I believe as long as someone doesn’t pass off someone else’s work as their own it’s legal to copy and be influenced by other’s work. The likeness shouldn’t be full of acutely similar elements to the original.

My question to regulation would be, were do you draw the line to enlightenment and information?

I surely wouldn’t jump into a tank of sharks, or fed a mouse to a snake to get reference footage of what would happen for the elements in a concept I created. I’m relying on someone else’s experiences to show me what it could look like, in comparison to my fully imagined ordeal. To get exact footage myself with pressing deadlines, would have animal rights activism after me for good cause. Someone else having caught such a moment prevents me from losing time, and also doing something I regret. I don’t want to lose a limb. However, I would research lots of images on that subject, and study attitude, anatomy, and movement. Once done, collecting those images, I would apply those basics and mutual truths in those photos to my concept to bring it too life. I would give my concept art its character first, set what I want to do with it, so that in all right it’s my Idea. Granted, I would have never knew what I shark was had it not been for images through public school educating me through visual stimuli. The artist industry also sets up guides through pictorial communication. Then using the reference images someone else took as visual guides, I can apply shark attributes to my image. But, I wouldn’t copy that sharks poses, less I’m correction mine if it’s a little off from my concept’s intent. Also, the dimensions of my shark separate mine from the other person’s picture. If there is a direct resemblance, vary little variation to the source of reference, and the reference is the original, and no attribution to the person who influence latter work is mentioned, then that would be plagiarism. But honestly, you can’t police people’s visual experiences, only the source and intend of inspired copied work. Fan artist will draw in the style of the artist they like, and mention that it’s not theirs but a fan picture. Also giving credit where it’s due to people that influenced parts of your work and saying how they helped, helps others understand what you did and what the other person did as well.

Flash for video use has changed my habits significantly and moderately in some ways. If I’m searching for international media that isn’t offered through local broadcast stations or on cable, I can search for and watch my program on the web. I can download episodes and back them up on a portable device, like my mp3 player, and even watch them on the small screen. Getting visual media isn’t determined by location anymore. The wait for foreign overseas media is minimized, at most waiting a day, rather than waiting for the second season of a show to air 3 years from now after the networks onslot of reruns and commercials. Plus if a program has beeen canceled you can where it is being aired by searching a search engine like google. Furthermore, you can find subbed versions, translated stationary graphic media scan from unpaid fans of the show, in various languages that may not have been offered yet. Also, personalization of video media can be intertaining as well, creating music videos, or publishing a different take on a news event.

The disadvantage to watching the scans on the internet is that your dependent on the resolution and clarity the show was recorded. You can get fuzzy videos, or run errors, and mistakes on the name of the episode, Battling loading errors and novice video handling. Also, bittersweet end of the deal is that I am going into that field, might lose job payment.

So in foreseeable future, free video is still going to stream. Networks are now airing shows on Hulu, and YouTube, with rights retained, just like free TV. Medically its healthier too CTR TV’s have a harmful radiation omitted from them, unlike Computer monitors. The plagues of Commercials have polluted the free video sites, for advertisers to promote their products even more. To that extend, the free video streaming sites won’t lose business momentum, like Home Star Runner, as long as a loyal fan base makes referrals to the site and fans adorn themselves with products that remind them of their favorite flash animations.

I do believe that the web TV will expand to include more video commercials, to run of the flare of the true media content. As is now, veoh.com, hulu.com, and youtube.com, plus the other sites I watch free movies on (sorry don’t want them busted :P, or no fun for me) have made a compromise of 3 commercials only embedded into the copyrighted videos.

Also, more interactive commercials will appear, as it is in the test phase right now. Ad companies are trying different types from bypass able commercials (though there’s a penalty of missing part of the show for doing so), to “you chose your commercial with a timer for it automatically start playing if viewer takes too long to select one. Punishment, illusion of freedom of choice, courteous boasting of who your favorite show is brought to you by; all of these are clever tactics to hook you big on the TV market.

I feel though that the Internet video market is going to increase, as it is a smarter way to obtain relaxation. Go to the movies, or download your movie for a low price?

I believe that the theaters are the next to pull into the online community of video providers. Gaiaonline.com already has a virtual theater where your avatar can watch movies commercials with game token incentives, and old shows like He Man Masters of the Universe.

Next the screen size of computers will be increased for domestic viewing of a big screen TV. Visual media communicates on the level of appearing alive, so more people are naturally drawn to it. Regal Cinemas is now promoting them as a great place to hold video conferences for businesses, so why wouldn’t they stream the movies through the internet onto the big screens. Also the number of hits on a video would increase the likelihood of which internet videos to play in the theaters. Maybe might turn the big screens, or a few into short popular TV video showings, or maybe hold real time sporting event viewing, MOORPG game events, and etc. in the theater. A twenty minute flash video playing in a mall theater might just be what a lot of people need, while waiting for other shoppers, and not having to spend nearly 3hrs in there.

Flash video can cross into a lot more media venues, as the access to internet viewing spans more media devices, old and new.

After visiting the sites listed on one of the Scad pages for employers of animation students so far, http://www.primalscreen.com/ is very flash based and animated. The home page loads with animated layers of foregrounds, backgrounds, and characters moving through it with limited motions. The TV bubble trees are an effective merger of the world space and display view port window on the home page. Loading a new page involves a transparent layer over the first page, and then a loading bar on the screen of a loading movie player window. The central layout of the site, and off center layering of the information and video windows makes the site visually different and similar for those looking for a site to read info and watch movies.

The similar theater approach to enables viewers are different angles to watch a centered or off centered screen and still have a good viewing angle of the film.

Primal Screen had the best flash site and homepage in comparison to (in order from best to lest) Dreamworks, Disney, Radical Axis, Pixar, Cartoon Network, Blue Sky Studios, and Blizzard.

http://www.dreamworksanimation.com/

http://www.radicalaxis.com/

http://www.sugarrhyme.com/, is the style approach I liked the best, and will comment on that farther down in this blog.

http://www.benschlitter.com/ had some good bonus features for user-friendly icons, services, and navigation. So by including a legend that lets users know what has been recently updated, it provides viewers with a look at an artist that stays busy and keeps learning, and is serious about their work. Offering the option to buy merchandise with icons that are easily recognizable (price tag) allows for not having text on ever piece of graphic on the page. But they did include text, at the bottom of the screen just incase that didn’t read across so well. Though I wish the text was a bit brighter, because I almost over looked those important links. The subtractive shade process is a bit more effective than the additive tint in changing the color of links to tell if it’s chosen on a dark background. The big graphic that serves like a pinup board is successful with the buttons being on that graphic.

http://www.artformfunction.com/flash/interactivetest.swf, is an example of other doing the flash elements: will get vision sickness watching this.  The images on the homepage serve as graphic style without enough information to stand on their own. And the text inside the video clips doesn’t represent the clients so well, a business that seems unstable is hardily the approach wanted to represented by how the animation elements move. http://www.artformfunction.com/flash/bkffolio.swf

http://www.ewestlund.com/animation.html, a portfolio site, went to the other far extreme of being too stable, as in boring. The washed out and outdated color palette makes the artist seem dead and his site. So trying to look eventful is a challenge worth taking to make others want to be on your site.

http://www.melissaclifton.com/animation.html, this had a more active imagery on the first page, so I knew what the site was about: a character image to attract the novice and the 3D mesh graphic in header title to gain the attention of a professional or more experienced person in animation and 3D modeling. With that in mind I would include a link for models and rigs made that are part of my portfolio, as that is a separate element of animation and modeling. Plus its means you don’t have to find some to make the model for you, before you can animate. She also had a spotlight page that featured some of her friends in related fields. The major error I find is that there are too many art styles happening on this site visually, and the pages vary in length.

http://www.jek2k.com/ has a nice design that has a tab for when your lost on the site, should it get too big, or your not finding what you want. In a pull down page it has categories for what you’re searching for and how many related items to each. Though the graphic is too big, splitting the page in half divides the screen into advertising graphic and logo, and then html link rows below.

The best site was the got milk site, though not a portfolio, it involves the viewer in exploring the site map literally. The map revolves like a game board on a turntable, http://www.gettheglass.com/. http://www.gotmilk.com/ stuff pops up and down when moving cursor over the icons and away and the cursor changes too. http://www.gotmilk.com/#/benefits/teeth/game/ I like the popup 2D elements that make quick transitions.

What I liked most was the 360 revolving board of the island, and flag signs pop up to let you know to click that location before you have to search for navigation, and then the signs go away as that side of the island turns o face away from you on http://www.gettheglass.com/.

http://www.pixelnitrate.com/

http://www.pepfx.com/flash_design/portfolio.php had a button to scrub through photos in gallery

http://www.warmforestflash.com/blog/2009/02/21-well-designed-flash-portfolios/ had a list of flash based sites and some were portfolios. www.32round.com host a lot of templates with a dual horizontally split screen approach. The first half is dominated by a large graphic and the lower half is a slider of an image showcase. The sidebar could work like tabs, being converted to link panels on either side of the image; if that is the style a client wants. The sound of transitions isn’t overly garish or loud, and effectively acts as a signal that the user has done something on the page.

http://www.sugarrhyme.com/ has a long intro that replaces the waiting screen with a loading bar, which passes time nicely. The audio needs adjusting, as there is mincing grating in the background. The 3-column approach is progressively large in each column to the write. It separates the page into logo title, media clips that roll when the cursor is by the bottom of the page, and the text content and links in the last and largest column. It gives enough expansion space for articles. The major plus to this site is the casino slots machine effect on the gallery art and project in the center middle column. The effect allows you to see more images than on the screen at once (15 parts of images rather than 5 whole). The randomizer lets you see a full array of images without having to dig through the site to reach a links. It’s interesting, effective, and a fast way to communication to a large audience. The animation and still image was fun to look at too. The transparent overlay over the two side slots forces them backward and lets the viewer know the clear resolution middle slot is the clickable one.

Loved this site :D! http://www.sugarrhyme.com/

Google.com searching “flash portfolio sites” brought the best search result, and the site http://designfeedr.com/breaking-the-mold-9-impressive-flash-portfolios had the best list of sites.

http://www.imjonas.com/ had the scad.edu homepage approach, but is much faster with the turn around speed of the demo screen. And it hosted not only his name and job related field or title as headers and links, but the latest business technology communication as well: Twitter. I haven’t used it, but knowing everyone is talking about it…. it helps to post that your current and to date with the times. Twitter means that your business hopefuls can contact you easily by phone, and don’t have to jot down an email address or talk to someone by phone who doesn’t understand different dialects and accents. He also has the projects link on his site, and I think it is more organized than having a lot of links for each form of art he’s experienced in (sounds more professional and less hobby like). He has a loading bar rather than animation substitute, but it keeps with the simple style. Clicking on the images twice lets you return to the homepage, which is a nice feature, though I would prefer a large image with sliding image show below as oppose to a full screen image that takes me back to the home page. More sub navigation would be a plus.

showing some flash sites is http://www.thefwa.com/, and http://www.obliquefx.com/. The first site is a traditional site showcasing other sites that are flash based, however popblocker is enitiated when you click on a flash site thumbnail, because rather than setting it up as a link, it acts as a pop up. In that instance it takes away from the site, because it makes you question whether its a legit site, or aware spyware. not site should pose itself as a threat, and should avoid having to be downloaded onto the viewer’s computer inorder to run. It was very distracting. The plus was that there was no wait on the loading time of site’s homepage, due to being html. The second site, http://www.obliquefx.com/, has a nice page loading appeal. The intro begins with an animation that encompasses the full screen, acting like a TV or movie screen, and the consecutive animations had within fractions of a second. The airtime of the animation is not too long, and the video element shows off what the site is about and the ability of the artist. The second homepage is in wide screen format, leaving a bar at the top for icons in red that support options in screen size, language (Fr (French) and En (English), and volume control. Though the screen area is mainly given over to the movie element, the top buttons can be easily overlooked. Adjusting volume was a concern for me because the site was too loud on the computer I got on, with the volume on highest level. The header overlaps and is on top of the movie element, which plays as a background. Using the same color the association between what is a link is affirmed as constant in the site.  The title is left aligned and ends in the center of screen, matching the focus of the movie screens center of attention. So both work harmonious and don’t compete for attention. The header is in white with a formal and metallic gradient, and the major links are again in red. Each clip takes less than 9 secs to play, and with the constant movement, it seems new each time. The links turn white once clicked. On the Reels section, when viewed on the Mac, the 3 sections of the page have their titles out of alignment, and cut in half from bottom up. Plus the buttons for each section are huge, as they serve as button links, movie screens (each section shows something different, and as balances to use all the previous screen space. Clicking the animation link, there is a second volume control for that specific animation, as the main page volume control is override and the one for the animation click takes over. A vertical load bar is on the side of the animation window, and a pause button is included under the secondary volume control. Oblique has their logo in the bottom of the main window now.  This logo functions as a button to link the viewer to the home page, as the reels button not longer is functional for going back to reels window. Sometimes the icon for clickable things varies between the arrow mouse cursor and the pointing hand cursor. A red hourglass appears and rotates to function as a loading icon. The background of the Reels page is still visible behind the movie window that opened up to demo the movie, however it would have been aesthetically better to change the background image away from deactivated button links. Some of the transformations don’t need loading time. http://www.designlicks.com/ is the site that hosted the Oblique FX site as best of 2006. The effects based company did manage to showcase their effects capability with various completed big name projects by constantly streaming the videos on each page, so the goals were met. I think the approach was to not have the site as a focus, but the content it could project to the next viewer. I believe tradition sites are geared for those who want to spend time on the site, as it is a focus of continual use, not a one-stop trip.

I think the security desk approach is best, as http://www.designlicks.com/ shows partly in there composite design, that video clips can be small and numerous, given the eye will capture its movement and register that something is there, whereas with static information, more characters are needed to put as much information on a page that is necessary to comprehend, given the space attributed to it. Articles need more screen space to say as much as a short and relatively quick video and audio element do. So the window gave more space to eh header, and although a huge graphic element was incorporated, 1/3 of the screen space was given to links and information. The video element at a smaller size (1/6 screen space) was still successful and easily viewed. Also the video severed as another window frame, allowing more text elements to go on top of it as well. The next site I went to, http://www.thefwa.com/, needs to dock a flash portfolio site to my computer, and after I did, the site had issues appearing on the Mac.

http://watchmenmotioncomic.com/, took too long, with the intro being more like a movie and after taking a minute to load to 100%, I feel like the hour glass giving no presence of time seemed better than watching something try to reach 100. I think flash takes too long to load video through some of the formats used, and although it looks great, having animated loaders, intros, and icons for buttons seems unbalanced. Especially when it jumps from hype realistic, to 3D, to stiff animatics and the options and other frames on the page are floating toward or away from a selection at the same time. It’s nauseating and causes motion sickness if not controlled, but makes it hard to focus on any one thing, because every element on the page is moving. http://watchmenmotioncomic.com/, as a comic frame style it doesn’t help readability, and being on a tilt, reading the links is actually hard, because the angle isn’t who most people read with.  Plus images that float as image panels go forward by only a little bit and actually don’t improve readability. Also its more like one of those “just because they can” decisions by the creator, that doesn’t add to the site, but takes away from its usability.

http://www.digital-web.com/articles/seo_and_non_html_sites/ mentioned the capability of search imagines being able to find site elements restricted to only human eye vision. Without certain tags and text info, media rich files link audio, pdfs, and sound can sometimes go unnoticed by the search engines. The sites read images as just graphics so  they need to be converted into meta tags or have (<a href>  links to make engines read them, and older browsers. according to them the “I, Robot” Web site had this problem, and had to dish out money by advertising the site, rather than being able to let people type in the key words and the site pop up on the search engines.

With that in mind a composite site is best. Having the flexibility of format with the Flash sites, and reliable information structure, and search engine capability of html links and text, makes a visually and contextuallly informative site, and readily accessible for those interested in it.

this article was handy.

http://www.digital-web.com/articles/seo_and_non_html_sites/

Mobile sites have to be compatible to the screen size specifications of the mobile device screen.

Ny times has made each column and row narrow enough in width and length so it fits screens of mobile devices. The combined the aesthetics for a standard monitor and the mobile screens. for the Iphone the width is the only requirement of the the size limit….that is making the  max size for being viewed at normal screen size for the site  images and text boxes. For  101 Cookbooks the width = 320 pixels, and Ny times makes the format size of columns or info 300 pixels and 379 pixels. The dimensions for the iphone screen is 320×480 (3.5in wide) pixels, the Zune’s screen fits 240 (1.8 in) pixels across. Apple says the Iphone has higher pixel density- which means the picture can have higher resolution. Also  some sites have created [ages specifically formated for mobile screen widths, letting the page run as long as possible for vertical scrolling, and being able to play 4:3 aspect ratio of tv screen size in the portable device screen.

http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9966 has a list for more devices with small screens.  And the website must have good resolution so the the images appear clearly and small enough to load fast.

http://forums.thoughtsmedia.com/f351/websites-optimized-mobile-browsers-93164.html is the site i got my links from.  Some sites like ESPN shrunk the site text size and the images, and also when viewed on a computer monitor everything seems out of place and has different alignments and the main info is all on the left margin side of the screen. Also they assigned a percentage to the header image of width=100%, so that no matter what angle the screen is viewed and size of it, the header image will fit to the screen dimensions of any device. In that way, the multiple pixel sizes of various devices is satisfied, by using a percentage of the screen and having a set parameter for how much of the image should be seen.

• NY Times - http://mobile.nytimes.com
• TiVo - http://m.tivo.com
• Drudge Report - http://idrudgereport.com/
• Hotmail - http://m.mail.live.com (this is new and in beta)
• Slashdot.org - http://slashdot.org/palm
• Wikipedia - http://en.mobile.wikipedia.org/ - Change the “en” in the URL to the language of your choice
• ebay - http://m.ebay.com
• ESPN - http://m.espn.go.com/wireless/
• Facebook - http://m.facebook.com
• Linkedin - http://m.linkedin.com
• Netflix - http://www.netflix.com/Mobile - this link is handy, but I much prefer the new Mobile Manager for Netflix.
• Continental Airlines - http://pda.continental.com/pda20/Default.aspx
• Accuweather - http://www.accuweather.com/pda/pda_5dy.asp
• Weather Underground - http://m.wund.com/
• FedEx - http://mobile.fedex.com/
• CNN - http://m.cnn.com/
• Fox News - http://foxnews.mobi (see, someone did make use of the .mobi domain.
• Mobile Speed Test - http://www.dslreports.com/mspeed?jisok=1

Those are a few of the mobile sites I frequently use. Twitter has one of course, but it automatically detects your browser, as do the Thought Media sites. Do you have any good general interest mobile links for sites that don’t automatically redirect your browser?

First in consideration would be readability of typography, so that the information about the site comes across clearly. If the broswer can’t display images such as in image heavy emails from companies to your yahoo.com email account, their is a gray button in at least 10 to 12 pt. black font named “Show Images” in a yellow text box. the yellow text contains “This messaage contains blocked images and then followed by “Options” in blue color to show it is a link. Show Images fail to show on a page, readable Arial font type letering helps the viewer know what is the matter if with the site, or convey what the site is about.

Distinguishing in color helps make locating links easier as well. List type sites my have

Space issues is another apart of it.      http://ilovetypography.com/       is one site that shows how typography with no size restrictions can use up page space, mesh into an unreadable object if lettering is not given enough space in between each letter, and become hard to read. Because the Title Header of the page “i love typography is huge, it’s field box, to avoid overlap, forces the placement of the next text box further down, to avoid alignment issues. The start of the article, side the link box, and font example box are placed 1inch down from the title, and have half an inch spacing between there fields.

Next, http://www.fontshop.com/fonts/downloads/linotype/linotype_gneisenauette_complete_vp/

in showing examples of the font, have to show it in separate lines in 36pt font size if wanted. But this includes examples of font from 12pt to 388pt size.  If some resizes their window, they only see a small amount of text, or none, if the window cant fit it.  Also they give examples of each letter in the alphabet to show how it will look, and how the spacing of the letters with appear as words. the style of the letters may be readable in one version, but if used as a header and made bold or italic, this also has to be put into consideration.

Divisions of type help break montage of too much small font type. http://www.fanfiction.net/  is a site that uses page breaking long dashes and table formats to contain text and separate articles.

For consistance the pages use the same type of font, and all links are int he same color of blue, the Capital Letters look similar to the lowercase form, and are readable, despite lack of fancy style, unlike some font types. each story, is made to have the same preset style as the home page and the rest of the site, so user restrictions for personalizing i s made evident there, as users are allowed to post stories but can change the the font type of the titles. Uniformed formats, make the list site, for a huge a audience easier to access.

The audience is readers using primarily 14 different languages (English, Swedish, Japanese, Filipino, Catalan, etc.), and in order from what I can tell, ranging most popularly used on the site. the language setting is on a menu set pull down bar.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4866206/1/Digimon_Tamers_02_X_Tamers    , for example (I didn’t read the story, so if it bites don’t blame me :P), once you enter a story at the top, to handle an audience that needs differing font size readability, are link buttons that actually change the font size (small or big), type (italic, sans serif, or serif) , how much of page bandwidth does the text span laterally (full, 3/4,1/2), the spacing between lines of text can increase or decrease, and whether to lighten or darken text background.

I think this site handles, text type the best, because since its geared towards readers, in has customizing that handles a wide audience, without pictorial refferences.

It also avoids the problem, or when a browser can handle a certain font type, by selecting a type, that is found in both Mac and Window font libraries. It works also on Internet Explorer, as well as Firefox.

A site that doesn’t work on both Internet Explorer and Firefox, is  http://gaiaonline.com/, the site has parts that works on firefox, and others that work on internet explorer. so it doesn’t fully work, such as display words, on either site. the text text they use varies in certain areas of the site, so text and images, disappear.

http://ilovetypography.com/

http://www.fontshop.com/fonts/downloads/linotype/linotype_gneisenauette_complete_vp/

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4866206/1/Digimon_Tamers_02_X_Tamers

http://gaiaonline.com/

note from assignment for reminder on what I’m doing blog on:

Week Three: Typography on the Web
Two years ago two designers (Richard Rutter and Mark Boulton) gave a presentation at SXSW called “Web Typography Sucks“. It was a continuation of an ongoing dialog among designers and design theorists. And while it might be a tongue in cheek punctuation mark on that conversation, their presentation brings up a few good points. It has been said that the web is 90% text. In context then, how a designer handles typography should be high on the list of priorities.

Spend some time organizing your own thoughts on web typography. Stemming from the discussions in class, do some research to validate or disprove your ideas, and you’ll have this week’s blog entry.

note: for assign: how is it being handled….aesthically, technically, on different browers, and considerations….etc:

My presentation is on the artist Yoshitaka Amano-designer from FF Series, who as worked on many game titles such a the FFX series. He is a Illustrator and painter, animator, and has vast stylistic abilities. Most of his work is very whimsical and dreamlike, highly patterned and loose in line work.

His site show cases his work and various fields he’s created art for:

http://www.amanosworld.com/
The site design I will try to use will be central planned. Sort of like Saturn, with a ring of buttons diagonally around the diameter of the main graphic on the home page.

1. color usage problems, other than boring, it was readable.

2. guess basic, but nothing animated, or showing that an action is connected, other than the scroll marquee selection box around button.

other stuff later.