Extra Credit

This is Google Maps. One of the navigation problems I frequently encounter when I use Google Maps is zooming. Zooming can be sometimes confusing and you can get lost in it particularly when zooming in to view a more accurate location. For example, if I am looking at San Francisco from a very general far away view and I slowly zoom in on it to get a picture of San Francisco, I find myself constantly moving around instead of focusing on one spot. When you zoom in, your area of interest shifts around the screen as you click on it. While the name 'San Francisco' might originally be on the left on your screen then you click in to zoom in, it moves a few inches here and there as the pictures get larger or come into place instead of focusing on one spot and enlarging that area while having the location name stay in position. Sometimes, when viewing something so detailed that you want to click in and get more of a focus, the clicking option can get a little tricky because the mouse does not highlight what your mouse is resting on or selecting so you are not really that sure that you are clicking on the area that you want.

Motion

This is a game scene captured from the latest Resident Evil 5 game. The character that stands in the middle of the picture is the character that is being played in the game. In this game, you move a lot through narrow spaces such as alleys and small streets full of stuff/clutter. For many parts of the game, you are usually not walking on level ground (implied by the constant changing level of your line of vision in the game) and occasionally you get attacked and thrown "off balance" in the game. I think for the navigation designer, it's the character's movement that is most of the challenge because they are trying to make this realistic attempt to give the player a "feel" of movement through the player's eyes. It gets especially visually confusing when turning in this game during times when you are looking for your attacker/zombies because you know they are there which are caused by jumpy screen views and sound effects but turning around and scanning your environment can be a bit of a challenge. Movement in terms of rotation/turning are not completely mastered yet because it does not flow smoothly and can be nauseating for a new player who is not familiar with these kind of games.

Extra Credit

This is a design by Danil Kryvoruchko from a design site myshli.com. While somewhat an abstract representation of an explosion happening, there is still motion going on here. This scene might seem familiar if you have seen a few blockbuster movies depicting explosions or world annihilation and such except in place of fire and smoke you see stars and candy. Motion is depicted here strongly through the foreground where you see it appears really blurry with rapid lines extending out from the colorful candy cloud explosion as if that area is quickly in the process of being blown away by wind and explosion impact. At the top of the candy cloud explosion, you can see tiny bits and pieces of stars sort of bouncing off/shooting out separating itself from the big cloud, ready to scatter. There are also these pointy green and red triangles that are circulating around the explosion at the bottom ground sort of resembling colorful gusts of violent wind circulating.

Extra Credit

This is a design by an artist named Josh Rodes from this site nib101.com This image shows a cool mixture of movement and depth. Looking at the picture, we seem to be viewing it from an implied angle where the legs and the lower torso appear closest to us and then as you look further up to the top of the body and the head, it appears to recede into the top distance. It looks like it's moving because it is in a mid-running position. One foot is completely off the ground while the other has barely set foot on the ground. You can also see that the foot on the right has caused some friction with the ground creating this splatter of grass and mud where his right foot touches the ground. There seems to be a wind implied by the dashing lines going from right to left (picture-wise) as well as a few strands of hair that hangs on to the head and trailing in light waves in the wind. ANd if this were really a moving strip of film, you can probably perceive the shift of light and tones on his body as he runs

Motion

This here is a cool example of motion and graphic design by an artist named Norway which I found from Flickr. The original picture features an actual person which the graphic designer photoshopped to make it appear like there is an invisible person wearing the outfit. Despite the lack of appearance of the 'person' who is doing the movement, you can clearly see here that a jumping 'person' is depicted in the image. You can tell that the 'person' is jumping up because he is raised off the ground as indicated by the shadow cast on the floor underneath the body. You can also tell that the 'person' is not standing up right. He is in all sorts of diagonal movement looking at his raised arms and bent elbows, the torso angled at somewhat 30 degrees and his feet/tip of his toes pointing away. There is definitely a lot of tension going on to suggest movement as well such as the multiple folds and wrinkles on the jeans and the t-shirt.And if you observe closely enough you will notice how the shirt is raised up slightly rising along with the movement of the body, wind going up against the shirt as he jumps.

Extra Credit

This is a website header picture I found from iDesign UK. This one shows a great amount of depth and just by looking at it, you can see the "distance". SIZE/SCALE is a big factor here as you can see that the outstretching arm is very big in comparison to its environment which gives us the impression that it is very close to us. Then as your eye follows the direction of the arm, it looks like it is shrinking or getting smaller. You can also tell that the arm is closest to the viewer because it overlaps everything else including the clouds and the whole landscape. Even though the arm appears to be receding in size with the hand being very small relative to the top of the shoulder, the clouds in comparison to the hand are roughly the same size or even smaller which indicates it is very far away. In this picture, depth also works with DIRECTION as obviously pointed out by the outstretched diagonal arm which seems to be directed or pointing towards the top right or center of the picture. Relative height is also used clearly here especially with the presence of the landscape's horizon as reference despite the angled viewpoint of the shot. The hand, which is above the horizon appears farther from us, and overlaps the space of the sky. The elbow and the upper arm is placed below the horizon where they overlap against the shore. On top of that, TONE is present as you see stronger tones and contrast on the arm especially in detail on the holes of the sleeve on the arm. The background which is made up of the sky and the water have little contrast of tone and appear blurred or vague thus indicating it is at a distance.

Extra Credit

This interesting architecture is the Asadi Tower in Tehran, Iran. This image and structure shows great depth which can obviously be seen through the arches. The depth here can be seen and detected by the SIZE of the appearance of the archs from this straightforward view point. The bigger arch appears to be in front and one that appears to be at the back behind it which is indicated by the smaller, similar size that appears to be inside the front arch. And while the smaller arch appears to be within the bigger arch, you can also see there is an overlap where the front arch and the giant angular posts on both side blocks/covers from view most of the back arch and its posts. You also see linear perspective here but this is more of a looking-up view point. As you can see, it looks like this picture of the architectural building is taken from the bottom and is angled to capture the top of the tower. The top looks relatively further away and smaller in comparison to the massive posts that seem so close to us. LINES help indicate the viewpoint angle and depth we see from bottom to top as we see the lines begin from the bottom and converge closer to the center as they go upward.