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'.

Scribbler One Project

This week part of my assignment was to draw two images using Scribbler, a free online application that generates digital art from my simple illustrations. The software uses math to compose lines, composition, and colors based on the settings that I input. This is called generative art.

I really enjoyed Scribbler. It was fun learning and playing around with the settings to get the results that I wanted. For my first image I chose a skull, because I wanted something that would visually catch your attention. Also, it is very seasonal with Halloween coming up next week. I used mainly blacks and reds to make the picture dramatic. I had to think a bit for the second image, but thought that the skull represents death, so I scribbled a flower to represent life (deep, huh). This image I used mainly greens, and tossed in a little red to have it relate to the skull image.

And to keep things related to my beer blog, in between life and death, there is beer! Salute!

Becher Grid Project

This week's assignment is based on typologies, or the study of types. I had to create a Becher Grid, with similar looking items. I had several choices when it came down to making my Becher Grid, but I drew inspiration (once again!) from my blog, and chose beer bottle caps. Also, for the fact that my son had a collection of bottle caps from when he was in his bottle-cap-collecting-days back some time ago. I swear, I only bought a couple of beers to help complete this assignment!

This time around I used my digital camera. It's not as megapixel friendly as my iPhone, but it fits really nice with a tripod. Lighting was my biggest issue. I was fighting between getting too much shadow, and having too many highlights from the light source. I used marker paper to diffuse the light, but in some images the spotting may still be too much. I built the grid with photographs of 16 bottle caps, cropped and arranged in formation utilizing Adobe Photoshop. I used the image's histogram, and the levels function to help improve the color and tone of each image.

I've got mixed feelings on this one. On one hand, the material is easy to understand. On the other, it was difficult for me to execute. As far as a finished piece, it does look like a grid with similar but different looking bottle caps. Although, I was hoping that the bent bottle caps would be enough to distinguish them from the straight bottle caps and make the grid visually pop. Not sure if I accomplished that…

Google Slides Project

This is a Google Slides presentation of a Day in the Life of yours truly. Google Slides is a PowerPoint type of application delivered through Google Drive, Google's Cloud. I based my presentation from a playbook. Yes, my life is a simple play, and pretty much runs a similar formation everyday (except for weekends!). In my Slides I present first person pictures of my hands while I utilize them. There are over 20 pictures of me doing my daily routine from morning until night. Along with the pictures I added commentary of the action. Who did I enlist to give this commentary? You'll have to check it out! Hint: The commentators are very hands on themselves!

Video Mashup Project

 DISCLAIMER: Please drink responsibly, or get punched in the face by a chicken!

At first, I was thinking of making a video mashup of my kids playing sports. I have a lot of home video of them playing football and hockey. Then I was introduced to Archive.org. This website opened up a bunch of possibilities. I thought of a couple of different ideas right away, but decided on making a video mashup that reflected my blog. Plus, doing a search for "beer" resulted in a lot of material. I looked through a variety of videos, and found some really striking clips (hopefully, they will stand out), and used them to base my video around. The clips I found relating to beer, consisted mainly of vintage black & white movies, and cartoons (why is that??). I primarily used my song that I created using Soundation, and built the video to move along with it. I created my video mashup using my Macbook Pro and iMovie HD. It's a little dated, but it got the job done. I liked it because it functioned very similar to Soundation. I edited the clips to move and change with the song. I wanted the video mashup to be fun and infectious, albeit a low-brow homage to beer, beer drinking, and merry-making. I believe I was successful with this video. The movement of the different clips flow pretty well with the music, and the transitions hit the beats as close as I can make them. The overall theme is apparent right to the end, which is the only possible outcome when drinking and merry-making get out of hand (see my disclaimer).

If I could change anything it would be to add smoother transitions between the clips in the video. The music itself is fast paced and quick moving, so I did not use the built-in video transitions in order to keep the video in sync with the beat of the music. I think adding more of the smoother transitions to the mashup would have given the music and video better synergy. Also, I'm not too keen on the singing pig part, but I wanted to keep it nutty (because nutty = good). ;)

The most difficult part about completing this assignment is completing this assignment! I can't stop tinkering with it! What you see here on my blog is the seventh or eighth rendition of the video mashup. I kept on wanting to rearrange a scene, or fix a transition. Also, it was difficult to match up the video clips with the music, and to get the transitions to hit just right. I found if I added a built-in video transition it threw the video off from the music and I had to fix it (again). It became tedious.

Even though this project was very meaty, and I spent way too much time "perfecting" my video, I had a lot of fun, and I learned a lot. For years I've had iMovie on my laptop, and never once looked at it. Now I feel I can create a whole movie! It took some time at first going through the tools of iMovie but once I read the manual, I was able to use iMovie very effectively.

Soundation Music Project

Here is my contribution to the world of music. May God have mercy on my soul. My song was created using Soundation. Given the magnitude of variety, and endless possibilities of Soundation, I found this exercise to be very daunting. I felt that I couldn't spend too much time exploring Soundation while the deadline of finishing the assignment on time was hanging over me. So after some experimenting, I picked a couple of riffs that I liked, and added a beat, and just stayed the course with the goal of completing this song in a pleasing matter. My song has a mix of Synthesizer, bongos, with a touch of cowbell. Because every great piece of music has more cowbell in it…

I'm quite pleased with the finished result. :)

Animoto Video Project

I wanted my video to be inspirational. I used the Rustic setting in Animoto for the video. I felt the setting was down to earth, and framed the Urban Landscape images very nicely. Playing along side it is the song "American Baby" from the Dave Matthews Band. The song's intro is very dramatic and upbeat. I wrote the captions for each photo to be part pun, but also to compliment the visual message of the image. Together the Rustic setting, music, images, and captions help create a video I hope will motivate someone to be better, try harder, dream further or just be happy being themselves. All that in 30 seconds!

Urban Landscape Project

IMG_0562_Edited, a photo by billdelo3 on Flickr.

I took my iPhone 4S in hand and started my research for the beer blog. I traveled all over Downtown Toledo searching far and wide, taking pictures of urban landscapes that coincidentally needed to be taken for a "side project". I ended up in Sylvania, and I captured this image of the railroad tracks off Monroe near Main Street. The picture is 2448 x 3264 pixels in size. When I multiply both these numbers I get 7,990,272 pixels. That's a lot of pixels! My iPhone 4S is listed as an 8 megapixel device, so I can either sue Apple for the remaining 9,728 pixels or I can round that number up to 8,000,000. I feel assured that my camera was set to the full 8 megapixel resolution since 8 megapixels is 8 million. This also means that there was no interpolation of pixels and I didn't get any "invented" pixels shoved in there to make it look like an 8 megapixel image.

I have to admit that even though the picture is interesting, it's just an image of some railroad tracks. So when I imported this photo into Pixlr Express (a little secret I just learned about), I cranked up the contrast to make all those rich textures jump out at you. I then applied an effect from the "Too Old" series to make it a black & white image with just a touch of light blue. This light blue gives the image a cooler temperature effect. As interesting as the image was becoming, it still lacked some color. So I applied a few overlays - Dreamscape and Spiderweb - to give it that splash of color. After that, I knew it needed a caption, but what? I finally came up with "Destination Unknown" and set it in the Impact Label type font. I think the final result is one that evokes a feeling of an endless journey, but hope is waiting out there past the horizon. Like that elusive brew I need to find, so I can write a post that actually reflects the blog topic…;)