Week 6 - Communication Presentation

Presentation 1
The Creation Of Gothic Architecture
Xiao, Yaoyu
Seif, Lauren
Wannous, Bassel
Constantinidis, Anthony
Hur, Benjamin
Fan, Xiaodong

Comments
First part was consisted of quite dense information but was informative. Video was a good way at explaining their own personal experiences with communicating. Presentation of information on Prezi was way to dense. Information should be explained to you in a logical manner with a few key points displayed. The mass of information should come from what you are saying, not what is on the screen.

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Presentation 2
The Last Suprematist Sculpture
Hanna, Marina
Thantrong, Andrew

Comments
Good slides with a good amount of relevant information. They demonstrated a good explanation of the tasks which they have carried out as a team. Video was good, good use of graphics and interesting presentation tool, which helped to captivate the audience.

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Presentation 3
The Bus Stop of the Future
Masli, Martha Melia
Chami, Anthony 
Skarparis, Kerre  
Weinman, Darren Joshua
Olivera, Daniel Sean

Comments
The least interactive presentation based group, however a great presentation. Good communication of their ideas in a simple and concise way. By speaking to the audience instead of speaking at them, they made the presentation more interesting and by far the most engaging presentation of the day.

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Overall Russell's & Steve's Comments
Link references to used content, don't do a slide at the end. The information you use needs constant referencing when it is used inside of the text, this can be done with in-text referencing. This way the audience understands what information has been taken throughout the presentation.

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How did the presentation apply to your understanding of Communication?
I had honestly never really considered in-depth the way team communicate and why they do so. Communication is more then about outlining what is to be done, it is a multipurpose platform. We communicate so that we can understand each other through personal contact and can express our own opinions. Communication between group members allows each member to have the ability to contribute to the outcome of what is to be achieved. From the presentation I now understand that there are limitations with any form of communication and certain methods need to be adopted to suit different situations. There is a time for spoken communication and written communication. Spoken is more informal and more to generate quick ideas and responsibilities. Written communication is more formal and can be used as checklist of what each persons responsibilities are which they are accountable for. Written forms of communication can be used as evidence if a groups communication breaks down.

How does communication relate to your own work?
Generally at the formation of a group we just decide on a communication method that suits us all and go ahead with it. Personally I prefer written informal methods of communication such as Facebook or SMS groups. This way information is easily transferred backwards and forwards to all group members. Iv had issues in the past with emails and phone calls, these are generally done between certain participants and therefore make it difficult to know what each person is doing. I know have a better understanding of why I prefer this written form of communication, because the written form is documented I like being able to know what each person is doing and what my part is. Written forms of communication are formal and more expressive according to the presentations, which is what I personally prefer.

What is the communication method in our group and why?
In our group we utilise Facebook messenger, Blogger, Wikispaces and Google Drive. Facebook is for direct communication about what we have done and what we plan on doing. Its a useful tool in getting answers quickly to a question or telling the other group member. We both have Facebook chat on our phones so our messages are answered very quickly.
Our Wikispace is used for overall discussion as to what each member will focus on that week and any problems that we want to display that we are having. Blogger is not a direct for of communication, however every week or so we will look at each others blogs and see what they have accomplished that week. Google Drive is an essential tool for us, it is a extremely easy tool to share our files and ensure that we are not duplicating the work that other group member has already done. Of course we do also undertake verbal or spoken communication in class and on the phone but this is only once a week in class and very rarely on the phone, messaging each other is much more convenient for us.  

How can we protect ourselves from issues arising?
Through constant and effective communication we should be able to avoid any issues. Me and Anders have undertaken many group assignments together and know what each other needs. We haven't had any communication issues thus far so we hopefully wont have any in the future.  

Week 6 - Chronolapse Progression

Week 6 - Realistic Modelling

This week our focus has shifted from the sketchy rear section of the design to the front. The front of the bike is where the real effort will go into this semester, the realistic materials is by far the most difficult component of the design. Anders had already started some modelling of this section and has watched many videos on reflections and blending, so he was my coach this week. We were a bit unsure on the level of detail Russell wanted in the final design, when Russell has edited his model in Photoshop, he has created some small flaws and extras which he has not deleted, so today we discussed this with him. The end result was that he wanted EVERYTHING. Every flaw and pix-elated edge, so that's what we endeavour to give him. 

Extra Piece after removal of headlight

Leftover shading when footpeg was removed

After a fair amount of trial and error I was able to recreate the frame of the motorbike using vector lines and shading. Below is a GIF of the real and new design. There is some difference between the two obviously, but for a first attempt I think it was pretty good.

Real Vs Virtual 

Week 5 - Planning Presentation

Presentation 1 
Aerial Ropeway in a World Heritage Environment 
McMahon, Bethany Louise
Park, Maria Eun Ji
Parto, Daisy Danica
Hoda, Iqra Faria
Nguyen, Yen Nhien
Portokalli, Matthew Louis

Comments
Good use of resources, interesting and captivating presentation. The video was a good way to sum of the topic and finish off the presentation. 

Presentation 2 
The Bus Stop of the Future. 
Lo, Jason How Ying
Alagah, George
Gan, Ruo Qi
Naumovski, Michael
Tang, Kangyi

Comments
Full of information surrounding the topic with some good examples of planning in reality. The presentation style was quite dry and dense. Could have used more interesting ways of presentation the information. 

How did the presentations apply to your understanding of planning?
My understanding of planning was quite theoretical, in general I understand the importance of planning and outlining goals to achieve. However previously I have simply been a person who puts his head down and get the work done. I always thought planning was wasted time that you could simply be accomplishing you final objective. University has altered this opinion, from experiences in first year, when I spent too much time on certain tasks, I now understand the need for outlining specific time frames to achieve objectives. Sometimes I can spend too much time trying to accomplish small tasks and lose sight of the final objective. Planning is an ongoing task, which needs to be constantly re-evaluated to ensure that you are where you need to be. Both groups discussed the need for written down goals with time frames, I think that is an important undertaking. When you write something down it seems for definite and more informative as to how much time you really have. 

How does it planning relate to your own work?
Myself and Anders have discussed different methods of division of labour and effort. We have come to the realisation that if we were to complete each element separately we would not finish in time. So we have decided to divide our project up into materials so that we can each become experts in the particular field and reduce the time it takes to learn something new. We had in week 3 completed a Gantt Chart, however now that we have begun our assignment and have a better grasp of what needs to be completed and approximately how long they will take, we have decided to produce a revised Gantt Chart which is more appropriate. 

What are the roles in our group and why?
Josh - Develop Sketch sections of design as well as realistic recreation.
I've had some experience with illustrator and would like to further my skills in this area for possible use in my job.  

Anders - Develop 3D model, meshing the two 123D catch models and realistic recreation. 
Anders is skilled in 3D model manipulation, from other subjects he has shown he has skills in working with meshes and overcoming these problems. 

How can you protect yourself from issues arising?
With our assessment we have a heavy reliance on technology and files, which we don't want to lose or corrupt. So as a safe guard we are both connected to a Google Drive account were we save our files, we also back up our files quite regularly onto harddrives for safe keeping.  We also thought there may be issues with not having the same copy of illustrator and thus not being able to open each others files. So we have now made sure that there are no issues with incompatible files. 

Week 5 - GIF Image - Existing Vs New

Week 5 - Creating the sketchy lines

This proved to be significantly harder then we expected. Using Live Trace was very helpful and made our job easier. However we had some troubles with the colours, Live trace simply finds anything that is not white and makes a vector drawing of it. It does not consider colour or opacity, so we had to go back to Photoshop and create individual layers with the different colours and density's.

Darkest Lines

Medium Lines

Lightest Lines

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By dividing the lines into their colours and weights we were able to create live traces on different levels and colour each level differently. When Russell was drawing the sketch of his motorbike his pen pressure and movement was inconsistent throughout the sketch, that is why we required different layers and colours.

Original Image

New Image

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I took a chronolapse of my slow progression in achieving this sketchy result, I think this will demonstrate just how much effort I put in to achieve a good result.

Week 5 Tutorial

We just had a chat with Russell about what we have done so far and what we have learnt. Me, Anders and Russell all agree that the free hand sketching I did in the the first couple weeks was a good attempt, but not what we wanted. It lacked the detail that we wanted, it was simply to clean.

Above is a detailed view of the freehand sketching I had done, the pink section are my lines and the black are the existing. As you can see the pink does not overlay the black perfectly and does not have a pix-elated edge like the original. I will try LIVE TRACE, which I have been told is a much better tool for this. So my next entry will be about live trace and how it has worked.