DAi 227 Blog.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

DAI week 15 questions

Week 15 DAI 227 Questions

1) In the article "Between a Blob + a Hard Place" Steven Skov Holt & Mara Holt Skov argue in the File InCA_Spring05.pdf (on page 20) that the 'blobject' phenomenon really took off in the ID (industrial design) profession in the 1990s. Why?

-Blobjects took off in the 90’s because of its ‘curvaceous’ forms designers realizes that this was not limited to products, it can expand to architecture, furniture and graphic design.

2) Which year in the 1990s was a watershed?

-1998

3) what three other products were introduced this year that were good examples of blobjects?

-The new concept for VW’s Beetle

-The 5 Flavors of the new Apple Imac’s

-The Triax watch from Nike

4) On page 29 of "Shaping Things" Bruce Sterling describes when a 'gizmo' becomes a 'spime'. Copy the sentence here.

5) On page 45 of "Shaping Things" Bruce Sterling describes a defining characteristic of a Synchronic Society. Quote him here.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Week 14 Google Maps Assignment.

Week 14: Google Maps Assignment:

Links to Jacky’s 227 Map:

Email or IM-

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=210462033583111528544.0004a30aed198a4770f48&ll=37.802672,-122.411776&spn=0.002636,0.005187&z=18

HTML-

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Week 13 questions: Animation Principles

Week 13 assignment: Animation

1. Squash and Stretch.

As the ball is stepped on by Luxor Junior, it squashes and stretches according to the amount of force applied to it by him.

2. Timing and Motion

During 1:19 to 1:21, timing and motion both show in these frames as Luxor Jr bounces up and down on the ball which eventually lead to another element squash and stretch.

3. Anticipation

Frame: 43, father Luxor stares at the ball then off-screen for a second before knocking it out of frame in which showing a hint of anticipation.

4. Staging

In this animation, the setting includes the overhead lighting showing the entire scene, the light from the father Luxor and, the rolling direction of the ball.

5. Follow Though and overlapping action

This would be when Luxor Jr chases the ball off the screen and the cable movements after it.

6. Straight ahead and pose-to-pose action.

Straight ahead is when the ball enters and exits the frame consecutively, and pose-to-pose is Luxor Jr chases after it.

7. Slow in and Out

This is show in Frame: 30-: 32, when the ball enters frame slight fast and hits the Father Luxor, as momentum would have it bounces and rolls back slowly.

8. Arcs.

The entire body of the lamps is mostly arcs. A good example is from: 45 -: 47 as the Father Luxor arcs back and pushes the ball out of the frame.

9. Exaggeration

A good exaggeration example would be the difference in tone and feel between the 2 lamps, the older reacts more slowly while the smaller one’s is exaggerated more to show youth and activeness.

10. Secondary Action

Again, a good secondary action would be Luxor Jr chasing the ball off screen and its cord following it in a fluid motion.

11. Appeal.

Appeal would be the playfulness of the little lamp and its interaction with the ball and its father, and followed by the ending of the larger ball into the scene.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Week 12 Questions: CGI

Week 12 Questions: CGI

1) What was the name of the film made by Edwin S Porter that made use of a double-exposure to show a train window view of passing landscape?

- The Great Train Robbery (1903)

2) Who invented the traveling matte shot in 1916?

- Frank Williams, later refined as blue screen.

3) How many weeks did it take to animate the main character in 1933’s KING KONG?

- 55 weeks total for the stop and go animation which was probably a pain in the ass.

4) Which film made use of the ‘slit scan’ process in the 1960s?

- Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, a space odyssey.

5) In his essay “Industrial Memory” theorist Mark Dery argues that the silver fluid T1000 cyborg character represents a ‘masculine recoil’ – but from what?

- The t800 can be seen as masculine recoil while Claudia Springer coins it as ”Feminization of electronic technology.”

6) Tim Recuber in his essay “Immersion Cinema” describes the key idea – that of immersion cinema itself – what is it? What makes it unique?

- Recuber notes that Immersion Cinema "emphasizes tech achievement to detriment of social or artistic relevance and embeds a passive, consumerist ideology within the spaces of contemporary movie going." It is also a technique to apply to imax screens.

7) In the special effects history links, in the Time magazine history of special effects, there is a description of ‘motion control’ cameras developed for “Star Wars” in the 1970s. What is motion control?(1 paragraph)

- While winning an academy award that year for best technical achievement, Dykstraflex motion-control system is where the camera is hooked up to a computer, which allowed filmmakers to maneuver the camera in complicated directions.

8) Out of the 14 minutes of Jurassic Park’s dinosaur footage, how many minutes were computer generated imagery or CGI?

- Only 4 minutes were cgi. The rest was men in rubber raptor suits.

9) In the ‘denofgeek’ website, what is the name of the film that features an army of sword fighting skeletons, made in 1963?

- “Jason and the Argonauts.”

10) In the ‘denofgeek’ site, which 2005 film used a special effects shot to sell the idea of a remake of a famous science fiction story to Steven Spielberg?

- Bridge destruction scene from ‘War of the worlds’ remake. Terrible ending by the way, that annoying rebel son should have been dead.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Week 11 questions: Disneyland and Malls.

Week 11 DAI227 Questions - Topic - THEME PARKS & SHOPPING MALLS

1) In Margaret Crawford's Essay "The World in a Shopping Mall she outlines that 'the size and scale of a mall reflects "threshold demand"' - what is meant by this term?

- Her definition of ‘Threshold demand’ in the essay ‘is the minimum number of potential customers living within the geographical range of a retail item to enable it to be sold at a profit’. In simple words, threshold demand is what allows the mall to make money because of the potential customers in the given location.

2) In the same article Margaret Crawford describes something called "spontaneous malling" - what does this mean?

- There are two meanings when it comes to spontaneous malling. One being that any space can be turned into malls, examples include by putting together places that already exists. It also can be referred to the simple joy/experience of shopping, instead of only the actual act of doing so.

3) According to Michael Sorkin in his essay 'See you in Disneyland', how did Disneyland have its origins?

-When young Walt Disney visited an amusement park in his earlier years, he deemed the place unsanitary basically and decided he could create a better one, and boy did he ever.

4) Michael Sorkin writes in his essay that Disney's EPCOT Center was motivated largely by frustrations Disney felt at his Anaheim CA Park. What were those frustrations?

- Disney was mostly frustrated by the surroundings of his park. He believed the other businesses and establishments were not up to par. simply put, he felt like the other places were cramping his style.

5)In his essay "Travels in Hyperreality" Umberto Eco describes Disneyland as 'a place of total passivity' - what does he mean by this?

- How Eco describes Disneyland a place of passivity, he explains that the customers there are basically ‘robots’. Which is true in someway, people who go there buy, and spend money excessive believing they are in a place of happiness when the whole entire place is controlled and everything is regulated by workers dressed in different outfits at each tour site. By visiting Disneyland, people are experiencing ‘reconstructed truth’.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Week 10: Second life paragraph write up.

Interestingly enough, I spend about 30 minutes – maybe an hour navigating around Funfair in Second life. Just like the name implies it was a virtual fair with rides based off of real life carnival rides such as haunted houses, bumper cars, a Ferris wheel, drop zone, and etc. One thing that stood out and I was pretty impressed by was that someone actually designed a fully accessible haunted house in SL. It actually took work to navigate thru this small and cramped area, with monsters jumping out at you and ghosts painted on the wall as you turn a corner. I thought that was really detailed, the rides itself were all fully functional as well.

As for teaching DAI 227 in SL, I can see it happening maybe just for a specific week’s material. But I do not see it happening at all. The environment is totally different and lacks serious-ness; the teacher could be lecturing about a topic while a student(s) would be jumping off the Ferris wheel repeatedly as I have done so in my visit during the hour. It would however be fun to meet up in, except that idea lacks an incentive. Not too many students would just log in and hang out since student life is very busy, if it was required as homework or maybe even extra credit, then maybe. In terms of virtual lecture, it would be close to impossible, because I think people would just turn on SL and be AFK the whole entire time.

One thing that could become a downer is the lagging, I think its probably because of the my computer since I am running it on a laptop but if a student has an older computer, I am sure that the meeting up of 25+ students on screen would cause even more lag.