Week 5 blog

I chose this picture of an anime (and manga) called, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, because from early on in my life animations have impacted my interests in Japanese culture. While this isn't directly from one of the episodes (or volumes), this speaks a great amount just as a poster or promotional flier. This picture simply introduces the major characters of this anime. From a perspective of one who hasn't seen this animation, immediately you'll notice the 3 characters in the middle... it's not a bad thing if you first noticed just one of them. They each have different expressions. The man in the middle is pointing upward toward a flash of light seems as though he is set on reaching high goals. The woman to the right in a bold choice of attire, swung her rifle to her back, ready to fight in striving toward this upward goal with joy. The boy in the foreground shows determination gripping the item in his hand with wide eyes symbolizing his youthful innocence. Off the bat, characteristics shine through just simple animation styles which amazes me. In the background, you may have focused on the shape of what appears to be a robot, though you may have not noticed beforehand due to it being shaded blue and placed behind the first 3 characters with more light and color falling on them. Then, behind even the robot, you have 2 more characters who seem to have a certain shade of color over them as well. The man on the right is mysterious seeing only his left eye though evil looking with a grin at the same time. The girl on the left behind the robot, being a bit more exposed than the man on the right is a bit less mysterious with a look of pure innocence on her face and in her eyes. With seeing just as much, you might have a good idea of what these characters are like and maybe choose to watch or read this story. Oops, I missed a character... the mole on the boy's shoulder, who is obviously loyal staying steady on the shoulder, also looking upward. To those familiar to Japanese animation or culture (even just faintly), may recognize the crescent on top of the robot's head which is like that of a samurai warrior. Even the woman on the right with the look of chopsticks in her hair is an allusion to Japanese culture.

Whether from actions, facial expressions or characteristics, allusions, or simply a matter of being in the foreground, a character introduction isn't necessary with all the hints in a cover or picture of an animation. A picture is really worth a thousand words, if not more.

Visual Thinking Research

For this Snake game, we arrived at the same conclusion that the red snake was the shortest. My strategy was simply to trace the snake with my mouse in quarters of circles, counting every 1/4 of a circle. According to my friend, she just saw that it was short... I'm not sure I believe her.
I was looking for a rule in this game and happened to rule out the right answer. I thought that most of the shapes to choose from shape-position tie that didn't occur in the first 4. So I ruled out A, B, and C right away. E just didn't make sense to me after the first box had a diagonal then a square, but it was the right one...>< Meanwhile, my friend said what she did was connect lines to make sense out of it. However, we both fail at this one.

Feature Channels and Visual Search

This is the old user interface for the playstation3 -- the new one is similar just more sparkly and in effect makes the rest look a bit more colorful. This is a rather monochromatic example of the interface but no matter what colors used the functions are featured through icons. Simply identified you may notice the photos icon depicted by a camera, music by a musical note, movies by a film strip, games by the ps3 controller, web access through a grid ridden globe, friend access with two faces, settings with a toolbox and finally user selection with a face imprinted on a generic house shape. The functions with in the featured icons would spring up and downward for more specific tasks having to do with a particular icon making visual search almost a strict upward-downward search. With the concern in hierarchy, I think that the ps3 interface keeps everything similar meaning none should be more played with than any of the other features. The one icon you would select would become brighter and spew out the specific features which would glow depending on which you would like to select. I like how simple it is but it might be a bit too simple.

image from: http://www.joystiq.com/tag/user-interface/

Top-Down Visual Processing

I thought this is a good example of top-down visual processing because looking at this picture, I'm pretty sure it's not features you bother to look at first but rather many full-sized creatures. If you were at a scene like this, what you'd be thinking is probably, "I should get out of here, slowly, not too suddenly might be a good idea..." and not how fluffy they look. I chose this picture because it reminded me of a time I saw a whole squad of raccoons marching across the street of my home and how I didn't sit there to take in the scene but thought what would be a good reaction in case they were to rush at me after taking the trash out. My top-down visual processing was making a goal for me to get out of there should anything happen. I was fixated on the raccoons and how many there were thinking about whether it was safe to move in sudden motions or not. I ended up standing there until they continued on their path but was ready as ever to run back inside if they headed toward me.

image from: http://nirvanapeace.wordpress.com/2008/12/
and apparently: http://icanhascheezburger.com/