Final Project - Finally DONE!!!

Here it is... the final core project website... yay!!!! ^^


More than Meets the Eye

Riddle Me This Way - Picture time!

Starting in Union Square....


Teresa giving out and explaining the instructions









The contestants... at the beginning


Hali chasing Rebekah for a picture ^^"


2nd Stop - TekServe... where the contestants didn't go...



Final destination... the Dana House Discovery Center





Waiting for Hali...



In Sammy's Noodle Shop... at last!!

Final Project - Update

After working on making my Flash file smaller and tryout the loadmovie function in actionscript for a looooong while with little success, I decided to take a break and work on the final project website.
Check out the layout
It will be called "More than Meets the Eye" (contributed by Catherine)

The contents of the pages are still in progress, but I here is my project synopsis:

This project was sparked with interest in the visual impression of an image within another image and the experimentation of a nonlinear narrative. Each image in the project is equipped with three additional images within itself in hidden or obvious places. The story begins with a hand, suggesting the viewer’s hand, holding three different pictures. It invites the viewer to participate in the telling of a story in the virtual environment presented. The player is asked to search for the images within and make a decision on the “direction” of the story or narrative through the three given choices in each of the images he or she is currently viewing. The viewer, then, begins taking part in the role of the narrator.
Through this project, I expect to explore the concept of the nonlinear narrative through the users interaction with the piece, in addition to the practice of image making and manipulation in Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash, including actionscript and, maybe, PHP and MySQL.

and the Content & Material used:

Self-taken digital photographs, scanned-in pencil sketches, and illustrations drawn in Adobe Illustrator combined and processed in Photoshop. Then, imported into Flash for animation and actionscripting.

a visit to EYEBEAM

The visit to Eyebeam was interesting. There were many cool projects. One of the most amazing projects was "Seminal Events, More Or Less" by Chihcheng Peng. Peng combines old educational films and modify or edit them together to create images. His alternation of the images leave the viewers saying "woow... what was that?" when they notice something weird about the picture but just don't really know what is odd about it. I am not sure how long the exhibition lasts or if it is still going on, but it is definitely worth going to if you've got time to take a walk to Chelsea.
EYEBEAM gallery
21 st. between 10th and (closer to) 11th ave.

Helpful talk with David Carroll

After talking to Dave Carroll for help with Flash, I decided to just stick with Flash and the simple actionscript that I know and will not be using PHP in my final project. I wanted to incorporate PHP and MySQL in my Flash project because I had just learned it in C&C and really wanted to actually practice it through my project. However, Dave made it clear to me that the focus of my project is the artistic craft of how the images fits within other images and the user interaction in making the narrative, not to try out the function of PHP and explore the use of it with Flash. Therefore, my project is going to be a big long timeline in Flash. I'll focus on using tags on the timeline, masking, and invisible buttons. Now, the only thing I still need to figure out for actionscript is how to do panning (for the character selection) and preload so that when the user clicks on an image, the zoom in onto the next image is ready and will flow smoothly since my pictures and flash files are really big. As Dave said, my Thanksgiving vacation's gonna be a lot of keyframing and zooming ^^"

Final Project - Prototyping

The drawn-out plan for the interface


Prototype site

Still need to figure how to incorporate PHP with Flash...

Also, one of the precedents for this project or the inspiration to my zooming idea... check out the ZoomQuilt

Final Project Planning - progress...

I finalized my idea for the final project when I decided to make it in virtual space since I do not know enough physical computing yet to build a project. I decided to make my project an interactive narrative piece that's everchanging. Even since I became interested in the idea of "the image within an image", I decided to create a narrative where the user can choose how they want to tell the story.
The user interface will be simply the user facing the interface on the monitor and interacting with the mouse. The storyline will start with the image of a person holding 2 to 3 different images. (If I can learn enough actionscript or can find someone who knows, I want to try to create a questionary at the beginning, such as "what is your hair color", so the user can personalize the character that holds the pictures at the beginning to be themselves or however they want the character to look like. So it states that the user is the narrator of the story that he or she is going to make.) Using flash the user will be able to zoom in to see the 2 or 3 different pictures that the character is holding and choose one of them to begin telling a story. Once they make a selection on one of the pictures, the picture will zoom in to cover the full screen. The user will then observe the picture in search for the next 2 or 3 images they can click on to create their story. Each image they click on will be images within an image. For example, as roughly illustrated in one of my sketches, the story begins with a character holding 3 images, photographs or printouts. When the user clicks, it zooms in to show the two images clearly, so the user can make a selection. Once the user picks and clicks on one of the pictures, the pictures becomes fullscreen, showing a woman smiling at the camera as she walks by. The user can then scan the image and find the images within that image for the next selection, such as the two different reflections in on her sunglasses or the image of the movie poster in the mirror behind her, and the story goes on and differs with each image the user chooses.
My idea is definitely mainly inspired by the GPS project by the photography students and the HP printer commercial (link posted in my last blog). I decided to allow the user to create their own narration because I want to try and break away from the linear form of narration that I am very used to. I also want to push the non-linear narrative even further by incorporating the MySQL and PHP scripts that I just learned in Creativity & Computation labs; using MySQL to create a database of images that can be placed with in an image, and using PHP to randomize the images that can be pulled out of the image database. Therefore, each time the user starts the narrative again, there will be different images from the last 2 or 3 that he or she began with. Also, I want to practice using Flash since I have not touched it for any projects this semester.
I know creating the images myself and setting up the system with the codes sounds very ambitious. However, I have asked around and it seems like what I want to do can really be done. It is only the matter of time, but I will do my best to complete it.

Things still being considered:
1. Questionary at the beginning to personalize the character
2. Text story line that goes with the picture
3. Photographs, Illustrator drawings, hand-drawn, scanned-in drawings, or a mix/combination of those for the images?
4. Randomize the pictures from the database?

Awesome HP photo comercial

Watch the HP camera comercial which is another inspiration for my "image within an image" for my final project... in addition to the GPS project by the photography students.