All posts by Mr Stratton

Computing teacher and a PT at Coltness High School.
3. Multimedia, Computing Higher

Video Effects

Here is the making of the video I was talking about.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/drl8-vrul0c" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]

It goes to show the power of special effects software. There are no explosives or squibs used.

I also found this 3D video (you will need a set of red/blue glasses). I have embedded it below but the blog does not support 3D so you will see the two camera views.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/0U0ZDjnQiXQ" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]

2. Software Development, Computing Higher

Video Games Awards 2011

Watch the GAME British Academy Video Games Awards LIVE, right here, from 8:45pm on Wednesday 16 March.

Nominations

Action

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Alan Kertz, Kristoffer Bergqvist
Electronic Arts/DICE
BioShock 2
Jordan Thomas, Zak McClendon
2K Games/2K Marin
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Adam Rosas, Scott Bean, Dom Drozdz
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch
God of War III
Stig Asmussen, Todd Papy, Steve Caterson
Sony Computer Entertainment/SCE Santa Monica Studio
Halo: Reach
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Bungie

Artistic Achievement
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Adam Rosas, Scott Bean, Dom Drozdz
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch
God of War III
Stig Asmussen, Ken Feldman, Cecil Kim
Sony Computer Entertainment/SCE Santa Monica Studio
Heavy Rain
David Cage, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Scott Johnson
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe
LIMBO
Development Team
Xbox Live Arcade/Playdead Games
Mass Effect 2
Development Team
Electronic Arts/BioWare

Best Game
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal
FIFA 11
Development Team
Electronic Arts/ Electronic Arts Canada
Heavy Rain
David Cage, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Scott Johnson
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe
LIMBO
Development Team
Xbox Live Arcade/Playdead Games
Mass Effect 2
Development Team
Electronic Arts/BioWare
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Koichi Hayashida, Yoshiaki Koizumi, Takashi Tezuka
Nintendo/Nintendo

Family
Dance Central
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios & MTV Games/MTV & Harmonix
Kinect Adventures
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Good Science Studio
Kinect Sports
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Rare
Kinectimals
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Frontier Developments Ltd
LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
Development Team
Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment/TT Games
Toy Story 3
John Blackburn, Jonathan Warner, Jeff Bunker
Disney Interactive Studios/Avalanche Software

Gameplay
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal
God of War III
Stig Asmussen, Todd Papy, Adam Puhl
Sony Computer Entertainment/SCE Santa Monica Studio
Heavy Rain
David Cage, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Scott Johnson
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe
LIMBO
Development Team
Xbox Live Arcade/Playdead Games
Mass Effect 2
Development Team
Electronic Arts/BioWare
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Koichi Hayashida, Yoshiaki Koizumi, Takashi Tezuka
Nintendo/Nintendo

Handheld
Cut the Rope
Development Team
Chillingo/Zeptolab
God of War: Ghost of Sparta
Development Team
Sony Computer Entertainment/Ready at Dawn & SCE Santa Monica Studio
LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
Development Team
Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment/TT Games
Professor Layton and the Lost Future
Akihiro Hino
Nintendo/Level 5 Games
Sonic Colours
Development Team
SEGA/Sonic Team
Super Scribblenauts
Joseph M Tringali, Marius Fahlbusch, Jeremiah Slaczka
Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment/5th Cell

Multiplayer
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Alan Kertz, Kristoffer Bergqvist
Electronic Arts/DICE
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Adam Rosas, Scott Bean, Dom Drozdz
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch
Halo: Reach
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Bungie
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
Development Team
Electronic Arts/Criterion Games
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
Development Team
Blizzard Entertainment/Blizzard Entertainment

Original Music
Alan Wake
Petri Alanko
Microsoft Games Studios/Remedy
Fable III
Russell Shaw
Microsoft Games Studios/Lionhead Studios
Heavy Rain
Normand Corbeil
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe
James Bond 007: Bloodstone
Richard Jacques
Activision Blizzard UK/ Bizarre Creations
Mass Effect 2
Jack Wall
Electronic Arts/BioWare
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Koji Kondo
Nintendo/Nintendo

Social Network Game
Bejeweled Blitz
Jon David, Heather Hazen, Jason Kapalka
Popcap Games/Popcap Games
Farmerama
Tobias Reisberger, Jan-Michel Saaksmeier, Marten Schröder
Bigpoint/Bigpoint
FIFA Superstars
Development Team
EA Sports/Playfish
My Empire
Development Team
Playfish/Playfish
Zoo Mumba
Tobias Reisberger, Eduard Röhrich, Jan-Michel Saaksmeier
Bigpoint GMBH/Bigpoint GMBH
Zuma Blitz
Isaac Aubrey, Jon David, Jason Kapalka
PopCap Games/PopCap Games

Sports
F1 2010
Development Team
Codemasters/Codemasters Birmingham
FIFA 11
Development Team
Electronic Arts/ Electronic Arts Canada
Football Manager 2011
Development Team
SEGA/Sports Interactive
Gran Turismo 5
Development Team
Sony Computer Entertainment/Polyphony Digital Inc
International Cricket 2010
Development Team
Codemasters/Trickstar Games
Pro Evolution Soccer 2011
Shingo Takatsuka, Naoya Hatsumi, Jon Murphy
Konami/Winning Eleven Productions

Story
Alan Wake
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Remedy
BioShock 2
Jordan Thomas, Zak McClendon
2K Games/2K Marin
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Adam Rosas, Scott Bean, Dom Drozdz
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch
Fallout: New Vegas
John Gonzalez, Eric Fenstermaker, Travis Stout
Bethesda Softworks/Obsidian Entertainment
Heavy Rain
David Cage, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Scott Johnson
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe
Mass Effect 2
Development Team
Electronic Arts/BioWare

Strategy
Civilization V
Jon Shafer, Dorian Newcomb, Brian Wade
2K Games/Firaxis
Fallout: New Vegas
Josh Sawyer, Frank Kowalkowski, Justin Reynard
Bethesda Softworks/Obsidian Entertainment
FIFA Manager 11
Development Team
EA Sports/Bright Future
Napoleon Total War
Development Team
SEGA/Creative Assembly
Plants vs. Zombies XBLA
George Fan, Matt Lee Johnston, Ty Roberts
PopCap Games/PopCap Games
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
Development Team
Blizzard Entertainment/Blizzard Entertainment

Technical Innovation
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Adam Rosas, Scott Bean, Dom Drozdz
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch
Halo: Reach
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Bungie
Heavy Rain
David Cage, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Scott Johnson
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe
Kinectimals
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Frontier Developments Ltd
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Koichi Hayashida, Yoshiaki Koizumi, Takashi Tezuka
Nintendo/Nintendo

Use of Audio
Alan Wake
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Remedy/14.05.10
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal/19.11.10
Battlefield: Bad Company: 2
Stefan Strandberg
Electronic Arts/DICE/05.03.10
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Development Team
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch/ 09.11.10
DJ Hero 2
Development Team
Activision Blizzard UK LTD/Freestylegames/22.10.10
LIMBO
Development Team
Xbox Live Arcade/Playdead Games/21.07.10

BAFTA Ones to Watch Award in association with Dare to Be Digital
Mush
Henry Hoffman, Ahmed Zaman, Matthew Dennis, Katherine Killick, Greg O’Brien
(Angry Mango)
Sculpty
Druhin Mukherjee, Fabien Roussot, James Long, Fraser Littlejohn, Ronan Suess
(Team Tickle)
Twang
Jocce Marklund, Annette Nielsen, Linus Nordgren, Marcus Heder, Thomas Finlay
(That Game Studio)

GAME Award of 2010
(The only award to be voted for by the public)
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch
Dance Central
Microsoft Games Studios & MTV Games/MTV & Harmonix
FIFA 11
Electronic Arts/ Electronic Arts Canada
Halo Reach
Microsoft Games Studios/Bungie
Heavy Rain
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe
Limbo
Xbox Live Arcade/Playdead Games
Mass Effect 2
Electronic Arts/BioWare
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
Electronic Arts/Criterion Games
Red Dead Redemption
Rockstar Games/Rockstar San Diego
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Nintendo/Nintendo

3. Multimedia, Computing Higher

P3 Class – Higher

Create a PowerPoint presentation that explains the main graphic filetypes with an example of each one.

Use the microphones provided to dictate your description as an audio file and embed it on each page to start automatically.

SAVE the presentation as NAB 2 (even if you don’t finish it.)

3. Multimedia, 6. External Sites, Computing Higher

Graphic Files

We have been going over this for a while now and I have written a helpful posting over in the Information Systems blog.

However, I did come across this today and it got me looking on wikipedia and on Google.

Let me give you a comparison

JPG – 9.33KB

PNG – 48.1 KB

GIF – 18.4 KB

I have turned the compression up on the JPG to show that it uses lossy compression.  Download the images and use an image editor like irfanview to zoom into the pictures to check their quality.

2. Software Development, 6. External Sites, Computing Higher, Standard Grade Computing Studies

Flash Games Development

We have just been sent a list of Adobe games development website that might be useful to you in the future. Have a look at them in your own time, some of the links do not work inside school.

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/games.html

Resource wise there are the Adobe gaming evangelist blogs:

http://blog.flashgen.com (Mike Jones’)
http://www.flashrealtime.com (Tom’s)
http://www.theflashblog.com (Lee Brimelow’s)
http://www.gototandlearn.com (also Lee’s)
http://www.duvos.com/ (Enrique Duvos’s)

Also there are numerous Flash gaming site both for Flash games and as resources. The biggest Flash gaming site is probably Kongregate – http://www.kongregate.com –  (if fact they have just launched a Flash arcade app for Android).

Developer resources tend to focus around engines / frameworks. So you have the following resources

Pushbutton Engine (http://www.pushbuttonengine.com) – I have a few articles on my blog about PBE
Flixel (http://flixel.org) – Lee has done a good video tutorial on this
Papervision3d (http://www.papervision3d.org)
Away3D (http://www.away3d.com)

1. Computer Systems, 3. Multimedia, Computing Higher

Animated GIFs

“Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways.” – Wikipedia

The software used today was Styks. It allowed us to create an animation using GIF.  I asked you to save it as GIF as this is a common file format that can be edited with ease in other programs.

Most of the class then discovered that Fireworks could be used to edit the GIF and re-save it. There are other packages that allow you to edit an animated GIF, have a look for some freeware examples.

If you managed to do this then please post a blog of your finished artwork.