STA Blog

October Updates – Thang Truong

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October

Project: Shiny App

Started on: Oct 1st, 2024

Staff Guidance: Stacy Vlasits

Description: 

  • Modularizing the application: before, everything is in one single file and the file content is very long. This makes it hard for developer to debug. Therefore, I proposed an idea of modularizing the application into sub-files and let the main file refer to these sub-files.
  • Make application work in the modularization of the application: the next challenge is that with the modularizing process, the logic of the modularizing code is different. Thus, I spent some time to adapt the working prototype to work in the new modularizing structures.

Project Laravel PHP extension

Staff Guidance: Chris Pittman

Started on: Oct 1st, 2024

Ended on: Oct 15th, 2024

Description: 

  • When an app is created, there are some utility functions that the app always need. Two of them are when creating users and reporting course retention (course that no longer active).
  • Thus, I make those two utility functions in Laravel PHP that can be imported in other apps.

Quick Photoshop Training

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Photoshop Training – Photo Sourcing and Color Grading

In-between the projects I’ve been working on so far this semester, I had time to do a quick training in Photoshop to enhance my understanding of color and blending modes in Photoshop.

Activity 1

For this first activity I was told to choose a scene from a movie that had an interesting color palette. I chose this screenshot from Into the Spiderverse:

Next, I used Image > Mode > Indexed Color to choose reduce the image down to its 8 most prominent colors. Then, Image > Mode > Color Table… > Save and Import Swatches to turn these colors into a usable color palette.

I then found a random stock photo (left) to apply the color scheme to (right). To do this, I added a gradient map to the image using the colors from above. I then played around with blending modes and opacity until the colors weren’t too overpowering.

Activity 2

For this next technique, you find a source image that you want to pull colors from to apply to another photo. I chose this as my color source image:

And this as the photo I wanted to edit / Then, using Image > Adjustment > Match color and playing around with color luminance, intensity, and fade, I was left with this:

Notes: Recently, I’ve been interested in how color and light works, so I figured this training would be insightful. I think it’s interesting how much color affects the mood of a picture. Applying the bright color scheme from the Spiderverse screenshot gave the stock portrait more intensity and volume. In the second exercise, the edited photo feels colder than the original. It looks like the first photo was taken in the spring and the second in the winter.

September and October

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Been a while since I updated my blog so there’s a lot to go through! I’ll start with my first assignment.

ARH Custom Stinger Animation

This assignment was pretty fun as I was requested to make an animated stinger intro for a TA. The class’s style uses animated images which I don’t work with frequently but I think the style is very charming. Here’s the finished stinger. I really like how it turned out!

STA Posters!!

Our team was requested to make new STA team posters and to make it a special surprise, they were going to be inspired from real movie posters! This was an especially fun project as emulating movie posters is always very charming and I was given the task to make posters after The Breakfast Club and Clue.

The Breakfast Club was surprisingly challenging as the students in the poster were wearing very similar colors.

We eventually decided to change to a different poster type and change the colors of the students clothing.

My supervisors helped a lot with the coloring and changing the STA shirt colors but eventually it was good to send. Next was the Computer Support poster. Here are some of the iterations.

These were fun to do and I love the computer motif

GOV Intro

This was a pretty basic animation assignment. All I had to do was to reboot an existing intro with new assets. I ran into some issues but it came out well. Here’s how it looks.

CSMS Logo Animation

New CS Logo animation! These assignments are always pretty intimidating at first since the topics are hard to visualize, but I was given helpful reference images and a good dirstcion to go off of. Here are some of my initial concept sketches.

The client really liked the look of the graph logo and I got started on the animated intro. Here’s how it turned out.

I really like the graph animation and the client did as well!

9/9/24 – 9/27/24

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Fall STA Roster Posters

Video Team

Project Overview: Design a poster based on the “Love Actually” movie poster that showcases the video STAs.

What I Learned: For this project I got to practice my photo editing skills by adjusting the lighting on some of the STAs to make them look uniform with everyone else. I also practiced my layout design skills when creating the spaces to place each of their headshots.

Notes: One of my favorite parts was deciding which headshot to use for each STA. I tried to create a balance of looking at the camera vs. not and looking to the left vs. the right to make the final product look cohesive and as playful as the original poster. Overall, I really like how this turned out!

Tech Integration Team

Project Overview: Design a poster based on the “Men in Black” movie poster that showcases the Tech Integration STAs.

Process/What I Learned: This poster presented some new challenges. First, I focused on creating the title. After I found a font that looked like the original, I added a gradient to make the edges of the words darker than the center. Then, I created the light rays to go behind. To do this I used the Radial Blur effect in Photoshop on a brush stroke of blue/white. After adding the stars and submitting for feedback, I was given the suggestion to add the suits, watches, and sunglasses. To do this, I cut out the suits, sleeves, and watches from the original poster. I then used the warp tool to fit the suits to the STAs as accurately as I could without distorting the photos. I also cut out Drew’s hair and each of their hands to layer on top of the suits. Here’s them without the suits for reference:

Notes: I’m glad we decided to go with the full Men in Black outfits. I think it’s fun and makes the whole poster come together. It also allowed me to practice cutting out objects in Photoshop.

My Summer!

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My Summer!

Entering the World of Web Development

This summer I decided to step out of my comfort zone and try to learn some code! I took a course called Introduction to Web Development under the Global Career Accelerator Program in which I learned the basics of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It was fast-paced and a little daunting at times, but I gained a good foundation for the work that goes into front-end web development as well as some professional development skills like teamwork, communication, time management, and giving/receiving feedback.

I’m hoping to retain the skills I gained by continuing to learn new web dev techniques and strengthening my grasp of the concepts from the course.

Trip to California

Now, for the (more) fun stuff 😉

I got to visit California! Among the places we traveled to were San Francisco, Monterey, Big Sur, and Yosemite National Park. Yosemite was absolutely gorgeous and getting to see the stars in the sky without any light pollution was a first time experience I’ll never forget.

Other Stuff

When I wasn’t hiking (supposedly) beginner-level trails and trudging through the trial and error process that is coding, I spent my time reading, drawing, watching The Bear/anime/the Olympics with my family, baking Olympic chocolate muffins with my best friend, and enjoying lazy days inside.

Now, it’s time to get back into the routine of school and my STA journey!