Please Welcome Dx Productions

March 16, 2008

As of the beginning of this month I began my foray into the wondrous world that is motion graphics. Our first project was to make a ten second bumper advertising ourselves or a "company" that represented ourselves. I was originally going to use my name and try to brand myself as myself, but it was advised by an instructor that I brand myself under a pseudonym, at least for the remainder of school, so as to have something that gives a lasting impression. I decided to play off of my more or less established internet moniker, dxprog, and came up with dx productions. Grab yourself some popcorn and prepare to be sold my awesomeness.

Tags: school motion graphics video

0 Comments

Wherein the Author Imparts Upon His Audience the Ongoings of His Life

January 23, 2008

It's been some time since I have updated this blog. So I take leave of my busy life, if only for a moment, to fill you, the reader, in on the various happenings and goings on. (Okay, that's enough eighteen hundreds talk).

So, Christmas has come and gone (as it always does) and I am now back into the thick of school. Luckily, I don't have all sucky courses this month. No, I only have one. However, let's put the good news before the bad, shall we?

ADG
Advanced Computer Graphics, or ADG, is probably the second best course I've had thus far (NOS being number one). ADG is, more or less, a Photoshop/Illustrator class. DCG was also this to a slight degree, but more emphasis was placed on the actual design as opposed to technical issues. Now, however, we're in the thick of opacity masks, and layer styles, and blah, blah, blah. Actually, believe it or not, I've become more comfortable in Illustrator than I am in Photoshop. The pen tool, simply put, is the most brilliant thing since aged cheese. But don't take my word for it, take my art:

It should be duly noted that the NES is not, in fact, a photograph. Nor was it some fancy job I did in Photoshop. No, it was done completely in Illustrator and, vector graphics being what they are, is infinitely scalable. The advertisement, however, is not. Oh, and speaking of which, I realize that the NES is pushing twenty-three.

My other course is geometry and I will leave you simply with this: proofs can burn in Hell.

One thing I'd like to say real quick: iPod Touch is the best PDA ever created. I know. I own one. Damn you Apple, damn you.

My site is still riding on a wave of hits from the Rock Band drums thing way back when, but I've had another surge in popularity thanks to this guy. He's created one nicely polished drum kit app and has kindly linked back to my page. It'd be wrong for me not to return the favor.

Finally, while I'm throwing out links, be sure to check out the newly revamped Game Boyz. While you're at it, why don't you sign up on the forums and tell my bro how awesome the comic is.

Well, that should appease the masses for the well being. I write these posts in hope that somebody is reading them, however, even if it just serves as a chronicle of my life for me to read later, then so be it. It's deep tomes of history have already provided me with hours of cringing agony. May it continue to do so in this grand a glorious new year.

Tags: school art design comic apple

0 Comments

So many all nighters

December 23, 2007

It's true; I have pulled an insane amount of all nighters this year and here I am doing it once again. I am currently at Orlando International where I await the departure of my flight at 6:23am, a little less than six hours from now. I was hoping to walk in here, dump off my luggage, and get through security right off the bat. However, good old Northwest Airlines has, yet again, left me with an unmanned counter. So, I am stuck with my twenty pound bag of clothing and vigilantly watching for the first signs of life at the counter.

Once again I have finished another two courses at Full Sail. This time was Design and Art Theory (DAT) and College Math (CMD) which was basically an Algebra course.

DAT was alright; it was essentially a traditional art course with design centric properties. Not being able to use my computer was difficult for me especially because pencils and paper don't have the Ctl+Z option. If you screw up, you've screwed up. Congratulations. However, I did pump out some decent stuff which I will show to you now.

This is my fice piece still life. I pushed it a little bit by counting the drum sticks as seperate objects, but meh. It went ungraded anyways (as did most things in that class).

This is the only piece I am truly proud of. I don't really have much to say aside from it was painted with acrylics on canvas and it was my first time doing any painting outside of using Crayola watercolors. The colors are a little dark because mixing paints is a bitch.

I did do several other pieces, but I don't have pictures of them and seeing as I'm at the airport I won't be taking pictures anytime soon.

Nothing really to report on about math because that's exactly what it was. What is sweet, though, is that I may pull an A out of that class which would thrill me to no end as I thought math was my suckiest subject.

So, there's my month on a nutshell. I'll probably post again once I'm in ol' Bartlesville. Until then, keep on peacin' out!

Tags: school art airport christmas

14 Comments

Good-bye vacation

November 26, 2007

A wise man once said all good things must come to an end. So it is true for me as my week long Thanksgiving vacation is over effective 8:00AM EST tomorrow morning. However, I will certainly say that it has been a rather interesting week for me.

There is, of course, my obvious return to fame thanks in no small part to idle curiosity and a couple minutes of nifty text editing. And to those who've been messing around with the drums program from the prior post, I have been paying attention to your comments. At this point I've abandoned that program in lieu of a GlovePIE script. More on that as things unfold.

An interesting development that spun off of all that hype was a small little comment left on a completely unrelated topic. It was from a producer at EA who basically said "Hey, want to do some game testing now and maybe come work for us after college?" When I first read that my small appartment was filled with whooping and jumping (this was before I got sick, more on that in a minute). It would be completely awesome if this were to pan out for me. Not only would I get some extra cash on the side while still in school, but I could go straight from graduation right into the industry that I've always dreamed of working in.

This whole thing is a perfect testimony to what I've been told by many people: throw yourself out there, you never know who's looking. I've been slowly working on my online presence since I joined YPN in January of '02. Since then I've dipped into almost every kind of online media there is. From running a message board, to podcasting, to online videos. Basically what I'm trying to say is, if you've got something that you think is good, put up online and do a little bit of shameless advertising. If I can come this far with one little video and a tip suggestion to Engadget and Joystiq there's no reason why anybody else can't. /end soapbox moment

As mentioned previously, I am "sick". I put it in quotes because it's not as bad as my usual form of sickness. Usually I get a sore throat, runny, feel weak, and just downright terrible over all. This, however, is confined mainly to the sore throat combined with a little bit of hoarse voice. Luckily, with the exception of the throat I feel physically fine. I was well enough to bike up to school today to pick up the books for my next wave of classes, namely Design and Art Theory (DAT) and College Mathematics (CMD).

DAT looks to be rather interesting as it is basically a traditional art class (no computers) with a design oriented twist. I've heard from two sources now that we're going to be getting a large amount of art supplies so that'll be cool. CMD is basic math up through intermediate Algebra. I jumped to the middle of my book and was able to figure out what was going on so I'm feeling pretty confident about that. Plus, I got a free Algebric calculator, though I doubt I'll ever use it. I usually do all my problem solving on paper.

Well, I feel I've rambled on enough. Before I go I just want to give a quick shout out to any new readers I may have picked up through the hulla-balloo. Peace out.

Tags: soapbox school job

4 Comments

Into the Christmas Swing (amongst other things)

November 14, 2007

We're almost down to one month before Christmas. THis means many different things to many different people. For some it means shopping, others getting together with others. For me, it means Christmas music. A lot of Christmas music. Of course, it also means that I'll be able to go see my folks again which is always sweet. And let's not forget the tantalizing aroma of sweet Christmas presents under the tree. And, speaking of aroma, and possibly the most important part of Christmas, the cookies. But, I suppose we must get through Thanksgiving first, which for me means being thankful for my brand new copy of Rock Band that I will be playing on that day.

But, holidays aside, I've been working on some very interesting things for school as of late. I've already given you a taste by showing my trailer project, but there are many other things I've been up to. Let's list them by class.

Designing Computer Graphics (DCG)
So far this class has been mostly about Illustrator and Photoshop basics, though they have touched on some good design practices (or not so good) by reviewing previous students works. However, there are three core projects we're working on (of which only two have been assigned so far). The first was a black and white logo.

Pixelated Earth

Our second project was a set of three (or more) icons based around a theme. There were six possible themes to choose from, those being Olympics, zoo, theme park, library, airport, or musical styles. I'll let you figure out which theme I chose.

My Icons
First I need to note that that is not my logo (it is the official logo of the 2012 Summer Olympic games). It's primarily there to help set the mood and show where I drew my inspiration from.

You may notice that both of these projects were in black and white (no colors or grays). This is a pretty ingenious call because by limiting us in the color department we are forced to put more emphasis on line width, stylization, and shadows and highlights. If something works well in black and white there's no reason why it won't work well in color.

Networks and Operating Systems (NOS)
As stated before the name of this class is a misnomer. They are actually in the process of converting it into Digital Storytelling, focusing more on getting a point across as opposed to the technical aspects of computers. I have to say of the two classes I am currently taking this is my favorite not necessarily because of what we do but because of our instructors, Fabian Socarras and Jacob Kaplan. It's difficult to explain how there two teach (if indeed they are really teaching at all), but it is certainly the most entertaining course and, so far, the most informative.

But, that aside, I've been doing some pretty cool stuff here as well. After the trailer project we all made podcasts (I will not be posting mine, thank you very much). Our last project was to prepare a Keynote presentation trying to convince our target audience of why we needed something and, subsequently, why they should purchase it for us. I did mine on why I needed a Nintendo 64. I presented in front of my lab group and Fabian and Jacob invited themselves in as presenters which was cool. Will you ever see this keynote? Perhaps, perhaps not.

Our next project is something that, for me, is pretty easy stuff. We are to set up and design a blog using Wordpress. To make things challenging for myself I asked Fabian if I could write mine from the ground up as opposed to using Wordpress. While he gave the nod of approval, he seemed dubious as to whether or not I could pull it off within the time frame and meet all the criteria. Considering most of my back end is already in place, and with the addition of a couple of new modules I pounded out tonight, I foresee no problems. However, it turns out this will be a group project so I may just stick with Wordpress so as not to make myself appear elitist to my fellow classmates. No, that can wait until my official web classes a few months down the road.

That's about all for now seeing as I need to get to bed so I can be up at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. Here's hoping I have afternoon classes AND labs next month.

Tags: school graphic design art christmas

5 Comments

< Older

Newer >