What does Facebook have planned for the virtual generation?

Although this is fairly old news I feel like its importance has been overlooked..

Facebook the social media giant bought Oculus the company that revolutionized virtual reality for just over 2 billion dollars, $2,001,985,00 to be exact.

Virtual reality use to be look at as a way of the future, Im sure some would relate it to flying cars and
time travel but now a days it is much more relevant then flying cars and time travel now that we are living in the year 2015.
A question that arose to me was, why would a social media giant like Facebook be interested in virtual reality if they have nothing to do with gaming or the military?

A theory that I feel might be relevant is that they eventually want to build a virtual reality version of Facebook or a social media platform where instead of typing out post and sharing via keyboard you would just put on your mask and voila your in a virtual world  where  you would share and interact with your online peers using your voice, by actually talking and traveling through the virtual world to interact with your friends. This also ties into augmented reality which i feel will eventually go hand in hand with each other.

Founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg said that instead of focusing on first person shooters and flying spacecrafts, Oculus could potential revolutionize online meetings, messaging, and social events.. This sounds very interesting and Im looking forward to seeing what happens with it all.
Only time will tell I guess...

COLOUR YOUR CAMPUS

To celebrate BCIT's 50th Anniversary there are six design contests running to make the Burnaby campus more colourful.

The contests are open to all current BCIT students and there are prizes to be won!

Contest #1: Lamp Post Trade Banners

Five lamp post banners representing the following trades taught at BCIT:

  Joinery
  Carpentry
  Piping
  Welding
  Auto Repair and Refinishing

Prize: $500 for the winning entrant.

Contest #2: Interior Staircase

A design for the step risers of the central staircase in the SE2 building.

Prize: $250 for the winning entrant. .

Contest #3: Library Interior Wall

A design for the internal wall of the Library entrance, containing the message "Welcome to the Library".

Prize: $250 for the winning entrant.

Contest #4: Library South Entrance Recess Wall

Design an artwork or structure for the space adjacent to the ehPod. The design must be able to build within the budget of $10,000.

Prize: $500 for the winning entrant.

Contest #5: Recreation Services Exterior Wall

A design to enhance the exterior wall of the SE16 building, containing the words "Recreation Services".

Prize: $250 for the winning entrant.

Contest #6: SE12 Exterior Wall

A design to beautify the concrete wall on the east side of the SE12 building.

Prize: $250 for the winning entrant.

The entry deadline for all contests is January 30.

Full contest details.

Good luck!

Welcome to January and... the rest of your life?

Welcome to January and... the rest of your life?

New year. New career?
It seems that with each passing year, I re-evaluate my life and second guess the career path that I'm on. Am I doing the right thing? Do I even like it? What else might I be interested in? What do I do?

All these questions usually drive me wonky and, until this year, I've always ended up completely switched my focus. On the bright side, being interested in so many subjects is never a bad thing, or at least that's what I tell myself. The realization though, is that until someone offers me a job as a professional career switcher, I have a feeling I'll have a bad time. 

This past holiday season was especially rocky with major family changes, and heaps of external stress; all perfect conditions for a "life re-think". Surprisingly though, the 2014 to 2015 career blues never came, and for once I actually felt good about where I was headed. Obviously the stress of finding work after school is still lingering...hard, but that being said, I have no plans to change my focus anytime soon. Web design and development is still the game for me.

I also realize that this post is a purely selfish one, and offers no advice what-so-ever, but I guess that's just how it is this time. If there's anything can be taken away from this, it's this: If you're trying to make it in an overly saturated career field, with heaps of tough competition, long hours, little pay, and that requires a small amount of luck; and you aren't having second thoughts, you must be crazy... but you also must be doing something that you love, so it's 100% worth sticking it out.


Happy new year.

—tom

Final Post

A travel information website mock up of the home page. The website is for traveller and people who love to travel. The name of this website is Let's Go because it motivates people.
The home page include three sections: the deal or event banner, explore gallery and about. Showing contents which are users are most interested in.
For the whole website is using bright yellow color as the main color because it makes users feel more activity.

The Holidays Are Over Now, And I'm Still Out to Lunch

With another successful Christmas season over and done with, it's time to get back to the grind. For some of you, that means back to school, and for others, it means going back to work. I happen to be lucky enough to be returning to both of those things. The only problem is, I'm not ready.

Unfortunately life doesn't wait up for us to be ready for change, it just happens, and we have to deal with it, or get left behind. For me, that means junk food and video games for one more night before I get back to it all.

In all seriousness though, it's always nice to see the extended family again and enjoy a good family dinner and catch up. With the hustle and bustle of everyday life, it's hard to normally make time for family and friends and I'm glad I got the chance to really enjoy plenty of both this year.

After Effect 3D

This video is done in term 3 by using after effect 3D tool.
In this assignment, we have to use
Effective use of lighting
 (I make the lighting slightly follow by the camera, focus on each photo and make surrounding dark),
Animated Cameras(I make the camera angle goes by each one of it, in total I have 3 photos in triangle shape), and creative results. In the end, there is a 3D BCIT text.

I enjoy doing this assignment. I played around with the lighting and camera angle. I feel it is interesting that we can make photos and text in 3D.
There is one thing that I don't like about is when I render it in after effect, it took me almost an hour to make 10 sec video.

My portfolio website

In the end of the term 3, I created the first version of my portfolio website.

For the content, I started with gathering the work pieces, selected 12 best works that I want to show, and then summarized as short sentences of my work. It sounds easy, but it is one of the crucial things and effective way when you start organizing the portfolio works. 

Writing the description of the works helped me a lot to organize my thought as I had to go back the time when I created the specific works, and had to recollect what I was actually thinking at the moment: concept, the purpose of the design etc. And this also will help when I have to give a presentation.

Design of the site

The design is simple and organized to empathize my graphic works. Site structure is also simple, unless users go into the work links, they can simply find the short and sweet descriptions by just scrolling down within the one page. 

Basic contents are ready, I will develop this site more attractive and user-friendly since we will have another portfolio class in term 4 :)

My photo gallery

In term one, Amiee's html class. We have a final project which is design and code a small 4 page static website.
We can choose topics from:pa/Wellness, Restaurant or Café, Photography or Art Gallery, or a Bed & Breakfast/Boutique Hotel, Outdoor Sports Adventure Company website.

I choose photography because during the spare time I like to take pictures, and record every moment in my life to share with my friend and family.
In this website, you are welcome to take any photos without any copy right issues as long as you leave a comment in comment page.

In this project, we need Css Navigation List menu, including image gallery, paragraphs, different headings, tables, lists, images tags.
Apply an external CSS stylesheet to consistently style all text, links etc...
Now I'm going to show you what my site look like.

This is my home page with discretion about this site. 

Next, is my photo gallery.

                                                                   The about page.

                                                                And finally the contact page.
                                                                This is also a comment page, it is linked to my email.

This website is not alive yet, I will make it alive when I fix the part that has problem.

  I hope you enjoy browsing my gallery website.  Thank you.

 

Kitchen Surfing

This was a class project where my Partner and I decided to create a fictional cooking show where we show you how to make delicious pizza. This idea was derived from our passions for food. Since my partner was the head chef and main actor and I was the cooking show host. I was in charge of all the camera work. From shooting stationary shots, to getting different angles, and perspectives of the creation of the pizza. I also was in charge of editing a majority of the footage and making sure all the transitions were good. I chose the music from a royalty free library on the internet, and thought it was quite suitable for the purpose of the show.

This project was a lot of fun to create and really gave me an idea of the complete process of video production. From making sure all the audio levels and mics are working, to lighting, and having a shot list for different perspective was a great way to exercise my production skills.

Coffee Shop Flyer and Loyalty Card

Having to opportunity to design a flyer and loyalty card was exciting as I was able to use a variety of design skills.

For the flyer I decided that instead of just providing a simple menu I could use buildings with text on to portray the products available at the store.

The contrast from black and white to colour makes the company logo stand out.

On the flip side I used photographic images of some of the delicious food and drink you can buy with the intention of drawing in customers. The color scheme is kept constant with the previous poster and logo.

Everyone likes a loyalty card. A simple and to the point message of a free cup of coffee comes across effectively with the use of a stamp based loyalty system.

Creating a range of designs for different purposes for a particular brand was a thrill and shows my versatility and creativity whilst realizing the importance of maintaining a brand identity.