, my support, also mentioned that there is a Harvard Referencing guide in our student planners.

After the lesson I spoke with Jane, until my bus came, and reflected on the lesson and how I was coping and how I feel I was coping. Jane seems to think I’m getting on a lot better with the New Media students than I think I am, and that she thinks I’m doing very well in the lessons she supports me in. We also briefly spoke about how difficult I found it last week, as well as her son had managed to sell his motorbike for £300! Also, between us, we couldn’t remember the names of any of the art or photography students, but we will try to next week.

RLJ 3/10/12

Today we learned about 3D animation and several techniques to use in 3D animation. On my last course I had to do a little bit of 3D animation, but I am not terribly experienced with it.

Neil showed us how to animate using Maya by setting key frames, and moving several objects. I made a pyramid do a backflip and made a cube sneak under it.

Neil also mentioned the graph editor, which is a very confusing way to animate objects using Maya by using a graph to move and manipulate objects. This reminded me of an animation technique used in a software that makes games, Unity, a computer programme I used on  my last course, and I'm sure I'll have to use it again on this course.

Our next exercise was to bounce a ball down some steps. I remember doing this exact exercise on my last course, so I found this quite easy and relaxing, and this took me about 5 minutes up until morning break.

After break our next task was to create and animate a tennis match scene. I found it quite easy to animate the ball, but I couldn't think of what or who I wanted the players to be, so I was struggling a bit with this task. This, along with other work I've seen at my level, has made me doubt my own ability in the quality of my work and my 3D models, despite what my support for today, Linda says. Maybe I'll need to talk to Neil about this, and see what he thinks. He seems happy with what I am doing, but I'm not sure myself if the work I'm doing's at a high quality.

After lunch, we continued with our tennis match scenes, but Neil wanted me to move onto practicing using the graph editor, because it's apparently quicker once you get used to it. So I practiced animating a hula hoop using the graph editor.

This is what the graph editor looks like, which is another way of animating in Maya. I used this to animate a ring moving around a square.

I haven't found today too difficult, however, I feel I would like to improve my skills using Maya, as last week, when we were set to finish texturing our classrooms, I found it quite tedious and some parts didn't really look right. I've also seen what other people have done at my level, and I feel that they're so much better than what I can do now. I've also seen what other people have done at my level, and I feel that they're so much better than what I can do now. I think I will want to talk to Lisa, my support about what’s worrying me tomorrow and Neil in our 1-1 next week.

On a more positive note, however, I did notice a few things today: First of all, the lecturers seem much more friendly towards me since I’ve been on the Foundation Degree course. Neil seems much more relaxed teaching this course than Interactive Media, and even the other lecturers, such as Mark and ‘Chelle, don’t mind talking to me when they see me walking around college.