Des240 A2

(My final GIF)

Statement of Intent:

Using the same statistic that I gathered during my previous assessment (Assessment 1) 26.4% of the world's population is affected by moderate or severe food insecurity. Up from 23.2% in 2014%. I have been tasked, for this project, to create an infinitely looped animated sequence (GIF) using both Processing, for the scripting, and Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator for the graphics/art. This short animation will explain the reasons (gathered through research) as to why my statistic exists, and will be viewed primarily through an abstract lens. Unlike my previous assessment, I am allowed to use the full color spectrum for this GIF.

For this project, I have chosen to use Adobe Photoshop as my main, graphics-creation tool. This is due to me having worked in this application many times before, and having a solid understanding of its many different features.

My aim for this project is to complete the research within the first week, so that all of the remaining time can be spent working on various options and making sure that my final project meets all of the assignments requirements. Something I did not accomplish on my previous assessment.

Research:

I started my project, by researching everything I could, about my statistic. What I found is that based on my research this statistic still exists due to man-made conflicts (e.g. the civil war in Sudan), climate change, and poverty. Poverty is the largest factor for food insecurity in Africa, with 42.3% of the sub-Saharan African population living on $1.90 or less per day. Meaning that for many, buying a large quantity of food can be near impossible.

Almost all of the factors involved in continuing this statistics existence are connected in some way. With Climate change (drought) leading to a bad harvest season, that could potentially cripple an entire country, and allow unwelcome or extremist groups to take charge. This in turn can then lead to conflict, forcing many into poverty. One example of this is the food insecurity that occurred in Uganda in 2017, after a large drought. During this time, food was already getting harder to come by due to a massive influx (around 1.4 million) of refugees from nearby warring countries (over 1 million of which were from South Sudan, a country in the midst of civil war) with the drought only making matters worse.

Around two thirds of unnourished people worldwide live in either Sub-Saharan Africa (With over 237 million people facing food insecurity) or Southern Asia (With over 277 million people facing food insecurity)

Throughout history, the global rates of food insecurity have been decreasing (reaching a low of 784 million in 2015), however due to recent developments, including the Covid-19 virus, the rate of food insecurity has started to rise again for the first time in decades.

The UN has set the goal of zero hunger by 2030, however if this recent rise continues, the world is not currently on track to meet this goal. With the increasing threat of climate change, things are not looking as though they will improve any time soon. 840 million people are expected to face severe food insecurity by 2030 if current trends continue.

While the major reasons for my statistic are linked, for my project I decided to only focus on one, in order to keep my GIF's narrative strong. Something that I believe would be lost, or severely diminished if there were multiple things (factors) occurring in my animation.

Idea phase

I started the idea phase by sketching as many different ideas down, inspired from my research, as I could, after this I the chose four that I liked the most, and began constructing a narrative around them, turning the ones I liked into simple storyboards.

(My initial idea phase involved sketching as many ideas inspired from my research as possible, the cubes are supposed to represent houses/tents, with the object on the middle right being a tank/cannon )

(Some of my initial sketches/storyboards)

After this phase, I then chose two that I liked the most, and drew them again in color, and with significantly more detail. I ended up not choosing these ideas however, due to the requirement that the GIF not have a noticeable end or beginning state.

(Colored storyboard I created, I did not end up picking this idea)

Final storyboard

For my final storyboard, I decided to use an idea I had developed previously, of a man walking forward planting corn seeds, which then sprout up wither out, showing the effects that global warming can have on fields. I chose this idea, due to it having no noticeable end or beginning state, meaning it could be looped indefinitely, as stated in my original assessment guidelines.

(my chosen storyboard)

After creating my storyboard, I then created a initial version of the GIF with code. Blocking out the overall image using simple shapes.

(My initial blocked out version of the GIF)

I then added code that moved my corn (currently represented by the narrow black bar) across the screen, this can be shown in the short video below.

(Video of my initial GIF in action)

After blocking out my storyboards with basic shapes, I then added images (of my friends) in order to gain a better understanding about what the dimensions of my assets would need to be

(My second version of the GIF, now with images instead of shapes)

Creating the assets

After blocking out my initial GIF, I then set about creating the various assets, using, as previously mentioned, Adobe Photoshop. This process was more time consuming then I had initially anticipated, and while I am still not entirely happy with the results, this experience has spawned a love for pixel art, and a better appreciation for the amount of skill, time, and talent required to make it.

(Image of me creating pixel art within Adobe Photoshop)

At this point in the creation process, I also began to review my work in progress, while I was reasonably happy with the majority of the work I had completed thus far, one noticeable issue was that the size of my walking person animation looked too small when I imported it into my GIF. While I could resize the images using code, the result was blurry and unclear. To rectify this issue, I ended up resizing all of the images within Photoshop itself, quadrupling (x4) the sizes of all of my pixel art.

Originally, I wanted to have multiple corn growing at once, however for whatever reason my array didn't work, so I changed it to only having one corn grow/exist on screen at a time.

Final Product

(My finished project, that I am handing in)