David Moreno
3/21/09
ITEC4110
Dr. Rowan
Service to ITEC2110:
I had originally planned to try and make several tutorials, but was discouraged by the
fact that there were already several tutorials available and it seemed many others in the class
were doing tutorials as well. I did a wiki tutorial (Qwiki Wiki) to begin with because when I took
2110, I wanted more wiki formatting information to write my pages myself instead of
copy/pasting Dr. Rowan’s templates every time. Copying his format was good to provide a
framework to study how to do it myself. As soon as I had gotten my wiki tutorial page up on
the wiki, another student had done a more in-depth one with video. I dropped the tutorials
idea and started trying to find interesting things to learn to do with the software used in 2110.
Dr. Rowan was pushing for CSI/detective like projects, so I focused my search on using software
to take pictures apart to find or manipulate the parts. I still wasn’t familiar with many of the
programs capabilities in this so I looked at some of the tutorials and early projects that other
students in the class were doing, and devised a project of my own based on what I learned from
them.
GIMP proved to be the most flexible and accessible program for photo editing, and a
couple things I wanted to learn to do was to change the hues of a certain spectrum while
keeping the other colors the same. The problem I ran into was that unwanted areas of the
picture were included in that color spectum so I ended up changing areas I did not want to. I
needed to find a way to isolate parts. After searching tutorials, I became aquainted with how
the Magic Wand tool worked to select, and found that I could use it to group multiple
selections together using the SHIFT key. This allowed me to select only the regions of the
picture I wanted and still keep within the spectrum, due to the Magic Wand’s way of selection.
This greatly simplified the color changing process and the hue changing was simply done using
the hue saturation options from the menu. Creating the tutorial wiki page was easy, and I was
able to nicely apply what formatting I had learned from implementing my own tutorial earlier in
the semeseter. I used the screen capture commands on the Mac to visually augment my
tutorial steps and modified them in GIMP to show what the step was referring to. I showed a
before/after picture to begin with, so that the readers could see what change I was attempting
to walk them through. At the end I included another picture for readers to try and manipulate
using the given steps.
At the same time I had created an image using the spraycan tool in Microsoft Paint. I
sprayed several layers of color over each other so there was just a mass of color particles, and
hard to see individual lines of spraycan color. Using the Color Picker tool, I wrote a wiki tutorial
on how to isolate a chosen color and put it in a different layer. I separated all the colors of the
spraycan image and put them onto different layers. This tutorial went onto the other tutorial
wiki page, and also used screen captures to help visualize what I was doing in my process. I
made a new picture as an extra image to also try and isolate colors on. The final wiki tutorial
page for these two effects, color changing and isolation, were completed on the first day of
spring break.
My major project of blender animations to explain molecular geometry was developed
early and has been proceeding smoothly. Early problems included how to make my camera
rotate smoothly around the molecule and how to make sure my atoms are at the correct angles
apart. The camera problem was solved easily by adding a circle object around the molecule and
parenting the camera to it. The angle problem was solved when a classmate mentioned that I
could open an object properties field to manually type in the parameters I wanted for the
object’s position. This allowed me to place the atoms at precisely the correct angle. My first
couple models and animations had several flaws of placement and construction. The first
animation produced a wobble in the camera as it spun around the molecule. To solve this, I
figured out how to read the IPO Curve editor view of blender and get rid of the wobble. This
also alerted me to the fact that my circle was not exactly where I needed it, and I could correct
this using the object properties field, just like the angles of the atoms. The second animation
included text that I decided I wanted to show, but it turned black as the camera rotated out of
the light. I had to go in and find the lighting options for objects and then figure out which
combination of shades and reflections got the desired effect. As I continued to make the atoms,
I got more efficient at it, but when I discovered I wanted to set it up a certain way, I had to
remember to go back to all the previous molecules and make that change too. Eventually it
was very well standardized. When the molecules were done being constructed, it came time to
animate them all. Again as I went through and set up my animations, I got better at how I
wanted it done, and I had to go back and adjust my animations for all the previous files. The
renders took about 15-20 minutes each, with each animation being between 22 and 44 seconds
long. I originally created them as .mov files, which I found don’t work with Windows Movie
Maker, the program I originally intended to use to create my final video. I tried to export to .avi
but the three .avi formats available in blender did not work correctly and I could not use them. I
intend now to use .mov files and use iMovie on the school Macs instead. A problem of larger
concern to me is with the still images I’m using to introduce the molecules at the beginning.
They are JPGs files created in blender and modified with GIMP, however they show up
extremely blurry when imported into iMovie. This was not the case in Windows Movie Maker
and I hope that upon exporting as a .mov that they clear up. Otherwise I shall have to recreate
these intro slides as .png files and hope that works. The last concern I have yet to solve is that
of volume discrepancies for my voice recordings. Although they were all recorded in one sitting
at the same place using the same microphone, the volume levels differ from recording to
recording. I believe I can even them out in iMovie but the fact that they change from one clip to
the next will mean a less smooth final product. My voice sounds tinny and pinched, and I’m
hoping that it will come across well enough to be heard and understood by the viewers. I’m
chalking that one up to a cheap microphone and moving on. I have two weeks left to finish
putting the final animations into my iMovie project and give it a sound check. After that I will
export and see if I need to redraw the intro still frames. At that point I may adjust sound levels
again for the second try. Having to work at school instead of home for the iMovie on the school
Macs is hard on my time and personal logistics but I’ve got some time yet. I’ve got a week and
a half before my personal deadline I set for myself at April 1. That gives me two leeway days to
fix emergencies before the contest deadline of April 3.