Virtual Field Trip via Digital Storytelling

Digital storytelling is a practice of combining digital content such as 3-dimensional images, text, sound, images, and video to create a short story. It is the intersection between the old art of storytelling and access to powerful technologies. This project will be a step to experiment the development and effectiveness of digital storytelling and hopefully ignite a source of motivation and encourages others to tap into their interests and skills to develop their own digital storytelling and expand ICT usage in this country. School children look forward to traditional field trips. However, such trips are costly. VFT aims to reduce if not eliminate the constraints that traditional field trips face such as money, time, energy, resources, distance and inaccessible area. To fit the time frame, the VFT is created only for small selected areas in the KL Bird Park even though the KL Bird Park is not that big because some of the areas are not suitable to take panoramic pictures. The development of the VFT is adapted from QTVR Creation Steps by Kitchens (2006). The procedure consists of defining the problem statements and goals, literature review and research, creating image content through taking photos at the site, transforming the photos to QTVR node through stitching, design and construct prototype, inserting interactivity such as hotspots, delivering the output, and last but not least, evaluation. The final output of the project is the KL Bird Park Virtual Field Trip which consists of a photo based 3D panoramic images for each scene from the site which are linked to one another and also hotspots which are placed on the panoramic images to reveal the birds' information with one click on the hotspots. The informal evaluation of the final output that was conducted shows an overwhelming response and acceptance. All of the respondents would like to see more of this type of VFT in the future

Environmental FX for Multiple Productions

This thesis presents methods for creating visually interesting environmental visual effects using Houdini. Four different types of environmental effects are shown: Dust trails, Waterfall mist, Snow, and Underwater dust. Each of these effects emulate real world phenomena, but also have the ability to be artistically driven to fit the visual artist’s need

The Shojo Within the Work of Aida Makoto: Japanese Identity Since the 1980s

The work of Japanese contemporary artist Aida Makoto (1965-) has been shown internationally in major art institutions, yet there is little English-language art historical scholarship on him. While a contemporary of internationally-acclaimed Japanese artists Murakami Takashi and Nara Yoshitomo, Aida has neither gained their level of international recognition or respect. To date, Aida’s work has been consistently labeled as otaku or subcultural art, and this label fosters exotic and juvenile notions about the artist’s heavy engagement with Japanese animation, film and manga (Japanese comic book) culture. In addition to this critical devaluation, Aida’s explicit and deliberately shocking compositions seemingly serve to further disqualify him from scholarly consideration. This thesis will argue that Aida Makoto is instead a serious and socially responsible artist. Aida graduated with a Masters of Fine Arts from Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music in 1991 and came of age as an artist in the late 1980s during the start of Japan’s economic recession. Since then Aida has tirelessly created artwork embodying an ever-changing contemporary Japanese identity. Much of his twenty-three-year oeuvre explores the culturally significant social sign of the shojo or pre-pubescent Japanese schoolgirl. This thesis will discuss these compositions as Aida’s deliberate and exacting social critiques of Japan’s first and second “lost decades,” which began in 1991 and continue into the present

Animation Courseware as a Learning Aid for Student ofC Language Research on "The Suitability of Multimedia Component Combinations Towards Effective Learning"

This research is developed in conjunction with the development of Animation Courseware as a Learning Aid for Student of C Language. The title of this research "The Suitability of Multimedia Component Combinations Towards Effective Learning" derived from the development of Graphical User Interface (GUI), in which merging the concept of Computer-based Learning (CBL) into the current educational trend. The development of this animation courseware would give a new dimension in developing educational software since it is planned to use animations. This animations environment is a better way in learning especially when the target subject is programming-based and the target users are among the students. The primary objective is to introduce C Language lesson in multimedia learning applications and the scope is specified in the range of the multimedia components, the user interface design and the interactive multimedia learning application. The author has narrowed the scope to just the chapter of functions due to the time constraint. In order to develop this animation courseware, there are some research methodologies being used. The main resources during the development of this animation courseware would be the lecturer of multimedia as well as the lecturer of c programming. This courseware would be a system that is fully required these days due to its fulfillment in interactive needs today. Living in a fast lane in the world today, this is very precious indeed. For people that are in the run, manual old-fashioned approach in big fuzz. Therefore, learning interactively can save time thus having understood the same as attending conventional classes, sometimes more

Out of body experiences: a practice-led evaluation of the shifting boundaries shared by analogue films and their digital counterparts

Phd ThesisThis thesis provides in-depth analysis of my practice-led PhD and the methods used to focus on key areas of research - namely exploring the shifting perceptual parameters revealed when analogue films are transferred to digital formats. With this process audio-visual content previously locked inside film’s decaying form is resurrected as immaterial code within a malleable frame. My work utilised this spectral quality to examine different layers of film representation, observing its inner structure, while also stepping back to contemplate its content from a self-reflexive distance. These multiple viewpoints introduced unique spaces within which to study the analogue past from a digital perspective: The filmstrip’s mechanically regulated motion seamlessly combines still images, sound and light into analogue interpretations of space-time. My work digitally desynchronised these elements, revealing the structural gaps between them while also suggesting their merger with a new perceptual model. Moving beyond internal film worlds to the boundaries they share with the physical viewing space, another layer of disjointed separation was introduced by producing screens that struggled to contain film content within their frames. Stepping back further, these screens occupied a space caught between the fixed viewpoint of a cinema and the multiple perspectives allowed by gallerybased installations. The shifting frame of these hybrid spaces created an oscillation between passive submersion within, and analytical distance from mediated worlds. By unmooring and offsetting the precise alignment between film structure, screens and viewing spaces, my practice revealed overlapping edges and disjointed spaces within which media from different eras interacted. This opened up new areas of research that fed directly into my theoretical studies (the thesis layout itself shifts outwards, from media structures to viewing spaces). This approach enabled me to produce a substantial body of work, iii offering an original contribution to this field

Metamorphosis of recognition: representation of a fictional city

Cada pessoa tem a sua própria cidade, cidade imaginária que combina pormenores de locais reais, mundos do sonho ou fantasias pessoais. É a nossa própria forma de encaixarmos na realidade. Absorvemos uma variedade de estímulos e conservamos o que na realidade nos deixou um eco nas nossas almas — hábitos culturais, experiências exóticas, pessoas, sentimentos, memórias, trajectos favoritos ou somente pequenos detalhes arquitetónicos… Ligando as nossas impressões, construímos o nosso mundo. Ele já não pertence somente a um lugar ou país, é global e misturado a partir de diferentes aspectos culturais. Com cada novo contato nós naturalmente mudamos e a nossa mente muda também. Este trabalho é minha cidade imaginária. Com este projeto quero mostrar partes da minha imaginação e incentivar as pessoas a partilharem as suas cidades «reais», as quais, no meu ponto de vista, ajudarão a compreendermo-nos melhor uns aos outros. Partes da minha cidade ficcional foram espalhadas pelas ruas de Lisboa, uma vez que este lugar tem uma influência mágica em mim. A cidade ficcional é representada através de diversas peças, feitas recorrendo a técnicas variadas. No fim deste projeto descobri que a metamorfose do reconhecimento pode de fato tornar-nos conscientes de aspetos familiares das nossas vidas quotidianas quando olhamos — ou contemplamos através de, mesmo que só visualmente — uma cidade ficcional.Every person has their own city, imaginary city, that combines details of real or fictional places, of dream worlds or just personal fantasies. It´s our own way to fit to reality. We absorb lots of things and save what really has left an echo in our souls — cultural habits, exotic experiences, people, feelings, memories, favourite routes or just small architectural details… By connecting our impressions, we build our world. It no longer belongs just to one place or country, it´s global and mixed up from different cultural aspects. With every new piece we naturally change, and our mind changes as well. This work is my imaginary city. With this project I want to show parts of my imagination and encourage people to share their «real» cities, which, in my point of view, will help us understand each other better. Parts of the fictional city were spread and implicated on streets of Lisbon, as this place has a magical influence on me. The fictional city is represented through several pieces, made in different visual techniques. At the end of this project, I found that the metamorphosis of recognition can indeed make us aware of familiar aspects of our everyday lives when we look at — or travel through, even if only visually — a fictional city