Feedback

During our presentation to our client, we received feedback on our layout. First of all, our gear review section was more of a gear introduction section, so we need to rephrase our words. We should also state that it is gears used by the featured artist and specify that our pages are meant for beginners who do not know much about gears. The client also found our pages confusing since the featured artist page and the gear review pages dont relate with each other, so Mr. Razif suggested that we rearrange our pages.

Adding subtitles to our videos

Since the featured artist speaks in English in our videos, we decided to have Malay subtitles to make it easier to view for Malaysians. Using Maisarah's Malay translation, I added subtitles to the video introducing the Esteve guitar. Here it is:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6p2k6oxtma3t46d/AAAMeHcv1LuDQFmxjfa-Z-iLa/vids

Compiling and adding interactivity

After Amir finished his design of the gear review pages, I compiled all the files into Adobe InDesign. Here is one of the pages of our gear review section:

I worked on adding the interactivity for each page. When tapping on the first button, it plays a video of the featured artist introducing the gear shown.

Next is the 3d button. When tapped, it shows the 3d models we made of the guitars and pedals used by the featured artist. To do this, I made 2 object states, one with opacity 0 and the other with opacity 100. Then I used the slideshow button in the folio overlay panel. After that, the 3d model is added using the 'image sequence' button. One of the difficulties in making this button work is that the size of the 3d models was too small so all the models had to be re-rendered in Maya. Another problem is the background of the models could not be transparent because the image sequence button does not work with .png images, so the models had to be rendered with a gray background. 

The music button plays an audio sample of the gear. I managed to make the audio play when tapped on, but the problem was that it could not be paused. This was fixed by putting two images in an 'audio asset' folder:

Then the options are changed in the folio overlay panel and the audio can now be played and paused.

Interactivity in the cover page and contents page was also added so that it automatically jumps to a certain page when tapped on. This was done by creating a button and adding an 'action' to it.

Adding sound clips to 3d model

One of our interactive features for the gear review page is that 3d models will play sound clips when tapped on. This is the outcome:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clQKcMsgfCk

Importing 3d objects to indesign (attempt 2)

In our 2nd attempt of adding 3d objects to indesign, we resorted to using the 'image sequence' function on InDesign. To do this, we have to batch render from Autodesk Maya. The downsides of this is that the model can only rotate left and right, not up and down. This is our outcome:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjZ-84Ve2L0

Importing 3d objects to indesign (attempt 1)

InDesign cannot directly import a 3d object. Therefore, I attempted several different ways to add it into indesign.

In our 1st attempt, I found this tutorial that says you would need Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended to import 3d files, then convert them to PDF. However, Acrobat Pro does not support Autodesk Maya (.mb) files, which is the software we use for 3d modelling. I found out that the only file types Acrobat supports are .u3d and .prc

So to import our model into Acrobat, we converted the .mb file to a object file (.obj) and imported it into MeshLab in order to convert it to .u3d

I tried this by using Maisarah's model of the Bad Monkey pedal. Our problem was that many of the textures were not visible is MeshLab and ended up looking like this:

So, when we imported the .u3d file into Acrobat, it was also missing textures. Since we were unsure of how to fix this issue, we resorted to using a different method.

3d model classical guitar - complete

This is the final 3d outcome of the classical guitar:

3D model (classical guitar)

Since our design requires 3d models, I searched for a sample classical guitar model online and found this:

But since the classical guitar we will be using in our video recording looks different from this model, I worked on making changes to its shape. The things I need to change is:

- Make the soundhole look circular, since the model makes it look oval-shaped

- Make the sides curvier

- Make the left side and right side look the same, like this:

Cover page changes

From our last outcome for the cover page, we showed our attempt in After Effects to Mr. Razif. His feedbacks were:

• It would be better to use a Malaysian band/artist
• The crowd did not look like they were in a concert, but in a rave party because of their clothes

So we decided to search for a picture of a band member taking a selfie. It was difficult to find a picture since they are not as well-known as international artists and many of the ones we found did not meet our expectations. Finally, I managed to find a picture of Imran Ishak, who is a drummer from One Buck Short. His twitter had a few pictures of him taking selfies with a fan. Here is the one we are going to use for the cover page:

Contents page ver. 3

After Nicole had showed her layout changes for the contents page in InDesign, I worked with her to change improve it and started animating the pictures to make it into slideshows.

Here is the first layout change:



And this is the second outcome after some changes:

Contents page ver. 2

After showing our contents page to Mr. Razif, he told us a few things needed to be changed. The text was too small and some images looked expanded.

Since the layout was not satisfying, we each decided to make some changes. Here is my attempt:

Cover page mock-up

Since Mr. Razif asked us to to choose to do only one section for the magazine (introduction page or lyrics/chords page), we decided to choose to go for the introduction page. 

Now that the lyrics/chords page is not being used, I worked with Jessica on the cover page. 

 

This was our result for the mock-up of the cover page.

Group review

Amir: Very creative and constantly comes up with new ideas. He understands the project very well and has knowledge in guitar equipment and apps that we could use as reference, which makes him a good leader. He is very confident in his design, which is also one of his weaknesses because sometimes we need to question our designs and how it can be improved more.

Maisarah: She actively participates in the group and plans group meetings and discussions, which made her a good leader on the first few weeks. Her designs could use some improvement though.

Jessica: She brings out creative changes to our ideas, in terms of making our designs more interactive, which is what is needed most for the project but she could improve in participating more in the group and commenting on the rest of our designs

Lyrics/chords page mock-up

This is the mock-up, following everything we have discussed. The original layout will look like this:

When the viewer swipes on the page, the hidden panel with a list of songs appear. Here is how it will look:

Changes to the lyrics/chords page

A few things that we decided to change for this page was the position of the speed and transpose tools (moved to the top of the lyrics instead of leaving it at the side). We also decided to add icons for the voting poll. The icon is a guitar tuner where the needle shows the amount of votes a song has gotten.

 

(guitar tuner)

We also decided that instead of having a Spotify player at the side of the lyrics, there will be a play button on the album art so when the viewer taps on it, the original song will play.

Discussions and getting feedbacks

After presenting our work to the client, we received some feedbacks, both from the client and from Mr. Razif. The client had asked about what color scheme we plan to use. After discussing, we decided to go with faded/hipster colors:

Some of the feedbacks from Mr. Razif was that our content page should not have the swipe feature, as it prevents readers from immediately getting the full content of the magazine. He suggested to add important content on the pedal board and the rest in columns. Either that or make more pedals for all the content to fit.

For our lyrics/chords page, he commented that having just one tutorial video will be inconvenient for viewers, so we decided to split the videos into four parts.

As for the introducing section, we wanted to add more to the interactivity in the 'artist's biography' part, so we decided to use a fold-in magazine, like this: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/03/28/arts/20080330_FOLD_IN_FEATURE.html?_r=2&

We want to make it so when the page is folded the vector drawing of the artist can be seen and when it is unfolded, the biography will appear.

Mr Razif's feedback was that we should try to find a different method in case the fold-in magazine and parallax scrolling could not be used.

For the instruments/equipment part, we thought we should have a swiping feature. Then, when the viewer scrolls down words will appear telling them to rotate their device and the last part of the page will be videos of the artist playing the instruments shown.

Cover page

For our cover page we want to use an image of the artist taking a selfie with a fan on stage while the crowd is cheering in the background. Here's an example of how it would look like:

A look into our interactive design

After we discussed what kind of interactive elements we wanted in our layout, we came up with some sketches.

(Sketch for content page)

Our content page will consist of pedal boards, where the information will be displayed on the pedals. We plan to make it so the contents will change when the reader swipes on the pedal. The large pedal will display names of the staff and other side notes.

(Sketch for lyrics/chords page)

For our lyrics/chords page, we want the lyrics/chords to have an auto-scroll feature. This will make it much easier for people who want to practice playing the chords without having to manually scroll down every few minutes. The chords will be on top of the lyrics in a different color so it will be less confusing. When the reader taps on a chord the tabs will appear like this:

Beside the lyrics will be a video tutorial of how to play the song. On the top of the page will be the album art along with the name of the album and band. There is also a voting poll beside it that shows the results of the  poll. Once the reader has finished the song, they will be able to rate it.

Lastly, there will be a hidden panel showing a list of songs in alphabetical order. The panel can be seen by swiping the screen.

(Sketch for introducing instruments and equipment)

Our final section is to introduce the featured artist and the instruments and gear they use. We decided to use parallax scrolling for this page. The first part of the page will have a vector drawing of the artist, followed by a biography of them. After that will be the instruments and gear used by the artist. We plan to have a short sound clip that plays when you tap on each instrument.

The questionnare

Since I was not here on the first week due to internship, I was briefed on what exactly our assignment is about. Our group will be making a section about introducing equipments for ROTTW, which is a rock magazine. Today we came up with a questionnare to ask the public. We will be surveying people by asking questions to different people and taking a video of their reply to the question. The questionnare will be to get the public opinion of people regarding how we plan to design the section. These are the questions we are going to ask after getting approval from Mr Razif:

- How to make the chords easier to learn especially if there are beginners among the reader?

- What are the other chords we can include besides the guitar?

- What interactive elements can we add to make the content more interesting?

- If we had a voting poll for the featured songs, would you prefer the opinion of the public or from a industry professional?

Creative Profile

Creative level: My creativity requires thought and inspiration. I aim for a high quality creative outcome so that I will work harder to achieve it

Creative style: My creative style leans more towards drawing characters. I enjoy drawing different kinds of characters including animals and I am slowly developing a comfortable art style by practice and effort. For me, character designs are the most important after plotlines.

Motive: My biggest motivation is watching Japanese anime and video games. My favorite genres are fantasy and action. Seeing these genres in anime and video games are great because they always bring out unique works. Some good examples of creative anime are Fullmetal Alchemist and Baccano. As for video games, I am very inspired by the Bioshock series and The World Ends With You. Character designs are also what makes all of these shows and games great. To make something good, character designs are a huge stepping stone because it catches the attention of viewers at first glance. This inspired me to practice more on different character designs.

Opportunity: I want to make a unique work that people will not forget. When making a storyline-based work, I always prefer having an interesting plot twist.