How to start the lit review

What is stasis theory all about? Why is it used as a way to talk about scientific arguments? How is it described in the literature? (Refer to Mark Turner, other sources, and my TWI article if it's helpful - www.writinginstructor.com/northcut) but be sure to paraphrase, not copy - put it in your own words and only quote directly if absolutely necessary.

Why are you doing this?

As a way to start the research paper, see how you can answer this question. You need to be able to describe what you're doing and argue for the value of the work. As a start, shoot for one paragraph, and spend 1/2 hour on it.

Figure 2 Comparison

As I stated in my previous post, I used Dr. Northcut's figure 2 as a skeleton for a more realistic version. You can see a comparison of the two here. I began by adding simple textures to each of the planes ('earth' texture for beneath the surface, 'terrain' texture for the surface.' Adding the textures consisted of a combination of rotating, scaling, skewing, flipping, and cutting out the images. For example, the earth texture on the right side of the image is from the same source as the front texture, but I rotated and changed the perspective on it to complement the 3D look.

For the mountains, I used the same image, but just flipped it horizontally to make it look slightly different. I also made sure that each was hanging off an edge to add to the 3D look (in other words, to give the mountain volume).

I replaced the old arrows with bigger, bolder arrows, and added a small starburst to illustrate the clash at the site of stasis.

If Dr. Northcut sees potential in this type of illustration, I will likely start from scratch, use more realistic and higher quality textures, create a much larger image (so it can be displayed larger if desired), and use different source images on the mountains for added realism. I will also optimize the image for both online and print viewing, making it available in RGB and grayscale versions.

Click here to view the comparison image in full size.

1/29/08

Dr. Northcut and I decided to work on static images as a possible alternative to animations. I'm going to begin by looking at the original graphics that she used in her article and thinking of ways to improve them. I believe she still wants it to have a realistic look to it, which is going to be the challenging part. I've thought of using a 3D topo map as a base and working from that, but the more I think about it, the harder I think it'll be. The thing I'm leaning toward now is to draw the landscapes myself and then just add textures that make it look as realistic as possible.

1/14/08

I worked a lot over break, so I didn't have any time at all to work on this project. However, I'm resuming my research now. On a side note, I have begun using Adobe Illustrator for my job at the newspaper and, to my surprise, learning Flash has really helped me with it. Graphic design in Flash is also vector based (Photoshop, which I am very familiar with, is not), so by learning Flash I as inadvertently learning the basics of Illustrator as well.

11/30/07

I made a better, more detailed animation of what Dr. Northcut needs, but it's too cartooney for her tastes. She recommended that I find 'rolling hills on a golf course' and try to emulate them. Google Images was no help, so I gave up on that. Our next idea was to create and animate a 3D topography map. I found a great website (http://www.forgefx.com/casestudies/prenticehall/ph/topo/topo.htm) for creating 3D topography maps, but was unsuccessful in trying to animate them. My next idea was to use a 3D modeling program - 3D Studio Max, for example - to create the animation. I found a good 3D Studio Max landscape tutorial (http://pilning.net/manual/buildinglandscapes.htm), but as with ForgeFX (the 3D topo program), animating it turned out to be the problem. Running out of ideas, Dr. Northcut suggested animated GIFs as a possible alternative. This is where we are currently, although I believe that a further-developed version of my most recent Flash animation would be more professional (despite its cartooneyness).

11/9/07

I haven't updated this in a while, but I have been making leaps in Flash. My first animation, a simple bouncing ball (as suggested by one of the books I have), took no time at all, and it was basically all the practice I needed to create a working - albeit rough - model of the animation that Dr. Northcut needs. I had some trouble with the second hill rising while the first one was still there, so to get it to work, I had to have them both go away before the second could rise.