The Sorcerer's Workshop

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Everything in its Place
I created a project folder - Ruffled Feathers - in my system, adding sub-folders for various elements like audio, images, and basic info.

Script and Audio
In any project where audio, whether music or spoken word, is to be used extensively I prefer getting those files created and edited first. In the animation world actors record the script before any real animation is created. The reason is obvious. It's much easier for an animator to match a character to an existing audio track rather than the other way around. Forcing an actor to lipsync to an existing animation is next to impossible. Although my voice recording was not synched to an animated character it would define the length of my animation.

The script I wrote was based completely on the description included with each hole in the golf yardage guide. That saved me a world of trouble. Without it I would have to talk to the golf pro at the Ruffled Feathers course and write a script for each hole. Once written I needed to record it. Fortunately I once worked for Jingle Phone Productions, a company that specializes in telecommunication services like call processing and message on hold services. They have a large pool of professional voice talent and I got one to record my script. A clean, professional audio track is crucial to a quality multimedia production. Don't record voice overs with an $8 microphone into a $15 sound card thirty feet from a construction site. Not everyone has access to a professional studio but make an effort to get a good recording. Also record all audio using CD quality settings. CD Quality is stereo at 16 bit, 44khz. Programs like Live Motion and Flash will compress the files up to fifty times. I cropped the audio file down to the minimum length - 13.3 seconds.

Scanning Hole 1
Scanning Hole 1 from the yardage guide book was my next step. I decided early on that I would not use the scanned image in the project. The scan was going to be used as a tracing guide for a multi-layer vector representation of the hole. It would result in a cleaner image and a smaller file size. I scanned at 72 dpi and saved the file as a .jpg. I pulled the image into Photoshop and cropped it down to a good size. As you can see Hole 1 is a Par 4 with three water hazards, 5 sand traps and a rough. For this test I ignored trees.

Check my article on Scanning

Scanned image from Golf Yardage Guide

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