Group Appraisal:
For our first act on this project we had to come up with an idea of what our project would entail. Firstly Daniel Whittaker came up with an idea of creating a question related interactive piece, which would then determine a piece of art work done by someone who is based in the Ferens Art Gallery. After considering this idea as a group we felt that this would be a bit too psychological for what we needed and would take a lot longer than the time limit given to us. Chris Dunn then came up with the idea of having a face changing mechanism. This would consist of a set of portrait images and then the user would be able to change such things as lips, eyes, ears, hair and nose. After considering this idea we felt that this had already been done by a number of different people so we wanted something that had a bit of individuality. In the end we decided to go with Andrew Howard's idea of creating a portrait photograph which would then be drawn on with a two minute time limit.
As a group we then decided which areas we would all go into. Myself, Andrew Howard and Chris Dunn were given the task of putting together the flash side of the project, Daniel Farrell and Daniel Whittaker took up the website side of the project. We based this upon our general knowledge as we some of us had stronger points within website production and the other being flash production.
We felt that Andrew Howard had the best knowledge of flash which was vital in the production of it as he created the functions within the web cam, keyboard, colour pallette and image fader. This was vital as Andrew created a big part of the flash piece that was finally produced. My part in this was creating the paint tool which was used in the final design, the keyboard but after finding out it didn't work once rotated we had to use Andrew's keyboard and I also came up with some of the colours which we would use for the colour pallette. Chris Dunn came up with the initial design and layout of what the full project would look like with storyboards. Then Chris came up with how the installation piece would be displayed and also the name Quick Draw and the logo which was changed at a later date. Daniel Whittaker and Daniel Farrell both had involvement in the design and php side of the Quick Draw website.
Upon completion of this task we felt that the level of interaction was to a high standard as it involved the user a lot. We gave the user the enjoyment of taking a photo followed by drawing all over it which we felt would be enjoyable from any age ranging from youngsters to elderly people.
When showing the initial idea for our project to Adele Howitt she was very impressed and seemed to really like our idea which I feel gave us a lot of confidence and helped us have more motivation to get this complete to the best of our ability and in hope that it would be put in the Ferens Art Gallery.
I feel as a group we could of interacted a bit more as sometimes we tended to split off into our own individual groups but on the whole I feel that the overall outcome of this was to a good standard but in future I would prefer more interaction.
Conclusion:
Overall I felt that this project went very well as the flash interactive piece is very visually pleasing and easy to use. The website looks very nicely designed as well so all in all the project has been a success in my opinion.
