Task 1 - Researching and exploring ideas

On our first day of the project we went over to the aquarium to have the brief explained to us and to get a general idea of what they want. They showed us a quick 4D animation as an example and the pointed out all the inaccuracy's in the film, the explained how important it is to keep accurate and we then had a look around to get a feel of the aquarium. When we came back we looked up different interactive animations.

The first one I looked up was an interactive pet goldfish game. It was very simple animation where you have the option to feed and pet your goldfish, I like it because of the fact you can feed the fish but the animation is boring and if you don't feed/pet it nothing happens to make you want to feed/pet. The graphics are made in flash so there's no pixelation but the animation consist of a lot of squashing/rotating stuff to give the impression of movement which is lazy and looks bad. The fish is accurate abut what goldfish eat ect and the style is cartoony but it still looks like a goldfish, I think the style is too cartoony though, all in all its a pretty rubbish animation. http://avidlebon.deviantart.com/art/Interactive-Pet-Goldfish-83408271
This is the second animation I found, the aim is to catch the squid by clicking it with your mouse but when you get near it it moves away from your mouse and you have to be really fast to catch it. The art style is very simplistic vectors and the squid isn't accurate at all but the animation is smooth with the tentacles moving in and out which makes it look like it's reall propelling it'self though the water. When you click on it it squirts ink and pulls a face. This is a good simple animation and the squid is cute but not accurate to a real squid and its a bit too hard to get the squid, also when you catch the squid the ink is only there for a second and you can miss that you caught it entirely.http://squidpig.deviantart.com/art/Squid-Aquarium-Interactive-210039087

This is the last animation I found and it looks the most professional. The images are vectorised from photo's of actual fish which looks really good without being pixelised. The animation is smooth but the fish don't move well at all, they move in straight lines and diagonals without change angle and the impression of movement is given by squashing the fins/tail of fish while the rest just float. This looks lazy and inaccurate, also some of the fish swim backwards, which is really horrible. I really like the background and fact you can drag the fish around but sometimes you have to click on another fish to stop dragging the fish around. Apart from the animation this is a really good animation which looks very professional. 


http://dink.deviantart.com/art/AQUARIUM-exp-39764803


After a lot more visits to the aquarium and being put in my team we decided to focus on the coral see's tank which is the most interesting.

Task 2 - Developing an idea for interaction work

After a quick team discussion we decided to make an animation where you could interact with the fish by feeding them, moving them about ect, it was also decided I was to make the graphics for the animation, Paige to research and Billy, who is talented at coding to put it all together in flash. When we first visited the aquarium it was explained that each tank had a main attraction, like the shark tank ect. so we chose the coral sea's tank because its token was a loggerhead turtle that was blind and had epilepsy, which was the most interesting animal there. After choosing our tank and what we wanted our fish to do as well as a final list of the fish we'll be using I made a quick mock up of an image of the turtle in two different art styles for a presentation to the aquarium people about our idea's so far.

We decided to use six fish; the Loggerhead turtle, Red Lionfish’s, Clown fish's, Arctic reef shark’s and Ray’s.

We also decided on a set of actions inspired by the animations I researched.

Click – reacts e.g. tries to bite the cursor

Roll over - small reaction e.g. move away

Click and drag – moves the fish around the tank

Roll over rock/coral - goes invisible to see through/inside/under

Double click - info comes up

We also decided to have a tool bar where the option to feed the fish different foods would be. You wouls simply click and drag the food onto a fish and if fed the right food the fish will react in a good way and if fed the wrong food it will react in a bad way.

We also decided on a set of  7 reactions/expressions for the fish, these would be expressed by either a thought bubble or change in expression, depending on what art style the aquarium felt was most appropriate.

Normal 

Happy –fed the right food

Ill – fed the wrong food

Hungry

Reaction 1 – roll over

Reaction 2 – click

Dizzy – after click and drag

We were also going to have a loading animation of the aquarium logo rotating made by Billy. After presenting we got some good feedback and with the help of this we decided to go for cartoony graphics made in an art program called Paint Tool Sai by me to get a more realistic shading, like fake 3D. I offered to animate the swimming movement for Billy but he decided he wanted to make it in photoshop using the puppet warp tool so it was decided when finished I would save the file as a PSD with fins and suck on differnt layers for Billy. Paige was chosen to find out about the fish for the information panel's as well as looking up what the tank looks like and what would be in there.

Task 3 - Working within constraints

The first problem I had when starting work on my graphics was that I was working on a small canvas which I'm not used to and I couldn't get in all the detail I'm used to, I also had a lot of fiddly details to work on such as the stripes of the Red Lionfish and the pattern of the Loggerhead Turtle's shell. We also had a problem identifying the type of rays in the tank but Paige found that out for me and I managed to get the file done in time although due to the complicated way the Ray moves we scrapped it. Another problem was the lack of communication between team members not between me and Paige but between Billy and the rest of the team as he never told us how far he was in the flash file and frequently left the file at home and avoided saying how much work he had done. Unfortunately although I finished all by graphics a week before deadline and had handed the files and Paige's research to Billy the final product was very underwhelming and had none of the actions Billy promised to code, which was very disappointing, we didn't even get to see it before the day we presented it to the aquarium.

Task 4 - Completing the work

These images were mad in a program called Paint Tool Sai and photoshop and were given to Billy as PSD files.  

Task 5 - Reviewing your own work

After presenting our final product to the aquarium I feel that our animation could have been a lot better. The information boxes made by Paige weren't used and neither was the specific information she got, the fish were animated badly with the tail getting squashed to make it look like its moving ect. and all the action's we planned and the expressions I gave the fish for different situations went used as well as the tool bar I made. I think the work (or lack thereof) of Billy seriously dragged down our animation down, if he has simply co-operated it would have been far better. The fact that we asked a lot of Billy may have worsened the situation but when we were planning he assured us how he could defiantly do it. If I could do the project again I'd animate the swim cycle frame by frame like how I originally planned and I would have tried to involve Paige more, as for Billy I doubt I could motivate him to do work even if I had another go at this project.