creating the website

This is something that I am split on.though I am happy with the outcome I am not happy with the prosess of construction.i spent far too long trying to get the 3d to work and ran out of time when I couldn’t do it.i still much preferred that concept but it looked bad.i think I will ned to change the program I am using for 3d.i like lightwave modeler because it is logical and comparatively easy to understand.but in the layout mode it is far too hard to get your mdels to look good.in some software’s you can make any object look good.you can make a load of random polygons pointing in random directions and it will look good.this is because the lighting system is more efficient.though the model may be rubbish it will (by default) look lke a pice of deformed plastic.in lightwave it looks like a badly formed 3d model.lightwave is known for having accurate lighting but if it is unachievable without hours of work I don’t think it is worth the effort.

uploading

my first attempt uploading a website was easy er than i expected.the site layout was confusing and riddled with adverts but that's hardly surprising considering it was free.the address has the hosts name in it which isn't great,but as i said before it was free.it serves its purpose as a test site.there are no adverts on the page which is good. there is 500Mb of space for uploaded content.at the moment i only have my html test site uploaded,this consists of random code,pictures,links and flash movies.i use the site as a reference for coding other html sites.though i only have one page uploaded at the moment it seems simple enough to add more.

uni interview stoke

i think the interview went well.i was fairly relaxed during the interview process  partialy due too preparation and the rest because of the atmosphere. it was held in a small cafe on campus i was part of a group of three and we each were interviewed separately.i went first so i had no opportunity to to talk about the interview with the other interviewees .

to prepare for the interview i had re printed out my work for a portfolio. previously it was all on PC ,so i decided to print it out to appear more organized. after i printed out all the work i was happy with i sorted it into an order i was able to show in a progressional way .i had a progression so that i could continue the flow through the presentation,i could start on one image and the next image would have something in common.i kept all groups together e.g. 3d,web and photography were all grouped.

choices

Looking through my options for next year was fairly simple as I had already decided roughly what I wanted to do I don’t think I have the skills to start full time work for a company, and I don’t yet have the confidence to be self employed .I have had very little work experience in this field and have no customers so setting up a business feels risky at best. During this final year I should be able to teach myself the basics of what I need to be employed (improve my html, css and actionscript, start to investigate things like JavaScript and c++ and continue to study after affects, and modelling software spending time to learn 3dmax or maya, realflow and possibly blender). Something else to look into is becoming an intern at a company. This may be good for improving skills. The problem with employment (self or otherwise) is that it leaves me with fairly poor qualifications, it should give good work experience, but that can be achieved after I get the degree. It will be harder and more inconvenient to finish the degree after working.  

plugins

i have just started to use plugins with lightwave and i am quite impressed but also slightly irritated.some of the features are quite impressive as they can make your work look realy good with minimal effort.one example of this is the c4_destruct plugin(there is also a plugin called crackit which is supposedly simpler to use and creates the same result but i havn't found it yet) it takes Any object and splits the object into lots of random shapes on separate layers,then the object can be imported into layout and shattered with dynamics.this effect looks really cool when trying to make explosions.the problem's are that lightwave often crashes when the plugin is being used(I'm not sure whether it is purely a problem with the plugins,or if its also the lightwave dynamics system).another problem is that finding some plugins can be really hard as many are years old,and the links to download them are dead.so when i find them i make backup copies as soon as possible.overall i would say that the outcome is worth the hassle but it would be much easy er if these features came as standard.

first project

for the first project i need to create a product based on contrasting strategies. for example i could create a webpage that is anti-smoking but to do this i must find an effective way to get across this message. the best way to find this is to research some anti-smoking sites,look at their layout and see what style of images and design they use. but then i must look at pro-smoking websites and see how they differentiate. after looking at some websites for pro/anti smoking it surprised me the styles the websites went for. the anti-smoking websites were as expected and had clean looking and clinical style. the images were of people wearing nicotine patches and destroying cigarets. the thing that surprised me was the style of pro smoking sites. one of them was FOREST (freedom organization for the right to enjoy smoking tobacco)as expected it had images of people smoking but the style of them was interesting. the images were of old men smoking on their own with a dark background.i think that the images made smoking look dirty ,antisocial and give a different affect than the site intended. if i were to make photos for a pro smoking website i would make it appear more like the style of a beer advert.i would have a group of people in the same image doing/watching an activity and looking like they are having fun and making smoking seem like a fun enjoyable thing to do. the layout and color of the webpage was a plain white with a red  heading