Thursday, March 12, 2020

Arduino project

- I worked alongside one other person to create an interactive system with Arduino. Additionally, at first I had wanted to work with led lights again but then we eventually agreed on working to create a motor. We initially tried to use motor codes from online to with a circuit we found online.
Overall this circuit did not work and the motor was not powered. Furthermore, one of the reasons things did not work out is due to there not being a connection to the positive strips of the breadboard and we were using the wrong resistors. 


Eventually, we adapted our circuit, connecting the first two wires to the 5voltage and the ground, whilst adding additional wires to the positive and negative strips of the breadboard. I learnt that power is vertical in the breadboard line. With this knowledge we aligned the motor and variable resistor in the lines parallel to the wires above. We were able to power the motor successfully using the Arduino software more as a power tool for the circuit board so we did not actually end up using a code. This was a form of creative cheating.
. In conclusion, through this experimentation we were giving power to the motor and attempting to vary its resistance which helped to dictate its speed. To improve, we could use a touch sensitive resistor or vary the speed in a more particular way to create more interesting movement.





Tuesday, March 10, 2020

Arduino  Introduction

For our next project we are going to be working with arduinos; they are devices that make electronics more accessible to designers , artists and hobbyists.

Micro-controllers are involved which include a circuit board and a chip that are programmed to do many things.

The topic of Arduino's arises the discussion of interactivity, this can be described as a two step process with information transferred and given through sensors. Other keywords include: Latency and Interface.

In an Arduino there is a two way flow of information, the conventional method is to plug a usb connecting an Arduino to a computer, which is a shortcut way of processing.

THE ANATOMY OF AN ARDUINO
using the image above I will locate the different points.
-Area 2 is the usb port area used for sending data and power.
-Area 6 is where you can insert pins ,variable resistors and sensors.
-Area 5,4 and 3 is where power can be sent and received
-Area 7,8 is where light display can be impacted
Other resistors used are thermostats and LDR, and breadboards are used alongside an Arduino.


The role of a resistor is to protect the circuit and control the voltage so too much power is not sent out.
CONNECTING THE ARDUINO ONTO OUR COMPUTER
-To do this we set up the circuit on the Arduino and the breadboard, then we opened up a software on our computer called 'Arduino' then clicked 'basics' then 'blink'.
-There was a comment section but this is mainly for giving users like ourselves information without affecting the code.
-connect the Arduino using the usb
using the code showed when you clicked on 'basics' and 'blink' you should now click on verify which shows if there are any errors.
-The errors for example could be 'no Arduino connected'.
-If everything is connected then things should start running.

Processing


Through using the processing website https://processing.org/examples/ for the app "Processing 3.5-5";we went through various examples of codes used to create many patterns and even drawings.

The first picture above shows one of the codes that makes balls appear on the screen then bounce and disappear. I attempted to change the screen time from 255 to 350, then the gravity from 0.5 to 0.8. However, this made the balls bounce less and although they did have a longer screen time.

The second image displays a processing code that allowed me to sketch, although there were no undo or delete functions and only one colour was able to be used.

Processing is used as a template whilst the Arduino is used as an interface.

interface definition : Where two objects or systems meet and interact.


Friday, March 6, 2020

Mocha AE Planer tracking.


to activate the Mocha effect, I had to go to effects then through Boris selection I followed an arrow leading to mocha-and I double clicked on the logo which appeared to activate it,

I then made a red rectangle to track and stabilize the phone, then the blue inner rectangle to locate where I want to insert my image. I clicked the light blue buttons on the left side as well before saving my work.

To insert the image I had to click on- create track data then choose the option to add a layer.

Afterwards, layer export to {your image}

eventually my image was inserted into the clip.
Making my own tracked videoI made a video filming a hallway, where I then imported the poster into my composition.
I then added a 3D tracker and made a detailed analysis as the video was complex.

However because the video had a lot of white walls the contrast and brightness impacted the tracking making it glitch a lot.

As a result I used mocha to help stabilize the poster in a single  position by surround a red rectangle around where I wanted the poster to be placed.

After the tracking on mocha was complete the video was 95% stable there was still a frame that glitched, so the best solution was to remove that single frame.

Finally, the poster was stable and I adjusted the, saturation, brightness and I added a blur filter so it blended into the background.
Working with 3D layers

Using this video made by a drone we learnt how to add various effects, including decay and fire.

Firstly we had to add the clip into the main composition, after wards I had to click on the anchor tool(besides the camera in the tool section) to drag the anchor in the clip downwards.

We then inserted a ground decay object but we had to make it blend into the clip. To do this we had to render its track points in effects control, after that many small colourful symbols appeared .

The next step was to pick one of them and right click them to create a null, then rotate the z axis to make it lay flat on the earth then blend it by playing around with the saturation and hue's.









 To change the drone set up to a more suitable frame, we had to change the composition settings to 1280/720 frame and in the effects settings we had to use 'optics compensation.








Point tracking 05/03/20
These are the initial steps I wrote for beginning how to point track.
After those steps I also learnt that I had to make a null and then make sure it follows the tracker formed.
Eventually, bring in a 3D object making sure it follows the null- this is made possible by using the parent pull whip tool.
I had to create a moving plane, I first inserted the plane alone which was a stabilized clip.
I then added two track motions on either sides, afterwards I clicked on the position, rotation and scale settings before adding analyse and transform to the track type.
I went back to my composition and added a null object.
I inserted the missile's although they overlaid the plane so I added a filter which illuminated the plane and duplicated the plane as well so the missiles appear below them.


Through this project one of the main things I learnt was that in order to activate track motion you have to insert a clip, as images do not work.
1-You can either create stills in photoshop of layered images and then export them to after effects.
2-You could stabilize a video in premier then export it into after effects.
3-You could stabilize a video in a single composition within after effects then insert the product into the second composition.

Making my own video using the camera -AFTER EFFECTS

- Tuesday

We had to create a video using the camera on after effects including texts and images.
I added different layers of texts all including different statements and then a few pictures which I edited on photoshop.

I was able to use the tips I learnt from learning how to use cameras, including making the text and objects 3D, combining layers with the parent whip chain, and playing around with the various axis.

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

After effects-working with Cameras

We extracted this file including different shapes and graph paper.
Upon opening the document, I added made all the objects 3d and then I camera and made it have a focal length of 25mm.

By changing the positioning of the camera I was able to rotate the objects ; and eventually I started my animation by changing the positioning of the camera between  1 and 5 seconds. I rotated the screen during the time with the camera effect and added an ease in and ease out animation.

 These are some notes I made whilst learning the controls.