Bootstrap!!

Its amazing! I still don't know a ton about it but I do intent now on using it to make my website. No idea either if it can be used in conjunction with Wordpress but I guess we'll see at some point. Finally got the commissions and they're awesome too, so now I can really start building parts of my website. Still iffy about the color scheme of it all but I figured I'd build it first with a basic color scheme and then change the css and images later on.

Some Artwork

After surfing through DeviantArt I found a really nice line art of a wolf, made for you to color. This was perfect for a few of my characters because they're shape-shifters, animals specifically, and their wolf form is their most common and is also very tall. I have an idea to put markings on them as well signifying a few things but those will come later. Either way I needed something to show off their wolf forms and found it through this line art. A friend of mine did her magic to them in MS Paint I believe and colored them for me. Here they are, just two of them for now:

 

My friend that did the coloring was Fluffomaru from DeviantArt.

The person who did the line art was Lenval from DeviantArt.

Basic Mock-up

Now that my capstone is actually in my face I decided to start working on it now and through the summer instead of waiting until the fall semester to do so. The first thing I decided to do was make a mock-up of my website's homepage in Photoshop. It only took me an hour or so to make a VERY basic mock-up, to just line out where everything would be and to see exactly what I need, be it from myself or other people since I can't draw jack.

 

Like I said, a very basic mock-up, but you have to start somewhere. Especially since I don't normally do these. My next step is to start filling in the blanks, commissioning people to either color pieces of art I already have or doing whole new ones. That and figuring out and making the logos for the organizations that exist within my story.

Capstone Update

Its been awhile since I've posted anything up so I figured I'd put an update. This semester I've been dallying around with possible other ideas for my capstone other than my story, which is what I originally started out with. The biggest one that actually had my heart for a bit was to do a website that helped parents help their kids when it came to making some cool contraptions when it came to the Lego Mindstorm NXT's. I was going to have picture instructions on how to build them, step by step tutorials on how to program them, and then a video showing how it should run.

Unfortunately this became to impossibly big. Some of the ideas required extra components that didn't come with the box set, and the set itself was amazingly expensive. The school now owns two that I could use but someone else already wished to use them and to have to build, take pictures and video, as well as test run everything at school in the room they were kept in while someone else wished to do the same was too much. Also just to program them with anything but the block language it came with was something new and too difficult to do, especially since my main focus wanted to be on building my website and showing those skills, not focusing on the Lego Mindstorms.

So instead I've cemented my capstone to my story and am now making mock-ups in Photoshop of the pages as well as trying to commission people to draw the things I need when it comes to characters and the like.

My capstone mentor will be Jennifer Stewart.

Capstone Reflection

I learned a few things from the couple of the capstones that I looked at. I learned a lot from Even Roberts, who did the concept of the iFridge. I thought the idea was so cool, but it wasn't just that. It was also how he presented it, especially the new knowledge that Apple had come out with an app that helped you make an ebook. I thought it was so cool what you could do in it, not just words but also pictures and animations as well. It's $5.00 if I found the right thing at the App Store so maybe I can play around with that a bit for my own capstone, though I'm not totally sure for what or why. He also taught me some things the iPad can do, I had just recently gotten one and was still pretty new to its features and uses.

I also learned from Samantha Tarkington, the presenter that did a comic. She was the only one that asked me what exactly I was doing for my own capstone when I asked her the last question about advice. Like I'm planning to do she worked on a story that was old, and dear to her heart. Because of that it made things harder, especially getting things up to the expectations that you have for something so dear to you. I might not have as much of a problem that she had since I'm using words to describe things, which is open to interpretation, while her drawings are not, they simply are what they are.

I also went to see Zachary Paquette’s, he was in my capstone group and had an idea somewhat similar to my own. Seeing how he presented his gave me an idea how I could present mine without having to worry constantly about someone coming up and taking my stuff, because I would need to at least include my or a computer for display as well as my iPad, since I have every intention on making my website interactive so it switches well between at least computer and tablet.

Capstone Interviews

Interview Questions

1.      Why did you choose this for your capstone project?

2.      What are some of the changes that you had to make between your original  idea and what you are presenting today?

3.      What is your opinion of the timeline for your capstone? Was it helpful or a waste of time? Why?

4.      If you could change anything about your capstone, what would that be?

5.      What advice would you give me in planning for my capstone?

Even Roberts (iFridge concept book)

1.       Health is a big thing in his life, and he believed that the kitchen centered around the fridge, so making a fridge that would've made it easier for someone to eat healthy was the way to go.

2.       The original idea was centered around the new ability to make ebooks for the iPad, messing with the new technology to see how it could be used in real life and his job.

3.       He thought the timelines were a good idea, they can keep you on track or show how far behind you are.

4.       He would've actually liked to have built a prototype of the iFridge instead of just a concept book.

5.       Find something you like and enjoy doing, so it doesn't feel like work and you don't get tired of it.

Samantha Tarkington (comic The Gem Caller)

1.       At first she wanted to do an animation but she didn't feel confident in her abilities to make it great so instead decided to go with a comic.

2.       She had to cut down the size of her comic down to one chapter, as well as just doing a comic instead of doing the comic with a short animation at the end.

3.       A timeline is a good idea, if you follow it. She had a timeline but had a bad habit of not following it.

4.       She would've liked to go back over a few of her comic panels and work on making them better quality than she believed them to be.

5.       Be careful with working on stories near and close to your heart, it's really hard to make your work meet the expectations of it that you have in your head.

Saviss Mahmoudi (A Tutorial on an Optical Finer - Cylinder Machine)

1.       He worked for LensCraft and believed that something was missing when it came to learning how lenses were made.

2.       He wanted to originally do a lab with a lot of models.

3.       Believed that the timeline was a good thing even though he didn’t follow it 100%, but they were mostly just a couple missed deadlines and stuck mostly to it.

4.       He believed that the lighting in the animation was too light or too dark at certain points and would like to go back and fix those parts.

5.       Start as early as possible, don’t wait to start until after you’ve taken classes, stick to the timeline.

Capstone Changes 3

Because of circumstances that are neither the fault of myself or Charles we are no longer working together unfortunately. Which means my idea of an independent study doing a card game is out the window as well. It sucks but fortunately my capstone did not rely heavily on that card game. And it gives me more of a chance to work on writing the actual story that the website I'm working on is hosting. I'd still like to do a kind of character cards as a sort of "give away" at the capstone presentation but we'll see what happens.

Also because I'm no longer doing the card game, and need the illustrations next semester, I know have time to commission someone I know to do some work. I was reluctant to do so before because I was afraid of how long it would take for her to finish them, and if they would get finished on time. It'll be expensive (about $30 per stand alone person) but its good quality and I can use them for the give away bio cards and possible a cut out (which will cost me more I'm sure).

Capstone Timeline

Doing my timeline was a bit tricky because my capstone isn't going to be until the next fall, I took this class a semester early. So I figured that during the rest of this semester I would try to get many of the story elements of my website done, such as profiles, descriptions, character maps and such. I also would like to secure my capstone mentor early which, depending on their advice on how to structure and code my website, might change the last couple of weeks of my timeline for this semester.

The next semester is focusing almost solely on doing a major part of my, and my partner Charles', capstone which is a card game. Through advice from Beth I'm doing it as an independent study so I had to make a timeline for it anyway. Its possible that during the winter break I might do most of my research on other card games, which will give me an idea of where to go with this one since I'm not a big player of card games.  By doing this I can bump up my independent study schedule by one to two weeks.

Capstone Changes 2

The major fear I had for the moment when it came to working with someone else on this has been realized! There was a bit of miscommunication between myself and Charles about when the other was going to graduate. He will be doing his capstone in the spring. I won't until next fall.

Luckily it seems that using the content of someone elses capstone isn't frowned upon as long as you have permission and do something yourself, not just take theirs and say its yours too. So after talking to Beth I have a course of action! Next semester I'm going to do an independent study with her, focusing mostly on getting the card game together but also maybe dabbling in a small website and possibly making some tweaks to my story.

I love this idea because not only does it give me a sorely needed 400 lvl class but it also takes the stress of figuring all that out off of Charles. I was going to help of course but having this as a "class" gives me the time to focus on it instead of just helping, so now he can just focus mostly on the art he wants to draw. I don't know much about card games but I guess I'm going to learn!

Capstone Changes

Over the past couple of days I've made some big changes to my capstone. Following the advice of Beth I've teamed up with Charles Morgan, who will now be doing most if not all of the artwork needed for the website. Also, based on a comment left on an earlier blog about bribing people to our station, we first thought that character cards would be a cool idea. But then that evolved to doing a card game! And possibly a cutout after seeing how awesome the ones Power showed were. So the capstone, which I had first thought wouldn't be that expensive, now suddenly got a big budget! I don't mind though, it all sounds awesome and I'm glad to be working with Charles.

Because of the addition of the card game, and the pages it will add to the webiste, its possible that I'll strike the idea of putting videos on the profiles and descriptions all together. It seems a little unnecessary now because of the extras going into it but if I have the time they still might make it in there.

Capstone support group

My capstone fits under the category of web development.

The things I'm going to use are HTML, CSS, Javascript, JQuery, JQuery mobile, and possibly After Effects for some video work.

If I can't handle coding everything myself I might use Wordpress.

Looking at the big picture

I thought the class discussion with another person was interesting. I was partnered up with Stephanie Hii, who quite frankly put my idea to absolute shame XD. What I got out of the activity was that I need to figure out a better way of explaining and promoting my capstone. Even though she said she was interested I easily noticed the difference between how much information she gave me and how little I gave her.

Capstone Ideas

My idea for my capstone is a website to host a story that my friend and I have been working on for quite awhile. There isn't enough of the story done to put it on the website so at the moment its going to be more for introducing the main characters, the back stories of them and the world the story takes place in, and just enough information to give people a kick start in interest in the story. I'm hoping sooner or later it will host the actual story, be it in either written word or comic form.

My hope for this capstone can be broken down into two major things:
1.) build a website that has both a mobile and tablet version
2.) get profiles, back stories, and descriptions done of all the main characters and hopefully some of the minor ones

All in all there are three main characters for both me and my friend, with a varying , but pretty big, amount of more minor characters. My friend is not a part of IUPUI and I'm not sure she'll be able to complete that much on her characters but since I've come up with most of the major components on the world and such, I should be able to provide more than enough to flesh out the website.

I'm going to try to code it all myself using HTML5, CSS3, Javascript, and JQuery. The only thing my friend will provide is information on her own characters and drawings of the characters because I cannot draw a thing. I also have illustrations from a few more of my friends that I might use but will do so with their permission and give them due credit on the website.

Upon giving it more thought (and a conversation with Beth) I've realized that this capstone, the way it is at the moment, will require a lot of reading. Which most people won't want to do. So I thought about adding a visual and/or audio component to it. Something that will sum up the contents of the page on certain ones that have a lot of text, such as descriptions of various races or forces, that will give the user the basic gist of it all and if they wish they can read the full description.

These videos will mostly comprise of me, or someone that has a better voice that would like to do it, "summing" things up a bit with pictures done by some of my friends (who are so much better at drawing than I will ever be) in the background that correspond with the information. This makes me realize I'll either be using Final Cut or probably more After Effects to do this and might possibly need a headset with microphone. Also my friends that provide me the drawings will be credited at the end of the video.

I would also like to add some "functionality" to it, something to make it a bit more interesting. I thought I could do that by adding a bit of a "make your own" kind of deal to it. Does this sound like a good idea? I would love anyone's opinion on anything I've said.

If anyone is having issues with commenting on this blog for any reason feel welcome to just send me an email on Oncourse of your name and comment if you wish to leave one if that's easier for you.

What is a capstone?

I think a capstone is your dream project; something that you do only for yourself that you’ll probably never be able to do at any other time in your life unless you work for yourself or something. I think its important to also showcase the abilities that you’ve learned over your college years but the most important things are to do something you want to and to have fun while doing it.

If my idea is considered something that’s not too small then, even though I’ve mostly been studying in actionscript, I would love to make a webpage that uses mostly HTML, CSS, Javascript, and JQuery. This webpage I would like to make is for a story that will probably never really happen in real life, but even so its something that I’ve dreamed of doing so would like it to be my capstone.

I also think that its also a hoop that you have to jump through to graduate, a very small, high up, flaming hoop! But I think to look at it solely like that is a loss of a rare opportunity that you probably won’t get any time soon, if ever.

I think the school wants us to have at least two semesters to work on this project is because they want to give us time to do whatever we want, some grand ideas that people have can’t be done in a small period of time. Also this project should be something that doesn’t fall in the scope of a normal class assignment so it would take longer. Another reason, and this might just be me thinking the school is nicer than it really is, is that two semesters is enough time to get it done while not neglecting it or our other classes. This way we can get what we want to done, while still passing our classes.