Wearable Tech: Cutting and preparing fabric

Got around to cutting and preparing the fabric today. I draw the pattern on the back side of the fabrics so that I know where to cut.

The felt was really easy to cut, but I think for the garment it might not be a good idea to do two layers because the fabric gets too thick when put in two layers. Since the inside layer is to keep the wires from scratching/getting caught on clothing, I think I'll need to find an alternative to preventing that. On the bright side, I now have a spare in case I mess up on the first one.


Cutting the fur was really REALLY messy. I still love the texture though, so soft, warm and touchable. I believe this will lure the wearer into a false sense of security until the screen starts screaming. That is what I want.


Will really need to think about attaching the wires on this along with LEDs in the circuit.



With a spare just in case anything horrible happens it makes me think about how it can apply to other projects as well. The importance of having a backup in case everything fails. I think here thinking negatively is a good thing. It's good to assume that everything would turn out horribly wrong because at least you'll be prepared when the worst happens. To make thinking negatively work for you, it's also worthwhile to prevent any bad happening while expecting everything to go wrong.

Wearable Tech: Soldering and chocolate blocks

After practicing on numerous boards I found lying around I think I'm ready to solder the real one now. So first I checked that there's nothing wrong with the terminals by using a connectivity checker to make sure that they can connect. They can, so after that I looked for which keys I'd want to use.


I picked some terminals that would be the easiest to solder on to and paired them up with other easy-to-solder terminals and tested them to make sure that it wasn't something like a brightness key. Because that would be annoying if during the interactive the screen keeps on getting dimmer/brighter.


Then I noted down which terminal pairs are which keys. For example, the first terminal on the left with the first terminal on the right gives "7".

I soldered the wires on to the correct terminals, after I was finished I tested them again to make sure that they work properly. They were fine so I connected them to some chocolate blocks, once that was over I applied superglue to strengthen the connection of soldering. I didn't want to use hot glue because I think superglue would already be enough to strengthen it.


I feel really pleased with myself that I got everything done correctly on the first go. I think the practicing I did really helped and not rushing as well. More good news is that my good habits are starting to come back, hopefully I'll be all ready by Monday to fully get into everything.

Wearable Tech: Buying materials

Went shopping for materials today. A few days ago I went to LookSharp to have a look at their fabrics, because I thought their materials would probably be a lot cheaper than anywhere else. However, they didn't have faux fur or a suitable material for making hoodies. So today I went to Spotlight to look for materials because they always have variety in fabrics and everything I need would be right there. Super expensive though, because it's Spotlight.

I bought faux fur and I think the other one is felt or something like it.


For the faux fur, there was this other really handsome looking one that was black with caramel highlights. But I didn't like the texture for that one, it was a little too coarse and the hairs were too long, which might get caught in the zipper. So I bought this one. It feels really smooth and soft--very touchable, and the hairs are much shorter than the other one which makes it easier to work with as well.


This is the other fabric. Was trying to get a black one, but the black one was too thin, I think if it's too thing the wiring might weigh it down too much. So I got this thicker one with a nice tan colour. I think the colours of both fabrics make it look safe and warm when really the person will probably have a scary experience* with the interactive.

I got the zipper for it too. 30cm to be safe.

*The brief didn't specifically say that it had to be a "good" experience. =D


Also got very thin wires to easier soldering onto the terminals and tiny chocolate blocks to wire everything up. What's left to buy would be LEDs if I'm still going to go with that idea.



Originally planned the garment to be black, but plans are rarely followed 100% because there are many factors that you can't plan. Which is why it's important to be flexible and adjust/change throughout the process.

Wearable Tech: Making the clothing pattern

Today I finished up the pattern I'll be using for the garment. While making it I had to think about how everything would be wired up on the inside as well so some of the edges had to be adjusted to suit the wiring. Hopefully when I sew the wiring in it would be fine. To make the hood patter, I got some of my hoodies and looked at them to learn how to make a pattern for it. Luckily it turns out it's not that hard to get the basic shape. Since the body is rather simple, the pattern making was a lot easier for me too considering that I've never actually made clothes before. I think this will be fun to make, since I'll get to try new things a lot and maybe discover some new things that I might be good at.


While working procrastination was a horrible problem for me when I'm working at home. I found a really good way to stop procrastination though. Every time I feel/think about procrastinating I would turn on a nice song and make a paper rose. Folding roses is really hard and needs heaps of concentration to get it right and make the rose beautiful. So my mind would tap into the music and be totally focused on making the rose. Which means I won't be thinking of anything else but the rose. This is a variety of meditation. By the time the rose is finished I would have forgotten all about procrastinating and no longer feel like procrastinating, so I end up getting straight back to work after folding the rose.





If you find procrastination to be a problem, fix it. FIX IT QUICK BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE. I find the most effective way is to just find a very short activity that you enjoy and do it. It's like a little break for the mind when you think too much about a project, over contemplate it, then don't want to do it because you over-thought it.

Wearable Tech: Output graphics ideas

Did a little research for output. As I said before, for the output I want a really cold, horrible feeling in the graphics. The one above is by 'monavx on DeviantArt and the one below is by Anton Semenov, known as ~Gloom82 also on DeviantArt. I prefer to look for inspiration on DA because there's a lot of variety right there in just one place. You just need to be really good at looking for the lesser known artists with actual good work there.

In 'movavx's work I love the emptiness of it and how well his work captures that abandoned feeling. The use of positive-negative space is really effective too with limited colours full of contrast.


Semenov's illustrations are the coldest and scariest. He uses limited colours and the familiarity of the human form, then twists it around into weird arrangements of features. I think that's what makes his work so cold. I like it.

I'm thinking a palette of red, black, and white would be most effective. Will need to brainstorm on what exactly to draw. I'm thinking of using just still images coupled with horrible screaming or some other sound like in the scary maze game.




Hmmmmmm, now that I have the inspiration, I will need to find my own way to portray a feeling of coldness, hate, violence, horror, and so on. I don't think that would be too difficult, but it would require time so I will have to sort out my timing with everything else that's planned.

Wearable Tech: Soldering practice + output

Did some practice soldering today on a chip I'm not using. Determined to get it right the first time on the real one, so practice would be good for me.


This is the first set. Did it from right to left since I'm left-handed. I improved from last time, the soldering's pretty strong now because even if I pull on the wires really roughly nothing comes off. The first set was good, looks a little messy and some of the wires contact each other though there aren't many which do that.


Second set looked much neater and no wires contact each other in this set. The key is to have an even coating of solder on the wire and to have really still hands when you solder it on to the terminal. Don't put the soldering iron on the terminal for too long or else it will melt and tin the terminals too before doing anything. Make sure that the terminals are clean, do a little extra scraping to make sure so that the solder attaches to it.



As for the output I will be adding new graphics with the movie. I'm thinking when a few certain switches are pressed it would flash certain graphics for a few seconds. I want the effect to be something like this:



I like that effect, but better. I want it to be creepier and colder when my graphics pop up to give a true feeling of fear and repulsion. The theme is anger, desire for revenge, etc; these are horrible feelings and they're actually quite scary because they're so hard to get rid of and it's like a monster growing inside your mind. You don't realise how horrible you've become until later, thus the sudden change of graphics would reflect this.




Practicing really pays off and taking your time will do you more good than harm when you're trying to form your initial idea. I think the output is starting to come together, will need to look at some artists to find some inspiration for graphics and how to get the feel i want.

Wearable Tech: Designs and some ideas for output

I thought more about what I wanted to do for the wearable device; how to make it fashionable and functional at the same time. The first idea of fashionable that came to me was using faux fur. Not only is it fashionable, but can also relate to the theme I'm after, which is primarily hate and anger. They're beastly feelings and reduce us to animals. It also links to the wolf in three little pigs.

I did a bit of research on fur in fashion. My favourite was the one above because it's simple and elegant. It doesn't make the wearer drown in fur either. There are differences between real fur and faux fur, but of course, for this project I will only get faux fur because I don't agree with using real fur. I'd want to use fur sparingly so that it doesn't look over done.

I drew up an initial design in my journal, then decided what I liked and what I didn't like about it, how practical it is, how to make it, how it would work with switches, weighed out pros and cons, then proceeded to draw more improved designs. The design of the actual interface appears to be coming along nicely, now I just need a plan on the output of what comes on screen or in the audio if I choose to do that too.



I know I'm progressing rather slowly, but I refuse to rush through anything and end up having to do everything all over again. "Slow and steady wins the race." Although I have to admit that the fact that it IS the holidays has made my good working habits run away to some beautiful secluded beach. I need more iron willpower and determination!!

Wearable Tech: Ideas-Adding details to the brief

By the end of this week I MUST have a clear idea of what I'm doing, maybe not a final design, because I'm sure I'll run into problems when I attempt to create it and will need to readjust the design. However, it is imperative that I know what direction I'm going in to set the road to the deadline and to make this project the absolute best I can do. I see this project as an opportunity to advertise myself and what I can do, to convince other students that they want me in their group and to prove to myself that I can do anything.

I redefined the brief into three areas of thinking:

-my interpretation of what the brief is saying
-what the brief wants
-what I want


Interpretation: To create an experience that reflects a theme/s of your movie with both on-screen content and the wearable device. I.e. It needs to induce a type of atmosphere.

What the brief wants: A wearable device which interacts with the screen. Can only use keyboard and/or mouse hack. Must use MAX program. Relationship between device and screen must be clear. Some additional restrictions are no gloves, no handheld items, and would be best not to have multiple keys down at the same time.

What I want: A fashionable device that's easy to put on and comfortable to wear. Must look good on both guys and girls. I think the fashionable bit is important because how the device looks can contribute to the atmosphere of the experience. Has to be easy to use, I don't want the person to stand there forever trying to figure out how to use the device. I want the atmosphere/experience to emulate feelings of violence, hate, anger, desire for revenge---every ugly feeling. This is because I think these are key emotions that characters in my film feel.


Now I can simplify it into a simple, easy-to-understand package:

If you have trouble getting ideas it is a good idea to translate the brief into something that you understand. Extract what you already understand from it, then piece it together to make a brief of your own while still fulfilling what absolutely must be done in the project.

Wearable Tech: Ideas-LEDs and light

I did a little research looking around the net on possible ideas that I could do for my wearable device. I had a feeling that I'd want to use light, probably LEDs so I found examples of using those.

The one above was one of my favourites. Clothing with EL (electroluminescent) wires sewn on which lights up the clothing. I think it emphasises the lines and shape of the garment too which is a nice touch. I could probably use it as a system of wires for my switches as well, which would be a lot easier if I can figure out how to do it, because I wouldn't need to worry about hiding the wires on the inside of the garment so much since it conducts electricity. If I use it as the system of switches, the EL wires can blink on and off as switches are activated, so you get a different pattern with every switch you press.

Some restrictions of EL wire is that if you put them in areas that move around a lot or sew it on fabric that's not stable enough, the place where you bend the wire (e.g. joints) will eventually wear down over time and break. It can make the garment rigid and uncomfortable to wear if you have a complex pattern/design, because these wires are quite stiff.



Since EL wire can be expensive to buy, I found an alternative that imitates EL wire. This one is probably a lot cheaper. It's a hollow plastic tube of water with an LED on either end to light it up. This one would have no way of becoming wiring to connect the switches though. It's also not as flexible as EL wire is so it would be harder to shape it into a particular design.




This one is an LED display that pulsates to the beat of music. This would be great to add to the device to make a connection to what it does with the audio of the movie if that's going to be what I'm doing.

It's made in the form of a lamp in the example, but maybe there's a way I can modify it to suit my needs in this project.


Another good idea for LED display is persistence of vision. This is a little trick on the eyes where your eyes retain an afterimage when the LED display is waved around giving the optical illusion of patterns and messages as the device senses the speed at which it is moving and outputs light accordingly to give the desired pattern/message. This is cool, and it'd be amazing to put it into the design, but I'm not sure if there's really a use for it. Won't rule it out yet, but if I'm going to do persistence of vision I'll have to find a suitable patch for it.



When trying to come up with an idea lose your logic and follow your instincts. Find some inspiration according to your gut feeling, then find a way to make it work with your logic later. Don't place restrictions before the beginnings of an idea are even born.

Wearable Tech: Keyboard

Alright, so a few days ago we were given our brief and yesterday we began working on our new project. Most people were really stumped, but I think we can figure this out. You can still have a limited amount of team work on this to get some help and advice even though it's an individual project, maybe even inspiration. Give whoever helped you some credit of course. One thing I learnt from this is the you don't have to do anything alone, there's plenty of help out there. All you need to do is look.

With my old keyboard, I couldn't use it with my project because the PS2 connector it had was faulty as one of the little pins got bent and broke off. So instead I practiced soldering on it so that I can get it right for the real chip I'm using.


This is what my soldering looked like after bumping and banging into things on my way home. Not bad for my first go at soldering, though there is room for improvement. Some of the soldering was really good, but there were some that were really bad as well. I know that one came off on the way.


For example this one on the left is fraying and looks ready to come off too. Will need to practice soldering some more and it will probably help too to strengthen the soldering with hot glue.


Today I worked on this chip with my iron willpower and determination for over 10 hours only to find that it was all for nothing. After carefully scraping off the carbon, it refused to type anything at all for me in a word document. For some reason the flow of electricity to the terminals was broken. It's probably because the bright green lines may have been broken while I was removing the carbon. So I got another keyboard. This time I tried it out on a word document first before scraping off the carbon, but still it refused to type even though I hadn't done anything to it yet.

That's fine, I will now have two more chips to practice soldering on D: But I will have to find out what sort of problem this is. I've asked around on facebook and asked Dexter, who had the same keyboard as me if he had any problems with his chip.


What I learnt from this experience is that if you've worked on something for over 5 hours straight, don't....just DON'T do it. Know when to walk away and have a break from the project to think over why something isn't working. Forcing your way through the problem probably won't work because you're hoping it would work but not thinking of a practical solution to the problem. If there's a problem, walk away, ask around, think, and come back later.





EDIT (18/4/2011):
FANTASTIC!! It turns out there's absolutely no problem with my chip after all. It was my USB ports on my home computer that were being faulty because my tablet and mouse were conflicting against each other making the ports malfunction when both of them are plugged in. So I will do this project on my mac instead so that I won't need to worry about faulty USB ports. I got another keyboard chip for this anyway in case my soldering fails though. However, I don't want to begin soldering until I have a clear idea of what I'm doing. I'll have a basic design first, and build on that while getting my wires and keys sorted.

Wearable Tech: Intro

Our intro to the next project was to do with making an animation with the program Animata. This particular animation is the result of me playing around in the program.

I really like this animation I made because it's the first animation I've ever made. I was feeling horrible when I made it, so it's a picture of all the feelings I had at the time: rage, anger, sadness---all expressed with my favourite bodypart (hands), and colour combination (black, white, red).

One thing I liked about the program was that it's easy to use as it's just clicking and dragging---nothing complicated. What I didn't like was that it's rather stupid. You'd think that the first thing you'd put in when you create a program would be an undo button. Also, there's no way to export your animation, none that I know of anyway. The basis of the animation is a moving warp tool like in photoshop. Only that the photoshop one doesn't move. Thus, you get distortions in your images; that I didn't like either because it fails to preserve the beauty and form of any image unless you made your image to remain beautiful when distorted.


The next day we had to use a patch to control one particular object in the animation. I chose to control the hands together shape because it's interesting and a little less complex that my other shapes. I successfully did that, I can now make it clap with an apple remote. Hmmmmmmmmmm, I thought that was a little boring though. Which is why I refuse to do the next exercise, which is controlling the animation using a keyboard hack+patch. This is because it does not interest me, it can be easily done, and I see no gain in doing this exercise. If I did do it, I would use the patch that James showed us with the remote, and simply replace one of the keys with a computer key to make the hands clap.

I'm also glad that we can stitch together various patches to work for us in this new project as long as we reference it properly and understand how it works.


In my honest opinion, if there isn't a need to do something, don't waste your time working on it when it won't give you anything.

Western Pigs: Printing+DVD

Today was pretty exciting, we got a lot of our stuff printed. It feels really good when you work hard for something and then you see it really become real when you print it or put it on screen.

We printed the DVD cover, but the darker type didn't turn out so well. So tomorrow we'll be doing that again, adjusting the colours and adding some extra graphics at the back, as the back of the DVD cover looks quite plain, since we'll be printing it again anyway.


The poster turned out great though. I think the colours could be a little more vivid, but other than that I'm pleased with how it printed.


This is the DVD cover. I will be putting some stills from the movie on the back, a bit like how you sometimes have stills at the back for some DVDs.


And this is our DVD menu. Opted to keep it simple so that the screen won't be cluttered. It may be a bit repetitive using the same images though.
This is the DVD label. I made another mistake with this. The first time I got the dimensions wrong. Luckily, I hadn't gone very far with the first one yet, so it wasn't so bad when I started over with the correct dimensions. Moral of the story: don't trust online templates unless you're sure that the dimensions are the same as the ones you require.

Western Pigs: Poster

Yesterday I didn't go in to uni at all since the rest of my team will be doing the audio at Jared's place where he has a really good setup for sound. I wasn't needed so I stayed at home and focused on making the poster while communicating with the other members through our group blog to get their take on poster ideas and how the poster should be made as well.

I made a really rough sketch of six poster ideas/concepts. I did three landscape ones to do something a little different for a movie poster, but that would make the DVD cover a little more difficult to make. My favourite ones were the bullet through type, bacon gun, and vulture one. Most of them were centered around typography rather than image. The vulture one was inspired by taxidermy jewellery, which I will write about in the journal that I'll be handing in as part of my documentation and research.

In the end this became the final poster. I made it portrait, as requested. I've actually never drawn people before, so I'm quite pleased that the characters came out all right. I think they came out well because I stylised what I couldn't do, such as the dimensions of features on the face. So they were simplified to simple colours and scribbles to give form. What I love the most is the contrast of the black, white, and red. It's my favourite colour combination and it really matches the western theme well with standoffs and the like. Another favourite part of it that I like is the bullet shooting through the letters.


As Gabe said, this poster could be improved although it is overall, a good one. I agree with that, the alignment of typography and the placement could be better. It could be developed further into a better poster.

Western Pigs: Backdrops

It's been a while since I've done a blog entry, been too busy with the film to do a blog entry a day for two days in a row. D: This is for Tuesday. Last Friday we finally got all our green screen scenes done. Today I finished off the backdrops. At first I was nearly done on Sunday, when I realised that I did my backdrops in the wrong video format so I had to start over. That was horrible, but what's done is done. The only thing I can do is to work harder and do it right next time.


I quite liked doing the backdrops, it was quite fun. I liked how they turned out too though there is still room for improvement. I wonder if I should have made the backdrops more realistic though. Making it more realistic would make the characters look more like they are a part of the scene. However, the cons really do outweigh that positive thing about it. Our intention was to make the opening intro of the characters distinctly different from the rest of the film. Which is why the backdrops weren't drawn to look realistic. On the other hand, if we tried to make it realistic, the process would consume too much time and we would never meed the deadline. For a really good realistic backdrop takes me around 6hours to make. Also, I don't think my skills are good enough for that yet, humans can easily detect things that are unnatural. I still do want to improve myself to digitally paint at that level though.


So far we've made some mistakes in this project about not getting the right settings, formats and that sort of thing. With the footage ISO setting was too high so footage was super exposed. Now the format for the backdrops was done wrong the first time. I think before you do anything, read the manual and instructions first, then check that you got everything setup correctly before you begin. Proper preparation is important, so that you don't need to film everything all over again (we didn't have to, but still >.>). Planning and preparation are the prerequisites to a successful project in my opinion. Planning is of utmost importance to control time, but preparation is just as important because all your planning would be ruined if you prepared the situation (e.g. filming conditions, graphic work, etc.) incorrectly.

Western Pigs: Greenscreen

Today we filmed the opening credits and flashback scenes using the greenscreen.


It was bigger than I thought it would be and we learnt a lot today about greenscreen. You can use whatever colour you want for the screen as long as whatever you're filming doesn't contain that colour so that you can take it out in post production.


We learnt about lighting too in the room. Silver reflector gives daylight effect while golden reflector gives sunrise/sunset effect. We used silver as our scenes occur during the middle of the day. We learnt to angle the reflector correctly so that the shadows aren't too dark.


After we got the basics we began filming. Overall it was successful. We now have everything filmed and can fully go into editing now.

Gabe taught one of our group members how to work in AfterEffects, which is pretty useful because it flows into Premiere Pro. Before he was in charge of making the poster and editing, but before we left today we reordered our roles. Lee would take care of the greenscreen scenes in AfterEffects, Jared will do the editing of the normal footage, and I will do the poster and backdrops with Jenna's help. Hopefully everything will fall together into place before the 8th. We're aiming to have a final cut by Tuesday.



So far everything is going according to plan, which surprises me actually. I think it's because we planned a lot before jumping into the project. I found one of the most crucial parts of making a film to be the planning. You need to have a clear idea of what you're doing and plan out your shots to know what you're filming and what needs to be done in a frame of time. Or else you might spend a whole lot of time doing something that might never be used in the film when you could have been making progress on things that would be beneficial to the process of making the film.