Fiducial Markers - Augmented Reality

 In this tute we were introduced to Augmented Reality (AR) being created by 'Fiducial Marhers' (digital barcodes). Augmented Reality combines both the real world with the virtual world by creating three dimentional digital holograms on a digital screen. This allows for interaction with the graphics rather than an 'outside' view observing what is placed infront of them.
I haven't had much experience or interest in 3D animation but this was quite intriguing and awesome to see how a piece of paper with a black and white graphic could create images and even sounds.


A camera is used to track a marker to calculate the position of the marker to the camera and vice versa. The camera can then create a digitally physical form calculating the position, distance angle and scale of the object. This can allow for interaction between real and virtual reality.

The link below is a great example of combining real with augmented reality. As the man holds up the marker, it instantly creates a 3D image which he can then physically interact with.

You can watch the video or follow the steps to try it out yourself.

Smart Grid Augmented Reality example

The following videos are examples of how Fiducial Markers work in different situations.

I would like to have some form of use with Fiducial Markers as they are very interesting and fun to use. However, the placement and size of the marker and even how the user would hold it/them would generally be somewhat insufficiant to the end prodect. Holding a marker is easy, but determiing what other body gestures were or could be made would alter the outcome of using a marker.

Camera Tracking

 Camera Tracking was my favourite form of input from this unit. I would very much like to make use of cameras to track motion within my final project.

The use of camera technology has and is continulousely being developedand updated to keep up with today's technical society. A camera is used to capture live footage or to track moving objects within a video stream, like a laptop video cam.

For this tute, we explored camera motion tracking using two different example shown below.  

If the file does not load:
1) Make sure you have a webcam plugged in
2) Change browsers - Internet Explorer works well
3) Click the link Camera tracking example 2 for a larger view




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Sound in Flash

In this example, we looked into inputing sound into Flash. The following example depicts a stage which consists of 10 different instruments which when they are dragged down onto the stage the corresponding sound plays. This allowed users to create their own music with the given instruments.
Using the mouse, the users can drag which ever instrument they want onto the stage. Moving the instrument back to front and side to side affected the volume and channel in which the sound would be outputted.

Sound is and can be very important when it comes to creating large interactive projects for big spaces. It gives interest to the project itself and also draws on-lookers and users attention towards the installation resulting in interaction with it.

I would deffinately like to add sound to my project as it will better aid the overall outcome and interest from the potential users.

Interactive Band

Use the mouse to drag instruments onto the stage. Dragging back and forward change the volume. The further back, the quieter the sound is, as to dragging forward, the louder it gets. Dragging the instrument left or right changes the channel in which the sound is being outputted on.

Animated Interstitial

This is my piece for assessment one. I wanted to stick with the same style throughout the entire animation because I thought that it would look somewhat tacky if there was a combination between drawn images and still photographs. I decided to use a cartoonistic/ pop art style. I liked the idea of having bold coloures outlined in black. It was also easy to draw in Photoshop. Each image is hand drawn using the mouse and saved as a PNG file. The short animation denotes my love for nature. The sea, mountains, trees and plants, and my favourite, waterfalls.

I didn't use any effects. All that was used was the positioning, scaling and opacity tool. On the sand layers I created masks so that the trees and plants could come out from underneath it.

At first I was a bit reluctant to show others, but when they said it was good it changed my mind.....slowly. Because this was the first time of doing something like this I didn't want to try anything too hard and then have to change the entire plan if it didn't work out.

I think the fews things that I should have worked on a bit more was to have more time left at the end for the waterfall to play. But I didn't want to go all the way through the whole thing and reposition all the images again, it took me a long time. Also, the transition between the cave and the waterfall could have been a bit better but I was running out of time. All in all I was very pleased with my first official short animation piece :)

Week 7 - 3-D Composition

We didn;t actually do the exercise for this week. We just worked on our assignments. I was quite happy with mine as I started it over the weekend and had about 4 seconds left to animate. I mostly just played around with opacity and positioning. I hand drew all my images in Photoshop. My awesome coconut tree :D

Week 6 - Physical Graffiti pt. 2

Ok, I went and did the graffiti thing like it said. I honestly had no idea what exactly I was doing. More of just chucking a few images together and making them movereally. I played around with the curves effect like it said in the PDF and did manage to get some cool effects. My favourite would have to be the magician guy at the end. I used masks and weirdly made the graffiti come out from behind them. Slightly dodgy but ok. I also put some sort of 3-D effect on the second image as it moves around the screen. Im still getting use to using After Effects, especially with the effects tab. This was the first time I'd ever used it. It doesn't look too bad. It could have been slightly better, but its just experimental work. Its allowed to be dodgy :)
I've actually figured out how to keep the best quality for my videos and make them smaller in size. I just export them as best quality quicktime movies and then convert them to MPEG. Unfortunately for this one I lost the original After Effects file and so I had to convert the lower quality one instead.

Week 6 - Physical Graffiti

I was actually away for this week so obviousely I didn't do the exercise. I decided to do them at home, and so I did the first part of the exercise - creating a 'Sin City' look. I've done two. It took me a while to actually figure out how to do the rain properly, even with the tutorial. I used the same image for the first one because the other image didn't seem to be working. Although, it worked the second time round. In the second image, I used the small dialogue piece between Gail and Dwight when she puts her gun to his face. I think these turned out quite well. The only thing was I forgot to pull the gun down a bit lower because you can see that the trigger has no finger on it..............unless its a magic gun thats works all by itself :P