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.