Critical self-reflection

Week 10 Session 1

Self-reflection Q&A (Going through 3 Assignments)

1/ Video editing

• How did you approach the relationship between the sonic and visual components of your edit?

For both the sonic and visual components, I followed the intentional emotion stages to create corresponding connection between them. However, I shaped the audio properly after finishing all of the visual editing. Basically, I added sounds based on what I had with the footage and ensured they worked together.

• How did you decide on the footage that you used to shape your project?

As I’d made a proper storyboard based on the ideas I tried to build, it was not too difficult to film footage as planned and use it then. However, I didn’t use every footage that I’d filmed because when layering them together, I found some of them were redundant. I selected the final footage depending on the smooth transitions between them and the continuity they could maintain. Also, the original colours must be consistent with each other.

• What did you learn about the power of sound to shape emotional experience, and how did you apply this knowledge to your project?

I strongly understand that the emotional experience mostly depends on the sounds. Even while the visual demonstrates another layer of meaning or kind of action, what the audience hears at that time is much more important and they feel what they listen to. So selecting and deciding on the use of sounds is vital to every section of the whole project. Because some of my footage could be a bit abstract, I believe that I can use the audio to shape the audience experience better. To be particular, I have the first section of the video which conveys anxiety and sadness so the background music was decided with the same theme. I also ensured the transition between sounds that hold completely opposite feelings occurs at the specifically right time and strongly connects to the visual to create an appropriate climax. It means there must be something in the visual that supports the presence of the audio and vice versa.

• How does editing relate to the concepts of pacing and rhythm, and how did you use these concepts to shape your use of time in the project?

My editing is filled with overlapping emotions so using pacing and rhythm to distinct them and enhance the moment of transferring is essentially noteworthy. For example, the negative feelings part is initially slow but it runs faster to depict the overcoming stage even it doesn’t become happier completely. I didn’t want to let the audience get lost in boredsome when experiencing my emotional journey so the flow is interspersed and balanced between slow and quick tempo.

• Which parts of your personality, interests, past, and potential future did you choose to depict in your portrait?

While the transformation of the emotions from the past to the present and future has changed positively and I no longer want to keep those past feelings, my interest and dream have become much more intense and I desire to develop them day by day. My passion for designing and painting has been cherished for a very long time and it also helps in my growing up process as I found isolation when moving to a new country but it took me out of that dark space and imbued me with strength and encouragement. I have depicted myself with these aspects and I strived to convey this kind of powerful motivation to those watching it.

• What were the primary aesthetic choices that you made to express those ideas in your work?

I tried to balance between outdoor and indoor scenes. The biggest point is the vibe between nature footage and self-recording footage is quite different but I still want to have all of them in a 2-min video. The reason is the ability to deal with them creates a specific aesthetic and gets the audience involved in the same emotional journey. 

2/ Graphic icons

• How would you summarise your idea behind the suite of icons, and why did you choose the theme that you did?

After generating ideas, I figured out that my inner self always desires to create community-centric designs. It would not always be about the community or directly illustrating the community but partly communicating with people and talking about human stories and emotions. I would say I’m a storyteller in my work. The suite of icons demonstrate the presence of the community where people have different jobs and characteristics. As I intend to create these icons for a local website where new residents can look for relevant information about their surroundings, each of them would symbolise a specific location to visit.

• Did you iterate through a series of approaches before settling on one? What changed across those iterations, and why did you choose the one that you ended up with?

I iterated a lot while building ideas and crafting sketches. At first, even the ideas had been still around locations for the community but they’d been represented in completely different sketches. I basically built a new suite based on the new intentional consistency that I came up with then. In the second iteration, I kept some of the details in the previous attempt but shaped them in the jigsaw puzzles concept and tried with character illustrations. During this process, I continuously removed some detailed elements which created complexity and iterated more to build firm comprehension. Last, the colour designing process could be the time I applied iteration the most. I tried different colour palettes from different platforms on each icon to figure out which could fit the best.

• How did you translate your thumbnail sketches into the final flat designs in Illustrator? Was anything lost in that translation, or gained?

I did the sketches on paper and put them onto Illustrator and used Pen tool to translate them on the above layer. The outline has been elimated and I mixed colours to create a hint of distinguishing between elements.

• How did you use colour to create a sense of unity and visual interest in the icons? Why did you choose the palette that you did?

My aim is vibrant colours to catch the attention and also make the viewers feel much interested while looking at them. They also should be warm and familiar but unique at the same time. I applied different colour design on each of my icons in multiple attempts to seek for the most suitable. Both of the final palettes are colourful and made me, who had looked at them several times, couldn’t make a decision. So I asked for feedback from my friends and lecturer. They all went with the same palette choice which brings the strong impression even though a bit unfamiliar tone.

• How did the elements and principles of sound that you used in your audio design

correspond to the elements and principles of design that you used in your visual design?

I normalised the pitch and amplitude to ensure each piece of audio does not create jarring sounds. I set the audio to around 2 seconds each to enhance the interaction between audio playing and visual switching. Besides, two layers of sounds were created to best demonstrate the meanings of each icon.

• How did you translate the prompt that you chose from an abstract idea to a set of

concrete visual designs?

Intially, I reflected how the ‘Community’ prompt could cover some specific aspects such as human, connection and interaction. I broke it down into the reasons and stories behind the suite of icons to build the ideas easỉer. As I finally identified my intentional viewers and platform, I fully understood what I could be going to make to ensure the results achieve the desired goals.

3/ Virtual envrionment

• How important was a working prototype to your design process? What did it offer that process?

The prototype helped me play around and get a hint of suitable position and layout of the whole build. The Greybox prototype was like a specific map with directions and enough objects to look around and navigate the ways for players. I could change as much as I went through the navigation and found that it didn’t convey the proper feelings.

• How did your experience of designing and producing a three-dimensional environment differ from your experience of designing and producing a project in two-dimensional media?

For me, it was quite difficult and uncomfortable to move around as I needed to press many keyboards and they didn’t go smoothly. However, I would say it’s such an interesting experience and I got used to it as long as I iterated continuously. I ended up keeping going around and adjusting even when I finished the project. There were also lots of new tools and functions for me to go through. The process was also different from crafting a 2D design. Setting the proper position would be the most time-consuming section for me since I used not to be familiar with the view in the 3D environment. 

• What was the role of the virtual camera in your project, and how was it similar to and different from the role of the camera in Assignment 1?

The virtual camera helped me look around the surroundings from its perspective. The position of the camera would be changed when the object is moved. This camera is utilised after it has been set to a proper position. However, the camera in Assignment 1 was moved until it had a suitable view and I used that view to capture the footage.

• How did you use sound in your project, and how was this similar to and different from your use of sound in Assignments 1 and 2?

I used two different background music for two different environments and layered more sound effects on top during the navigation. I found this audio experience similar to the one in Assignments 1 and 2 in terms of emotions as it takes the audience through a journey of feelings and what people understand depends much on what they can hear. I also combined and crafted a bit of sound design before putting them into the final projects in all 3 assignments. They all play important roles besides the visual term. However, in this project, the sound is spatial and I needed to set the distance of each audio piece to ensure it works clearly in a specific area and gradually fades when moving to another area which brings a different feeling.

• How did you unify the different elements of your virtual environment under a certain theme or concept? How did your theme or concept evolve over the project’s development?

Different environments in my whole build all have the presence of nature inside. Players can find a hint of plants and nature when first moving around until the whole natural world appears at the very end. Even though this is the pretty long journey leading through different kinds of space, the sense of familiarity is still maintained and the players should strongly feel they are walking through a specific story and fully experiencing the areas. A particular development that could be mentioned is when I added one more same room into my build so it there are two rooms space in total. The second one is the room filled with brightness which is opposite to the first one so it represents vividly the transformation I want to imply.

• What did you discover through the process of playtesting that you wouldn’t have

discovered otherwise?

The first mistake I made was with the mesh collider so playtesting helped me figure it out and fix it as soon as possible. After 99% completing the build, the playtesting process offered me practical experience through every environment and feeling that I could find which element did not suit the remaining or which sound reached the wrong zone.

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• I'm going to talk about myself (description, introduction, explanation) in the first section of the webpage (following the main menu and profile pic). It should include some keywords and paragraphs describing my tastes, personalities and interests in design and art perspectives.

• Keywords could be: bold, impressive, strong, emotional...

• The next section will be the list of my work and 3 assignments in order.

• The target audience: my fellows, my lecturer and friends (both art and non-art). So that the flow of this webpage should be clear enough to let them know what it talks about and what it shows without being confused about where are these works from. The description for each work should be displayed properly.

Disciplines:

• Digital video (premiere pro)

• Interaction: development, UI/UX, illustration, web design

• 3D environment: 3D modelling, navigational design

• Sound

Refining your creative practice

Technical Skills:

• Premiere: crossfades, cuts

• Visual Studio Code: programming HTML CSS Javascript

• Illustrator: pen tool, positioning/ adobe ecosystem

• Unity: terrain design, 3D sound, assets

• Figma: wireframing

Implicit skill:

• Learning to learn (be able to rapidly switch)

• Dealing with new tech and adapting rapidly

• Organisation

• Idea generation

• Iteration

• Prototyping

• Feedback

• Realising complex ideas/ bringing them to life