Paper Background ^^

This is also used as the proposal background of AckAck group! It consists of typical elements of our website that is easy to recognise. Moreover, this can be used as Yahoo 360 theme as well because it has stable blue color from head to toe, this can be longthened due to the length of the blog...I'll make one^^

Script for animation...

The first page started with an empty paper (paper filter)
From the viewers’ direction, a lollipop falling down and land right on the right of the scene.
Following the narrows, the hills number ‘1’ and ‘2’ cross through the page and stably stay at the positions. Next, the mountains ‘3’ will move up from below (these mountains should be arranged behind the lollipop while the other hills are in front of the lollipop)
After, the landing is arranged, the fence is then dropping and being nailed up on the ‘1’ hill. Along with it, the thickets and trees are falling from above and landing on mountains and hills (as the wire frame shown).
Fro left to right, cloud will flowing across the scene (this movement is looped until the user reach the new page).
Characters:
Together with the cloud, KooKoo will be flying over back and forth (this is also a loop animation).
At the same time, BooBoo and FooFoo will perform on the ground, in which, FooFoo appear from the left corner of the page ( inside the fence), he looks around as if he’s seeking something. FooFoo’s eyes stop at the thicket as BooBoo jumping out from it and keep running forward to the hill locating the lollipop. Then FooFoo backs to outside the page, and the whole animation of these two characters are repeats.
Finally, when the mouse touches the lollipop, mill wings will appear which are the menu.

From whatever page the previous is, transition to reach this page is as followed:
The top of the lollipop flies up to the sky and play a role as a sun.
The mountains move up from below the page.
Cloud keeps on flying across the scene ( loop).
Characters:
From the left of the page, an airship appears and flows slowly to the middle. Together, KooKoo flies along. These two objects fly together about 5 seconds, within this amount of time, sound effects will be added. After 5 seconds, KooKoo will have to move following the curve to get near the airship and make it broken. Next, the airship, KooKoo and BooBoo will falling down rapidly. When everything is out of the scene, the animation is repeated (loop started since the airship appear).

5. Finally, when the mouse touches the lollipop, sunshine will appear which are the menu.

The lollipop moves down to the left corner of the page, landing on a branch to become a Sun Flower. At first, the flower is leaning about 15 degrees to the right. Then, KooKoo will land on it, in result, the flower will lean about 45 degrees to the right.
After that, orderly, the hill will move up, from the hill, a tree will grow up to a giant one. Cloud start flowing (loop).
Characters: From left to right, FooFoo and BooBoo playing seek and hide.(loop)
Finally, when the mouse touches the lollipop, petals will appear which are the menu.

Like the first main page, this page is started with an empty paper interface. From the three directions (shown as arrows in the wire frame). The three characters will run to the middle of the page. As they meet each other at a point, from the viewer’s point of view, the lollipop will fall down against them. After 3 seconds of sound effects, users can interact with the lollipop. Everytime the mouse touch the lollipop, the three characters will appear holding boards which are menu.


(*) Note:
Interaction can only applied after all the scene are ready.
Movements should have nice and fun style.

Characters in 3 dimentions...

Uhmmm... It was not unfair that i made KooKoo with more dimentions then the other, it's just because i think he would need more details, and he's kind of more complex then the rest.

Mock_ups

Version #1
Version #2

These 2 versions have one difference in the navigation; that is the wings on the mill. These two are considered in the group, for me, as its designer, i like both, because each one has its own reason and feel which are both appropriate to the whole.

Version 1: the wings are unite with the column of the mill. It looks very likely to the smill mill that we usually see on TV. Moreover, it looks neat and clean.

Version 2: Personally, i think this style would be more appropriate with the country sights like the whole theme. However, this might be a bit hard to write text on and looks more complex than the first one.

Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair

This week seems to have nothing much for me to do though. So, i prefer spending my time this week reading and understanding the good ways to design animating characters. ^^Next week, i'll show my characters with more details in perspectives and movements.

Title: Cartoon Animation
Author: Preston Blair
Published by : Walt Foster Publishing, Inc.

Character development

Animation

Dialogue Expressions

These sections explain a great long term experience of how to create an original characters and its animations. It goes into details from forming shape, personality, features and mannerism. And, the procedure should be different depending on whether the character you're going to create is a animal or a human being....Well, actually, i've already had my own characters, anyway, it's really interesting to see that my process meet some points in the author's procedure...However, i've been missing the main point that is the proportion as creating a pattern. The two good aspects that i recognise here are:
--->Keep the balance in looks, sizes and atitutes
---> best way to reduce one's work. When you have a pettern that the others are able to follow and help you in drawing assistant postures.
Character movement

Technical issues

More over, the book also shows some technical aspects in making cartoon films from settings to camera positions. Those are long and careful procedures behind simple and sort animations we've seen.

The 4 main wireframes

Ok, for this website, as a group we decided to make the main menu to be something dynamic and unique ever. It should be something moving across the website and changing its own function at each page as changing its position and surrounding decorations but still keep the original form so that, it'd easier for the user to recognise.
That's the idea, then, i started to look for something nice and easy to design...i chose a real image of an Candy that will be put right at the homepage.

For the whole theme, i suggest to design it with the mix of illustration and scanning from real images. It should be more special when everything will happen as on a real piece of drawing paper.

The movement of 3 characters and others will be looped over and over again, so that the scene will not be boringThe main menu, which is presented as a mill, wont show its wings until the user move the mouse into its area.

At first, the mill top will fly up to the sky to be the sun in the next main page. When the sun stay properly at its place, it’s time for the airship flying through the scene carrying BooBoo and FooFoo while KooKoo is flying along next to them. As BB and FF laugh at KK, KK breaks the balloon, then, BB and FF will be falling down. That scenes will be looped until the user reaches the next page..

When user move to the next page, the sun will then fall down to become a flower. Next, the user will be able to interact with the flower after KooKoo comes and stays on it.Other actions like clond flowing, BB and FF , the tree moving will be looped until the user reach to the next page.

On this page, the candy is back to its original form. First, BB, KK and FF will run from 3 different corners of the screen to the center. Here, they will be pressed by the candy. Stop here! Then each time the mouse touch the candy, 3 character will appear as the illustration and bring out the menu. While the user doesn’t interact with the candy, there will be some visual sounds from behind.such as: “help us”, “ay ya”... to attract the attention.

LOGO in illus

Some of my friends say that, brighter colors should be better...I said "No". Because i know in my mind, the theme of the whole website, so, i choose colors which are cool and light...i don't want to bring a lot hot colors here. It will break the rest. You can briefly recognise the theme right at the background behind those character in the logo.
Moreover, there's a little sun flower on the right, dont wonder if it does have any function! It will appear as a main decoration component in the website and also has a role in the stories of 3 characters.

The end of week 3 ^^

^^ Contemporary LOGO of Ack Ack group

After some discussions, it's time for brainstorming to find new idea. For this project, i am really interested in every single aspect and want to turn everything in to a cute and funny style. So, i started with naming our group as "Ack Ack" ^^, this is also for the website name, while doing research on other websites, i find out naming website with words from dictionary is not a good choice anyway, there should be something special and familiar. Then, i chose "ack ack" a term which is very familiar to vietnamese youth nowadays, especially those ever spending time online. This term expresses some kind of feeling of being suprised, shocked or interested... and it's friendly used between friends. Therefore, i think it will make our website closed to the audience and sound unique as well.

Next, a very fun and difficult process i've been through ^^, creating characters!!!

I have already had in my mind 3 characters, however, they are not fully worked out yet. I've spent almost 2 days to complete them. The group of characters including an owl, a weasal and a sheep, lovely... For the sheep and owl, they are easy to form right at the beginning, but for the weasal i got stuck! really.

I didn't know exactly how the weasal looks like, then, i went online and search and 'ack ack' it doesn't look as cute as i used to think... So i look and draw it down...still look like the realy one

Ok, it's time to mix up some species together...how about a weasal with a black halo around the eyes and fat like a little bear ^^. Why not?

....But his mouth doesn't flexible right? So, let's change a bit right there...

Ah hah, i am happy with these three guys ^^.

Now, talk about their "personalities". While drawing, i mostly base on these to create each one's performance. My idea was to build up a group of 3 main small different animals, each one is recognize by its special characteristic.

Here is the brielf or each one:

1. Foo-Foo: naive, nice, kind, credulous so somtimes being cheated, always try to help others but always make thing messive.

2.Koo-Koo: wise, smart, nice, cold, so she's vain ^^, always be bothered by her two friends; Foo-Foo and Boo-Boo.

3: Boo-Boo: also nice, fun to be with but some time cross the line so he's thought to be over optimistic, naughty. And, he's always the one who raise troubles.

***About website idea ***

Websites that most influnece me:

http://www.puccaclub.com/eng/

* I really like the asian sound tracks and sounds used in each flash they've made. The motions are also smooth and cute.

http://www.mashimaro.com/eng/mashimaro/mashimaro.asp

* The character is impressively cute looking but his personality is terrible ^^

http://www.san-x.co.jp/monoboo/index.html

* The most recent trend and is still strong in the mean time. They're simple; black and white and that's all.

http://www.hellokitty.com/

* This trend has been popular for a long time but recently going weaker. It can be seen as the most well-known character of all time. I used to have a collect of Hello Kitty but i lost it. However, kitty makes me feel a bit boring because its face doesn't express any emotion...

http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/
* I love cartoon, it's funny with special characters. Moreover, behind each story, there's always a lesson. I've learn many things from seeing it; from lessons to develop my skill of creating character, color arrangement...etc

http://www.tokidoki.it/

* And finally, my most favorite one, tokidoki, created by a professor in illustrator. I really love those characters; milks, little weird dummies, the girl, japanese details in decoration, they all seem to be simple but amazingly impressive. And, i love the way the use color, bright, strong and young. Those might be the reason why this trend can cover right in New York, such a difficult target, isn't it?

As tokidoki successes on its way, LeSportsac co-operates with it to introduce such a new kind of fashion trend.
These websites have given me a general idea about my project's concept and style. Have a look!!!

*Tokidoki images are taken from the website http://www.tokidoki.it/

The rest are my artworks ^^

First days of the project ^^_Self Intro

Name : Dung, Luong Tu

ID :s3131322

Role : Graphic Designer

Current position : Co-president of RMIT Design Club (^_^)

Contact details :

mistery182001@yahoo.com

s3131322@rmit.edu.vn

Private NO : ... ask me later (*-*)

*I'm not good at writing, or even too bad. Yes, i like writing, but i can only type down what i'm thinking in the mean time. I can not reach the academic style even i try, maybe i'm too imotional or romantic to be serious.

Ah, moreover, i like things colorful and complex so...my words or sentences could be repeated and confusing...

***So, please sympathise! ^^***

Let's see...at first, due to some ironic problems our group used to include only 2 members; me and Phuong Anh. However, we both have same inspiration and soon we've raised idea about making a website for the final project. That was great because i've already had in my mind for long time a group of little characters, and, ofcourse, i decided to use them this time.

So, i am absolutely playing the role of a graphic designer in this project, therefore, i will have resposibility of managing styles, colors and how to express the idea this time. I'm happy that the others in group are those having same interest and inspiration with me, so, we do not have many conflict during the first period of raising idea.

Uhmmm...about me, why do i have enough confidence to play role as graphic designer this time? Well, i can draw well, and it was a natural ability + such a long time practising. I did not follow any drawing class or anything like that. It's simply that my right hand is a tool to express my mind. Moreover, i love colors, all kinds, and playing with them is really an enjoyable thing i usually do ^^. Let me find some artworks i've done to show you, so, you can recognise my style...

At my very first steps in to the digital world, i find out Illustrator tool can be best used for my style. So, it has become the most faniliar tool through almost 4 semesters. I can use Flash and Photoshop as well, in Flash i prefer using vector images to create motion because, anyway, drawing them is my interest^^.