Medieval Booklet Production Final Session

Session Review

Further editing the green man illustration, I included the subtle animation of his eyes glowing into flash. However, this was a tedious process since I originally planned to convert the three frames into a gif and import to flash’s library. Moreover, the MAC desktop I was using on the campus for some strange reason would not allow me to save the frames for the web and successfully convert them into a gif file.

Creating Green Man animation By Sebastian Jones

In addition, Mantas had finished the illustration of Joan of Arc as instructed and I was impressed by the likeness to the original painting. Once Joan of Arc was painted and imported on to her biography page, both Mantas and I proceeded to make sure every topic page contained information and place every the illustration we created onto their appropriate pages.

To conclude I was pleased with this session mostly due to Mantas being more focused and helpful and our teamwork had improved since while I coloured his illustration, he pasted his information onto the blank pages.

References

Luke Mastin. (13^th April 2012). The Enigma of the Green Man - History of the Green Man. [ONLINE] Available: http://www.greenmanenigma.com/history.html. Last accessed Thursday, 14^th May 2015.

The Green Man. (Thursday, 14^th May 2015). The Green Man in History | The Green Man. [ONLINE] Available: https://thegreenman.wordpress.com/the-green-man-in-history/. Last accessed Thursday, 14^th May 2015.

Medieval Booklet Production Session:11

Session Review

Editing the holy grail graphic

Throughout today's session I have coloured and shaded both William Wallace and the holy grail illustrations; however, this time I have applied a Gaussian blur to both illustrations to give the illusion of them appearing to be water coloured artwork blending into the parchment paper.


By Sebastian Jones

Medieval Booklet Production Session:10

Session Review

Throughout his evening session, I have continued to fill in sections of information for the iconic figures and Robin Hood topic pages. In addition, I have drawn a nice hand-rendered sketch of a medieval market place as the main graphic for my culture page and will look magnificent once scanned and shaded.

Once I returned to University campus I begun to further edit Mantas’s drawings knight sketched fix the anatomy of his legs and feet and position the shield onto his left arm since it looked unusual standing up straight on the ground.

Further advancements to the booklet have been made such as the completion of button navigation and the composition of text and images have been aligned to fit within the confinements of the screen.

References

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/cc/4b/24/cc4b24abb0a9ef9c2f9de9a00c6e7936.jpg

By Sebastian Jones

Medieval Booklet Production Session:9

Session Review

The Lord of the Rings:The Return of the King game menu visual button reference

Throughout this evening session, I have continued t critical review the topic categories in my booklet and have decided to change particular categories such s hierarchy and replace it for religion since describing the religious vie of the period would be a fundamental subject to read. Instead, my paragraph of the hierarchy will be placed in the cultures main page giving a brief overview of medieval culture and how it was structured.

Furthermore, the various homepage buttons have been renamed to contents since this booklet is to give the illusion of being a book. Additionally, The fourth category of Myths and Legends has been renamed to "Folklore" since the word folklore.

I have also thought about the design of the navigational buttons and after observing game menus from Lord of the Rings Conquest have decided to use another bold font for the main categories as the buttons instead of bold blocks.

References

http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/351893-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-return-of-the-king-windows-screenshot.jpg

By Sebastian Jones

Medieval Booklet Production Session:8

Session Review

Comparison of of the old(right) and new(left) page design By Sebastian Jones.

Following on from yesterdays drawing session I am applying more visuals and filing every page of the booklet with information. Furthermore, one of my critics from Friday's session wrote on my review sheet that I should perhaps use a parchment paper texture instead of a painted background.

After browsing the internet I located a parchment texture which added a fine quality to the pages of the booklet. In addition, I will increase the screen resolution in order for the background to fill the stage even when the user viewers the booklet in full screen no quality will be lost.

Furthermore, the book emblem that mantas was edited into a texture instead of an illustration. Additionally, once I tediously moved al of the existing frames down the timeline to make room for the new cover page I was forced to eliminate existing action script codes for it would have been very complicated and be a slower process of cleaning up code.

Chosen booklet parchment texture provided by Textures101

So I edited my flowchart of events and will begin recording the new booklets actions.

References

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/medieval/images/23.jpg

http://textures101.com/view/2609/previous/Plain_Paper/Coffee_Paper

http://www.myfreetextures.com/background-image-parchment-paper/

Lucy Lisa. (1^st May 2015). Black Marble Floor Texture - Home Decorating Ideas: [ONLINE] Available: http://happylizard.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/black-marble-floor-texture.html. Last accessed Tuesday, 5^th May 2015.

  http://www.colour-affects.co.uk/psychological-properties-of-colours

By Sebastian Jones

Medieval Booklet Production Session:7

Session Review

Medieval typography visual reference

After receiving critical feedback on my current booklet design I agree on the feedback that I received stating I needed to make the booklets design more engaging and visual appealing. This is also common knowledge to me since I have tried giving my teammate Mantas a chance at contributing a sufficient amount of artwork; however, the rate at which he draws is poor and the quality of drawings is either unfinished or poor so I have made the decision to stop relying on him and create the remaining artwork myself.

To begin with, I have begun exploring medieval typography by browsing through old books such as(...) and on the internet. In addition, I have measured the reference image and the square measures at 2 centimetres for width and height.

The reason for me designing creative text for my booklet is in order for me to use artwork and appealing colours to capture the viewer's interest on each page.

References

Time Ref.com. (24 April 2015). TimeRef - Medieval and Middle Ages History Timelines - Medieval History:. [ONLINE] Available: http://http://www.timeref.com/people/people_index.htm. Last accessed Sunday, 3 May 2015.

Dieter Steffmann. (Sunday, 3 May 2015). Old London Font. [ONLINE] Available: http://www.dafont.com/old-london.font. Last accessed Sunday, 3 May 2015. 

Division of Rare & Manuscript Collections. (23 June 2003). Evolution of the Medieval Book. [ONLINE] Available: http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/medievalbook/intro.htm. Last accessed Sunday, 3 May 2015.

By Sebastian Jones

Medieval Booklet Production Session:6

Tuesday 28th April 2015

Session Review

During today's session, I have taken one of Mantas sketches the Knight drawing and applied some shading to it to replicate the style of illustration seen in the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 motion graphic opening. In addition, I spoke to a fellow classmate named James who previously undertook this module and he talked in depth about his concept and finished product, I proceeded to ask him on what resolution size he used for his informatic booklet.

James had informed me by commenting that he used a resolution of 800 pixels wide and 699 pixels in height. I then proceeded to apply the same resolution settings and now the stage(screen) was large enough for me to fix the composition of text and images and finally the booklet started to visually look like the medieval codex's I used as image references in my mood board, especially with a darker shade of brown which was made to create the illusion on of stained pages.

By Sebastian Jones

Medieval Booklet Drawing Quality

Sunday 26th April 2015

Session Review

During Friday's session, I informed Mantas that the lesson was still running despite the fact that our lecturer had cancelled it due to illness. The reason for this was to force him to meet me and show me what he drew for the booklet and scan the images I felt were worthy enough o be placed inside the interactive booklet.

Robin Hood By Mantas Ratkevičius

A few of the sketches he drew such as the knight and castle were basic but with additional detail could be made to look of high quality. I personally want the drawings to match the style of the Castlevania:Lord of Shadow 2 motion graphic opening and that of artwork in the medieval ages. After observing the opening sequence I concluded that a similar style could be achieved in my booklet by digitizing hand-drawn animations in Adobe Photoshop to apply the appropriate shading to the animation sequences and mimic a similar visage to the Lords of Shadow 2 opening;however my teammate Mantas needs to start drawing more animations and sketches and since I have submitted a large amount of work by creating the basic navigation and information I feel somewhat cheated by a handful of drawings Mantas has produced during the entire production.

 References

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uNaYFO01uk

By Sebastian Jones

Medieval Booklet Production Session:5

Wednesday 22nd April 2015

Session Review

During today's session having successfully backed up all of the booklets production files in my email, new USB stick and with my other teammate Mantas. Today I began to fill in basic information on a few of the empty pages such as becoming a knight, hierarchy and structuring the layout for iconic figures,

However, the existing images Mantas has drawn for the production must be scanned university instead of using the photographs he has taken with his mobile phone. The reason why the scanner is needed is in order for me to possess high-quality images while colouring and shading them in adobe photoshop and so the viewer can see appealing graphics on the screen.

References

http://www.medievalplus.com/medieval-history/

http://www.knightsandarmor.com/history.htm

http://www.ducksters.com/history/middle_ages_guilds.php

By Sebastian Jones

Data Loss and Recovery

Tuesday 21st April 2015

Session Review

Previously last week Friday I had lost my USB stick containing almost all of my university, college and personal projects; however, thankfully my university files were scattered around and saved on multiple MAC computers in the Digital Arts Centre. So my first action before purchasing my new USB stick was to compress all of my animation folders and store them in my email account which was a wise course of action.

Also my personal work was saved on my home desktop and as for the college work that is missing which is my 3d models and animations I have contacted a friend who is still attending south Birmingham college and will transfer my l still left on my college computer to my email; furthermore, this threat was detailed in SWOT analysis and thankfully I took the right course of action.

Overall at this point despite it being a slap in the face I am used to this cycle of losing my past work which it seems once I finish once set of education the work is submitted but the majority of work I possess is discarded leaving me only with wok that strangely seems to be useful later on for future projects and this is evidence in my university and personal projects since it forces me to work harder and the steps I undertook in creating that work is relived in my mind's eye.


By Sebastian Jones

Medieval Booklet Production Session:4

Friday 17th April 2015

Session Review

Following on from the last session, I presented my latest booklet file to my lecturer and she gave both my teammate Mantas and useful feedback commentating that she had an issue with the linear navigation of pages; however, I strongly defended my idea although her feedback was relevant and useful.

By Sebastian Jones

Medieval Booklet Production Session:3

`Friday 10th April 2015

Session Review

Following on from the previous session, I have begun to create a new flow chart featuring the new subcategory pages I would be including. This is useful, since working in a linear step by step fashion during each page's creation was clear enough for me to follow and enabled me to precisely keep track of what I was working on and the actions that needed to take place.

However, despite me following a structured and simple workflow, repeating the process of creating nw button and fitting it to a section in the timeline became so linear and tedious I had to take a well-deserved break and occupy my consciousness to something else.

Once rested, I returned to the tedious task of creating each page and I soon completed the main category pages; nevertheless, I realized if I was to inform the audience and display detailed information for each subcategory I would need to create an additional sixteen ages in other words I would possibly need to create additional subcategory pages of the existing subcategory pages.

Later during the session, I came across some intriguing information and hilarious doodles drawn by medieval monks. I then proceeded to draw using flash's paintbrush simple vector illustrations in order for me to plan what images to draw for each page and where to place.

References

Aberdeen Bestiary. (2011). The Medieval Bestiary. Available: http://bestiary.ca/. Last accessed 10th April 2015.

Vincze Miklós. (2013). Bizarre and vulgar illustrations from illuminated medieval manuscripts. Available: http://io9.com/bizarre-and-vulgar-illustrations-from-illuminated-medie-1456202572. Last accessed 10th April 2015.

The University of Nottingham. (2011). Manuscripts and Special Collections. Available: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/researchguidance/medievaldocuments/introduction.aspx. Last accessed 10th April 2015.

The University of Nottingham. (2015). Manuscripts and Special Collections. Available: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/researchguidance/medievaldocuments/languages.aspx. Last accessed 10th April 2015.

BBC. (2014). BBC - KS3 Bitesize History - Everyday life in the Middle Ages : Revision:. Available: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks3/history/middle_ages/everyday_life_middle_ages/revision/1/. Last accessed 10th April 2015.

Steven Till. (2009). Heraldry in the Middle Ages. Available: http://steventill.com/2008/07/19/heraldry-in-the-middle-ages/. Last accessed 10th April 2015

By Sebastian Jones

Medieval Booklet Production Session:2

Wednesday 1st April 2015

Session Review

Continuing my first attempt at creating a button that can navigate to different scenes,...

After searching through numerous other online tutorials on linking scenes, I decided to use what I learned from the first tutorial I discovered and simply experiment and play around with action script.

From what I created on frame one when I click the button it jumps to frame five and displays a green circle a placed on frame six. I then began to create two buttons name Culture and Knights and once applying the appropriate action script code to both buttons they jumped to frame five displaying the culture page and then the second button displayed the knight's page on frame ten. For extra work I applied a home page button on the culture page; however, the home page button on the knight's page won't seem to return to the first frame displaying the homepage.

Nevertheless, I managed to simply solve this small issue by repeating the code I applied to the first homepage button.


By Sebastian Jones

Medieval Booklet Production Session:1

Saturday  28th February 2015

Session Review

To begin the production of the booklet, I have attempted to create a prototype version of the booklet and trying to understand the logic of creating a button and making it go to a new scene. During the tutorial I noticed that there was a feature that the user in the tutorial had that I did not possess so i saved what I created and must now return to the university campus in order to use Adobe Flash CC and create a working button that can take me to another scene.



By Sebastian Jones

Week Eight: Flash Tweening Tutorial

Friday 20th February 2015

Session Review

During today's class tutorials, the class and I were presented with another tutorial this time detailing the creation and manipulation of motion tween's in adobe flash. I had arrived slightly late to the lesson due to a meeting earlier in the morning; however, I managed to basically understand the mechanics of applying a motion tween to a graphic on screen since I was able to create motion tween's previously for past projects.

By Sebastian Jones

Week Seven: Booklet Tutorial Session

Session Review

During today's class session the class and I engaged with another tutorial. In particular this tutorial instructed us in creating an interactive booklet used action script. My prior experiance in college using action script was useful in understandign the code logic and interface.

However, it was challenging to understand and remember the steps in creating a button that navigated through various points in the timeline.



By Sebastian Jones

Concept Presentaation Session 1

Thursday  5th Mach 2015

Session Review

Today I am editing the concept presentation template that my lecturer Ree Han has given me; Furthermore, I have taken a brief look at the ideas that I had generated on my scrap sheet of a4 paper and have come to the conclusion that discussing European history will be universally accepted and less controversial.

As I edited and included additional slides to the template such as a mood board, I also began the creation of my colour palette and chose some of the primary colours for the medieval sheets of stained paper.

By Sebastian Jones