The Principle Of Color In Multimedia Technology Essay

These three dimensions of color: hue, saturation, and value constitutes a color model that describes how humans naturally respond to and describe color: the HSV model. Because the HSV model has three dimensions, it describes a solid volume. A horizontal slice of the model shown in Figure 9  creates a disk of the hues running around the perimeter. The farther down the value axis, the more restricted the saturation range (the radius of the disk) is and, therefore, the smaller the disk. You can think of the overall shape of the HSV model as being an upside-down cone, even though in reality the shape of the cone is somewhat distorted.

Another way you can slice the HSV model solid is vertically. If you took a slice along the saturation axis at a red hue, it might look something like Figure 10:

The dimensions of colour form an essential conceptual framework for any kind of activity that involves creating colour relationships from the imagination. The concept of colour space provides an essential quantitative framework for applying the simple physical laws that govern the behaviour of light and colour. If the artist gets these right in a painting, the payoff can be a vivid glow of light. And, as with, for example, perspective and anatomy, having the understanding that allows you to do something from the imagination makes working from nature far more efficient.

Q. 2. Is there any difference between TV Image and Computer Monitor image? Support your answer with suitable reasons.

ANS:

1. Computer monitors tend to have much higher resolutions compared to most TV sets.

2. Computer monitors have limited input options, while TV sets have a lot of input connectors.

3. Computer monitors do not have a tuner, while TV sets do.

4. Computer monitors tend to not have built-in speakers, while TV sets do.

5. Computer monitors tend to be much smaller compared to most modern TV sets.

Q. 3. Suppose you are having an organization dealing with MM Projects of all kinds. A client came to you with his specifications. He wants to develop an animation project for his Educational Institute. What kind of animation would you suggest depending upon his requirements and then discuss various techniques and principles you would follow.

Ans3. Computer technology has altered our ability to manage information. At its best, computing has shortened the distance between people and information. Multimedia allows computing to move from text and data into the realm of graphics, sound, images, and full-motion video; thus multimedia allows us to use the power of computers in new ways. Although multimedia is given many definitions, we have come to think of it as having two key elements: natural presentation of information through text, graphics, audio, images, animation, and full-motion video; and non-linear navigation through applications to access information on demand. In short, multimedia can be thought of as using a computer to provide a multi-sensory experience. This experience enhances lectures, laboratory experiments, and individualized instruction by allowing participants to control and manage multimedia navigation. Effectiveness and Efficiency. According to United States Department of Defense data (as cited by Oblinger, 1991, p. 4), we have short-term retention of approximately 20% of what we hear, 40% of what we see and hear, and 75% of what we see, hear, and do. Trainees complete courses with multimedia in one-third of the time as those receiving traditional instruction, and reach competency levels up to 50% higher. And in most cases the overall cost of instruction is lower.

Q. 4. Discuss the physical and psychological principles as to why animation works, as well as how it is usually presented.

ANS: The 12 basic principles of animation are:

#1 SQUASH AND STRETCH

This action gives the illusion of weight and volume to a character as it moves. Also squash and stretch is useful in animating dialogue and doing facial expressions. How extreme the use of squash and stretch is, depends on what is required in animating the scene. Usually it’s broader in a short style of picture and subtler in a feature. It is used in all forms of character animation from a bouncing ball to the body weight of a person walking. This is the most important element you will be required to master and will be used often.

#2 ANTICIPATION

This movement prepares the audience for a major action the character is about to perform, such as, starting to run, jump or change expression. A dancer does not just leap off the floor. A backwards motion occurs before the forward action is executed. The backward motion is the anticipation. A comic effect can be done by not using anticipation after a series of gags that used anticipation. Almost all real action has major or minor anticipation such as a pitcher’s wind-up or a golfers’ back swing. Feature animation is often less broad than short animation unless a scene requires it to develop a characters personality.

#3 STAGING

A pose or action should clearly communicate to the audience the attitude, mood, reaction or idea of the character as it relates to the story and continuity of the story line. The effective use of long, medium, or close up shots, as well as camera angles also helps in telling the story. There is a limited amount of time in a film, so each sequence, scene and frame of film must relate to the overall story. Do not confuse the audience with too many actions at once. Use one action clearly stated to get the idea across, unless you are animating a scene that is to depict clutter and confusion. Staging directs the audience’s attention to the story or idea being told. Care must be taken in background design so it isn’t obscuring the animation or competing with it due to excess detail behind the animation. Background and animation should work together as a pictorial unit in a scene.

#4 STRAIGHT AHEAD AND POSE TO POSE ANIMATION

Straight ahead animation starts at the first drawing and works drawing to drawing to the end of a scene. You can lose size, volume, and proportions with this method, but it does have spontaneity and freshness. Fast, wild action scenes are done this way. Pose to Pose is more planned out and charted with key drawings done at intervals throughout the scene. Size, volumes, and proportions are controlled better this way, as is the action. The lead animator will turn charting and keys over to his assistant. An assistant can be better used with this method so that the animator doesn’t have to draw every drawing in a scene. An animator can do more scenes this way and concentrate on the planning of the animation. Many scenes use a bit of both methods of animation.

#5 FOLLOW THROUGH AND OVERLAPPING ACTION

When the main body of the character stops all other parts continue to catch up to the main mass of the character, such as arms, long hair, clothing, coat tails or a dress, floppy ears or a long tail (these follow the path of action). Nothing stops all at once. This is follow through. Overlapping action is when the character changes direction while his clothes or hair continues forward. The character is going in a new direction, to be followed, a number of frames later, by his clothes in the new direction. “DRAG,” in animation, for example, would be when Goofy starts to run, but his head, ears, upper body, and clothes do not keep up with his legs. In features, this type of action is done more subtly. Example: When Snow White starts to dance, her dress does not begin to move with her immediately but catches up a few frames later. Long hair and animal tail will also be handled in the same manner. Timing becomes critical to the effectiveness of drag and the overlapping action.

#6 SLOW-OUT AND SLOW-IN

As action starts, we have more drawings near the starting pose, one or two in the middle, and more drawings near the next pose. Fewer drawings make the action faster and more drawings make the action slower. Slow-ins and slow-outs soften the action, making it more life-like. For a gag action, we may omit some slow-out or slow-ins for shock appeal or the surprise element. This will give more snap to the scene.

#7 ARCS

All actions, with few exceptions (such as the animation of a mechanical device), follow an arc or slightly circular path. This is especially true of the human figure and the action of animals. Arcs give animation a more natural action and better flow. Think of natural movements in the terms of a pendulum swinging. All arm movement, head turns and even eye movements are executed on an arcs.

#8 SECONDARY ACTION

This action adds to and enriches the main action and adds more dimension to the character animation, supplementing and/or re-enforcing the main action. Example: A character is angrily walking toward another character. The walk is forceful, aggressive, and forward leaning. The leg action is just short of a stomping walk. The secondary action is a few strong gestures of the arms working with the walk. Also, the possibility of dialogue being delivered at the same time with tilts and turns of the head to accentuate the walk and dialogue, but not so much as to distract from the walk action. All of these actions should work together in support of one another. Think of the walk as the primary action and arm swings, head bounce and all other actions of the body as secondary or supporting action.

#9 TIMING

Expertise in timing comes best with experience and personal experimentation, using the trial and error method in refining technique. The basics are: more drawings between poses slow and smooth the action. Fewer drawings make the action faster and crisper. A variety of slow and fast timing within a scene adds texture and interest to the movement. Most animation is done on twos (one drawing photographed on two frames of film) or on ones (one drawing photographed on each frame of film). Twos are used most of the time, and ones are used during camera moves such as trucks, pans and occasionally for subtle and quick dialogue animation. Also, there is timing in the acting of a character to establish mood, emotion, and reaction to another character or to a situation. Studying movement of actors and performers on stage and in films is useful when animating human or animal characters. This frame by frame examination of film footage will aid you in understanding timing for animation. This is a great way to learn from the others.

#10 EXAGGERATION

Exaggeration is not extreme distortion of a drawing or extremely broad, violent action all the time. It¹s like a caricature of facial features, expressions, poses, attitudes and actions. Action traced from live action film can be accurate, but stiff and mechanical. In feature animation, a character must move more broadly to look natural. The same is true of facial expressions, but the action should not be as broad as in a short cartoon style. Exaggeration in a walk or an eye movement or even a head turn will give your film more appeal. Use good taste and common sense to keep from becoming too theatrical and excessively animated

#11 SOLID DRAWING

The basic principles of drawing form, weight, volume solidity and the illusion of three dimension apply to animation as it does to academic drawing. The way you draw cartoons, you draw in the classical sense, using pencil sketches and drawings for reproduction of life. You transform these into color and movement giving the characters the illusion of three-and four-dimensional life. Three dimensional is movement in space. The fourth dimension is movement in time.

#12 APPEAL

A live performer has charisma. An animated character has appeal. Appealing animation does not mean just being cute and cuddly. All characters have to have appeal whether they are heroic, villainous, comic or cute. Appeal, as you will use it, includes an easy to read design, clear drawing, and personality development that will capture and involve the audience¹s interest. Early cartoons were basically a series of gags strung together on a main theme. Over the years, the artists have learned that to produce a feature there was a need for story continuity, character development and a higher quality of artwork throughout the entire production. Like all forms of story telling, the feature has to appeal to the mind as well as to the eye.

PART-B

Q. 5. Analyze the implementation of Different color models in different situations. Which one will you prefer and why?

ANS: A color model is an abstract mathematical model describing the way colors can be represented as tuples of numbers, typically as three or four values or color components. When this model is associated with a precise description of how the components are to be interpreted (viewing conditions, etc.), the resulting set of colors is called color space. This section describes ways in which human color vision can be modeled.

CIE XYZ color space

One of the first mathematically defined color spaces is the CIE XYZ color space (also known as CIE 1931 color space), created by the International Commission on Illumination in 1931. These data were measured for human observers and a 2-degree field of view. In 1964, supplemental data for a 10-degree field of view were published.

Note that the tabulated sensitivity curves have a certain amount of arbitrariness in them. The shapes of the individual X, Y and Z sensitivity curves can be measured with a reasonable accuracy. However, the overall luminosity curve (which in fact is a weighted sum of these three curves) is subjective, since it involves asking a test person whether two light sources have the same brightness, even if they are in completely different colors. Along the same lines, the relative magnitudes of the X, Y, and Z curves are arbitrary. One could as well define a valid color space with an X sensitivity curve that has twice the amplitude. This new color space would have a different shape.

RGB color model

Media that transmit light (such as television) use additive color mixing with primary colors of red, green, and blue, each of which stimulates one of the three types of the eye’s color receptors with as little stimulation as possible of the other two. This is called “RGB” color space. Mixtures of light of these primary colors cover a large part of the human color space and thus produce a large part of human color experiences. This is why color television sets or color computer monitors need only produce mixtures of red, green and blue light. See Additive color.

Other primary colors could in principle be used, but with red, green and blue the largest portion of the human color space can be captured. Unfortunately there is no exact consensus as to what loci in the chromaticity diagram the red, green, and blue colors should have, so the same RGB values can give rise to slightly different colors on different screens.

HSV and HSL representations

Recognizing that the geometry of the RGB model is poorly aligned with the color-making attributes recognized by human vision, computer graphics researchers developed two alternate representations of RGB, HSV and HSL (hue, saturation, value and hue, saturation, lightness), in the late 1970s. HSV and HSL improve on the color cube representation of RGB by arranging colors of each hue in a radial slice, around a central axis of neutral colors which ranges from black at the bottom to white at the top. The fully saturated colors of each hue then lie in a circle, a color wheel.

HSV models itself on paint mixture, with its saturation and value dimensions resembling mixtures of a brightly colored paint with, respectively, white and black. HSL tries to resemble more perceptual color models such as NCS or Munsell. It places the fully saturated colors in a circle of lightness ½, so that lightness 1 always implies white, and lightness 0 always implies black.

HSV and HSL are both widely used in computer graphics, particularly as color pickers in image editing software. The mathematical transformation from RGB to HSV or HSL could be computed in real time, even on computers of the 1970s, and there is an easy-to-understand mapping between colors in either of these spaces and their manifestation on a physical RGB device.

CMYK color model

It is possible to achieve a large range of colors seen by humans by combining cyan, magenta, and yellow transparent dyes/inks on a white substrate. These are the subtractive primary colors. Often a fourth black is added to improve reproduction of some dark colors. This is called “CMY” or “CMYK” color space. The cyan ink absorbs red light but transmits green and blue, the magenta ink absorbs green light but transmits red and blue, and the yellow ink absorbs blue light but transmits red and green. The white substrate reflects the transmitted light back to the viewer. Because in practice the CMY inks suitable for printing also reflect a little bit of color, making a deep and neutral black impossible, the K (black ink) component, usually printed last, is needed to compensate for their deficiencies. The dyes used in traditional color photographic prints and slides are much more perfectly transparent, so a K component is normally not needed or used in those media

Q. 6. Discuss where and how you might use animation in one of the following project? Be creative. How could it best be used to visually illustrate a concept?

a. Animation for a Cookery Show on TV

b. A training CD on a printing press

ANS: A Cooking Academy is a great fun game and a good challenge. The main objective of this game is to prepare the recipe of each order in the least time possible. This game has different levels where you will learn about different types of food. You must prepare Chinese cuisine, among many recipes. Work for the Golden Dragon Restaurant and make this business grow. To serve an order you must select the necessary ingredients and prepare the recipe provided. Satisfy all your customers and be fast serving your orders. You must earn a certain amount of money and prepare a certain amount of orders to complete your task. In this game you will enjoy hosting the Golden Dragon, you will learn about Chinese food and the magic of its cuisine. Playing this game is very simple, use your mouse and place it over the ingredient you need, and press left mouse button to use that ingredient. You must use the correct proportion in each recipe to have the order correct. Make your business grow and buy new ingredients for new recipes.

A training CD on a printing press

Multimedia mirrors the way in which the human mind thinks, learns, and remembers by moving easily from words to images to sound, stopping along the way for interpretation, analysis, and in-depth exploration.

The combination of media elements in a multimedia lesson enables trainees to learn more spontaneously and naturally, using whatever sensory modes they prefer. For example, some people learn best by seeing, others learn best by seeing and hearing, still others learn best through manipulation or kinesthetic (tactile) exercises.

Combining media elements with well-designed, interactive exercises enables learners to extend their experience to discover on their own, so that they are no longer passive while information is “fed” to them. Additionally, programs may be designed to include immediate feedback in order to clarify misconceptions before trainees become confused and to provide direct reinforcement for correct responses.

By combining words with pictures, graphics, and audio, multimedia programs enable people with varying levels of literacy and math skills to learn by using sight, hearing, and touch. Evidence suggests that using multimedia segments as context for trainees significantly aids in reading comprehension.

Instructional technologies help people learn to problem-solve and work in teams, which supports the development of interpersonal skills.

Instructors have time to focus on activities that demand participation while students are able to learn on their own.

Q. 7. You are given a scenario in which you have to develop an interface which should be compatible with different platforms. What is the difference between images being shown on Macintosh and on Windows?

ANS: We have a gallery of screenshots, but for our analysis we’ll stick with comparing in a single set. Going with 2560×1600 with the game at its highest settings and 4xAA/16xAF, to our surprise the images are distinctly different when directly compared.

Portal – Windows.

The Mac screenshot is noticeably foggier than the Windows image, and textures appear to be less sharp. It’s not a night & day difference, but the Windows screenshot is distinctly clearer than the Mac screenshot. Without a Windows reference image it would be harder to tell that the Mac screenshot differs this much, but we believe that the difference is great enough that anyone with an eye for details that has ever played Portal on Windows would notice the foggier/blurrier IQ on the Mac.

Performance

The other half of our quick look is at performance. The Macintosh platform is renowned for being a graphical powerhouse, but this refers to professional/prosumer photography and the like. For gaming, Apple has been slow to include support for new hardware and new driver features (they are just now OpenGL 3.0 compliant) and overall their drivers are more conservative when it comes to performance. Portal is going to be slower, the question is by how much.

In a color 24-bit image, each pixel is represented by three bytes, usually representing RGB.

This format supports 256 x 256 x 256 possible combined colors, or a total of 16,777,216 possible colors.

However such flexibility does result in a storage penalty: A 640 x 480 24-bit color image would require 921.6 kB of storage without any compression.