Class Reflection - Last Call!

     So, seventeen weeks are coming to a close. This will be my last "official" blog entry required for my Fundamentals of Digital Media class. Who knows, the blog could still live on in one form or another. Eighteen weeks ago I didn't even know how to create a blog. This class has taught an old dog (me!) a few new tricks since that time. Building a blog, creating a music clip, mashing a video, building a grid, painting with pixels; I have learned a lot in these seventeen weeks. One of the biggest eye-openers for me was learning about all of the different websites and online applications available for creating digital media and art. From Animoto, Soundation, Pixlr Express, Google Drive, Tagxedo, 123D Catch, to Wix; I did not know these websites even existed before this class. Knowing about these websites and other similar ones will help me as I complete my courses at UT. My major will be a mix of art, marketing, and web based media, so everything that I have learned in the Digital Media class has definitely set a solid foundation for me. Some new concepts that I have learned about are megapixel, resolution, MP3's, generative art, and cloud computing. This knowledge has helped me understand the mechanics and building blocks of the digital realm.

     I firmly believe that the web and mobile technology are the future. Smart phones are not going away. They will just change shape (wristwatches and glasses) or get smaller. Have you seen the "eyePhone" from Futurama? What will drive the visual communication, advertising, and backyard wrestling videos for these devices? Digital art and media! What I have started with this class will carry me on to my next set of classes. Building art (JPG and PNG) files and sound (MP3) files, video mashups, building a website; I will use these skills as I take on Flash Web Animation, and Internet Design and Publishing next semester. Eventually these skills will add to my marketing and communication classes in the future. What my humble beer blog is today, may become a network of blogs down the road. With the finish of this class, other possibilities will begin. It will be interesting to see what the future has in store for the digital world and me. Until next time...

123D Catch Model Project

This week I built a 3D image of a gargoyle statue using my iPhone and an app called 123D Catch. I used the iPhone to capture 40 pictures in small increments around the statue, and then the app stitched the 3D image using all of the 2D pictures. The 3D gargoyle is represented as a mesh on an X, Y, Z grid. Impressive software! I used a PC to manually stitch some of the photos into the 3D matrix, and changed the resolution of my mesh to a standard setting. After I uploaded it to the 123D Catch website, I did some minor adjustments to the mesh, and posted it on my blog. Sorry, no beer related items this week! Beer bottles are too shiny!

Word Cloud Project

My final image for this week is one based on, yep you guessed it, beer! This time I took an image and converted it into Word Clouds (or Tag Clouds) using an online app called Tagxedo. I used the same image that I used for the ASCII artwork. I wanted to see what kind of results I would get using the same image for two completely different processes. Again, I did a little tweaking on the image to make sure the contrast was right when I imported it into Tagxedo for my shape. I used the word 'beer', and the letters B, E, and R for the text. I pretty much played around with the settings until I got an image I felt looked well composed. I really like how the word 'BEER' is positioned on the glass, and it gives a good focal point. The colors were based on the color of beer, so the image fits pretty well on my blog.

ASCII Art Project Part Two

My next image I took while on vacation at a Jellystone Campground in Colorado a while back. I used an online website called text-image.com, and converted the image into three different types of text based art - HTML, ASCII, and Matrix. For the HTML, I used Yogi Bear for the text, and I like how the space gets rendered into the image. It breaks up the text, and creates some interesting breaks. The green ASCII image turned out all right. I chose green to keep it related to the other images, but it is lighter than I like. Then there is the Matrix image... what can I say, it's the Matrix, so it looks cool!

ASCII Art Project

This week I made an image using GlassGiant.com's ASCII Art generator. It is an online app that converts regular images (b&w, colored) into text based artwork from the ASCII set of characters. Due to popular demand, I kept to my blog, and chose an image that I used earlier of a beer bottle and glass. I tweaked the image a bit to get a nice contrast before converting it. I played with the font size and character width, and judged each one until I liked the results. The final image was picked based on how the number and composition of characters were arranged together. I think it turned out pretty good.

Flame App Project

Lots of illustrations this week! The last part of this weeks assignment was to use an online application called Flame to illustrate two images that convey some sort of emotion. Anxiety! Agitation! I sure felt them on this one!

I like Flame. It is a neat little app that can do a lot of cool things. I just had a hard time thinking of something to illustrate. Playing around with the settings and such did not result in any spontaneous images worthy of the save command. My first image came from using the speed and focus functions in Flame. I liked how I was getting squiggly lines, and thought of agitation or anxiety (maybe mine!) Also, I liked the idea of having two separate elements fighting for your attention. So my first image is of two separate elements either agitating each other or being agitated at the thought of being separated (we will never know!). I needed a more concrete idea for my second image, and it came to me while I was waiting for my son to get out of football practice. There was a bare tree standing in front of my parked car, and I thought of using that image for my next scribble. I like how easy it is to make quick fluid strokes in Flame, so I sketched the tree and had the leaves get blown off in a great sweeping motion. I also like the idea of that last leaf hanging on for dear life as the others get swept away! To me that would be very... agitating. :)

Scribbler Too Project

For the second part of this weeks assignment I had to illustrate two more pictures using Scribbler Too, Scribbler's bigger brother. This online application has more features than the original, including a save function - which came in very handy!

I found Scribbler Too to be very intuitive, and again enjoyed playing around with it. For my first scribble I used a photo of a pumpkin (staying with that Halloween theme) and traced the image using orange, brown, and black colors. I kept it simple and stylized. For the second image, I needed to draw something with volume. It took some thought, and I have to admit I went out on a tangent, but nothing screams volume like a voluminous hippopotamus! I sketched a bulky hippo using various purples, and let Scribbler Too fill in the areas. I have to say I am quite pleased with the end result!

As far as a connection to the beer blog is concerned, I got nuttin'.