The theory of Persistence of vision

Persistence of vision is the theory in which when we show a number of images together within a short time period, it gives the illusion that the images are moving. This is because our brain can only process a certain amount of information at a time, when images are shown in a quick succession we see it as if it’s moving. A zoetrope is animation tool which has a series of images that are placed in a circle spindle and when it is spun, persistence of vision takes place, as the moving images become an animation. There have mean many techniques that have used persistence vision. One was created by William Horner who was the original designer of the zoetrope. Another one was Thomas Edison who has created many devices that use persistence vision, that are used today. Persistence of vision can also tie in with computer gifs too!

This image above is a good example of persistence of vision. At first glance, you may see this image and think it’s just two people looking at each other. In fact there are two people sat where their eyes are, and a woman on the side of the man’s head in a doorway. There are loads of these images around and people can spend ages trying to find out what’s imbedded in the image! Another example of this theory is flip-books, they work the same way. You flip the pages at a certain speed and the picture on each page appears as if they’re moving. Animation is all based around persistence of vision. We don't notice the fractional skips between images because that persistence fills in the momentary gap to make the motion seem seamless.

Uncanny valley

Uncanny valley is a hypothesis in the field of human aesthetics which holds that when human features look and move almost, but not exactly, like natural human beings. Good examples of this can be robotics or 3D computer animation. Things like those are getting more and more human like! The "valley" refers to the dip in a graph of the comfort level of humans as subjects move toward a healthy, natural human likeness described in a function of a subjects aesthetic acceptability. 

The video below holds a demonstration of a animation flipbook. A flipbook is made of images that have a slight alteration and is made into a book. This works manually by using my fingers to flick through the pages which then creates the illusion of a moving picture. This is how the theory 'Persistence of Vision' takes place where the retained image and the next image emerges together giving the impression that the image is moving.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_7Ppqswx_g

Beta movement 

Beta movement is a theory that thinks it’s not just the eyes that give the illusion of movement, but the brain too. When two identical images are shown in rapid succession, the brain imagines the movement between them. One example of the beta movement effect would be a set of LEDs, as shown at the picture below. The LEDs, electronically, are individually controlled, but our eyes and brains perceive them as a snake running clockwise around the four edges of the square picture.

Animation formats work, p3/m2

Animation/Gif

An animated gif is a bitmap format, which means that each pixel is saved in its location. There are around 256 colours that you can use. Gifs are good for images with fewer colours, like logos or graphics. A good feature of a gifs is that they support transparent backgrounds. GIF images are smaller than pure bitmap files because of compression. They use a type of lossless compression called LZW, which attempts to make the file smaller without significantly degrading the image quality. The more times a file is saved in compressed formatted, the more quality is lost. Some advantages of animated gifs are that they are relatively small file sizes but can be really good to use. A disadvantage is if you want to include more colours you have to use a technique called dithering but this can decrease the file size and can mean you lose some definition in the imagine.

Computer animations come in all sorts of different formats. A flash format is a multimedia authoring application that runs animations. Flash lets you make animations frame by frame and is good for beginners but is also used in professional work. Flash files are in the SWF format, traditionally called "ShockWave Flash". Quicktime is a multimedia framework made my apple; it handles various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images and interactivity. It was first launched on Windows XP and has been updated since. Dynamic HTML/DOM/DHTML is a set of tools that can be used to create interactive elements on a website. Typically, dynamic HTML combines standard HTML, which is the markup language of the web, with a scripting language. This allows the website designer to include variable elements to a webpage that can be changed by the user after the page has loaded. An example of dynamic HTML is a menu that drops down when the user hovers over it.  DHTML games are also becoming more popular. Some advantages are large files start to play (stream) before the entire files downloaded. Using flash allows you to make your website more interactive with how the user uses it. These can be things from music, games, videos and animations. Also flash supports all web browsers. If you are using devices such as an IPhone or a table that does not support flash, there will be no way to view it. Also if you are using an old version of Flash, you may need download the latest version in order for it to work.

Unit 3 p2 task 2.2

Unit 3 P2- Task 2.2 – Sam Lambert

I think reliable, cost-effective and understandable by the user and most important characteristics of good information. I think this because they all could really affect your company if you didn’t have them. If you have a company and you was collecting data for some market research but the data you was collecting wasn’t reliable it could give you doubts or make your projections of where the companies going to go wrong. Also if the information isn’t understandable then it’s pretty much useless. If a company has information telling them about how their clients feel about their products but they can’t understand it then they won’t know if they’re doing the right things and making the right decisions. Also the cost-effective information is really important because it helps your company keep a good profit rate and not lose money, if you don’t have information about the cost if your business you could easily start losing money and your company could fail. 

Games idea " The colony "

The Colony                   Action Sci-fi set in 2500AD.

The game will be first set on earth, the first scene will be set in a boardroom with leaders of the world, and you (Head of defense and security of Earth) . The main plot is that Earth has a matter of months to move everyone off the planet to colony’s on mars before all earth natural resources run out! The planet rationed natural resources as much as they could but they’re going to run out soon. The main character that you’ll be controlling goes to mars with a team of scientists, troops and workers to carry on the vital search for natural resources. They have found an old colony with NO life forms or anything that poses a threat, they've been running tests for hundreds  of years and still are, but they think it’s safe to live on although they still don’t know who or what lives there, but they still need to fine the resources else they can’t send people there.  There’s genetically altered animals on the planet that try breaking into this colony which is surrounded by high walls and defense towers. Throughout the levels you’ll be doing things like physically going to destinations in search of items and natural resources ( as well as exploring ), testing the new tech they have developed and depending the scientists from any threats that they might happen to come across whilst searching for resources.  The colony will be surrounded by a huge dome like wall with gates on and defense towers, this puzzled the scientists because it shows who or whatever lived there before was afraid of something getting in. Every day on mars a team of troops and scientists go off from the colony and go and explore the planet, the character you control will go with them various times and get into some difficulties. Everyone on Earth knows about the colony’s and are waiting to go, they've been told by leaders non the world that they’re definitely going, but they’re getting a bit restless now.. The military have used tech and ideas from Mars and made huge space carriers that can carry millions of people at once and they’re making more and more of these ships. They've spent years taking over the needed items to this colony and are starting to get it more ‘homely’ if you like, for everyone when they come over, but they can’t bring anyone there until they find resources. This game will be aimed at both genders, anyone over the age of 15, and people who enjoy playing futuristic action sci-fi games. This will be made for PC and Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

I can’t think of any games I can compare this to, although it’s similar at times in terms of terrain as Halo. 

Animation mask and pioneers of animation

 

Definition of animation

Animation is a series of still images that give the illusion that they are moving, for example Tom and Jerry.  Tom and Jerry is a very popular kids TV program which is animated. You can also get animation flash games too. Some big name film studio companies like Pixar and Warner Brothers make animated films. Toy Story was the first 3D cartoon made. Dragon Ball is another animated game, it was made in 1984. Animation has been along for hundreds of years, an example of this is a Victorian zoetrope.  Animation is made up of FPS (frames per second). These frames run and give the illusion that the images are moving.

The pioneers of animation 

There are 4 main pioneers of animation. Walt Disney, William Horner, Thomas Edisson and The Lumiere Brothers.

Walt Disney

Walt Disney is arguably the most famous pioneer of animation; he created Disney Studios which made animated films, some of which are world famous. Some old films he made are Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Dumbo and Bambi. He was born in 1901 and died in 1966. There’s a long-standing urban legend maintains that Disney was cryonically frozen, and his frozen corpse stored beneath the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland.

William Horner

William George Horner was a British mathematician. The zoetrope was invented in 1834 and was originally called a Daedalum ("wheel of the Devil"). A zoetrope is a device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession. It was an improvement on the phenkitascope. People liked this more and found it easier too used. It made animation easier to be seen because it had small slits on the side where the person could look inside and it would give a better effect than a phenkikascope.

Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor, who made the Phonograph. This was the gramophone record was one of the dominant audio recording formats throughout much of the 20th century. The phonograph at its peak was used massively but cost a lot to have. He also invented the Kinetoscope, which is an early motion picture exhibition device. It was originally made so it could be used for one person to watch a film through a peep hole. It was made around 1988.

The Lumiere Brothers

The Lumiere Brothers, Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas and Louis Jean were the first filmmakers ever, They were born in France but moved to Lyon where they both attended ‘La Martiniere ‘, the largest technical school in Lyon. They worked for their dad for a bit at his photographic firm. Louis was a physicist and Auguste as was the manager. Once their farther retired they began to make ‘ moving pictures ‘.The Lumières held their first private screening of projected motion pictures in 1895, then a public screening of films in December the same year. Their first film they made was ‘Sortie des Usines Lumiere a Lyon ‘, this was played at ‘ Salon Indien du Grand Café ‘ which is in Paris.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flash

 

I got this to work by adding two key frames, one at number one, one at number 20, and inbertween those two numbers you add a shape tween. Once I did that, I clicked the text tool and wrote a number ‘1’ on the frame one. Then clicked frame twenty and put number 2. You then have to click on both numbers and press CTRL + B, this breaks the numbers down so they can morph. Now when I run the animation the number 1 changes to the number 2 as it moves across the timeline.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The animation is similar to the first one, I added two key frames, one at 1, one at 10, but instead I added a motion tween and not a shape tween, I then clicked on 1, drew a circle in the top left corner, right clicked and converted to a shape, then clicked on 10, moved the ball to the opposite corner and then ran the animation. The circle bounced from top right to bottom left to give the impression its bouncing.

 

 

 

 

This image below shows the animation timeline of my mask that I created. To make the mask I imported an image to the stage, then made a new layer. On the new layer I drew an oval in the middle of the stage. I then right clicked on the oval and pressed ‘mask’. Then the layers change and indicate which layer is masked. Then I created a frame at frame 20 on the masked layer. Then I added a Class Tween on the masking layer timeline. I then clicked on 1 and moved the oval to the left. Now the oval goes across the screen shower parts of the picture from the stage.

 

Game idea and rough explanation.

This is an idea which kind of shows a rough story line. It will be set in the future.
The game is going to be based somewhere or around new york, and is roughly going to be about the government/army/police taking over the world and basically keeping civilians as slaves and keeping them underground etc and a group of rebels fight to get them out. I'm yet to decide weather the world or just new york has been taken over, but yeayh that's my rough idea but obviously in more detail with more to do etc.

updated version, what do employers want?

 Unit 1 Communication and Employability Skills for IT

What do employers want?

When applying for a specific job, it helps if you have technical knowledge. For example if you’re applying for a job as a programmer for a company, you’ll almost definitely need to know how to programme, what it is and how to overcome problems you may encounter.  This technical knowledge is vital when you’re going for a specific job and can make you stand out against other candidates wanting the same job.  Technical knowledge can also be experience, if you’ve had a previous job doing what you want to do in your new one, it shows you have the technical knowledge.

Also you need to know some work procedures and systems. Health and safety is a key work procedure which is needed in basically every job role. For example if you was working on computers, you would have to know procedures like keep liquids away from the computer and make sure that all the wires are tucked away so they aren’t a tripping hazard. Another example is if you were working in a science lab, you would need to know all the safety procedures like you need to wear goggles, wear a lab coat etc. so you don’t get hurt. These procedures and systems are vital to know in a workplace because it shows that you know how to avoid injury or beware of dangerous activities.

When going for a job, any kind of job, you need to show that you have good time management. This is one of the most important aspects of working. If you have good time management you can get all your work out on time and you’ll know how long you have to complete it so you can produce it to a good standard. If you don’t have good time management it could mean you end up submitting work late or not completing it to the needed standard and in the worst case you could lose your job. In the interview it would be a good idea to let them know you have good time management skills so it makes you look more reliable and professional.

 

Another necessity is English. If you’re applying for a job, pretty much any job you do, you need to have good English skills. This can show various things to the employer, it can show that you’re well-spoken and have a good knowledge of the English language. Also being good at English will help you because it means you’ll be able to compose a good E-mail if that’s needed in your workplace, or if you need to write reports often it will be needed because you need good grammar so it makes sense to who its going to. If an employer gets an E-mail asking for a job from someone who has bad English, straight away they will think this person isn’t capable of writing or speaking properly and isn’t fit for the basic procedures  needed in the job.

Maths is not necessarily needed in all jobs but certainly is helpful. Having a decent knowledge of Maths can help in lots of circumstances. Jobs like programming, working with money or data, are jobs where Maths will come in handy.  Programmers will need basic Maths knowledge at least, because some of the code you’re writing will have Mathematics in it. Some jobs, like being a lolly pop man, you won’t really need to have knowledge of maths. Most big jobs these days require a decent knowledge of Maths which is why most College and University courses now ask for a Maths qualification. Maths is a hard subject so people who have studied it and have a decent grade often go on to study it further or get a good job which it is needed in.

 

Planning and organisation skills are important for various reasons.  Being organised with your work shows to your employer that you’re on top of your work and understand it. It’s also good because it means you yourself know what you’re doing and what you have to do. Planning your work out shows the employer that you know what you need to do and this can also link to time management because when planning you’ll have to know how long you have on each piece etc.  Organisation is a good skill to have because it makes you more confident that you can complete your  work as you know what’s left to do and what you have done.

 

Also being able to problem solve is something an employer is looking for. If you’re a programmer for a big company, spending hours a day programming, the company will want you to be able to fix problems you encounter. If you’re coding is wrong but you don’t know where, you need to be able to figure out what’s gone wrong and fix it without freaking out and not being able to do your work. This means the company will trust you and think of you as a good programmer.