Project Log on MA Digital Arts

One woman really liked my work. She sat on the floor for a long time and watched my animation several times. She said that she liked the drawings in animation and the cat-face-shaped moon on my maps.

The last woman to visit my work after shutting down asked various things about my work. She could speak Japanese and I enjoyed conversation with her. She said it seemed to be interesting that I intended to put the selection of several languages of my course mates in my animation. She also recommended “The Cat Returns” by Studio Ghibli. Of course I know the animation, but I have not seen it because not Hayao Miyazaki but Hiroyuki Morita directed the animation. However, I shall see the film.

I could not set mouse moving of game-pad on the Mac until the private view, so I used my laptop again. However, the mouse operation by game-pad is quite difficult. In addition, I could set mouse moving and click of it on my laptop, but I could not set arrow keys. Therefore, I had to instruct how to play and tell viewers using arrow keys on my laptop, so I had to stay at my work all the time and could not see others’ works.

I decided to use both mouse and game-pad on the Mac and set up those in the morning asking Sharon about Mac. I instructed my work until lunch. Using mouse and game-pad was better than using only game-pad that could not use arrow keys.

I amended my animation last night so that viewers can go from the laboratory and space or sea to the “Go back home” scene because I had not edited the images of “Autumn Field” and “Winter Forest” and those scene were just blinking maps and subscripts of the story.

This length of animation was quite good because viewers enjoyed my animation thoroughly and what I would like to convey the most is just the ending (“Go back home” scene).

Since few people came, I went to lunch and I met Dayoung and Katrin in the corridor.
I came to switch the room for invigilation from studio to IT room on Friday.

I edited “Autumn Field” during the day and returned to instruct my work in the evening. My work was not played and appeared blue screen of projector. I realised I had to create the navigation of how to play the animation.

I also realised:
1) I had to change “Which will you choose?” into “Which will you choose first?” because if the former version, viewers only see the space scene riding the owl-shaped aircraft or the sea scene riding the dolphin-shaped submarine, but I would like to show both scene

2) I had to amend the explanation for game-pad actions because viewers understood to press 1, 2, 3, 4 buttons, but most viewers did not understand to press arrow keys

3) I had to make the buttons of turning a page bigger and the mouse pointer of a paw image smaller because it seemed to be difficult to click, but the reaction of the Mac seemed to be bad compared with my laptop

4) I had to adjust the area where players can move the mouse pointer of the paw image because of the same reason as 3

I amended the above points and edited “Winter Forest” scene in the night.

I updated my animation in the morning. However, it worked well on my Windows, but it worked strangely on the Mac, so I could not have curators see my work. I had another strange problem yesterday, but when I re-exported the SWF file and restarted the Mac, it recovered.

However, today could not. Andy said that it was Flash problem.

However, when the Mac itself worked strangely, I asked Moshe and he shut down and restarted it, so the strange movement recovered.

I checked the animation thoroughly and it was ok, but when viewers played, he could see the sea scene only not the space scene. I learnt that when looping, action script does not initialise at the beginning, so I had to initialise the selection of owl or dolphin just before the selection.

After amending it, I went to IT room to create the navigation of my interactive animation until my invigilation 13.30. I completed it just 13.30, so I returned our studio area quickly.

Although my invigilation was from 13.30 to 20.00, I did not have lunch on the day, so I asked another invigilator Ryo that I would go to buy something to drink and snacks. I was afraid that Andy, Moshe and Katrin who were at the lobby might have thought I ran away from my invigilation.

A man delighted that large screens in the corridors were from his company. He liked the “Flower Road” scene with game-pad actions and asked me how he could return to the scene. I realised that I did not prepare back buttons.

I was happy that school children (quite big) said, “lovely” and all of them took my personal cards with them.

Some viewers pressed the right button of the mouse and when they could not play well and when dialogues appeared, they got away before I explain. I wrote not “Right click” but just “Click” in the navigation sheet. However, most people did not read it very much, so I just needed a one-button mouse for some people especially small children to play my animation comfortably.

I needed the two-button mouse as well to do right click and select “Open with” to open flash player. However, I did not know where an extra one-button mouse was.

We needed to move the mouse for Jessica’s work on Windows per around 10 minutes, otherwise we had to put password and log in again. I thought that it was good I could not install a new flash player on a Windows computer because it was troublesome for invigilators if I had used a Windows.

Moshe said if I could invigilate the IT room from 5pm because Dayoung had been doing there since yesterday and she would be able to go home today. Since I needed to talk with her about tomorrow’s invigilation of IT room, I went to Dayoung at around 15.30.

When Dayoung went home, she said, “You save my life”. How hard work she had done! Thanks a lot.

Invigilation of IT room was great. When I instructed Dayoung’s work, viewers asked, “It’s your work?” because I look like a Korean. I replied “No, my work is downstairs”, so they talked me a lot of feedback about my work because all of them visited downstairs first.

Also, Dayoung’s work and sound work in pillows were easy to be instructed and viewers’ reactions were interesting.

I really admired Moshe. He sometimes came to see if everything is ok. It was reassuring in the alone IT room.

I updated minor changes such as misses of script, timeline, and movie clip in the morning. Although I also updated “Autumn Field” and “Winter Forest” scene files, “Autumn Field” file did not work on flash player of Mac, I kept the skip of the two scenes.

I did invigilation from 10.00 to 13.30 at studio area. Few people came during Friday morning.
Most people asked same questions about my work:

– Is it a game?
No, it’s interactive animation.
I tried to combine the advantage of picture books with that of animation films.

– Why cats?
I wanted to use animal characters because animals are hard to distinguish male or female, so I intend anyone to get into the character’s role.
And then I selected cats as a familiar animal because I like cats rather than dogs.

– Did you draw these pictures?
Yes, these are my illustration.
I used hand drawing, painting, and pasting.
Some of them are added digital effects.

– How long did it take?
It’s one-year project, but in fact, creating animation itself took about 5 months.

– Which program did you use?
Adobe Flash and Action Script

– What is the material (about maps)?
These are plastics.
I ordered these from China because it was cheapest, but these were different from what I intended.
I would like to use fabrics generally soft.

I decided to create an explanation sheet about my work to put up it on the wall in the night. However, I realised that I could not use university’s printer on Saturday and Sunday, so I gave it up.

I did invigilation from 17.00 to 20.00 at IT room.

A couple who already saw downstairs praised for my illustration of animation and recommended me to bind the animation into picture books.

Although I tried to combine picture books and animation films, picture books seem to be more popular among people.

In addition, another reason why they thought so is probably because I could not add effective sounds and narration which are one of big advantages of animation films.

A Korean man who already saw downstairs asked about mainly work process. He was surprised that I had not learnt films. He asserted that learning films first is useful and vital to create digital animation, so he recommended me to learn films in Japan when I come back. He said that he learnt films as well and all RCA communication art students learn films. He also recommended Hayao Miyazaki.

I tried to update re-exported “Autumn Field” file in the morning, but it could still not open it on flash player of the Mac and both re-exporting and re-starting did not have an effect.

However, although I use flash CS3, I saved files as flash 8, so I could open the file by the flash 8 on the Mac. Therefore, I made the fonts outline fonts in the file and exported the file on the Mac. Finally, I could show all scene of animation on the Mac computer.

However, although I divided the animation into 5 files, the response of each scene became slow and heavy. It became to appear the colourful circle of Mac when reading next file by loadMovie().

As a result, viewers came to go away in the middle of the animation before seeing the ending “Go Back Home” scene that I would like to convey the most!

I did invigilation from 12.30 to 16.00.
I expected that a lot of children would come to the show on Saturday, but did not.

One viewer told me a cartoon Bobcat.

When I had Ben lock the doors of my space as usual, Ben said his daughter would come to the show and see my work. I was looking forward to it.

I cut the slow parts of scenes to lighten and accelerate the heavy animation and so that all viewers watch through my animation until the ending in the morning.
 
Also, I prepared flash files of outline fonts in order to export movies on the Mac when updated files do not work well on the Mac computer.

Therefore, I came to visit to update my animation at 12.00 on the day (opening was 11.00).
So the left side of the double doors in my space was closed and my several personal cards were scattered on the floor. What happened?
If lively children played in the room, I wanted to see and take pictures of it.

My today’s invigilation was from 14.00 to 16.00.
I looked around the show from around 12.30 to 13.30.
Some of spaces were already closed.

I returned to my work to instruct it at 13.30.
Some children came on the day.

A child leapt at the “Flower Road” scene with game-pad actions making his eyes twinkling.
“Is it a game?”
I replied “A kind of games”.
So he pushed the both joysticks saying “Reset”.
I thought that it would be good to put a reset function in my animation.

He went away, but he brought his father and his elder brother later.
His brother tried the game-pad first.
He pressed the buttons very quickly and repeatedly.
I already amended so that the kitten can do next action quickly.
However, when players press the same button quickly and repeatedly, the kitten just repeats the beginning of the action.
I thought I would add the actions of quick and repeating press.

The smaller child tried to play on the biggest map, his father cautioned.
I said “It’s OK”, so his father gave a dubious look.
I should have explained this room was a play space for children.

Since they did not notice the next page button, I press the button by a mouse, so the smaller child was eager to use the mouse.
He did right-click repeatedly, but he did not let go of the mouse.
While I took the mouse from him and turned off the dialogues, his father took his children with him and went away.

Jonathan came with his two children, wife, and two friends at around 13.40. After he passed my space, he noticed me and introduced his family in the corridor on the basement. Therefore, I was going to catch them when they come out the corridor in front of my space to have his children play my animation. Also, he only saw a part of my old version animation and now I completed full scenes anyway, so I wanted to show him the final work.

However, I had many viewers who need my instruction on the day, so when I instructed my work to another viewer, they seemed to leave! I was really shocked.

In addition, I did not see Ben’s daughter. However, since I was worried about her reaction, I did not ask Ben about it when I had him lock my space.