Rather than Drawing?

Sketch Effect

Alot of Modern Toss creative work has very distinct hand draw style to it. However bad you may think it looks it is apprent throughout there work. I knew this from very early on and needed/wanted to include this within my website, if i had made a website similar to alot of websites nowadays i think i would of lost the character that comes with Modern Toss.

To do this i came to a very different soloution one might expect. I have used Google sketch up in the past and know it to be the easist 3d modeling program to use. I also know that Sketch Up allows the user to apply different styles to their work in real time and not have to wait for it to render. (examples below)

Image to the left just shows what can be achieved with very little editing.

Rather than draw the boxes out, on pen and paper or graphics tablet and waste time finding the right brushes. I saved alot of hassle by making it in Sketch Up very easy to edit and everything is porpotional to each other so no one side is bigger than the other or its not aligned.




I have not just used this technique just for the background of the content boxes, when i was thinking about creating the full flash website i wanted different buildings and structures to appear in my work and this is one of the main reasons i looked to Sketch Up. (more examples below)

Start off with a Sketch Up model which am hoping to use in my work.




Apply Style




Looks like its been Drawn!




The great thing about this method is the fact if you create any model you can point the camera at any point in the model, (the examples above arn't the best camera angles) and have the model any way you need it without the hassle of drawing and re-drawing the model everytime etc.

Colours can be added in photoshop, its also posible to texture the model in sketch up by playing around with the styles. I found this really useful when keeping within the style of Modern Toss. Also while browsing youtube i came across one of their videos i'm sure of which is done using Sketch up as well. The animation at the start can be very easily done in Sketch Up.

Waterfall & Whirlpool Development Models

Describe, compare and contrast the 'Waterfall' and 'Whirlpool' software development models.

The Waterfall development model is a popular software development model originally designed for manufacturing and construction but has been adapated for software development. The Waterfall model operates in a squence of events/steps which must be completed before moving on the the next step. Like a waterfall it is all down hill.

The original model had 7 steps where the adapted Waterfall now only has 5 steps which are;

1. Requirements
2. Design
3. Implementation
4. Verification
   
5. Maintenance

The waterfall development model povides a structured and easy to follow method for designers to follow. This is important as it is easily understood by everyone working on a project, it also makes it easier to set deadlines for tasks to be completed by a certain date.


The Whirlpool software development model or more commonly known as the spiral development model. The model incorparates both designing and prototyping software, the model overcomes some of the drawbacks with the waterfall method as it allows those using the spiral model to go back and reevaluate, redesign and change things in a cycle unlike the waterfall method. Going in a cycle allows the software, product, thing to be improved everytime the cycle goes round ultimatly improving the product.

There are 4 steps in the spiral development model these are

1. Determine objective
2. Identify and resolve risk
3. Development and test
4. Plan

The spiral model recognizes the benefit of rapid prototyping, wherein the "bottom-up" people gain insight at a rapid rate that the "top-down" people can learn from. Thus a cycle of continuously improving the design requirements becomes possible during the design itself. It is thought to allow a more optimal final design, based on the notion that there are no suitable experts that can write the requirements at the start of a design exercise that will lead the team to an optimal design.



Describe how the 'whirlpool' SPIRAL software development model can be applied to web page design.

The spiral development can be applied to web page design by first designing a webpage, once it has been designed the spiral cycle allows the design team to go back and find out what the users require or fix any problems which have occoured, this can be a proccess over every couple of months. By doing this it keeps the user intrested and users expectations. the web page can change like to keep with the times and keeping constant traffic to the webpage while also improving everytime.