Motion Grapher (Research and Precedent Studies)

What it is all about?

Motionographer (pronounced like “oceanographer”) seeks to be a source of inspiration for filmmakers, animators and designers by sharing:

* outstanding work from studios, freelancers and students
* feature stories that give readers a closer look at influential studios and individuals
* commentary that sparks discussion or introspection about the creative process
* miscellaneous items that Motionographer contributors find interesting

Motionographer isn’t just about motion graphics. Inspiration can come from anywhere, and the Motionographer contributors hope to provide you with interesting material regardless of the medium in which it was created.
Sources: http://motionographer.com/about/

Motion Grapher Artist

Alan Shisko

Alan Shisko is one of motion grapher that applied many motion graphics videos in his personal and studio websites. Most of his motion graphics video were submitted on stock videos websites.
















Sunny Day
Video: http://www.flowmedialab.com/recentwork/sunny_day.mov
















Fusion Media Works Logo
Video: http://www.flowmedialab.com/recentwork/fusion_logo.mov

Digital Illustration (Research and Precedent Studies)

What it is all about?
Digital illustration is the usage of digital tools to produce images under the direct manipulation of the artist, usually through a pointing device such as a tablet or a mouse. It is distinguished from computer-generated art, which is produced by a computer using mathematical models created by the artist. It is also distinct from digital manipulation of photographs, in that it is an original construction "from scratch". (Photographic elements may be incorporated into such works, but they are not the primary basis or source for them.)

Digital Illustration Artist

Dhanank Pambayun
From Heart Grunge Digital artist, Dhanank Pambayun shares his secrets for using computer programs to give an artistic illustration. Born in Indonesia, this talented artist has provided lots of digital illustration and some artworks are sold in products.

Websites: http://tragiklabs.wordpress.com/
http://www.evergrunge.com/


Some of his works examples:









































Some more examples of digital illustration artworks can be found here:
http://www.maadesigns.co.uk/services/illustrations/digital_illustrations.htm

Digital Visual (Research and Precedent Studies)

What it is all about?
Digital Visual is where the artist produces the artistic works digitally. With the advanced technologies that can be get from the computer program, the artist can provide a new way to visualize the artwork with advanced and tool. By giving any provided visual from photography or from the artist's views, they can visualize the artwork with any forms of tool that available digitally

Visual art practices are constantly changing, from the basic images of the cavemen to the cyber poetry of this post modern era. This gradual change in technique and style in the visual arts scene, are shown in modern galleries of today. The technological advances have overwhelmed expectations in modern living compared to 20 years ago. Creative artists have taken hold of many of these advantages and run wild with them. Improving art from cave hand prints, to cave drawings, to cave painting, to sculpting, to painting on canvas and to many other areas of visual art works. In this modern age we have computers programs to improving the reality or impossibilities of composed art works. Many artists use other imaginative technological tools, and are looking to improve on the existing tools they are accustomed to using, in their creative visual displays they create. This essay shows some artists in today’s society, that have embraced the concepts and advances that modern technological age has provided for them
Sources: http://sv4.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=26989


Digital Visual Artist


Rob Shields
An American, talented artist, has provided a lot of astonishing artworks. His works has appeared in over 100 countries thorughout the internet and is published in Russia, the UK, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, and North America for any magazines cover.

Websites: http://www.robshields.net
http://robshields.deviantart.com/

Some of his works examples:



































Michael Oswald
Another talented artist from America. The photo manipulation technique that he used impressed a lot of people, thus providing good feedbacks among the critiques.

Websites: http://www.bymichaelo.com/index.htm
http://michaelo.deviantart.com


Some of his works examples:

Assignment 3 Researches and Precedent Studies

*This entry is on hold until the further information about assignment 3.


Emotions

For the assignment 3, three types of emotions that have been choose are:
- Excited
- Sad
- Love

For all these chosen emotions, my target audience is Teenagers

Excited
*Also previously mentioned in my previous assignment. Can check it again..:)

Excited is the emotion where people will feel it after getting or hearing something's good and pleasantly.


Sad

Sad is the emotion where people will feel it after hearing or getting something's bad. Sad emotion is a negative emotions and against of happy, excited or any good emotions.


Love

Love is where the emotions takes place to show people's truth in their inner heart. Love is commonly shown when one person like each other and never separated their relationship, like family members for example.


Emotions Related Images

These are all related arts, images, or photos for each of the chosen emotions, to generally give the idea of what should I make for my assignment 3 projects

Excited































Sad
























































Love

Final Artworks [Screen Design]

Here are my final design of GUIs


Kids




















Kids love a simple, but cartoon-looking background. I prefer to make the GUI in the center position for easy navigation. This kind of GUI will be better if it used flash-based application because most kids would love some sort of interactivity and animation of the icons. For the navigation icons, they are bigger for easy clicking. I prefer to make a little less of images and graphics to prevent the messiness. For the graphics, little animations should give a good reaction for the kids to browse the GUI in very good mood.

* The original cartoon credited for Office Create company. The character is well known for children best video game, which is Cooking Mama.


Teenagers




















Since the teenagers love the science fiction (Sci-Fi) action games, I make my own illustration for my GUI background. The background shows a human figure in a futuristic, space suit and also features two human face, that generally give the info about the main characters of the game. What and who are the characters is all about, is what other people choices to play that particular game or not. This kind of GUI has a sci-fi theme, where the background is on the space, has a spaceship and the navigation buttons have some sort of metallic textures. There are no much of texts until the user clicks on the particular navigation page. Also, my idea of this GUI is it would be better if it features an animation on homepage. My illustration would be a flash-based animation, showing a little story about the sci-fi game.

Adults




















Adults would love the nostalgic moment. From this GUI, I make the reference of older games sprites that can be found on most arcade games, such as Space Invaders. The theme of the GUI is in space, much like Sci-fi theme, but not really into that. Most older games have the space theme, which is most likely that people love the idea of having a game for us to go into the space, so it would be good if I make it the space environment. The navigation is just a simple text, since adults are not really interest with the decorative icons; the only they care is to pick up and play. There is also an arcade cabinet that acts as an home icon, to visualize the nostalgic moment of where people spent their most times on arcade machines. With the 'Insert Coin' text, it is definitely gives a nostalgic moment about the arcade machine.

First attempt for final Artwork [Screen Design]

My first attempt for Final artworks


Chosen Topic for GUI: Video Games




















Screen Design For Kids

Generally, kids like colourful pictures and graphics. They tend to love more with the cute looking pictures. So, in this GUI, I try to include lots of cartoony graphics that might attract the kids to look at the GUI even more. Plus, there are not much texts included, to give a way for graphics to present more effectively.





















Screen Design For Teenagers

Since based on the results that most teenagers always play online gaming action shooter, I create a GUI that featured the shooter theme graphics, with marine soldier, explosion and weapons. The GUI also features online navigation that I want to likely show that most teenagers love to play online games, so they need to form a community along with other people and create a fun experience multiplayer gaming.




















Screen Design For Adults


For adults GUI, I like to keep it simple, just like the old days where everything is not really that stuffed too much and too complicated; just relax and simple like the good old nostalgic moment. Adults are most likely to play something that olds and nostalgic, so I create a nostalgic GUI, that features the game graphics from the past. In this GUI, 'pixelated' graphics are used to give a nostalgic moments for adults that play or want to play games from the past.

Ideas and Sketches

Idea and Sketches (Digital)

These are some of my digital sketches (not included with A4 pencil sketches).

These sketches is about the arrangement and placement of the graphics, icons and navigation links.

Persona

After finally getting completed with the surveys, I found and chose the best persona for my GUI creation assignments.


Kids (Age 7-9)

Based on the survey results, most of the question given are answered by their parents. Some of them are willing to answer the survey with parent's help, since my survey is obviously cannot be understand by most kids, and they the need parents guidance. Back to the survey, most kids like a very simple game, like puzzle and memory test game. It is very clearly that most parents want their kids to play video games that have educational purposes. The kids surely will love if the video games serve something that is more colorful and full with enjoyment, while keeping th educational theme running.

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NAME: Ahmad Rafizal bin Mokhtar
AGE: 8
PLACE: Petaling Jaya, Selangor
STATUS: SINGLE
OCCUPATION: Primary school student
HOBBY / INTEREST: Reading kids books, playing video games
PREFERRED VIDEO GAME CONSOLE: Portable Console and PC
PREFERRED VIDEO GAME GENRE: Puzzle and Casual
PREFERRED WEBSITE STYLE: Interactive
PREFFERED STYLE OF ART: Cartoon
OTHER INFO: As a kid, he is guided by his family on how to play video games, based on the current ages. His parents mentioned that he started to love playing video game after he watched his brother playing video games console. Since his parents know about the negative effect on video gaming, they like to control his interest, by letting him playing educational games first. His brother always teach him on how to play the games that suit him the most. Other than games, his brother also encourage him to surf the internet and turns out, he likes the website that has more interactivity and cartoon-looking graphics.
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Teenagers (Age 19-22)

For the teenagers group, other than playing video games, they always tend to use internet, but it is actually as same as the time they spend for playing video games everyday. Plus, most of them are influenced first on the internet to play video games. They are definitely on to the online gaming type, which is can be considered as a trend nowadays. Also, based on the survey on what kind of genre they like on video games, they prefer for Sci-Fi theme, which is basically about futuristic settings with all high-tech equipment, like laser weapons and robots. While they like Sci-Fi theme, they sure love to have some action theme on it.

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NAME: Chan Low Yee
AGE: 22
PLACE: Bangi, KL
STATUS: Single
OCCUPATION: Student from UKM
HOBBY / INTEREST: Playing video games, surfing internet, listening MP3s
PREFERRED VIDEO GAME CONSOLE: Home Console and PC
PREFERRED VIDEO GAME GENRE: Online, Science Fiction Action and Shooter
PREFERRED WEBSITE STYLE: Flash-based
PREFFERED STYLE OF ART: 3D and Realism
OTHER INFO: A very heavy internet user and video games player. Most of times, he spend in front of the computer, playing video games and surfing internet. He likes a science fiction type of games, just like most movies. For him, the science fiction is really a great experience to feel in the video game and can give a very basic idea of the futuristic. He referred that like in the Star Trek movie/TV Home series. Since he is a heavy internet user, he likes to surf any video games websites. Plus, he likes that if that particular website used flash based application, since he mentioned that today's technology should be move forward and advanced.
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Adult (Age 40-50)

Frankly saying, in Malaysia, there is not much older people who played games in their young ages. This is because in Malaysia, video games industry still does not hit the scene big enough in the past. The old generation never had a chance to try any type of video games, compare to the other countries. Still, there is some people that can give the best answer, thus giving me the false impression that old generation people in Malaysia never tried any oldest game, unless if they play them for now. From the results, they played video games from arcade store. Well, that is really expect-able and from what I understand, even kids started playing video games from arcade store, but nowadays, cyber cafe is another term. The arcade games mostly installed on most big mall, in the specific locations. Until today, the arcade games still running big and played on most people. This is where the nostalgia moment for older people to play again the arcade games back in 20 years ago.

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NAME: Hafizin bin Ramli
AGE: 41
PLACE: Kulim, Kedah
STATUS: Married
OCCUPATION: Clerk
HOBBY / INTEREST: Reading magazine, playing video games
PREFERRED VIDEO GAME CONSOLE: Arcade Machine and Home Console
PREFERRED VIDEO GAME GENRE: Puzzle and Arcade
PREFERRED WEBSITE STYLE: Normal HTML
PREFFERED STYLE OF ART: Cartoon
OTHER INFO: He is not really a video game addict, but still have some time to play at home. He does not encourage his children to play video games, but he still managed to control their habits by not playing video games heavily. He also know about video games when he was young age and knew about the arcade game machine. He got a little nostalgic moment where most of times he went to the arcade store just to play some games. Before, he had an old DOS computer that included most of classic games. At that time, the computer was the only video game system he had. As for today, he would love to go back at the time to learn more about older video games and starting to appreciate them. He knew that in Malaysia in the past did not really have the interest in video game industry, so he would like to have some sort of nostalgic moments where he can learn more about video games. He got no problem with the newest games that have advanced graphics, but still he loves the old, simple graphics.
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Precedent Studies

This is the precedent studies, where the examples of screen design (GUI) are here to give some general ideas for my assignments.
























A FPS Creator Online GUI





















Microsoft Linke 2001 game GUI. Simple arrangement of graphics and icons























A GUI taken from Racketboy.com; showcase a collection of old games in great GUI design






















A colourful looking GUI that might be suitable for kids.

Survey and Questionare

In order for me to find the best persona to create a GUI, with 'video games' as a theme, I have prepared some of questions and make a little survey to find a suitable persona, yet helping me to design the appropriate GUI from what based on the answers and surveys....

Each of the surveys has new, different things, based on the current ages; kid, teen and adult

KIDS

1. Do you like to play video games
2. What type of video games you play
3. What games you have played before
4. Who influenced you to play video games
5. What time and day do you prefer to play video games
6. Do you prefer to play video games alone or with friends or/and family
7. Do you enjoy playing video games at all
8. Do you like watching cartoon
9. Have you ever tried using the internet
10. Do you like drawing or any kinds of art


TEENS

1. Do you like to play video games
2. What type of video games you play
3. What games you have played before
4. Who influenced you to play video games
5. What time and day do you prefer to play video games
6. Do you prefer to play video games alone or with friends or/and family
7. Do you enjoy playing video games at all
8. Which websites do you like most for gaming purpose
9. What kind of website style do you like; flash, text or more graphical
10. Do you love to play online games
11. Do you spend your own money for gaming purposes

ADULTS


1. Do you like to play video games
2. What type of video games you play
3. What games you have played before
4. Who influenced you to play video games
5. What time and day do you prefer to play video games
6. Do you prefer to play video games alone or with friends or/and family
7. Do you enjoy playing video games at all
8. Which websites do you like most for gaming purpose
9. Do you prefer old games or new games
10. What do you think of the new generations games
11. Do you like simple or advanced kind of style gaming

Research

Just a few research for my assignment 2

About Graphical User Interface GUI

A graphical user interface (GUI), often pronounced gooey,is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with programs in more ways than typing such as computers; hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices; household appliances and office equipment with images rather than text commands. A GUI offers graphical icons, and visual indicators, as opposed to text-based interfaces, typed command labels or text navigation to fully represent the information and actions available to a user. The actions are usually performed through direct manipulation of the graphical elements.

*From Wikipedia

About Video Games


A video game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. The word video in video game traditionally referred to a raster display device. However, with the popular use of the term "video game," it now implies any type of display device. The electronic systems used to play video games are known as platforms; examples of these are personal computers and video game consoles. These platforms range from large mainframe computers to small handheld devices. Specialized video games such as arcade games, while previously common, have gradually declined in use.

*From Wikipedia


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Is GUI really important?

In my opinion, GUI is really important and play such a big role, especially when we are using the electronic equipment, such as computer and mobile phone. GUI serves like a 'service', where we can keep track of the data or can access to something easily by just clicking or looking, rather hassling ourself to type.

Assignment 2 - Graphical User Interface

For this second assignment, the students need to create a Graphical User Interface for each target user category; Kids, Teenagers and Adults, based on the chosen title/subjects.

So, for this assignment I have choose a suitable topic to create a GUI for the targeted users, which is:

VIDEO GAMES



















Little info about video games:
* One of the entertainment subjects in human life
* Come with any digital format.