Friday 30 April 2010

Apple V's Flash getting serious

This post from Steve Jobs made it clear to me that I won't be developing apps for ipad with Flash

Thoughts on Flash

Bernard

Wednesday 28 April 2010

CSS

The advantages to using CSS include:

That once set up it saves an enormous amount of time.

It means that, especially on a large site, the template can be designed so that there is no need to redo the styles for every page.

When page styles need to be edited or even just experimented with, various options can be tested very quickly.

With CSS templates site style and layout elements can be altered according to the template's capacity/design. It doesn't change the information content.

By customising the CSS all the design elements and layout of a site can be altered. It doesn't change the information content.

Accessibility is important because it enables people who have disabilities, particularly with sight to modify the information so that they can access it.

I customised the CSS on links within this site.

A good reference for CSS can be found at:

http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp

Tuesday 20 April 2010

Overview of assignment 1

Okay so this is the wrap up for the first assignment:

Blog:

http://stepstoanimation.blogspot.com/

Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernsul

Blog post about flickr:

http://stepstoanimation.blogspot.com/2010/04/delicious.html

Delicious:

http://delicious.com/bernardsullivan

my post about delicious on my blog:

http://stepstoanimation.blogspot.com/2010/04/delicious.html

I wanted to use the blog and the other sites we were asked to prepare so that they continue to be useful to me in "real life" - not just for the assignment. I couldn't get into the assignment for the assignment's sake. Taking this approach I have taken my interests and tried to depict and develop them over the length of the assignment task.

BLOG - 18 posts

I have had a blog before, but I felt this was a good opportunity to start again. Previously I was using my blog as a diary site without any expectation or wish for an audience. Now I am beginning to get a feel for the distinction between personal/private life and a professional/public profile that a blog is an important part of, and I am beginning to think of my blog in those terms. I have made a number of posts in my blog. I put up some video links to animators whose work I admire. After my initial enthusiasm for this I realised that there may be bandwidth problems, and from now on I will focus more on links only to external videos which seems more polite.

I have made a couple of posts about blogger. One was about discovering blogger in draft which allows for easy though still limited customisation of blogger blogs. Subsequently I refined the look of my blog with it. The post related to that is here.

http://stepstoanimation.blogspot.com/2010/03/better-template-support-for-blogger.html

I know in wordpress it is possible to customise the code for a blog a lot, but I have never been able to work out how to do it to any great extent, in Wordpress, or in Blogger. So I am looking forward to learning more about this later. In blogger in draft mode I did discover the page for editing the code for my blogger site. It is a little complex and not a lot of straight html involved.

I have also made a post in relation to flash and ipad which I think is relevant for this course - to me anyway:

http://stepstoanimation.blogspot.com/2010/04/ipad-flash-and-interactive-books.html

I have made a post in my blog to some of my favourite sites:

http://stepstoanimation.blogspot.com/2010/04/if-i-was-to-talk-about-my-favourite.html

I have also made a number of posts regarding flickr images that I have posted on my site. Which I have linked to below:

Some examples of links and images that I have placed on my blog from flickr are:

http://stepstoanimation.blogspot.com/2010/04/photos-from-colombia.html

http://stepstoanimation.blogspot.com/2010/04/venice-shop-windows.html

http://stepstoanimation.blogspot.com/2010/04/india1.html


I have made links to people's blogs including as listed below. The blogs are interesting - the comments are not so much.

http://beckygsmpiclassblog2010.blogspot.com/2010/03/week-3-posting.html

http://mymel-odrama.blogspot.com/2009/01/beginning.html

http://nicholas-davlouros.blogspot.com/2010/04/tagging-pages.html

http://benwotton.blogspot.com/2010/03/walk-cycle-update.html


FLICKR - 54 items

My flickr site is at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernsul

My blog post on flickr is at:

http://stepstoanimation.blogspot.com/2010/04/flickr.html

This is an edited version of that post:

I have found flickr good to use. I haven't used it before for my images. I have just come back from some years overseas. Beginning to organise some of the photos has been kind of therapeutic.

I have noticed some features which are useful on top of the obvious. One in particular I think I will use is posting directly to blog.
I like the idea of placing things in sets. I tend to think this way and it will help me show the images in a positive way. I am beginning to work out how to make blogger and flickr work together and I am looking forward to developing this as time goes by. I can see how flickr will become a professional promotion tool.

DELICIOUS - 58 bookmarks

My delicious site is at:

http://delicious.com/bernardsullivan

I have book listed all the student mpi101 blogs that I could find. I got 32 counting my own blog and the main course blog.

http://delicious.com/bernardsullivan/mpi104_2010

Here is a link to my post on delicious on my blog:

http://stepstoanimation.blogspot.com/2010/04/delicious.html

This is the text to the blog posting:

I am taking the task of building up my bookmarks in delicious seriously. In the past I have just had a huge jumbled list on my browser and this seems to be much better as I may actually be able to find stuff in the future because of the tagging system. I think it will be particularly relevant for listing tutorial sites and examples of animation and illustration that I admire.

Other sites that use folksonomy include:

http://digg.com/

http://www.stumbleupon.com/

http://www.propeller.com/

http://www.reddit.com/

Here is my bookmark for a few favourite/ most visited sites. Some comments are in the delicious description:

http://delicious.com/bernardsullivan/favourite_sites

Here is my blog post on the favourite sites:

http://stepstoanimation.blogspot.com/2010/04/if-i-was-to-talk-about-my-favourite.html

I have used tags for delicious and for my blog primarily based on my areas of interest. I look for tags that I will use more than once but not so often that they form too big a group to be useful. I think of it as a filing system. I also try and not have similar words so that tag lists are not split up in an arbitary way, and so difficult to find.

Saturday 17 April 2010

flickr

My flickr site is at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernsul

Some examples of links and images that I have placed on my blog from flickr are:

http://stepstoanimation.blogspot.com/2010/04/photos-from-colombia.html

http://stepstoanimation.blogspot.com/2010/04/venice-shop-windows.html

http://stepstoanimation.blogspot.com/2010/04/india1.html

I have found flickr good to use. I haven't used it before for my images. I have just come back from some years overseas. Beginning to organise some of the photos I have taken is kind of therapeutic. I noticed some features which are useful on top of the obvious. One in particular I think I will use is posting directly to blog. I like the idea of placing things in sets. I tend to think this way and it will help me show the images in a positive way. I am beginning to work out how to make blogger and flickr work together and I am looking forward to developing this as time goes by.
Bernard

Delicious

I am taking the task of building up my bookmarks in delicious seriously. In the past I have just had a huge jumbled list on my browser and this seems to be much better as I may actually be able to find stuff in the future because of the tagging system. I think it will be particularly relevant for listing tutorial sites and examples of animation and illustration that I admire.

Here is a link to my delicious account:

http://delicious.com/bernardsullivan

three favourite sites?

Depends on my mood, but If I was to talk about my favourite sites as sites I enjoy the most and go to most often, I would have to say video based sites are at the top of the list.

These include:
vimeo
youtube
wwwatch
and even the ABC

If I had never lived outside Australia I would have a different list. This is because in other places I have lived, including South America and Eastern Europe, there are few restrictions on downloads and it is possible to watch video on the internet without going broke.

I find that these sites constantly give me inspiration, particularly for animation. I don't know how I would have understood animation if I hadn't found these sites. I am sure it has opened up amazing possibilities of what can be done.

I am certain that if and when broadband in Australia is sorted out people will change the way they use the internet and video will be a big part of this. It is a crime it hasn't been done already.

http://delicious.com/bernardsullivan/favourite_sites


Bernard

ipad, flash and interactive books

footnotes-of-a-hammock
I have been watching what has been happening with apple and Adobe in relation to the launch of the ipad and CS5. I was hoping that they would get it together and flash would be made available to seriously create applications for the ipad and iphone. It hasn't happened. Apple have more or less banned flash from them. This seems to be because of how power hungry flash is - so that it overloads the phone or the ipad operating system.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/apr/09/apple-adobe-flash-developer-row

I am particularly interested in this because I have a background as a book designer, see example above, and one reason I am back at uni is because I presumed it was probably a 20th century profession that will fade away and I better move along a little. ipads in particular and other digital tablets in general do seem to offer the possibility of a new and revitalised form of book reading and I think this could be interesting for people with my background. So I am thinking about what I would need to design ipad apps. I was looking for a way around learning some serious code, but that doesn't seem likely for some time now.
Bernard

Friday 16 April 2010

Photos from Colombia


Red Rooster, originally uploaded by bernsul.

This set of photos is from my time in Colombia. I have more photos I will put up later. Colombia is underestimated. It is a very beautiful and dynamic place.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernsul/sets/72157623868680610/detail/

India - Beside the Road


india1, originally uploaded by bernsul.

I have taken video and photographs from moving vehicles all over the world. I call the general framework for thinking and recording images when I am doing this "Beside the Road". Part of the challenge of course is to take photos from a moving vehicle that are still clear and interesting, and in the case of India, on a bumpy road in a rusty old car.



http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernsul/sets/72157623868539326/detail/

Venice shop windows


venicewindow08, originally uploaded by bernsul.

I've been putting up and organising my favourite photos that I have taken over the last few years. This series is of shop windows in Venice which I took on a trip there last year. I have some video of similar material which I will put up on vimeo sometime. I like Venice of course, and I have always been fascinated by shop windows.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernsul/sets/72157623868456466/detail/

Sylvain Chomet

This is from the guy who animated The Triplets of Belleville.



And here is theamazing smooth old style animation that begins the movie. It changes to a different very unique style after this.



He has a new movie called The Illusionist. I can find trailers and interviews about it in every language but English. Here is the Russian trailer. Looks amazing.



Bernard

Bill Plympton

This interview with Bill Plympton is kind of wild - with AlJazeera. I am amazed by Bill Plympton's productivity. He does a feature length animation every three years, doing all the drawing, with a very small support team.



These pencil tests helped me get an understanding of his process





There is also a live web cam of Bill Plympton drawing at his desk. We live in a different time zone of course.

http://www.plymptoons.com/anicam/anicam.html

Joanna Quinn

Over the last week or two I have been looking around on the web for inspiration on how to do my next animation project. I have been making quite a few bookmarks in different places and I thought it might be good to place them all on the blog and share them with anyone who is interested. I will focus on putting up interviews with 2d animators talking about how they work.

This is from the British animator Joanna Quinn. I like her drawing style, her wicked humour, and the ways she captures a particular angle of English working class life.



And here is an example of her work which includes the finished animation of the preliminary drawing she is doing in the video above. Lots more on You Tube.



Bernard