To start off with, I went with the detective office. I tried the starry starry night scene, but felt that I couldn't really put that much into it. There was some nice grass, a picket fence and then the dark night sky.
On the other hand, the office let me get my teeth into it, and model quite a few thing, recalling skills Andy taught us about 2 months ago!
Last time, for Super Paper Mario World, I didn't have to worry too much about lighting, as games of that style are all brightly lit. This time though, the lighting was essential for capturing the type of picture I had in my head. So after much playing about, I managed to get the desk top lamp to shine onto the desk, meanwhile, the blinds in the window cast shadows onto the wall - that shady, dim look being what I wanted.
The next issue was getting the right frame for the image. I tried a dark photo frame, an old aged piece of paper, and thought 'mmmm it's ok', then came up with the idea of a manila folder theme and the 'confidential' red stamp look. That way, I can also use tabs for the navigation - something that Internet Explorer 7 users are now really familiar with.
Of all the analysis I've done so far, I always comment that jazzy navigation schemes that for go the traditional nav bar may risk losing an older generation of viewers. So by using a home tab I can attempt to please both demographs. It could even be extended so that all the links are available in tabs, as websites do do this - possible improvement idea.
Once I started making the buttons in Flash, there were all sort of problems revolving around size and quality after compression. Plus, I had to choose the 'over' and 'down' states, as from my web analysis, being able to locate a button and also, it looking right with the overall theme, is important.
Of the two above, I decided eventually to go with the dotty one. I thought the line look made it look a bit amateurish, OK I'm not that much of a pro, but still, when you see it in the whole frame, I think they look better.
In a seperate part of the showcase, for my gadget glasses, I am including the AVIs of my favourite TV shows. The buttons here, I decided to design quite like that used by the very popular BBC iPlayer. Instead of just a contrasting coloured border, they use a illuminated gradient fill.
I do have concerns over whether this is in keeping with the overall design theme, but it is only a very minute part, and I do think that the gadget glasses are quite modern, and flashy, so why not have buttons the same?!
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I've also added motion to my logo along with audio. I got my inspiration through a combination of the new BBC one ident, with the swirling circle and then also the colours from the Wii adverts.
(11 secs in)
So here's my ae motion piece:
That's pretty much all for now, I've got the pixilation to do soon, and I meet that with a feel of fear and apprehension - it is a very long process and can get complicated. But to make what I want, it's a must, so gotta do it!
Adios,
@
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