WilliamAndersonADMFinalPaper

							                       Final Digital Media Report
                    ITEC 4110 Digital Media Project
                              Spring 2009
                           William Anderson
This paper is a description of what I spent time working on during my semester of
Advanced Digital Media ITEC 4110. The paper will first cover the initial goal of my
project and how I had planned to accomplish those goals. Secondly, I will describe the
planning process of my project. The third section is classified. Fourth, I will describe my
production phase and will go over the details of the tools and software I used. I will also
cover any errors and difficulties I encountered. After the fourth section comes the fifth
section, at least under a base ten numeric system which this paper assumes. In this section
I will go over the final product of my efforts. After the descriptions of my final product I
will conclude the paper which will highlight what I liked and disliked about the project
ans how I would do it differently if I had some chance to do it again. Following the
conclusion of this paper, I shall describe what future plans I intend to invoke with the
information I learned during this class.

Introduction
The goal of the class outlined in the syllabus and summarized here was to individually
create a project that used a variety of software tools to create digital media, demonstrate
an understanding and refinement of skills required to produce digital media, be able to
present competent presentation skills and collaborate as a collective team working
towards a goal, and finally to serve as an educational resource for the community while
demonstrating critical thinking and creativity skills. This primary directive of the class
resulted in the creation of two projects. One project would result in the creation of digital
media that would culminate in a final presentation near the end of the semester. The
second project resulted in the creation of helpful(a relative term) tutorials that were aimed
at helping the ITEC 2110 Digital Media class learn about the software used in that class
and in ITEC 4110.

For my initial digital media project, I decided to create a 3d animation. I made this
decision because out of all the software I used in ITEC 2110, Blender seemed to be the
most interesting. As for the service to the 2110 class I created a series of tutorials. These
tutorials cover different software that the 2110 class will use such as Audacity and
Blender.

I intended on working on the Blender project throughout the entire semester. In the first
few weeks of the class I laid out a planning page
(http://wiki.ggc.usg.edu/mediawiki/index.php/Wanderso_adv_blender_oldlayout) that
covered the various issues I would have to deal with in the project.

For the tutorials I had initially planned on only doing one wiki formatted tutorial, but as I
advanced in my Blender knowledge I decided to produce more tutorials to help anyone
interested in Blender.
Software
The software I used for my digital media project was Blender. Blender is am open source
3d animation program. I choose Blender for 3 reasons. The first reason is, is that Blender
is opens source and free. The second reason I used Blender is because I used the program
in the 2110 class and had some experience with the program. The last reason I decided to
choose Blender, is that the program is widely supported online, meaning that many
websites and forums exist to provide dedicated help to Blender users.

I had also planned on using audacity and iMovie\Windows movie maker in this project. I
ended up not using audacity because I did not really have the time to do sound effects. A
movie editing program was also not needed after I learned I could edit the video clips
from within Blender.

Challenges and Surprises
Ultimately the biggest challenge was learning how to use the advanced features of
Blender. While there were many helpful websites available, many of the online Blender
tutorials had the habit of describing Blender features in hard to follow technical terms
with few visual guides for Blender novices. While there were tutorials for Blender
beginners, there weren't many guides for the intermediary level that bridged the gap
between starters and advanced Blender animation. So ultimately the biggest challenge
was learning all of the Blender features while working on the project.

One of the bigger surprises of the project was the amount of time needed to accomplish
the project. I knew going into the project that rendering was going to be time consuming,
however I was not really expecting the amount of time I would spend editing every detail
of my animations. Ultimately this was again the result of a lack of experience with the
advanced features of the program.

Results
By the end of the semester I had created a short animation. The animation was under 2
minutes in length but it took the entire semester to produce. Everything from modeling,
texturing, rendering, and sequencing took a lot of time and effort. Because I was still
learning the program, I had to test a lot of those features while trying to implement them.
This would usually result in me testing a feature one week, and then finding a way to
effectively use that feature the next week. Also I created many test animations and
renders.

Conclusion
Ultimately I came out of this project with a greater appreciation for CGI animations. The
work needed to create even a short animation is immense for a one person project.
However I did learn a lot of the Blender features while I was working on the project, so
this attributed to the massive work load generated by the project. I did end up learning a
lot of neat and interesting features. I feel that if I were to do another animation project I
would be able to create something more complex and in less time because of the things I
learned during this project.
Future Work
Currently I do not plan on pursuing 3d animation as a career choice. However I do see
myself in the near future using the Digital Media skills I learned as the basis for an
interesting hobby. I might create several small animations for fun, and I am interested in
creating games using the Blender engine.