Monday, September 29, 2008
Gumball Machine Progress
Hey guys, it’s me again. Hope you had as nice of a weekend as I did!Well, let’s cut down the chase. Over the weekend I’ve been working on my gumball machine after losing all the work I had done from before. From my perspective, this one looks spiffy and much better. It went a lot quicker since I already knew the style I was setting out, and how to airbursh it. I finished up the machine itself, and set the layers accordingly so that it looks realistic. I was trying to get the background done by today, but I just didn’t like how it was turning out so I decided to scrap it and start it up again on another day. Here’s my progress so far:
I purposely put the random background to see how the gumball machine, with the white 'bubble' glass would look with a backdrop. It turned out pretty good if you ask me, and don't mind me showing how many layers it took to get the right outcome!
Today I'm probably gonna finish up the gumball machine for it's due date. I can't wait because it's actually pretty fun doing art. It used to be a hobby for me (using Photoshop), and it's been turning into that again.
Until later, cya!
P.S. I know I have to do the layout, but I'm really lazy. I'm probably gonna hold off on it, but I'm for sure that before this unit is over I'll have a nice and custom-made layout.
Posted by Chris Kaminski at 5:42 PM
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Thursday... sad.
Ugh, today's Thursday, and there's nothing really exciting to talk about. Today we learned some more stuff about actionscripting, and how to specify which symbols you want to perform an action on. It's good that I learned some new things, but that's all I really learned today. The rest of the period was bent on working on the gumball assignment, which was pretty fun I suppose. I got a good idea for my intro, which uses a little bit of everything (almost) we've learned, and I was able to apply some of it.If you asked me this morning if I was getting some progress on the gumball machine, I'd agree, but now, once I'm home, I can disagree. Unfortunately my flash document somehow was deleted. My computer crashed or something, and now I have to reformatt it over the weekend. Yes, it is tedious, since I actually finished designing the machine (which looked very good and was 100% hand-made), and now I have to do it all over again ontop of reformatting.
Hopefully I can get through this weekend, I'll need all the luck I can get (I already wasted all the misfortune, although I shouldn't jinx myself).
Posted by Chris Kaminski at 10:21 PM
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Flash Assignment (My first!)
I'm pretty happy right now. I worked really hard for the last few days, and made my first little flash assignment. The thing I'm most proud of in the flash is how fluently the legs are animated, which is pretty good considering it's my first frame-by-frame animation test (on the legs at least). Unfortunately, I accidently forgot to add the pedals, which I had in the beginning, but deleted mid-way through without realizing. I wish that when you made something a movie clip the layers are still useable. Obviously that isn't possible in CS3.I would love to show my little assignment at best quality, but, due to a lack of any good image hosters, and they're evil minds bent on having me pay money to upload swf files, I could not upload the movie to it's fullest quality. Just by watching it, I can see slow down, and the music doesn't entirely go to the end of the clip. Hopefully next time I do a Flash assignment, I'll be able to get over those boundaries and host it up here. For now, I only have a link to demonstrate my work, which just can't show it for what it truely is.
http://imgboot.com/images/Nit3mare/bikerack.swf
We learned about some new stuff for the past couple days-- using buttons and how to do some code in action scripting. I've never even touched this side of Flash, so I'm glad we got into it (all I've ever fiddled around with is frames and symbols prior to this unit). We also got some info about our new assignment, which is a gumball machine. We're required to have an intro, which introduces the little game, a menu, and a button that makes at least 4 gumballs come out of the machine. I'm pretty excited.
Anyways, until next time. Hopefully I'll have an update on my assignment!
Posted by Chris Kaminski at 8:43 PM
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Flash + Me = Awesome
For the last 2 days it's been pretty hectic since I've been absorbing all the stuff Chiarelli has been teaching. We learned about the basics of animation and what frames are all about. Standard stuff for me, but I'm glad we got into tweening. Motion tweening, which uses symbols, text, or groups is the stuff I've already knew about for quite a while, but shape tweening on the other hand... wow. I've never learned about shape tweening, I never even knew how it worked, and how to do it, but now I do. It's some pretty easy stuff to grasp once you get the hang of it, but I'm sure it'll be very useful for upcoming projects, and out-of-class things.We also did a little test with shape tweening. We made a snowboard using different shapes, and then shape tweened it so it converted into a letter. It may have been simple to make, but it looked pretty cool considering how little we've learned about shape tweening.
Today we got into motion guides and layer masks. It's pretty cool, and stuff I've never got into before, or even tested. Motion guides use a path that you make, and allow a symbol to run off of it, to wherever you want it to go. Layer masks, on the other hand, are something I've used on Photoshop, but today it seemed like an almost totally different thing in execution. The outcome may have been the same, but to perform it was another story. However, I got the grip of it, and I'm happy I did.
This unit, so far, is awesome and has exceeded all my expectations. Looks like I'll have lots more fun in the weeks to come.
Posted by Chris Kaminski at 8:25 PM
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Flash, finally!
We started our new unit today, which is none other than Flash. Ahh, this is main reason that I took TIK 201, and I'm so excited that we finally got into it. Today was based on the basics of the program, and getting around with the tools with some examples of what we'll be able to do by the end of the semester. It's some pretty cool stuff, something that I've always wanted to get into, but never had the time or patience to fully understand and learn the 'schematics'.We got into shapes, how to add text, what layers are all about, and what symbols and instances are. This stuff I knew all about, it's some of the things I'm more advanced with actually (since I use Photoshop), but knowing that we'll soon get into programming and animation is what keeps me going. Hopefully we can actually test some stuff out tommorow.
Posted by Chris Kaminski at 4:50 PM
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Test Results + New Test Set + Blog Progress
Ugh, lower than I expected test results. It's funny how I messed up on questions just because I didn't read what it was asking me correctly. I'm sure I could have gotten a much better test score if I wasn't in such a rush to do things, and actually paid attention to what I was answering. Well, an 86% is still pretty good, but I expected something better. There's always next time to bring up my average though, am I right?We have a new test next Monday on networks, and I'm not sure if I'm ready. Today we learned some new things in class about pings and the network speed from one distance to another. A network, with the Internet in mind, is pretty complex with how it responds to certain situations. It's stuff way out of my knowledge, that I can barely comprehend it. Hopefully once I'm able to review my notes over the weekend, I'll become more familiar with the concepts and understand everything better.
I'm really liking this course though, since I love computers, and I'm starting to think more and more that a career in this field (perhaps engineering) is a good future for me. I would love to be a vet, but I don't know which subject I'm having more fun with. Only time can tell, but this course is vital for my selection of subjects in grade 11. It is a giving me a great view point of what to expect with a computer occupation in mind for the future.
Last minute info:
My blog progress has been pretty slow today. I expected to do some work, but I'm pretty tight on time so I can't do much. Hopefully I can do some more work tomorrow.
Posted by Chris Kaminski at 10:42 PM
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
New Info in Class + Blog Progress
Today we started a new subject-- networks. I haven't really learned too much about it, besides obviously the basics from personal experience, so I've been absorbing a lot of the info. Chiarelli talked to us about WANs (Wide Area Networks) , LANs (Local Area Networks), routers, and a lot of other networking tools, devices, and concepts. We learned about how to set up networks in our house, what networks were considered WANs or LANs, and pretty much the basics of the topic. After we even got into a little program called Net Meeting, which allows you to connect through IP Addresses, and do a wide variety of activities together. Our whole class had lots of fun playing around with the program. Tomorrow I'm sure we'll get into much more detail about the networking concept, and I'll learn a lot of new and exciting stuff.My blog layout has been progressing, albeit slowly. I found a pre-made skin after quite a while of searching, which I'm pretty happy about. I was looking for the right layout that I could customize to fit my needs, and I obviously found it. It looks pretty easy to modify, and I'll be able to add my 'touch' to it. I also realized that there is just too much work for this blog template to be done before my teacher sees it on Friday, so I'm just gonna use the original creator's work until I'm able to finish my modifications.
Hopefully the outcome will be better without such a tight deadline. I'm sure you, the very few viewers that read this, will like it.
Posted by Chris Kaminski at 7:32 PM
Monday, September 8, 2008
A test and time to work on my blog... Yay?
I had a test today and it was pretty easy compared to what I thought it was going to be like. Over the weekend I was preparing myself and making sure I knew I was ready. I hate it when you try to study for a test, and you don't know what you're supposed to look at; if this will be on the test, or that, etc, etc. However, this 'study time' wasn't like that. Chiarelli gave us a very good overview/review on what was going to be included, and a lot of highlights on what will definitely be there. It's much easier than when a teacher says "study chapter 3" and you go into a test with only one question on that chapter. Overall, I thought that test was a sinch, and I'll almost get perfect on it.After breezing through the test I had some free time to work on my blog. I've been attempting to build a custom skin for it, which I’m pretty short on details, but I’ve been trying to find a pre-made code for a different layout, and customize it with my own preferences (including images, links, etc). I’ll hopefully be done before my teacher reads this, if not, it’ll be shortly after. Stay tuned to my blog since I'll be posting more info and hopefully screenshots of my progress in the near future. Ciao!
Posted by Chris Kaminski at 8:00 PM
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
My First Blog Post
Hey and welcome to my very first blog! For the next few months I'll be writing down lots of stuff about my TIK201 class here. This is pretty exciting for me since this tech course, I'm sure, will help me learn a lot in fields that I'm very interested about. As a 10th grader, I'm not sure what I want to be when I grow up, and a life with computers and tech is a very probable future for me. As of right now I want to be a veterinarian, but who knows what the future has in stored for me, and more specifically what this class has waiting for me. Enough about my future, let's carry on.For our first unit, we will be doing hardware and the internal/external parts of a computer. We will be learning about the CPU, buses, video and sound cards, hard disks, and much more, and how they’re all connected to the motherboard in the outcome of making the computer work. I'm sure I'll learn a lot even though I'd say I'm pretty 'tech savvy'. Thanks for reading my very few fans (If I have any), and until next time.