Machinima Madness

How Hard Are New Year Resolutions?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:13:00 +0000

Well it has been a very festive Xmas in the last year 2009. The new year by western standards has come and gone and soon the Chinese New year will be celebrated (12-28 February). This will be the welcoming of the the chinese year of the Tiger.

What does this mean for you? What resolutions and goals have you set for yourself for this new year of 2010?

The chinese Tiger has the following qualities "Courageous, daring and confident, people born in the Year of the Tiger are natural leaders. However, they can be unpredictable and tempestuous, and sometimes territorial and possessive. 2010 is the Year of the Metal Tiger, with Metal bringing additional strength and determination." quote

We have struggled through the resession and now is the time to refocus our direction an look forward with the determined eye of the tiger.

This year I am continuing my University of Canberra studies in semester 1 2010, doing the following units for my Media Arts and Production degree:

* Drama Production
* Web Design and Production

Yes, I'm still studying part time, but I am still chipping away.

Leave a Comment and let me know what your plans are for this year of the tiger?

Exitium: Vae Victis V Amazing Half Life 2 Machinima

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 09:51:00 +0000

I did some searching on the internet for some decent machinima films and stumbled on Exitium - Vae Victis V. This would be the best machinima film I have ever seen so far.

It is really hard to find really decent well executed machinima film. Last night I found a beauty. The film was produced and directed by Eddie Smithson. As a result of my excitement for this film, I searched the internet for information about Eddie, such as a blog, website, facebook, twitter etc which resulted with no bites.

Exitium: Vae Victis V (Half-Life Machinima)

Eddie used an unusual method of making this film. He used the Garry's mod and green screen approach which I thought was very unusual, if not a time consuming process.

The Metrocop battle scenes reminded me of the Steven Spielberg film Saving Private Ryan. The battle scenes had a WWII battle footage style which I feel is quite an achievement.

Here is a tutorial that Eddie produced to show how he did it.

Eddie Smithson's Tutorial (Half-Life 2 Machinima Tutorial)

If you have any information at all about Eddie Smithson, please let me know by adding a comment to this blog.

Have a Look at This - Inside Games and Machinima 2

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 05:44:00 +0000

So you like the Inside Gaming: Best of 2009 Part A. Well here is the B side. I love this stuff. These guys have a great, though twisted sense of humor. Hope you like it.

So you survived part 1 and Mum and Dad don't mind the bad language. Cool, here is the B side, part two. I hope you enjoy it. Cause I did, does, do...

Inside Gaming: Best of 2009 Part B

Leave a comment and tell me what you think...

Have a Look at This - Games and Machinima 1

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 05:29:00 +0000

Well the New Year 2010 is fast approaching so let look at the way gaming was in 2009. Some really cool games, with some really cool graphics. Doh... need a wicked graphics card for these. Here is a machinima video created by some rad hyperactive gamers...

Games aren't way they used to be, npc's made up with sprites now we have the wicked 3D virtual reality world experience that will rot your brains and give you nightmares. Ahhhh... Don't you just love it when you wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and some grizzly monster is drooling over you thinking what a great appetizer you will be.

Here's Inside Gaming: Best of 2009 Part A
(WARNING! WARNING! - Wear headphones or Mum and Dad may freak out with the naughty bad language.)

What I tell you. Really cool, Hey...

Leave a comment and let me know what you think...

Merry Christmas and a Happy 2010 Year

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 02:58:00 +0000

http://www.flickr.com/photos/funkyshapes/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Its been a while since, I last added a blog to my blogger. It all started while studying in University as part of our class assignments. When I started this blog, I had no idea how blogs work, let alone flickr, facebook, delicious and being a twit doing tweets on twitter. This new technology... well maybe not for some but it was all new to me. After some research and wanting to be part of the world wide web social networking community, I decided to continue blogging on my Blogger adding new blogs. I know it can be confusing sometimes but you get used to it.

Santa's coming to town!!!
So Christmas is 2 sleeps away. We don't have a chimney here, but we do live on the top floor of a block of units. Which means when Santa comes along we should be the first on his list when he visits our units. How do I know this? Well... Where's he going to park his slay? On the roof of our unit of course. He can't park on the ground because he will get a parking ticket.

What are you getting for Christmas
I don't know about you but I have a list for Santa. I have tried really hard to be a good boy. Yeah I know men never grow up. Well that's what my wife keeps telling me. Anyway, don't tell anyone but this is my secret present list. It starts of with Dear Mr Santa Clause. Most kids say Dear Santa. But I'm hoping using the title Mr. will win me some brownie points.

Here is my list of presents I want Santa to deliver to my unit. Please pretty please...

A huge wide screen HD Digital LCD TV (PAL of course, since I live in Australia)
A Mac computer with Final Cut Pro so I can edit movies and so my arty, Uni buddies will think I am really, really cool.
A HD Digital Video Camera with a mike input. If you don't have a mike input you can't record a decent sound.
A voucher for a mechanic in Canberra to give my car a complete service and tune up. It badly needs it.
And... And... Some fairy dust that will help me write really cool blogs that will make a lot of people happy and they will like me lots and lots.
And a humanitarian gift - Peace to the whole world - Food for the poor - Jobs for everyone who is unemployed - Christmas presents for all the children in third world, struggling, poor countries.

I will be leaving a big bottle of brandy for Santa to butter him up and get more brownie points.

New Year 2010
I remember when I was a little boy reading Dick Tracy comic books and thinking Hmmm... 2010... well actually it might have been 2020. But who cares, 2010 sounds good since it will be next year. As I was saying, when I was a little boy I thought, wow that is like, light years away. Will I still be alive then? Will there be flying cars like in the Jetsons? Will we have robots who will be our slaves to do our bidding? Like a really nice lady robot? Hey I was a little boy with unrealistic crazy dreams. But we won't go there. Well guess what? No... we still have cars polluting our planet and threatening the existence of animals, including us humans, and our planet earth. Have a look at Mars, we really stuffed that planet up. What? we weren't there... Well, maybe we weren't but our ancestors were. You know the men from Mars, who met these really, really nice ladies on Venus and they had a crazy party like they did in the days of the Roman Empire. They must have been really cool parties. You know Org... Org... you know. Oh what were they called...? Awe that's right Organized, meeting a new species party and sharing ideas for the future. Now that must have been a really cool party.

Yes a new year is fast approaching and besides my childhood dreams, I am still alive to enjoy this moment and to tell the child in my heart, You are so lucky to see the year 2010.

So what is the moral of these childish ramblings?
Even though we are adults, the child in our hearts(remembering the dreams we had for the future when we were a child. Like boys saying I want to be a fireman or for the girls, I want to be a ballerina). Those were the dreams we had when we were a child and it is up to us as grown up men and ladies to fulfill the dreams we had when we were a child and while growing up. Don't let self doubt hold you back in making your life a fulfilling and happy one. We have control of our destiny. Don't give up on your dreams and make the child in your heart proud to be part of you.

Conclusion to Daryl's ramblings while drinking only water

Ho, Ho, Ho... Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year...

Oops my wife walked in... Better go now... Hi Honey... I love you...

Psst... What are your plans for Christmas? Leave a comment and have some fun...

Four Steps to Filmmaking

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 11:25:00 +0000

While waiting for the Introduction to Cinematography lecture, I spoke to one of my class mates comparing notes on how we are coping with our assignments. Because I have made films and 2 community television programs, I am well aware of the task that awaits us and the need for commitment to complete our assignments.

To help filmmakers understand the four steps of filmmaking:

Pre-Production
Production
Post-Production
Marketing

I have started writing articles taking you through each step from pre-production through to marketing. It is hoped that you will realize the mammoth amount of work you need to do to be prepared and organized in making films.

I would also suggest you download Celtx which is a freely available pre-production software application that will help you:

Write a screenplay
Create a storyboard
Break down your screenplay
Create a shooting schedule

You can download Celtx from here.

Link to my first article: Four Steps to Filmmaking

References
Celtx Website: http://celtx.com/
Celtx Download: http://celtx.com/download.html
Four Steps to Filmmaking: http://www.fandangle.com.au/how-to-make-films/148-four-steps-to-filmmaking.html

Production Diary - Tuesday 4th August 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 10:29:00 +0000

This is the start of my production diary for my University studies in Introduction to Cinematography.and Editing Sound and Image Last week we familiarized ourselves with video camera settings e.g.

Manual Exposure (apeture)
Neutral Density Filter
White Balance
Color Bar
Manual/Auto Focus
Setting color, brightness and contrast for camera monitor
and a heap of other settings and tripod setting up.

This week we learned about three-point lighting(key, fill, back light) Uni is great because the lights are provided for us to play with. Mmmm-more toys.

I borrowed 1 book on cinematography and 2 books on lighting. The subjects I'm doing for this semester are really heavy and a lot of details to learn and master. But besides these issues it is really cool. I am learning so much and studying intensely.

More to come

Joomla 1.5.12 - TinyMCE Doesn't Work

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:51:00 +0000

For those of you who have a website using Joomla CMS (Content Management System), you may have upgraded to version 12. If so you may have noticed that TinyMCE, which is the text editing tool for Sections, Categories and Articles isn't working properly. After investigation, I have found a way to deal with this issue and have written a tutorial to assist those who don't understand the answers that have been given on the internet.

Tutorial to fix Joomla 1.5.12 TinyMCE not working

Free - Website, Application and System Icons Creative Commons License

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 09:59:00 +0000

If only I could have some icons for my website. Well you can access over 300 website icons under the creative commons license (Free!!!).

Here is a wiki with a list of icons under the Creative Commons License

Exam is Completed

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:47:00 +0000

I just finished my exam for Network Media Production this morning. Yesterday I was in a panic not knowing what we are in for with the exam. I took the afternoon off work to revise my lecture notes and researched the internet to refresh my memory.

Got up early this morning and did the same. Went to the exam and yes no one else in the course knew what they were in for. Well I must say the first question threw my mind in a spin "What is a Blogroll?" Blogroll, I don't remember being taught about a blogroll. We were taught about blogs and blogging. So I thought it was a trick question and discussed in my answer what a blog is.

I must say I was pleasantly surprised when I finished answering all the questions with 15mins to spare. I know I had 15mins because a lady walked passed with a sign saying 15 minutes to go. I read through my answers to make sure I covered everything. Glad I did because I added information to some of the answers.

On reflection, I am very pleased with my answers and most of all it is over. No more butterflies and worms in the stomach.

Hope the rest of my class did just as well. I looked around at those who were doing the same exam and noticed we all finished at the same time, waiting for 10am to get out of the examination room. I also noticed a few smiles. This told me that yes we were all taught well.

Congrats to our lecturers and tutors they did a fantastic job. Thank you guys!!!

My Final Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 06:36:00 +0000

I know this is a late post, but I asked Michael Honey for an extension which he approved.

We have reached the end of our journey(studies for Networked Media Production). I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I have. I have learned a lot of useful knowledge and things I had never heard of. So yes this subject has proven to be amazing. I give it 10/10.

The lectures and tutorials were motivating, captivating and informative. I couldn't wait to get home after the lectures and tutorials to research the things we were learning.

I linked my RSS feed to Googles FeedBurner which shows that at the start of this blog I had 4 subscribers and at the end it increase to 7. Here is a picture of the stats

Analyzing the stats from my Project B assignment, since writing articles for this blog the statistic have proven to be a successful way of generating traffic to my website. It is evident by the hits from Australia increased during the time studying Networked Media Production.

This subject has sparked an interest in researching Social Networking and finding new ideas to add to this new world wide web phenomena.

So for now this is a sad farewell to all my fellow students, lecturers and tutors.

The 3 blogs I have chosen are as follows:

We Are The Web
http://machinimamadness.blogspot.com/2009/05/we-are-web.html

Creative Journey
http://machinimamadness.blogspot.com/2009/03/creative-journey.html

Infomatics and Data Visualization
http://machinimamadness.blogspot.com/2009/05/inforgraphics-verses-data-visualisation.html

Project B Rationale (NMP)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 01:32:00 +0000

This article is a rationale of my University of Canberra - Networked Media Production (NMP) assignment. Which I have decided to be Data Visualization using raw data to analyze any patterns or trends in the traffic flow of people visiting my website www.fandangle.com.au

Why I choose data visualization for this project.
If you have a website, it would help to know who is visiting you and what has attracted these visitors to your website.

This article will explain the advantages of using data visualization to monitor the traffic that flows to your website. It may even reveals trends and patterns that you didn't know about.

The Data
Most ISP's provide CPanel which is a Control Panel or file management system accessed via a web interface. Normally CPanel allows a website administrator access and permission to download Raw Access Logs of all visitors to their website. The logs record information such as IP address, date and time visited, browser used, pages, files and images accessed etc. Unfortunately my ISP at this stage is unable to provide access to the Raw Access Logs. Not to be put off, I have created a visual basic program to extract data from the awstats pages via CPanel.

Here is an excellent article explaining how to gather and analyze the Raw Access Logs - Harvesting cPanel Raw Access Logs

Joomla 1.5
The content (articles, images and videos) on my website is administered using the Joomla 1.5 CMS (Content Management System). Joomla is an Open Source CMS which has a large international following.

Searching the Google Trends service which will gererate graphs of the popularity of certain keywords used in the Google search engine. This graph shows the growth of some popular open source CMS applications such as: joomla, drupal, wordpress and typepad

As we can see from this data visualization Joomla is the most popular CMS closely followed by Wordpress. Google Trends is an excellent tool in seeing graphically what the popularity or trends are for keywords.

Joomla 1.5 is an excellent CMS for people who are not don't have programming skills such as HTML, CSS, PHP using MySQL(Opensource Database), Apache(Web Server) and Linux (Opensource OS -Operating System)

Those who do have programming skills can create website templates(how the website looks) as well as extensions for Joomla(modules, components and plugins). I fit into this criteria and have created a module that will allow website administrators insert Google Adsense Ads on their Joomla website.

What am I looking for?
Remembering the basic rule of economics "Supply and Demand". I needed to find out what is the demand of my visitors in relation to the supply of articles I write. The only way I could do this was to analyze the statistic logs from my website and use data visualization to see if there were any patterns or trends. By following this method of analysis I can then experiment and develop constructive strategies to see if there is an increase in the traffic flow to my website.

Now I must admit I am not proud of the traffic my website is getting so far, which is around 1,000 hits a month. The website is only in it's infancy (10 months) so pride put aside the questions that come to mind are;

1) Who is visiting my website
2) What are my visitors looking for
3) How much and what type of traffic flow is the website attracting
4) What events, actions or changes have affected the flow of traffic
5) What strategies can I implement based on the analysis

Now that I know what I am looking for I can look for a way to visualize the data that may reveal some traits. The visualization tools I chose to use are the Google Visualization API's. They are free and simple to use. The great thing about the Google Visualization API's is you can store your data in a Google Docs Spreadsheet and link the data in the spreadsheet to the API of your choice. Which means if you add more data to the spreadsheets, the Google Visualization API's will reflect those updates because they are linked to the spreadsheets.

Who is visiting my website
I choose the Geomap to display what countries were visiting my website. I created two Geopmaps:

GeopMap Bandwidth of visitors
The bandwidth shows what countries have visited the website and the intensity of the color refers to the lowest to the highest number of bandwidth in Bytes or downloads.

Link to the Geomap Bandwidth of Visitors

GeoMap Hits
The hits in this Geomap relates to how many pages were accessed by visitors and what countries they came from.

Link to Geomap of visitors Hits

What are my visitors looking for
This was a tough job extracting the data from the statistical web page HTML. I created a Windows Application using visual basic 2005 to make the job easier for future use.

Here is a table of the Most Popular pages

Pages Visited	Number of Hits
fandangle.com.au/index.php	6948
fandangle.com.au/	3723
fandangle.com.au/component/yvcomment/	1610
fandangle.com.au/downloads/mod_fandangle_adsense.zip	1153
fandangle.com.au/joomla-tutorials.html	773
fandangle.com.au/about-fandangle.html	645
fandangle.com.au/how-to-make-films/92.html	578
fandangle.com.au/joomla-tutorials/88.html	562
fandangle.com.au/machinima-films.html	546
fandangle.com.au/contact-us.html	495
fandangle.com.au/radio.html	451
fandangle.com.au/daryls-films.html	442
fandangle.com.au/fandangle-adsense.html	435
fandangle.com.au/fandangle-sitemap.html	413
fandangle.com.au/what-is-machinima.html	409

How much and what type of traffic flow is the website attracting
To see how much and what type of traffic my website is generating, I used a Motion Chart comparing Bandwidth to Hits and the chart animates the changes over a time period of 10 months. This chart proved to be very interesting because most of the countries had low hits but high downloads. But what interested me most was that the United States had the most hits and low downloads and Australia beat the US with the highest hits.

Link to Motion Chart

What events, actions or changes have affected the flow of traffic
Having seen the results of the Motion chart I choose a Time Chart that focused on the hits from the United States compared to Australia.

Link to Fandangle Hits Analysis Graph

With this Time Chart I was able to note when the peaks in the time line happened.

A) I activated my website(put it online)
B) I created a Joomla 1.5 module that would insert Google Adsense Ads on a webpage
C) I started writing articles for my blog as part of my University weekly assignment
D) This was the peak of writing articles for my blog

What strategies can I implement based on the analysis
From the analysis of these Data Visualization tools I was able to ascertain information that has show what I need to do to generate more traffic.

Write, write and write some more
write at least one article a week for my website and my blog.

Get the word out there
get the word out there via blogs, forums etc, build more Joomla 1.5 modules that for free download on the website, and get my website links on more websites.

Monitor my results using data visualization
Keep analyzing the traffic flow of my website with these tools to see if I am making progress in generating more traffic.

Conclusion
I have realized, thanks to this University assignment that using these Data Visualization tools to monitor my website traffic is a far better approach to generate traffic rather than guessing and flying blind .

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References
Fandangle Website: http://www.fandangle.com.au

Fandangle Data Visualization Charts And Graphs
Geomap bandwidth: http://www.fandangle.com.au/networked-media-production/123-geomap-to-monitor-website-downloads-traffic.html
Geomap Hits: http://www.fandangle.com.au/networked-media-production/124-geomap-to-monitor-website-hits-traffic.html
Motion Chart: http://www.fandangle.com.au/networked-media-production/122-data-visualization-motion-chart.html
Annotated Timeline Chart: http://www.fandangle.com.au/networked-media-production/125-annotated-timeline-graph-to-monitor-your-wesite-traffic.html

Google Trends: http://www.google.com/trends

Google Visualization API's
Visualization website: http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/documentation/gallery.html
GeoMap: http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/documentation/gallery/geomap.html
Motion Chart: http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/documentation/gallery/motionchart.html
Annotated Timeline Chart: http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/documentation/gallery/annotatedtimeline.html

Harvesting cPanel Raw Access Logs:
http://perishablepress.com/press/2007/05/28/harvesting-cpanel-raw-access-logs/
Example Raw Access Logs: http://cpanelguide.net/RawLog.txt

Content Management Systems (CMS)
Google CMS Trends: http://www.google.com/trends?q=joomla%2C+drupal%2C+wordpress%2C+typepad

Joomla: http://www.joomla.org/
Drupal: http://drupal.org/
Wordpress : http://wordpress.org/
Typepad: http://www.typepad.com/

CPanel: http://www.cpanel.net/

NMP Project B

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 05:53:00 +0000

I have spent a lot of time researching what I want to do for my Project B - Data Visualization. As a result I was able to use Google Maps API, Google Documents Spreadsheet for these visualizations

Google Maps of countries visiting my website

Motion Chart of what countries the visitors to my website are from, how many hits and the download bandwidth. Which has been very revealing in the analysis.

The statistical data is from my website www.fandangle.com.au. which means I am the copyright owner of this information.

Project B Is Coming

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 May 2009 06:22:00 +0000

This is not my Project B Rationale blog. It is just letting you know I am still alive and kicking and working on my project of course.

It has taken a while to decide what I am doing for my project. Originally I was going tell a story of the journey my Grandfather took when he enlisted to fight in WWII. Unforunately he died while in action in Crete. It is also really hard getting family history since my Father and Aunty are no longer alive.(No violins please) It would have involved a lot of research at the National Archives of Australia and the Australian War Memorial which would have taken up far too much time researching. So I decided to work on datavisualization.

The datavisualization will be based on stats from my website www.fandangle.com.au . Sounds great, except my ISP's CPanel doesn't have access to the Raw Access Logs to do a proper analysis of the data. But all is not lost. I can copy and paste stats from Awstats on the ISP's CPanel. Not as detailed as I would have liked.

To format the data properly I created a visual basic program to save a lot of manual copy/paste/edit etc work. The project will utilize Google Visualization API using Google Maps and Google Earth. Sounds easy. Not really. It will involve a lot of technical work. The first visualization will be a map displaying a number of pin point markers showing what countries visitors to my website have come from. To use the Google Map API, I have to provide the country names, country abreviation codes and latitude/longitude coordinates of the various countries. Then there is the HTML and Java codes I have to manipulate. I might make a visual basic program to do this automatically for me. It may lead to a tool I can offer on my website so that anyone interested in Google Maps as a datavisualiztion tool can generate the code to embed the maps on their website or blog.

When it comes to a project this size I don't want to do it just for the sake of my studies. There needs to be a reason why I'm doing this work. So the other reason for doing this project is so I can monitor my website traffic. I have Google Adsense ads (Call me a capitalist - we have to survive some how) on my website and need to increase my traffic to increase my monetizing chances.

I can see this project will end up being an on going venture, because I would like to eventually make a PHP application using MySQL on a LAMP (Linux) server to help in website log statistical analysis.

So that is the state I am in at present. Please stay tuned for the continuing story.

References
Google Visualization API: http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/
National Archive of Australia: http://www.naa.gov.au/
Australia War Memorial: http://www.awm.gov.au/
My Website: http://www.fandangle.com.au
CPanel: http://www.cpanel.net/
Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/
Google Earth: http://earth.google.com/
Google Adsense: http://www.Google.com.au/AdSense
MySQL: http:/www.mysql.com
PHP: http://www.php.net/

Project B - Datavisualisation Or Not?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 21 May 2009 05:30:00 +0000

Project B is fast approaching. I'm still doing research on my project and starting to think I have bitten off more than I can chew.

After doing to research on Data Visualisation there is a heap of tools that will help you create various methods of displaying your data. Do a Google search for datavisualisation tools and datavisualization tools.

Here are some examples:

Data Visualisation: Tools and Examples - Written by Matthew Solle

Googles TouchGraph - a Java application that reveals the network of connectivity between websites as reported by Google's database of related sites.

IBM's Manyeyes application to create datavisualisation

New York Times Visualization Lab - has a variety of examples that will inspire you

Processing is an open source programming language to program images, animation and interactions. It teaches you computer programming within a visual context.

Here are some examples of what can be achieve using Processing

Prefuse Visualization Toolkit - Prefuse is licensed under the terms of a BSD license, and can be freely used for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.

Examples of what you can do with Prefuse

I hope this has been helpful to your Univeristy of Canberra Networked Media Productions assignment Project B.

...........................................................................................
References:
Data Visualisation/Matthew Solle
http://web.fumsi.com/go/article/share/3619

Googles TouchGraph
http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html

IBM Manyeyes
http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/

New York Times Visualization Lab
http://vizlab.nytimes.com/visualizations

Processing
http://processing.org/
Processing Gallery
http://processing.org/exhibition/index.html

Prefuse Visualization Toolkit
http://prefuse.org/
Prefuse Gallery
http://prefuse.org/gallery/

Inforgraphics and Data Visualisation

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 17 May 2009 10:13:00 +0000

Data Visualisation is used to communicate statistical information in an efficient way so the observer can understand the meaning of data. Since its early development using computer graphics in the 1950's, a significant boost was given to the field with the appearance, in 1987, of the NSF report "Visualisation in Scientific Computing" edited by Bruce H. McCormick, Thomas A. DeFanti and Maxine D. Brown.

Infographics
Information Graphics or infographics as it is known is a means of displaying detailed information using images and in some cases animations in detail a simplified manner so the viewer can understand what the information is trying to convey.

Here is an animation that uses Infographics that expands and adds more detail to the Little Red Riding Hood fantasy story. It uses various forms of infographics which is very inspiring as to what creative approaches can be used to display information.

Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

Data Visualisation
Computers have the capacity to assess, calculate, read and compare data at extremely high speeds. With the introduction of computer databases which can store a vast amount of data, computers can analyze, assess and calculate the relevance of that data to determine for example the affects of climate change, astrological research, financial growth, projections and down turns etc. Data Visualisation is a graphical way of communicating data to humans that is easy to understand.

For example Hans Rossling, professor of global health at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute had developed the breakthrough Trendalyzer software through his nonprofit Gapminder Foundation. This software was acquired by Google. Trendalyzer is able to visualise data from the UN (United Nations), and animate it which reveals a lot about the economic, birth rates, wealth and life expentancy of countries around the world.

Here is an amazing video where Hans Rossling explains the data visualization potential of Trendalyzer and how the world can learn more if data stored in various institutions, government organizations and businesses were made freely accessable.

Data Visualisation is part of my Networked Media Production University studies at the University of Canberra. Infographics and Data Visualisation has been a real eye opener for me. It just shows the vast opportunities available to media producers. As students we are constantly reminded that we are the future of new media production technologies that are evolving and advancing the communication potential of media on the internet.

References
Data Visualization Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_visualization

16 Awesome Data Visualization Tools:
http://mashable.com/2007/05/15/16-awesome-data-visualization-tools/

5 Best Data Visualization Projects of the Year
http://flowingdata.com/2008/12/19/5-best-data-visualization-projects-of-the-year/

Data Visualization: Modern Approaches
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/08/02/data-visualization-modern-approaches/

Information Visualization & Visual Communication
http://infosthetics.com/

Little Red Riding Hood - INfographics
Vimeo link: http://www.vimeo.com/3514904

Hans Rosling
http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/hans_rosling.html
http://videolectures.net/google_rossling_dtwm/

University of Canberra:
http://www.canberra.edu.au

We Are The Web

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 01 May 2009 02:20:00 +0000

We Are The Web
I started reading this article "We are the web", which is part of our University studies. It is interesting reading the article "We are the Web", because it takes you through the history of the internet, it’s growth, the changes and new methods of using the internet. The article starts discussing Netscapes IPO. IPO refers to when a private company decides to go public, meaning the stock market. IPO means Initial Public Offering. This lead to reading another article I searched on the internet about Netscape called "Remembering Netscape: The Birth of the Web". I would recommend you read it. I remember a little about Netscape and it’s run in with Microsoft, so I read the article to get the right information on what really happened.

My discovery of Netscape and the Internet
Now I remember going to my local library about, 1994/95 doing some research on photography and filmmaking. In the middle of the library was a computer, just one computer. In my view it was just another toy to play with. I went up to the counter and enquired about the computer. The librarian took me to the computer and explained it could be used for research on the internet. I had heard from a friend a little about the internet but it was no big deal. I paused for a moment and asked her “What is the internet?” She logged into the computer and opened what she called a web browser. It was called Netscape and she went to a search engine called Yahoo. This was all new to me so I played around with the computer, putting in different search requests to see what this Internet thingy had come up with. In fact I visited the library quite a lot. Not so much to borrow books but to explore this new world called the internet. One thing led to another and I started borrowing books on computers and the world wide web. Next thing you know I’m creating my own website.

The article "We are the Web" then goes on saying that the internet was made possible by a simple HTML tag called the hyperlink we all take for granted now.

Why say We are the Web
As an example there was a time when the web was being categorized for search engines using the Taxonomy method.

What is Taxonomy
Specialist people were employed to categorize websites and their content in an effort to categorize the internet and make it more user friendly. They used the Taxonomy method. This is categorizing subjects into hierarchal categories. But to use this system you had to search through each category to find the information you were looking for. Sometimes the categories you search through don’t lead you to the information you were looking for so you had to back track through the categories and start through another category tree. This at times was very frustrating.

Folksonomy
Folksonomy is why we are the web. Rather than employ specialist people to categorize the internet, why not use the users themselves. This is where tags come in. For instance, if you have a delicious account to store your book marks, you write a description and create a tag meaning a word or list of words you would categorize the web page under. Not only does a search engine get a list of tags or categories of a webpage they also get a description. We folks are now the categorizers. That is what the term folksonomy means. These tags would then become what is called Metadata. We can also use Metadata in our websites which helps search engines categorize our webpage when their robots crawl websites.

Here is another example of why we are the web with Amazon.com. When a person purchases a product, they can also write a review about the product such as a movie. You are the reviewer of the movie and there are possibly many other people who have written a review on what they think of the film and if they would recommend it.

Then there is Social Networking sites such Youtube sharing videos along with MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, Delicious and many more. The user which is you are contributing to the internet.

We are the Web.
The virtual world or cyberspace of the internet is changing, evolving at a very fast rate. This is made possible by the contribution of content produced by millions if not billions of users on the internet. We as internet users now have the power to contribute and expand the knowledge, ideas, technical possibilities and the future of the internet.

What will the internet be like in the next 10 years? I’m sorry I don’t have a crystal ball to work that one out. We have to wait 10 years for that answer.

References
Wired: We are the web:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html?pg=3&topic=tech&topic_set=
Remembering Netscape – The birth of the Web: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/07/25/8266639/index.htm
Taxonomy Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy
Folksonomy Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com
Delicious: http://www.delicous.com
Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com

Creative Commons License - Elephants Dream

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:13:00 +0000

I was doing some research on the internet today in regards to Creative Commons Licenses and found an interesting example of how the Creative Commons Licenses has been used.

As we know producing a 3D animation film for cinema is a very expensive process. You need specialized software such as 3D Max, Maya, Softimage etc which requires license fees. On top of this, if you were to use Windows XP as your computer operating system you would have to pay for the number of computers you are using etc. which adds more to the expense of production costs.

Blender is an Open Source 3D Modeling and Animation suite meaning it is free, no license fees. Linux is a computer operating system and it is also Open Source, and yes no license fees.

Well the Blender Foundation decided to make a short 3D animated film using only Open Source software(free). When the film was finished, the Blender Foundation have allowed and given permission to the artistic community to download all the production files (7 Gig). The files are covered by the Creative Commons License and you can remake, remixed and re-purposed the movie. The producers of the film have stated that the movie “Elephant Dreams” is the world’s first 3D animated “Open movie” . For further information and videos on how and why the film was made [Read More]

New Articles

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 03:54:00 +0000

Since the ISP server went down, I have been working furiously to get my website up to speed(done).

I wrote an article about a online animation program "If you can type you can make a movie" which was lost when the ISP server crashed. Luckily I had a copy of the article on my home computer. So I decided to do 2 things:

1). Write a tutorial on how to create a menu in a Joomla website as I update the website.
2). Ad the Animation article to the website in the process.

There isn't many tutorials on the internet explaining how to create a menu in Joomla. They are very short and basic. The tutorial I wrote is very detailed explaining the Joomla Menu System, the steps you need to take to create a menu and add an article. The result was 13 word document pages which was divided up into 7 pages on the website. One article written in a day, uploaded along with the Animation article.

Phew! What a day!

Server Crash

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Server Crash
Server crash is one of the greatest fears of all webmasters. Yesterday while working on a website for a client, I noticed I couldn't access the backend administration of the website. I checked my website, since I use the same ISP (Internet Service Provider) and yes it was down too. I rang the ISP and suggested that their server may be down. Well guess what? Not only was it down, but it crashed big time. The ISP transfered the websites on the defunct server to a new, faster server. Ah my website is safe again. Nah!!!. They used a backup that was 3 months old. All those articles and updates to my website template were lost. Bugger!

The Moral of the Story?
Always backup your website and it's database just in case there is a server crash.

Oh well I wasn't too happy with the updates I made on the website and it could do with a facelife, but man, I hope I have a copy of the articles I wrote. When I was studying my Certificate III in Information Technology - Network Administration, our teacher who was Vietnamese drummed into us with an accent BACK UP! BACK UP! BACK UP! You'd think I would have heeded his advice. Lesson Learned!!!

How does this relate to Networked Media Productions?
As we are learning in our course particularly yesterday in relation to Web 2.0, the scene of the web is changing and we as media producers need to keep up with the technology. There will come a time when you want or reaize you need to have your own website, designed the way you want it and have all the functions, facilities, utilities and wiz bang bells and whistles you ever wanted. That's why I have my own website Fandangle.

It is a long learning curve understanding and taking advantage of HTML, CSS and PHP, Linux, Apache and MySQL. But it is well worth the effort. View it as an investment. Building and managing your own website gives you the power to explore and use new technologies. It also saves you heaps of money when it comes to website development, design and construction.

And remember pupils BACK UP YOUR WEBSITE AND ALL IT'S ARTICLES!!!

Bugger, now where did I put that spanner?

If you can type you can make movies

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 22:46:00 +0000

As the title suggests, 'if you can type you can make movies'. Xtranormal is a quirky online application that you can use to make your own animated movies. The application is in Beta mode, which means there is no limitations on what type of characters you use. They are all free while the application is still in Beta mode. Here is an example of what you can do. [Read this Article]

In Hindsight of Project A

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:32:00 +0000

Project A has been an interesting learning experience for me. On reflection, having organized two film festivals myself, I would use the curating an exhibition on a website differently. Now my suggestions relate to films since I am explaining what is involved in organizing a film festival.This can also be translated into the exhibition of music, photos, paintings, writing etc.

Search the internet for content you feel would be great for your exhibition (whether it is films, photos, music, paintings etc).
Subscribe to RSS feeds (that's where Yahoo Pipes is a useful tool) that relate to the content you would like to display in your online exhibition
Keep up to date with the RSS feeds on articles relating to competitions, exhibitions of the artists and the content you are looking for.
Keep a record of contact names, emails, websites etc mentioned in the RSS feeds.
Check the contacts website, get a feel of what they are into and saying with their art.
Contacting the producer/directors of the films (artist) and extend a personalized invitation to exhibit their work in your internet exhibition.
Get permission from the producer/director (artist) to show their films in your online film festival (exhibition).
Provide application forms on your blog or website, which includes copyright tick boxes confirming the producer/director (artist) has permission from copyright owners in regards to music, photos or any other media used in the film production (artistic content) and that the filmmaker (artist) gives permission for you to exhibit their work in your online film festival (exhibition).
That the producer/director (artist) gives permission for you to edit or alter segments of the production (work/content) for promotional purposes to promote the film festival (exhibition).

This will provide a means to over come copyright issues and gather content for your exhibition with permission from the artist.

From experience it will take 1-3 months to receive permission to display and finally exhibit the content you wish to display/screen in your online exhibition.

Creative people be they filmmakers, musicians, writers, painters etc are procrastinators. I am saying this from experience. You can't push them, but you can prompt them with a deadline. One thing you must take into account is to allow deadline of up to 3 months to allow the artists to wake up, smell the coffee and realize 'Oh.. Um.. that exhibition.. Better do it now'. They always leave it to the last minute. I know this because I am an artist and I have the same problem.

I hope this has been helpful for your future online exhibitions and that you can use these suggestions in developing your style or method of social networking.

Daryl's Project A - Machinima Filmmaking

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:27:00 +0000

Hi all, if you subscribed to my blog you will get this update on my Project A called Machinima Filmmaking

Technical Desicions
When I first started creating the website, I choose Blogger as my canvas to curate the exhibition on machinima. But Blogger is limited when it comes to having one article on the first page and links to other pages. I know you can alter the HTML and CSS, which I tried and my blog had difficulties coping. So I moved to Google Sites. Google sites is a simple website using simple tools which was great as I was typing in the text. Next step add the videos?? Oh no! It only allows Google videos or Youtube videos. Which means I am limited in the videos I can show. Bugger I wanted to include videos from www.machinima.com Okay reassessment time. So I checked Youtube to see if the machinima.com channel had the videos I wanted. No! Okay is there an official channel of the producers whose videos I want to exhibit on Youtube? Yes but no! Not all the ones I want. My advise, when you do a project for your course start doing it on week 1. I know it's easy to say that when we didn't have a clue at the start what networked media production had to do with filmmaking.

Anyway, Google Sites works okay. Except when I want to display thumbnails of the Youtube videos I want to exhibit. Now here is an interesting thing, I have a website www.fandangle.com.au which I administer using Joomla CMS (Content Management System). The Joomla gurus say don't use tables if you want your website to be SEO (Search Engine Optimization) especially if you want to use Google Adsense ads on your website to generate a little money. Well guess what Google Sites uses tables. What the??? Anyway I had a problem with the tables. The online editing system put some of the HTML coding in the wrong place. I had to go in the HTML editor and clean it up and move it around. But I am getting there.

Creative Content
I would say that 1% of the worlds filmmakers get an invite to be a member of the Hollywood club. Most filmmakers have to struggle to dig up funding for their first feature film. It is because of this that I have considered machinima. I have been scouring the internet looking for examples of machinima films. Do a Google search for machinima films and you will get loads of listings of machinima films. But most of them are recordings of game play, with no narrative what so ever. But there are a select few machinimators who make really great films using video games and the tools available to achieve this. Finding a website that shows true machinima, telling an interesting and entertaining story is hard to find. That is why I decided to curate this exhibition.

My thoughts on this course
At first and I'm sure all my fellow class mates will resound the same sentiments. What does Networked Media Productions have to do with filmmaking? It didn't make sense at first but now it makes a lot of sense. Computer technology is moving at a very fast pace and so too is the internet and the technologies available for social networking. Everything is changing in the 21st century. For instance the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd just announced that the government will roll out high speed internet which will be 100 times faster than what we have at present. 100 Mega bits per second which will be unbelievable.The television stations are getting worried because they know as new technologies emerg jobs are lost in the process. Television will be on the internet. No more TV stations. Just like television killed the drive in industry. So yes there is a future for us as Networked Media Producers who can create content to be distributed and screened on the internet. I believe that this assignment is nurturing our minds to develop innovative methods of constructing deeper and meaningful social networking systems and applications.
.................................................................................................................................................................
References
Machinima Filmmaking: http://sites.google.com/site/machinimafilmmaking
Google Videos: http://video.google.com
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com
Machinima.com: http://www.machinima.com
Google Sites: http://sites.google.com
Fandangle: http://www.fandangle.com.au
Joomla: http://www.joomla.org
Google Adsense: https://www.google.com/adsense
Google Search: http://www.google.com
Australia High Speed internet: http://www.pm.gov.au/media/Release/2009/media_release_0903.cfm
Drive in theaters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive-in_theater

NMP Tutorial Class Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 03:07:00 +0000

Here we go another blog. I'm in the Thursday 4.30pm NMP tutorial class at University of Canberra. Here are links to blogs that my class mates have created. Just thought I would give them a plug for their hard work.

Shaun Cahill
Lauren Carroll
Luke Allred
Oliver Martinoski
Justin Donnelly
Shane Jensen
Matthew Ruth
Andrew Kominek
Jessica Wiedermann
Angela Crilley
James Willey
Dante Lusso
Geraldine Perrine
Shane Wintour
Ally Hunt
Elle Jasprizza-Quinn
Anna Clemson

Oops and of course you are looking at my blog Machinima Madness administered by Daryl Williams. That's me.

Have you subscribed to my blog rss feed yest?

I suggest you do it, especially if you are doing the NMP course and set up a feedburner account so you can check the stats on your blog. The stats part is a requirement of our course.

Dazza

* Important Message * Have you subscribed to my blog RSS feed?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 21:56:00 +0000

Have you subscribed to my blog RSS feed?

If you have please unsubscribe and the subscribe again.

Why you may ask?
Because my feed goes through Feedburner. If you have a blog I would suggest you also sign up for a Feedburner account for your RSS feed.

Feedburner gathers statistics on:
* how many subscribers you have
* how many times your rss feed subscribers read your articles
* what articles they have read
* and much much more

If you are doing the 'Networked Media Productions' course, it is advisable that you sign up to Feedburner for your blog and your 'Project A' so you can provide statistics on how much traffic you were able to attract to your project and blog.

So please unsubscribe to my RSS feed and re-subscribe.