Project 4 - The Immense Interactive Camera

For our last project we were given a task to make an interactive camera that will visualize the city in a new way that people can not be seen daily. It would see some hidden spaces and will gather data that will make a visualization or an output. At first we thought of finding some ideas and inspiration in the city. I gave my group some idea about wireless connections or those signals that cannot be seen in the city.  Here's one of the example

Then we got into having a time lapse of the city that will show the space and time of the city that have an interesting blurred shadows when you see it. We're planning to go the top of the AUT tower because there's not much people who go there and don't see beyond the top of the building. Although James said it needs to be explored more and research about the visualization/output that it will come. Kim on the other hand gave us some ideas on using arduino sensors. We  have a lot of interesting sensors at mindkits.co.nz. We kind of skipping of ideas from one into another since we got those idea of using one of the sensors of arduino. We still have more to think of and hopefully we get into something that is really original.

Exercise - Bullet Time

We had an exercise about making a bullet time effect. Our group thought about many things on how is it going to work. Our concept is to use the spinning circle thing to rotate ourselves in the back of the green screen while camera is rolling. Then after quite some time in the green screen room, were did some test shot, I decided to make some prototype of what I think it will do best. So I made an animation in After Effects for a little bit and showed it to the group. We all agreed for the shot and headed to green screen room. We had problems for a little bit regarding the rotating circle since the rope is not strong enough to pull it with 2 people on top of it. So try to find out how we're going to do it. Then we just thought about rotating in the chair while sitting on it. So we've shot all the members and I took the footage and made an animation for about 2 days.. So here's the final one

The Ultimate Showdown from John Dexter Abaya on Vimeo.

Project 3 - A Horrifying Event

I didn't have a chance to present last Friday because I thought it will be the whole day and Kim only went in the morning. It didn't say in the brief that presenting only in the morning should be the only time to present so that's what I thought about. I'm still up for presenting it even though it's not completely working. And now the keyboard chip doesn't work as well, I can't make any video documentation about it.  Anyway if I just did this during the holidays and figures all the problems that I need to tackle on my device, it would work out perfectly. I think that I followed the brief directly as what it told to be done. "The user will have an interaction to the video and it will re-tell re-interpret re-told the story". I know the video's purpose is only to use as a source material. So that's why I decided for this idea about saving the main character by stomping the right shoe (the left shoe is to start the whole video) when the killer girlfriend comes on the screen. But just to show you what I've done here's the picture of it 

Project 3 - Finalizing for Presentation

I was cranking up for the patch that I'm still working on. There were lot of issues in there like, one of the reasons that it wont work is that some of the "if" statements is not clear enough to trigger some of the particular objects that suppose to work. I also realize that if you put too much connection on one trigger it will not work properly so as much as possible I want to make it make it less. One of the wrong things I've done is that I didn't ask much for help in the first place. I was doing all by myself. I could've ask James about my patch and he will know how to work on it. Perhaps this project will make me understand the meaning of collaboration with other people.

I also made the soldering as well for final since I cant use the other one that I soldered from last time because it doesn't work anymore. I made a switch from tin foils that when it contract to each other it will press a key. 

Project 3 - On the midst of confusion and frustration

I decided that I'm going for the shoe itself. It's going to be a game about walking from frame to frame with a handicap of the time limit. The idea that I was thinking is not new already. I got really frustrated about the fact that, this is already been done. So first I make the patch on max/msp and test out if it's going to work or not within the time frame. Another thing was the issue of the switch on whereabouts it's going to be put. Last thing, my idea is still confusing. The walking from frame to frame would be like running instead. I realized that when I was doing the patch in max/msp. There's more than a thousand frames just on the scene going upstairs. So it would be a more than a thousand steps which is really innappropriate for the user.