Marantz

The Marantz PMD660 hand-held digital recorder joins convenient solid-state Compact Flash digital recording with Marantz build quality, for rugged and reliable performance in the field. Record dozens of hours of MP3 audio on a single Compact Flash card (or as high-quality uncompressed WAV files) and easily transfer to your computer via USB. You can even edit in the unit itself – use simple cut-and-paste editing, or take advantage of non-linear, non-destructive playlist editing with up to 99 virtual tracks that let you compare edits, set up multiple sound bites or provide interview segments of varying durations. With Marantz at the table, there's never been a better time to put the power of reliable solid-state recording to work for you.

The Marantz PMD660 can record uncompressed WAV files at 44.1 or 48 kHz, and MP3 files in mono (at 64 kbps) or in stereo (at 128 kbps). Using a 1 GB Compact Flash card (not included – it comes with a 64 MB card to get you started, formatted and installed) the PMD660 records more than one hour of stereo and three hours mono of uncompressed audio, or more than 17 hours of stereo MP3 and nearly 36 hours of monaural MP3 audio.

Editing capabilities include two modes: Copy Segment, which uses cut-and-paste-style editing to create a sound file, which can be up/downloaded via the PMD660's USB port; and Virtual Track mode, which allows the user to make an internal edit list enabling nonlinear playback of file segments, without using card memory to create a new file.

Two onboard condenser mics with Automatic Level Control let you make stereo recordings on the spot. In addition, the PMD660 has two XLR mic inputs with 48-volt phantom power and stereo line I/O. Powering is via common, inexpensive AA batteries - up to four hours of operation on four batteries; and the unit also includes an AC adaptor for flexible use in and out of the studio.

The optional RC600 wired remote control attaches to a microphone and supplies Record/Pause control, track marking and peak metering from the microphone position.

Traditional Methods and Digital Methods

There are a few methods that are better with digital over traditional. With digital you have an unlimited supply of all the tools available, you can size it however big you want and you can also program the computer to do it itself. Also you can rub out any mistake with ease. The pros for traditional are that if you are an artist, the work comes out better on paper, you can feel the work you are doing with every pencil stroke, and its easier to make moves without having a mouse that could slip.

Another thing with digital is the easy use of an undo button where as traditional cant. You also cant animate traditional unless it is scanned into the computer, which makes it easier. A mix is usually found better as you can draw traditionally and then colour in and sharpen edges, erase mistakes through digital. Either way is as good as each other but if you want my opinion I would slightly lean towards the traditional root.

Another digital way is to use a drawing tablet which is similar to traditional except you draw on the tablet and keep an eye on the screen, this method will involve alot of practise but once you get into it, it can be very effective and much better than a mouse. Touch screens are a new way too but are often considered 'clumsy'. Cameras are another way which is a common way to capture the image in front of the camera, this can be uploaded onto the computer too.

As a state of the law, it is illegal to take digital images inside a court room. If you need any images then this will require the work of traditional art. This is used to keep records on people within the court room too. This was due to many famous trials going live on television. Many judges decided they do not want this so they decided to ban the use of digital capture methods.

Evaluation

Okay now im going to evaluate my work of the animation from over the past month. I have been very busy making many designs for the dragon, the hero and the buildings. The only reason is that it would complicate the animating if  I left it too detailed so I had to cut back a bit. I have done many designs on the dragon with influences from many different games, mainy the Monster Hunter series. I have also designed the hero'es weapon based around the Monster Hunter game again. Although once i have designed the characters I couldnt use them in the end as they were overall too complex for this type of animation so i decided to cut back at this point.

Most of my designs that I have done with the dragon and the hero/hunter was all designed on paper, I prefer to draw my work onto paper more than drawing in photoshop or paint. that is usually how I feel comforable with my work. This may change in the future but all of my current work will be drawing based on paper. So all my work I have drawn will be scanned onto photoshop for me to colour in and maybe sort out the odd few lines or something along the lines. 

I next began to do very simple drawings, I even made the dragon a stick figure. I thought this would be easier but I decided to change my mind again as it would be too simple and not worth attempting to post up. I finally decided to design the dragon, not too complex and not too simple. As you can see that the dragon i have chose to do isnt that complex or too simple, it sits right in the middle and perfect to animate with.

When I began to animate i have done all the flames and the arrows and blood through flash, the buildings was done in photoshop. Everything else  I have done was hand dran on paper and scanned to my memory stick. With animating I have jumped inside the picutre and mostly used movement and appearing/disapearing animations only. First though I have concentrated on all the dragon movements. I thought I would make it breathe fire and fly off and return to add more effects to the movie clip. As I entered the hero/hunter I made the dragon jump in shock, I thought this is a good way to show the dragons reaction.

Once all that is done I decided to animate the hunter rotating to take aim and firing the arrow straight for the dragons head, which then is able to show that the arrow pierced the dragons head, causing the dragon to die, I just rotated the dragon and flipped it. I then made many frames out of red circles to show the blood spreading around the dragons head. I finally added the buildings and that was a simple export from photoshop. I then saved the whole thing as an AVI file and now its all on blogger.

If I was given more time I know I could have managed a much longer and more detailed video as I know what im doing now. I think I would have made the dragon retaliate and dodge arrows and actually make the limbs move. This is all a good way to prove that im capable of these things and will include these in future tasks.

Final Animation

With all the weeks I have been planning and animating the dragon, I have finally concluded to what my final attempt will be like, it may be a bit basic but I think its brilliant for my first animation without help.

Seagull Animation

I have done some animation on seagulls... Its a class thing so I didn't choose to do it, although it was a lot of fun, anyway, here is my video (:.

Story Board Plans

I have made some plans for a storyboard. I'm planning to do a story on a basic, Dragon attacks village, hero kills dragon, happy ending kind of thing. I have gone into development and here is my design on the dragon for the storyboard.

Speech Bubble

First we entered the documents on flash and changed the background colour to a greyish colour. We then set the default colours of the oval tool to black and white and coloured we then used the line tool to make the lines for the tail. We then clicked on the line between the tail and the bubble, then deleted the unneeded line.We finally curved the tail and saved it into the library. Here is a screen shot of my speech bubble.

Interactive Comics

We had to look up some interactive comics through previous lessons, I have just got around to writing about it. I have had a look at an interactive comic called Hotel. I have to admit that this comic can be random and sometimes it has stuff in the story that makes no sense but can be an overall good interactive story, here is a screen shot of the comic. This comic uses alot of flash animation and interaction which they have mixed in together like clicking on a certain person makes them move or something along the lines. Also the use of vector graphics. I also think that this comic has been made with a drawing tablet through photoshop then animated with flash.

Next I have done the Interactive comic Dead On Arrival. Here this one features many interaction to find out what has killed you and who by, all through animated images to clicking on certain objects. Here is a screen shot of this comic. You can see lots of animation and interaction in this comic. The pictures are photographs which have been tuned into black and white. Red has also been added as the only colour used. The interaction has also been used with turning the pages. Also the effect of zooming and panning has been used frequently.

Tween

Today we have been learning how to tween with frames. We have took two images from the internet under the High Street search in Google Images. We have then used multiple frames using the F6 button to clone the frames over and animate it by editing the last frame, the first time I zoomed in and and left the image in its zoomed in state. Next I added another image and made it scroll across the screen. We have used the Classic Tween to help us out in this mini clip. Video refused to upload.

Animation research

We created a flash image for flash animation by using the rulers in photoshop and then following Ctrl+a and Ctrl+c. We then paste the image into the Iphone option of flash. We also learned how to create more frames in flash by pressing the F6 button. We practised using the shape button for ovals and also used the pen tool to make and create wavy lines. We have also used the F8 button to turn a circle into a symbol and managed to make it into a seperate layer. We then added many frames and moved the circle several times. We used the F6 button to copy the clip and moved the circle at the end. After pressing play (Enter button) we get to view what we have created. This is what we know so far. More to come soon.