I was worried about enrolling in my ARTT 2372 course because of my limited knowledge of computational learning devices. This inquiry made me finally understand what this class is all about: learning how to recognize the process of a project and convert that into meaning. One might ask, how does one convert working with technology into meaning? Well, in this blog post I hope to put the reader into my own shoes during the process of the GIF & AR Inquiry to understand how I turned making a GIF into a meaningful experience.
During this past year, I've learned very minimal Photoshop skills. I knew how to posterize images, cut copy and paste images onto different ones, and how to use the lasso tool. Ive always wanted to become very educated on Photoshop but I've never had the chance to learn every tool and what they do. When I learned that we were going to be making GIFs on photoshop I got nervous immediately. I was scared that my lack of knowledge in photoshop would hurt me during this inquiry, or set me back. Luckily a demo was being performed by Professor Justice. I knew I needed to listen to this demo and take notes. I took a whole page of what I thought to be well explained notes of different tools that would help me make images into GIFs.
I went back to my seat and felt confident in my abilities in making a GIF. However, this was not the case. I sat and stared at my screen trying to figure out what I even wanted to do. I just couldn't figure out where to start or how to animate something I felt somewhat good about. The first road block I had was I couldn't figure out how to fill a shape I made with the Marquee tool. I spent 45 minutes trying to figure out how to fill color to a shape. With the help of my friends I was able to finally figure it out. It ended up being more simple than I made it out to be. The next roadblock I hit was learning how to create frames for animation. For some reason I just couldn't get it. I spent about an hour on this as well and before I knew it class was almost over. I had 2 mental blocks in 2 hours and decided to give up for the day. I didn't come back to the project until the next class.
I walked into the next class session with an open mind. I threw away everything I did the class before and started over brand new with an emotion card. The emotion I got was bored. I started with a filled circle and used the paintbrush tool to paint a bored face. I then added a background of a mood bored and animated the face to move around the board. This was my first one and I was able to finish it rather quickly.
Even though this was pretty basic I was proud of myself. I then remembered a technique I learned from my 2D Design class to use the lasso tool to trace and cut certain parts of an image out from another and how to paste it onto another image. I used this to put a girl who looked bored in an office space with a clock of the same time going around her head. She is obviously bored at work and time is moving very slowly. This one I made in about 15 minutes at most. It was pretty good too I was really impressed at my progress from the 1st day of trying to the 2nd. Sometimes I just need to step back and give myself a mental break and try again the next day. I also used different tools to get to the same outcome more efficiently.
Next I was introduced the EyeJack. I had never seen this software before and quite honestly I didn't know what AR stood for when I first started. Later I found out it stood for Augmented reality and I understood it 10X more. I was excited because this website seemed pretty easy to navigate. I made my background images the same as the background of my animated pictures to make it look like the gifs just appeared. I was pretty impressed with what I had accomplished and decided it would be my finished product. I took a step back and looked at my growth with the GIF animations through to the finished AR. I had to work around my tools in order to get a similar result. I learned to not be as hard on myself throughout this inquiry
While I struggled in the beginning, I was able to have a good overall experience from this project. I was able to realize my mental exhaustion and give myself a break to try again later. Sometimes you just need to look at something with a clear and open mind. I'm glad I was able to experience this project because it will inspire me for further projects and the process of those.