Fahrenheit 451

For my 2^nd review, I chose group 7’s, which covered ‘Fahrenheit 451’. Obviously the first thing that captured me during his presentation was the flames coming out of the firefighter’s device. My group didn’t do an animation in the particle nature so any time a group used one they looked awesome to me for the most part. Of course, his flames that moved with movement of the target was what drew me in the first place.

There was no trouble downloading it. Loading and compiling also came with no issues as well. I started the project and I was indeed missing the eye that was supposed to be on the screen, which emulates how the group’s project was missing it during presentation as well. The fire effects were awesome just like I thought, especially with how responsive it was to move as you moved the image target. Honestly, I think both effects of fire looked really good and I appreciate both animations. The models of the 2 people look good too. Regarding the scene as a whole, I understand the 2 men burning the books, but the TV(?) with 2 end tables(?) holding it up seem jarring. I’m sure there were better table models to choose out there. Last thing about the models I’d like to talk about are the letters on the side. I think they look fantastic especially with the book’s colors and how they match.

A last thing I’d like to mention about the visual aspect of the scene, is that it seemed a tad empty. It’s not anything specifically against this project and I understand that there was only a handful of objects needed when you work alone but after working on my group’s project as well as watching other groups with more than one member, a few more models goes a long way in such a small image target to tell a story.

The crackling of the fire was also the perfect sound effect to add to bring the scene alive, I think. There could have been some ominous or serious music going but I think the choice to use just crackling fire was perfect to set that mood the scene seemed to go for (which was ominous in its own way). The spokesperson however did not sound too great to me. During the presentation, he mentioned that he added a voice change to more match the character, but it ended up making it hard to understand what he was even saying during his short monologue.

On the back, I thought the buttons he used looked really good. They were appropriately simple considering the jacket of the book as it was also rudimentary, plus they weren’t hard to see. That said they were also a bit finicky, which is nothing new with all the projects seen during presentations and what we know about image targets that lacks complexity, texture, designs, etc. With the reviews and information, I thought the gimmick for having the said review or information follow the camera was interesting. Reading the contents for either was easy with many angles I decided to take, however I feel like that almost takes away from the magic of using the book as a target and have your content anchored with it.

Despite my numerous opinions about this one, I still think this was one of the better ones aesthetically (would have been even cooler with that missing eye!).