Reflective Journal

New year, new blog (This won’t be a yearly occurrence). 

http://www.simonsaysstuff.com 

Basic layout for now, have a better design on zee’ way.

Before I begin, I just want to point out the illiteration above, Oh yes… I still have it!

Anyway, I’ve finished everything, it’ll all be posted in this blog (what I have) and I’m hoping its good enough to get me a decent grade.

Interactive Media:

The two things I have left to post on this is my rational and my updated quiz so here it is:

http://fav.me/d2qcoi9

Rational:

I created my quiz with a theme based around comedy. This was because I already know a reasonable amount about comedy and it’s been something I’ve been interested in in all forms for a long time. I purposely chose questions that I feel someone who’s not a big comedy fan wouldn’t necessarily know but someone who is would potentially still ‘get stuck on’ a few.

For the actual question part of my quiz I used reference from the ‘buzz’ game.  This contains a cartoon-based character that asks questions throughout. My character is loosely based on him although I did attempt to make my character as original as possible. My first intention was to have my character move around the screen, pointing to different questions/answers and actually read them out. Also basing on the quiz game ‘Buzz’ I wanted him to be very sarcastic. However, when I really started working on the project I knew I simply wouldn’t have time; for this reason I chose instead to make him ‘mouth’ the question out.

I originally had a totally different theme for my quiz, but after asking opinions I discovered my initial choice felt ‘unoriginal’ which was completely not what I wanted. So I went back and rethought my quiz genre and redrafted my layout.

My answers boxes was taken from the ‘honey comb’ effect in the game ‘who wants to be a millionaire?’ which I very much liked the look of.  Originally my quiz had a lot of animation, this being some text was animated it had a welcoming opening sequence amongst others. After I released an almost ‘beta’ version of my quiz to a few select reviewers it was a consistent belief that the flashy ‘gimmicks’ used in years past to attract people to quizzes just didn’t work anymore and I found that all of my reviewers simply wanted a cleaner sleeker look to the quiz in order to truly appreciate it.

I used basic action script to code my quiz with the majority being the basic quiz we were allocated at the start. I did however look into ways of improving my quiz to include a page that informs the user what they answered correctly and incorrectly. Although I am unsure whether this was the best way to do it I used the variable function as a string in order to create the text ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ I then attached these variables to the answers and then displayed on a text box at a certain slide. Due to the small size of my quiz and low complexity this worked very well and I noticed no slowing/freezing or other effects associated with poor coding so it stayed.

Had I had more time I would vastly overhaul my quiz in order to attain high scores, time based point systems, more questions, randomly selected questions and other features to make it the best it could be. However, this would also require an advanced knowledge of coding so I am happy with what I achieved.

Virtual Environments

The two things I need to post here are a link to my lair video and my rational. Up first my video:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFtDQYhQD68

rational:

In my virtual environments project I created a 3d lair. The theme to this lair was decided on being based on three words: ‘Oriental’ ‘Martial’ ‘Arts’. In order to achieve this I began with a basis of oriental culture; the yin yang symbol. This symbol represents the internal struggle between good and evil which I thought was the perfect representation for a super hero as warfare and fighting although for a good cause could actually be seen as an ‘evil’.

For my reference points I used influence from the ninja gaiden series. I also used Japanese architecture in order to create my buildings, which represented the four ‘rooms’. I felt that keeping my ‘rooms’ as separate buildings added to the oriental theme based around simplicity. I noticed that most Japanese buildings I researched really had very little when it came to possessions within the home (or lair as the case is), I used this in my lair although with more time I would have created slightly more things as I feel some rooms are underrepresented

Each building is joined through the Yin-Yang symbol, which I felt was an important metaphor for the coalition of all parts of life. This is because it connects each building like it would connect each personality of life, and I tried to encompass a super hero’s personality being represented as rooms/buildings.

The first building contains a boxing ring, as boxing is always referred to as an art form I thought this would show the creative side of the hero. However, I noticed once I created it that it would mean I couldn’t realistically fit much else into this room.

The second room is the meditation room; this is the reflective side of the hero’s personality. The posters in each corner are kanji and say aikido, this martial art focuses heavily on the notion of fighting as a defense and counterattack rather than all out attack – This is a key attribute for a hero I think, able to protect the innocent without inciting violence.

The third is set up to resemble a ballet studio, its empty with three ‘punch men’. This is the key exercise sector. I wanted to include more things such as weights, running equipment etc but I found for the first two to three weeks I really struggled with even the basics.

The final room I think is my best work. It’s the piece I did last, and is the ‘normal’ side of the hero. This being the bed, noting rest and the computer that shows technology. I thought a modern hero would need a computer within his ‘arsenal’ of things to combat crime.

I purposely didn’t include guns within my lair, this was because I think it would go totally against the genre I was trying to create and what my fictional hero ‘stood for’. I think the music I chose adds to the general ambience and is oriental themed. Had I had more time I would have included bokkens, sai’s and other martial arts based weaponry.

Well i’ve finished my first draft of my visual essay. Just got to wait for the official verdict as to whether it passes or not.

Here’s the latest version of my Flash quiz, I updated the background images because it was annoying me having a ‘the last question’ with it not doing anything, and online the video doesn’t play but you still see the speech bubble (and have no animated guy!).

If I had more time on this project there’s a ton of things I’d do to improve it mainly adding the users name, adding an online high score list which actually saves/updates and possibly would have the option of e-mailing the previous winner telling them they’d been beaten, adding a system in which you get more points for a faster answer, time limits to answer each question… So you see, there’s a lot I could do with this but unfortunately just to get my 3D lair done in time as well as finishing my visual essay and now my presentation I just don’t have the time.

Anyway, here it is…

Comedy Quiz _Updated_ by ~Rapid26 on deviantART

Well, since the end of the academic year approaches I thought it would be best for me to upload all of my work so far since I read through my blog and noticed I never actually uploaded my quiz.

I’ve been working on this throughout and have only finished it to a standard I am happy with today. This being that until now I haven’t had this part of the brief ‘It must record the user’s answers and at the end of the quiz tell the user their score, which answers were correct/wrong and the option of seeing the correct answers.’ Now however, it does have this and from all the people I’ve spoken to mine is one of the only quiz’s to have it (not to say that loads don’t, but I’m quite proud as it wasn’t an easy thing to accomplish).

Word of warning about the quiz, the final question is supposed to be a video entry.. But since it’s based on a film I have on my mac and not one on the internet it doesn’t show but as soon as I find a place to upload the film and then recode the flash file to read from the net I’ll be set!

Comedy Quiz by ~Rapid26 on deviantART