Essay

The DMF203 class has been a lot of fun.  I really enjoyed working with Miles Inada in both class and lab.  During the length of the course, I have discovered that writing games is not one of the things that I excel at, though I am pretty good at coming up with ideas for games.

The final project I created was called “Kitty Pong”.  It has a face for a ball that bounces around the screen, a paddle to redirect the ball with, kitty faces to remove from the stage to change levels, and a star and bug.  The star is in the upper half of the stage and the bug in the lower half.  They move from side to side and the ball may bounce against them to change direction.  The paddle is player controlled via a mouse. The number of kitty faces starts at about 10 or 11 and increases by five for each level cleared.  The stage background is green in color and the objects are all different colors.  This game lasts until you get bored and kill it.  There is no score kept and no life gained or lost, so it can last indefinitely.

A change I have considered making when time permits, is to have the star provide life and the bug eat life.  Life is measure in the number of balls you have.  This change would require setting one edge of the stage so the ball disappears when it hits the edge.  It would also require setting up a score keeping function, and an end game function.  Another function that could have been useful is a level up notice function.

I am pleased with the drawings I made for my game and pleased with how it looks and works over all.  I suspect that my nieces and nephews, other family members and children would also enjoy this game, with or without the proposed changes.

final project

FinalGame.as
FinalGame.fla
FinalGame.swf


attempted to embed the .swf file.  this failed.  the space for it to show up in was there. but the file was not.

project 4 part b

project4f.swf motion tween and frame by frame

project4g.swf

project4h.swf

project4i.swf

project4j.swf

project4k.swf

the first was made some time ago and the last five were completed today

project four part a

project4.swf code animation

project4b.swf code and frame animation
the above link includes the first one and then two eyes that were animated in a different way than code.

project4c.swf frame by frame

project4d.swf tween movement???

project4e.swf 


these were completed sometime ago...I just had not gotten them up and posted.
please enjoy

reflective essay #4

Experiences that stand out in my mind include, cutting the tree after a hurricane, the first time my team killed the lich king in wow, and the births of my daughters.  These experiences all include me and others. 

Cutting the tree after the hurricane:  in this experience, my father directed me and one of my sisters in the process of cutting a small piece of the trunk off a tree that had fallen in our yard during the storm.  We used a special saw to do this and had to work together in order to succeed.  We saved the piece of the tree for many years before it was finally lost in one of our many moves.

The first time my team killed the lich king in wow:  this was an exciting day.  The team consisted of ten people who all needed to work together to succeed.  Each of us had our specific tasks to do which related to the class of character we played.  I play a Warlock in this experience.  One task specific to my class was the maintaining of a teleport circle so if I was grabbed I could return to the fight easily when dropped, while the team focused on the lich king.  Another task that all of the team had to do was stay alive.  As we all worked together, we used Ventrilo for voice communications to let the rest of the team know what we were doing, especially if we died or were grabbed by a valkery.  We had been trying for several weeks to bring down the lich king before we succeeded.  After success we had a party in game.

The births of my daughters:  these are both memorable experiences.  While the same process was involved, there were drastic differences in the completion of the task.  With the older daughter, I was hungry and had no strength when it was time to do the real work for her to be born.  Also this labor was induced, which made it necessary to keep monitors on at all times and so I could not get up and walk about.  With the younger daughter, I had walked across the town the night before and noticed a backache in the morning.  I took a shower and then watched my clock and timed the frequency of the backache cramp.  Then I called my doctor and asked what he wanted me to do.  He requested that I come to his office so he could check things out. From his office I was sent to the hospital. This time at least I was not hungry, and was able to occasionally take a short walk.  Both daughters were born during the dark hours of the night, one just before midnight, and the other after midnight.  I was in the hospital for the three days of the week that they were born.

In all of these experiences it was necessary to work with others for success.  In the first I needed to work with my sister and father, in the second with the other nine members of my team and in the last with my doctor and the nursing staff at the hospital.  All involved communications at some level and in the second, lack of communication would cause failure.  These experiences could be used for inspiration in creating a game that demands high skills in communications.

Essay # 3

My preferred task in the video game production team is an artist.  This is primarily because I am an artist.  I enjoy doing most forms of art.  Photography is my personal favorite method of expressing art.  I can use it to create ideas for backdrops and for objects.  Creating visual references for a game would be my preferred task.

I do draw, sometimes well, sometimes quickly, and sometimes both well and quickly.  I could also make use of my skills in ceramics to help produce visual clues for a game.

collage created by code

http://www.clancrawford.us/images/codepractice2.swf

I used one of my personal websites to load the .swf file to be cause I am doing all of my work for the class on either my laptop or my home desktop computers. 

Programmatic Collage Code

package 
{
 import flash.display.MovieClip

 public class codepractice2 extends MovieClip//blue words are key words...gives directions
 {//Declare Variable here.  STEP ONE!!!!
  var itemOne:MovieClip;//create a variavle named "itemOne" of type "MovieClip"
  var itemTwo:MovieClip;
  var itemThree:MovieClip;
  public function codepractice2() //name is important...must be same for each container
  {
   // constructor code
   trace("Hello World");
   //Fill variables here.  STEP TWO!!!
   itemOne = new Kitty1; //fill variable named "itemOne" with new instance of  library symbol named "Kitty1"
   itemTwo=new Star1;
   itemThree=new Hill2;
  
   //addChild to the Stage. STEP THREE!!
   addChild(itemOne); //add the contents of the variable named "itemOne" as a child of the stage object
   addChild(itemTwo);
   addChild(itemThree);
  
   //here specify properties of the child
   itemOne.x=100
   itemOne.y=200
   itemOne.scaleX=.55
   itemOne.scaleY=.55
  
   itemTwo.x=375
   itemTwo.y=65
   itemTwo.scaleX=.75
   itemTwo.scaleY=.75
  
   itemThree.x=250
   itemThree.y=300
   itemThree.scaleX=.45
   itemThree.scaleY=.45
  }
 }

}

Reflective essay #2

The article assigned for this essay was very long. It did have a lot of info in it, some of which I remember.

One of the things I remember is that play outside is very important. The game creator the article was about told several stories about his childhood and the games he played. Many of the games were outside and made use of “imagination.”  He made use of his games and the places where he played as a child in the process of creating video games.

During my childhood I also played many games. I often played alone, though I also played with my siblings and our pets.  As my father was in the Army, we often moved and so I was able to play in many different settings, from huge fields with creeks running through them to small fenced yards to playgrounds of many sizes.

I will try to bring my childhood play memories forward and incorporate them into the projects of this class. So far I am enjoying DMF203.  Learning to use Flash and program with it is proving to bear lot of fun. Classes that are fun are more enjoyable to me.

the other four collages

collage

This was a very quickly put together collage.  I sometimes do better when I am not stressed.  Moving over the weekend created stresses which caused some work for class to be late.

visual references

this photo taken by Debra Crawford summer 2010

DMF 203 reflective essay #1

There have been many games that I have enjoyed playing over the years. A few of my favorites include Pinochle (a card game), Mastermind (a matching game), and Risk and Monopoly (board games). These games all have a couple things in common with each other.  One they require two or more people to play. Two they can teach good manners when playing games.

Pinochle is generally played by four people in two teams.  It is played using a special deck of cards and a knowledge of the rules is very important. Being able to add and multiply helps and this game will improve these skills. I liked this game because we would play it as a family. This helped us to learn to work together as a whole.

Mastermind is a matching game played between two people. For me, it helped improve my memory and matching skills. It was more fun to play when score was not kept.

Risk is a board war game and can be very intense. It can help teach strategy and again addition and multiplication knowledge helps. When I was very young my family would play the original version. About ten years ago I found a newer version that I like better.

Monopoly is a game which can be used to help teach about money. I wish it were more realistic, but it works for teaching some of the basics like bill types (5, 10, 20, 50, 100) and that it costs to own or rent properties.

I find games to be more enjoyable when they are played for fun or for learning. I get very frustrated when it appears that one person is deliberately trying to ruin the game for the rest of the group.

Symbols

Final thought for tonight

This has been a wonderful class.  I have learned alot about Concept art and preproduction.  One of the things I have learned is that I am not up to being a concept artist.  Wonderful things happen to create movies and cartoons and other things like them.  I can learn what I like to do by taking classes like this one.  This class has confirmed that while I can do wonders with some forms of Art, this is not one of them and Photography definately is one where I can excel.

Final Project: Part 2, background ideas

here are a few background ideas I have worked on during the last several weeks.

Final Project: Part 1, story boards

here are two Photo storyboards

storey board #3

This one was the hardest to get done. First was selecting a movie, second was selecting a scene from the movie, and then doing the drawings. I was finally successful, even with technical difficulties with my Laptop. So Enjoy.

storey board #2

These two boards actually go together as a whole story.  I reviewed about 40 pictures and then chose these 24 to use for the story,  I think it is pretty obvious that the pug is playing games with his owners.  Sometimes he listens and others he does his own thing instead.  The pug's name is WaDou and he makes very good subject matter for any camera.  As I own him, I frequently use him while doing artistic stuff.

storey board #1

This one was fun and easy.  Yes I can and should return to it and make several changes to it, including perspective and changing the background a little.  This was unable to be done due to technical issues with my laptop.

information on prior picture posts

the pictures in the previous posts have been created using photos I took myself. several are using the same base photo and were then tweaked in various ways until I was happy with them of the last one (the one on top) was the combining of several pictures.  

I take lots of photos and use them for ideas and inspiration. Also I combine photos for a complete new picture. My most frequent subjects are landscapes and various animals. while I have taken pictures of people, I do not feel that they are my best work. Of the people pictures I have taken, the ones of children I feel are the best.

this photo is the base of several of my posted pictures. the mountain in it was also the basis for two others.

these assignments have given me good reasons to figure out more about the workings of Photoshop. I have learned how to change brush presets, tool presets and the use of "Puppet Warp" as well as the other transform tools in the process of doing these assignments. each ane causes me to learn more about the tools I am using.

more Landscapes

Landscape of The Imagination

more are in progress and will arrive soon

Ideas

Environments Thumbnails

took about 20 -30 minutes to do these sketches.

character final reflection

At this point I am sure that what I thought concept art was is not what it is. For me becoming a concept artist will not work. I will do well being a photographer and using my pictures in my other art projects, including creating calendars and books.

I have found the assignments in this class to all be interesting and make me work and think hard. My projects all seem to evolve over time, some changing in mere minutes, others over the period of either hours or days. Some of my ideas seem to jump from fingers to paper, while others seem to get stuck in the ether and translation. This includes my writing as well as drawing.

Rough patches I had in plenty. These included having my brain lock and refuse to let ideas loose to appear on paper in any form. When this happened I found it very hard to get any work done. Others included trying to figure out where the drawing was going, and what its story was. In the end I feel that I may have been very successful in overcoming the Rough spots.

In all of my work, I found myself trying to bring an idea into clear focus for myself and my viewers. I feel that I was fairly successful in doing this. Asking for suggestions on what was working or might work better also helped me in all of my work and projects in this class. Using the suggestions or tweaking them often brought an idea into focus and made it a success.

character tales

pitcher is Mrs. Potts sister. she is tall and thin instead of short and stout. she is more elegant and haughty and does not have any children.

the trees started as mushroom stems and evolved into what they are now. they are best friends and enjoy visiting strange places. at times they can change their colors to suit the place where they are, sort of like a chameleon.

tree character

another character

 

This Character was completed using ink sketch and portions of Photographs.  the eyes I took from the internet.  All other photos were taken by me in the past year.

 these two I used the warp tool after copying from the original drawings.

 This one I used the warp tool after copying the pen and ink sketch several times. I also played with colors to make each layer stand out.

Current work: character sketch

advance work on character sketches, includes pen and ink drawing, silhouette, and color drawing ideas.

character reflection essay

In the game World of Warcraft, I play a human warlock. I chose a female because I am female. The name I gave her is Shastafyre. The choice of hair color, style and various other features is selected at the creation of a character. Because I like red hair that is long, I chose to give her red hair that is fastened in a clip at her neck. I also chose the face based on features that I like and that I think reflect who I am.

During the past few years as I have played Shastafyre I have made minor changes in the way she looks. These changes have been hair color and style, though the hair style is always long. Color choices are generally reds and golds, though once I chose silver.

Being female has a great deal to do with my choice of female characters when playing any game. Often I will choose hunters because they always get a pet to help them. This makes my choosing to create a warlock, a magic wielder, unusual. One reason I did so, is because warlocks in WOW (World of Warcraft) get minions (pets).

I am grateful to the concept artists and others who are involved in creating the graphics for my favorite game. This class is helping me to solidify what I want to do with my art.

I have included many pictures of Shastafyre as she is now and some of the choices for hair that I have made.