The Future of Virtual Realty

Virtual Reality has become more popular than ever in the past few years, with new additions like the HTC Vive and Playstation VR, but its rise could have even bigger effects in the future. An interview between Time Magazine and the co founder of Alienware, Frank Azor,  showed what may be coming soon for the industry.

One point that's particularly relevant to the animation industry is that, in a field that's growing to be as big as any other technology industry, lots of different companies will have a chance at building a complete experience. While companies like Oculus and HTC are making the hardware, others, like Intel or Nvidia, are improving the graphics, and tons of animators and designers will be able to create work for the platform. As Azor said, 'VR is the same type of thing; no one company can solve all of the problems.'

Companies like Alienware are giving an optimistic view of the future for virtual reality, and I think it could definately become what they see. The industry has already advanced immensely since the technology was first designed, and the uses it could have could help even more.


Original Article:
http://time.com/4324598/alienware-interview-virtual-reality/

Final Reflection

My Year in e-Comm was really good. When I started the year, I knew very little about what we were doing and how to do it. The extent of my skill was at the level of Microsoft Paint or Movie Maker. Now I've learned so much and am much better. Now I know how to use Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Sketchup, and Final Cut Pro. I knew the bare basics of Sketchup, but knew literally nothing about any of the others.

 My teachers allowed my to learn all these programs, as well as how to work as a team and how to manage a long project. After all the stuff I learned from my teachers, I learned more on my own. I discovered some hidden and advanced tools to make some cool things. For example, on my logo in Graphic Design, I wanted to make it 3-D, so I went online and figured out how to make shadows.

In addition to the applications in this class, I've been able to take my skills into other areas. As I've had projects in other classes, knowing how to work as a team and how to manage time. Still though, my working as a team skills could be better, as on the last project, some things didn't go as well as planned.

In the end, all of what I learned will definitely help next year and in years after that. Even this summer, I have a few projects planned, and knowing all of my newly learned skills will really help. In the projects I work on this summer, I'll probably learn even more, making next school year better.

As a whole, I learned so much about how work will be like in the future, including communication and technical skills, as well as general responsibility and management. The entire year was great and I hope my next three years will be as well. This class was a really good way to show me stuff about the industries and it was just overall awesome.

Final Team Project

For the final team project in my first year of E-Comm, this went pretty good! I was on team  Cognito, latin for "learning", and we made the app "Tutor Tool". We all worked well together as a team, especially during the planning phase. We collaborated a lot while coming up with the idea and all worked to improve the plan. Our biggest problem, however, was bringing some of the plans into life. When we started making the graphics, we were doing good, but near the end of that rotation, things started getting weird and we ended up losing some files. Even with that, our role assignments made the project go fairly smooth. On the next group project, I'll take the information I learned about group time management and try to get more done. People tell me that I personally am good at managing time, but as a team, it's much harder. I kind of wish that the different parts of our project blended together better, especially between the animation and the video, as the silence during everyone's animations was kind of awkward. The green screen footage especially could have been used a bit better.

My part in the project was mostly the background stuff. In Graphic Design, my main job was making the web banner. Also, I animated the banner, but unfortunately I wasn't able to use it on the website. I also helped Armin out with the company logo, especially with the letter spacing and the gear theme. And for everybody, I found the Hex codes for all the colors we chose to be in the color scheme.




I love doing animation and making 3D models, so I ended up doing a lot of the animation. The most important model I made was the iPhone. After learning how to make the basic shape, it was pretty fun to make all the little details. I also made some other decorations, such as the books and the pencil. After everyone put their models in the set, I made the animation, making sure all the camera angles were inside the room.

For the video, I did most of the behind the scenes stuff. During filming, I did the camera work. It was fun to work the camera and wear a headset to talk to Skai and Mr. Cooper in the studio, who were working the teleprompter. I felt like a professional, so that was pretty cool. After filming, I was in charge of the editing. In Final Cut, I put all the clips together, using transitions when needed. There was also one shot with really bad lighting, so I fixed the colors, making it look like all the others. I also worked with the audio editing, reducing the echo in the voiceover. I think the video ended up really good, but I could make it even better if I had another day or two.

In conclusion, the whole project was a success, definitely not the best, but still pretty good for the first group project of the year. I'll take all that I learned from the project, both technical skills and communication, and get even better for the future.

My Personality Type

In taking the Myers-Briggs Personality Test, I got INTJ: Introvert, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging. I understand all of these and upon looking into this more, got seriously creeped out about how spot on it is. I totally get why I got introversion; I usually prefer working alone. I wasn't sure whether I'd get "N" or "S", but seeing the results, I do tend to think ahead in problems. The final letter, J, for Judging, is about right. I really value order, so I understand this.

INTJ's are relaxed and quiet, which is totally me, and like strategy and how things work. On the other side of things, INTJ's point out peoples' problems and don't take well to opposing opinions. A lot of famous INTJ's are smart scientists or philosophers, like Stephen Hawking, Karl Marx, or Ayn Rand. My personality is also called "The Mastermind", so Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes is an INTJ, too.

My family sometimes says that I'm antisocial (I don't believe them), which could come from different personalities. My mom is definitely an Extrovert, so I think that she just thinks differently. As another note, my disagreeing with them is another INTJ trait.

I also took the "Lion, Otter, Golden Retriever, Beaver" test, and got Beaver. Beavers are perfectionistic, like me, and need order and peace in the world. I don't think I need to say much more.

Social Media in College Applications

Summary:

The article "They loved your GPA, then they saw your Tweets" shows some bad things that can happen when students don't think about what they're posting on Twitter or another social media like that. It gives multiple stories of people who got rejected from colleges because they posted something bad on a social media. The article also shows where the world is going with using posts in college applications and how it will be in a few years.

Surprising Information:

Lots of things in the article surprised me, including some misconceptions and stuff I just didn't know. One thing that I was unaware of is that one in three colleges has turned someone down because of social media. That's actually a pretty large amount compared to other factors that may affect some one. Another thing that surprised me was that sometimes, counselors or even other students tell colleges about a student's posts. These facts were surprising because I didn't know how big of a deal social media is in college and job applications and what impact it has.

Confusing Information:

A few things in the article confused me as well. Besides some words I didn't know right away, one of the only things that I questioned was the idea that colleges may not inform a student that social media was affecting their application. This confused me because I would want to know the reason I was rejected, especially if I had a good GPA.

Conclusion:

The information I read did not impact my views of social media because I've heard most of the information multiple times to the point where it's become common sense to me.