"The Rule of Thirds" or how hard to find any good pics I made

 So as I was unfortunate enough not to attend to the seminar where the Rule of Thirds was presented to our attention I had to sniff about on the web to find out what it is all about. What I found was interesting, because as many genius things it was beautiful, simple and so obvious that it would never come up to your mind as a background for a theory (rule).
 The Rule of Thirds, in my humble opinion, is what teaches you that asymmetry is beautiful, and then puts it in a grid and makes it symmetrical, although still beautiful. It explains the beauty of most of the images.
 It took me a while to find a good picture that I made myself, and I finally got to my old DeviantArt account where I found this:

 This photograph with a reaching hand is mostly played on the contrast and we can see the most contrast, and the main character, lets say, on the left side, in the exact position of two crossovers. These are the highlights. But the interesting part is a third object in the picture - a shadow, which looks so thick you can assume it can grab you. Its pinnacle, its brightest point merges perfectly with the top-right crossover, thus making this image even more beautiful. The final, bottom-right crossover points out the blue of the ceiling making more than just a background. It seems that you mind should insert something of its own into that seemingly empty space for the hand to grab.

 I think it is a great example of the composition that features only two real objects, but lets you add many of your own.

 Thank you and good night,

Ed.

P.S. a websit I found - http://www.shutterfreaks.com/Actions/RuleOfThirds.php#Download

"Stasis Session" interactive project COMPLETE

 Now I've just finished working on my interactive story project and boy, oh boy it cost me an arm and a leg. Then again in the end I think it was totally worth it and these last 2 days that I didn't sleep will pay off.
 Deciding to make this project was a big step on its own, despite the fact I've never seen an HTML code before, I knew I was making something huge here. Huge in terms of scale, though I hope the quality will stand out too. After all, a free-roaming game? Eghem...
 This piece of work made me think. A lot. I had to come up with new ideas of how to arrange everything in order to make it work and make it look as tidy as possible. It also reminded me of a great saying - "quality over quantity". As it turned out I've worked so much on quantity I forgot about the quality, although looking on the result makes me feel warm inside.)
 Here it is, I hope the link works and I'll list the specifics below.

                                 "Stasis Session"   >>   http://edprojects.netai.net/


 P.S. It seems that the whole thing was taken down by the hosting, so unfortunately, currently there is no way to check it out online. I'll try to figure something out, maybe post it on my real web site when that is done after the interactive DP2, but 'till then, there will be no access to the content. Sorry.

 

 
 The ending product is 134MB of volume and uses 100's of photos and their copies.
 1,978 files overall.

 For all this I had to come up with the "bubble" system.

 The main idea of this adventure map/game is free-roam where you can openly explore big areas a long as you want and when you want. So to keep this in order and making tell a story the "bubbles" became crucial.
"Bubbles"are folders containing the information about a certain area in a certain time of the story. When you reach a key point the "bubble" changes to another one so you can explore more territories and progress through the story without stumbling upon an old "cutscene", for example. This was my main challenge and I'm more than certain that with the help of "bubble" system I've beaten it.

By the way this is the free hosting I used and it definitely the best one I tried so check it out. And download FileZilla for file transfer, because it is way easier. Hope this helps.


Thank you for reading till this very point,
Good luck and good night.
Ed.

My Design Process or "My mind is an over 9K TB HDD"

  It has been a long time since I last made something that I could show to the world and be generally proud of it. A 1 minute and 11 seconds long animation done entirely in After Effects with a thin line of Premier Pro editing. Shall we begin.
  The project that I eventually called "Just a Reminder" was initially a try of one animation technique. It started of with an idea of zooming down to Earth and even inside of it to, eventually, get to its centre where you could find something interesting. I started doing that with no sketches, just watching tutorials on the go and keeping everything inside my brain. I soon understood that this is going further than just a trial and that it might have an idea that could impact peoples hearts in the end.
  The project required lots of pictures that you could find on the web for free. While searching for some particular picture of Earth I stumbled upon an image from a video game called Mass Effect. The game took place in every single corner of our galaxy about 150 years form now. I did not find the picture but I became obsessed with the idea of making a social commercial for people living in a far future. As I assumed in 150 years, especially if the events would follow the pre-Mass Effect scenario, human race will be scattered all over the Milky Way and remembering where you are originally from would become a social, political, religious and a very personal issue. It is crucial not to forget your roots. So this is what the project was all about. Remembering.
  By working hard, day and night, non stop for two weeks I finally made this, a video that made its way through time and space and now is somehow registered on planet Earth in 2157. Take a look:

 

The initial zoom project

98 layers in AE & 3D Cam

Fast fall to the city of Milan 

The Heart of the Earth

You can see the eyelashes in top-right

STATISTICS:


Max layers -98
7 sequences
40 images (aprox.)
2 weeks hard work
71 second result
1 QuadCore 8GB RAM computer - nearly fried

First Contact War. ME. 2157.

                                               













This is the tutorial for the original technique I used:
http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/earth_zoom/

Thank you for getting this far.

Cheers,

Ed

Awesome Inspiration & a "Wanabe" Project

  Yesterday I was at the NUT's War Gaming and Role playing society's first meeting. It is not yet fully established but you have to give them credit for being highly enthusiastic at what they do and I am sure that in just a few months or even weeks time these guys are going to be fully operational and running.
   However my fascination lies in the idea I got just after I left the meeting. Thinking of them being so enthusiastic about what they do and love I stumbled upon my own little wimpy dreams. I love short films, music clips, little stories that you can find on youtube and vimeo and I am blown away how that can become your life, work, a great hobby and a superb portfolio. So far couldn't find myself in an environment that would appeal to that or surrounded by people who would say that they would love to do the same, till this point. And this is where we finally got to the inspiration part.
   I generally thought that there are not many people on my course who came here knowing much about production of all sorts of things that we do, and will do, and maybe they are not really interested in this stuff since its just a start of the course, but how horribly wrong I was and I am very sorry for that! Going through blogs of our guys and girls on Reflective journal I turned round some great works and ideas and found a general enthusiasm about their future works and jobs and that made me think, even dream possibly. Guys, I want to make a proposition. How about we create a "Short film, music video and all sorts of our Multimedia arts field's making society sort of thing"? Through this we can escalate our works, teach each-other, learn new skills and gain lots of experience. This would help create great portfolios and maybe even workplaces when we eventually could end up working with TrentTV, Fm or even become youtube partners. This is a pretty big and ambitious idea but I am pretty sure we could make it. We still got 3 years of work here and all the facilities we need so why not use them.
   Thank you if you read to this point and I hope you agree with me.
   Also a big thanks to you guys for inspiring me either thorough your work, blogs, or just general involvement:

Deano
 http://deanoparker.blogspot.com/
Bartholomew
http://bartholabazaz.tumblr.com/tagged/ntumultimedia
Joshua
http://joshesuniblog.blogspot.com/
Kalab
http://kalab92.blogspot.com/
Kamil
http://kamill.wordpress.com/
Kieran
http://kieranm1992.blogspot.com/
Nick Rood
http://nick-rood.blogspot.com/
Nima
http://nimahedayati.blogspot.com/
Rachel
http://rachelgman.blogspot.com/
Beckie
http://beckypike.blogspot.com/
Tom
http://thomasmroberts.blogspot.com/
Zoe
http://zoestroud90.blogspot.com/

 Thank you once again. You do understand this list doesn't particularly mean anything but my appreciation for your work and a big thanks and I am sorry if I offended someone in any way.
  Yeah guys, I hope you'll think a bit about it.
Cheers,
Ed.

Late Notice

  Well I just went through the posts and blogs of my fellow classmates and understood that I've missed an important part of Uni's start. I totally forgot that we've went through some interesting stuff during our induction week. And I am talking Pinhole Cameras and Whiteboard Animation. The embed video is going to show our animations that we've done in groups of 2 or 3 people using whiteboards, special markers and Cannon Powershots. Although my first pinhole camera experience wasn't at least partially successful and did not produce any decent part of work, I am certainly glad my first whiteboard animation looks nice and somewhat organised. So here they are, a Whiteboard Animation Video, and an article by Rachel Man on her about the Pinhole Cameras that we did. Enjoy.

Rachels blog:
http://rachelgman.blogspot.com/2011/10/pinhole-camera.html


 P.S. I've just stumbled across a great source of inspiration and I'm very much thrilled to shout about it in my next post!

 Ed.

Inspiration - "Stay hungry, stay foolish" (c)

I just came across one very interesting video on the main youtube page. Its basically just an ad getting people into using google products and so on... And then again it is very inspiring on its own. Not even a point of it being obviously and intentionally inspiring but the fact is that people care and bother to tell you that YOU CAN and that SOMEONE CARES makes it feel even more powerful and inspiring.

And this brings us to the point.

Inspiration - a much needed resource for us to be productive, successful and, most important, at least shortly, but confident.

And this is where I shut up and actually share some links that I think are most inspiring.

The one I was talking about in the first place:



Dr. Randy Pausch - a man of great wisdom. You might find this inspiring to say the least:



Steve Jobs - well, no need to explain:



So yes, I guess I will be adding some more when they come along but till then,
Thank you and goodnight.

"The Loop Story" gets its own web space!

Well this is funny, I was actually able to post my "Story" thing on the web.

So now both of you ( haha, sad joke )

can actually go through the story interactivelly.

Yeah, here is the link and enjoy this fine piece of, am, whatever.

Enjoy. And thanks for reading till this point.

CLICK THIS LINK

http://edgarkazakspace.orgfree.com/

http://www.hitchcockwiki.com/wiki/1000_Frames_of_Vertigo_(1958)

Interactive "Loop Story" Map

http://www.hitchcockwiki.com/wiki/1000_Frames_of_Vertigo_(1958)

(to enlarge the picture just zoom in on your browser)

The numbers and their position on the image represent

where to click and where it will take you.

The story loops when image 10 goes to image 1

and overall there are 4 paths the story will go

with 3 of them starting at the actual start of the story

 and 1 being an extra short bonus.

BTW you don't always have to click on something for it to progress.

Some images, like 5, 6 and the two before

and after 10 will on their own after some short time.

 (at least they should, otherwise just click)

The first rough piece of work. I hope I'll be able to upload

the PowerPoint file and post it.

All the images used:

http://www.hitchcockwiki.com/wiki/1000_Frames_of_Vertigo_(1958)

My youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/fakeshocker