Thursday, June 18, 2009

The End








Overall collaboration was interesting and our group worked quite successfully.
We made our meetinsg quite regular and monitored our progress through, critqueing our work. The main challenge was the time aspects, as some of us work and having a time where its feasible for everyone was the challenge.

In terms of contribution, i was in charge of the video's, the presentations and the lighting. My group had chosen these roles for me, as they thought this was my forte.
i still have a sound understanding of the engine, as i did play around in it, in the first couple of Weeks and watched my teamates use it also.

I feel as though this was a great course and has really benefited me

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Progress for Group

So yesterday i did the lighting in the group and didnt end up getting a chance to do AI as it was quite late, in terms of contribution, throughout the semester my group chose the tasks to do, than myself, since i believe i am quite outspoken it would be a chance for my team members to allocate me the tasks. I was assigned the lighting and the AI, thoroughout all three fabrications and also alot of the work on the team journal and also the video's and the presentations. Since they felt that they are my forte's.

Anyways today i found out the lighting wasnt successful as they had to move the environment, and something didnt work. So tonight i have to do it again! :(

Monday, June 15, 2009

progress update

Did the lighting today yay!!!!

Some screen shots of the lighting






Sunday, June 14, 2009

progress

Today we are having a meeting in regards to the final design, tonight hpoefully i will get to put in the lighting and then start working on the final tusff, such as the image captures, polish up our team blog and also just the final presentation.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Progress

So far i havent been able to touch the final fabrication, today our group will meet again as wirada and i will be doing the AI element in it. And then i will continue with lighting. After that we can start working on the videos etc. Once again its a bit of a shame that we are running behind schedule as we are tight for time.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

The specialisation

Tutorial for In text Overlay

1. To get started you need adobe Flash Cs2 or Cs3 to create flash objects.
2. Create a new flash (Action Script 2.0) movie.



3. Now create a small box in the upper left hand corner like so :



4. Next use the text tool to create a text area and set the text to #value#. Crysis usually uses the font Agency Fb, through the Hud.



5. Next, change the text area from static text to dynamic text, and set the Instance Name to "varText". Your properties should look something like this.



6.Next comes the most important part. You must embed the symbols into the text area, click on the "Embed…" button and select the following and click OK

7.If you don’t follow that step properly you will end up with boxes.



8.In the Actions Window, select Scene 1 from the object explorer, and type the following code.



9. Now export the movie to a file and call it "myfirstHUDItem.swf". Be sure that Action Script 2.0 is selected from the Action Script version dropdown.The following settings were used.






after that step it got a bit messy and i wasnt able to continue, i will keep attempting the next few steps and post up on it went. It is difficult for someone that has never used flash before. I know that it can be done, but there is a lot of trial and error. In particular this case, we are constrained for time, so in terms of making it possible, it could take days for someone like me as oppossed to someone who is pro at crysis.

My tutorial for the wiki posted up into crisis
http://files.filefront.com/Crysis+Tutorial+In+text+oypdf/;13900918;/fileinfo.html

Friday, June 5, 2009

Group Progress

In regards to group and personal progress, I researched for my topic and looked in the forums for the in text pop ups. And it sort of showed the cheating method I think, well any method is a good method right now, but I think I will try the flash tutorial to get it starting to work. Fingers Crossed, besides that I have to fix up my wiki, and add two more topics even though it wasn’t assigned to me. I still want to complete the communication and Culture topics. I have to also edit most of the wiki topics that I have done, my entries didn’t look so good because I didn’t know how to format the style. So when i would copy and paste my research it would go all funny.

In terms of the final submission, I have been assigned to do the lighting, some AI, the video and the presentation and the written work for the Team Journal. I really enjoy making video’s and using Vegas and fraps, using the relevant music etc. Its like a climax to the submission of a project, because the end seems so near.

Our Group is meeting on Sunday, to change a few things about the environment and the model itself , so we are all aware of the changes that are being made. When working in a group I think it’s more productive when the team is together, instead of passing around the file and emailing each other of the changes. Yes in some Circumstances it may be viable, but now that it’s the end, I don’t think it is.
I have three assignments due on the same day, so im under a lot of pressure in terms of time and producing quality work.

This is Our Current Schedule, but I don’t think we have worked according to the program.

Week 12 Collaboration Studio

Now finally it has come to the end of another semester, and another final studio class.

Today our guest lecturer was someone we all know really well, the one and only Russell Lowe. In his Lecture Russell gave an interesting lecture, on current projects and papers he is currently working on. One of them was for a hospital and another was for an artwork competition. It showed both the practicality and also the fun side of the programs we have been taught to use. I found him to be useful and quite engaging out of most of the guest lecturers, because I guess I could relate to him most, and he is someone successful in this sort of a field.

After Russell’s lecture, we had a brief talk by Stephen Peter about Grad studio, it seems daunting and almost surreal, that its so close. We had the opportunity to look through some past years projects, the ones I mainly looked through were modelling and visualisation. They seemed to be of a high standard, and it gave me ideas on what I can do for my final project. I have never used 3 DS max before and maybe this might be a chance for me to. I would like to challenge myself and do the best I can do, as it will be one of the final things I do in my university career.

We were then talked to by our Tutors, Jeremy and Graham. They went through our building and added their critical review about it. I thought this was really important as our tutors guide us into the right direction, to achieve the best possible outcomes from us. Graham had talked about changing the outside environment, for it to be more inviting and more Oasis like. Also there were a few technical issues, like spaces and things like that but that’s all part and parcel of using a comp program. Also changing the style of the windows and changing the structure of the building.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Communication & Culture

What is communication?

Communication is the method by which people share their ideas, information, opinions and feelings.People sharing ideas, information, opinions and feelings may contribute to the operations of teams and the work of individuals.There are various modes of communication, some of which are used more commonly in some workplaces than others.

There are three major parts in human face to face communication which are body language, voice tonality, and words. Communication is the process of conveying information from a sender to a receiver with the use of a medium in which the communicated information is understood the same way by both sender and receiver. It is a process that allows organisms to exchange information by several methods.

Every time we speak, we choose and use one of four basic communication styles: assertive, aggressive, passive and passive-aggressive.

Assertive Communication
The most effective and healthiest form of communication is the assertive style. It’s how we naturally express ourselves when our self-esteem is intact, giving us the confidence to communicate without games and manipulation.
When we are being assertive, we work hard to create mutually satisfying solutions. We communicate our needs clearly and forthrightly. We care about the relationship and strive for a win/win situation. We know our limits and refuse to be pushed beyond them just because someone else wants or needs something from us. Surprisingly, assertive is the style most people use least.

Aggressive Communication

Aggressive communication always involves manipulation. We may attempt to make people do what we want by inducing guilt (hurt) or by using intimidation and control tactics (anger). Covert or overt, we simply want our needs met - and right now! Although there are a few arenas where aggressive behavior is called for (i.e., sports or war), it will never work in a relationship. Ironically, the more aggressive sports rely heavily on team members and rational coaching strategies.

Passive Communication

Passive communication is based on compliance and hopes to avoid confrontation at all costs. In this mode we don’t talk much, question even less, and actually do very little. We just don’t want to rock the boat. Passives have learned that it is safer not to react and better to disappear than to stand up and be noticed.
Passive-Aggressive Communication

A combination of styles, passive-aggressive avoids direct confrontation (passive), but attempts to get even through manipulation (aggressive). If you’ve ever thought about making that certain someone who needs to be “taught a thing or two” suffer (even just a teeny bit), you’ve stepped pretty close to (if not on into) the devious and sneaky world of the passive-aggressive.



References


wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/arp/communicn.html

http://leehopkins.net/


What is culture

Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving.

Culture in its broadest sense is cultivated behaviour; that is the totality of a person’s learned, accumulated experience which is socially transmitted, or more briefly, behaviour through social learning. A culture is also a way of life of a group of people; the behaviours, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next.

Culture is symbolic communication. Some of its symbols include a group’s skills, knowledge, attitudes, values, and motives. The meanings of the symbols are learned and deliberately perpetuated in a society through its institutions. Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiments in artefacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other hand, as conditioning influences upon further action. Culture is the sum of total of the learned behaviour of a group of people that are generally considered to be the tradition of that people and are transmitted from generation to generation. Culture is a collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another.

References

Definition of Culture. Eastern Oregon University. accessed 13 May 2009. http://www2.eou.edu/~kdahl/cultdef.html
Hofstede, G. (1997). Cultures and Organizations: Software of the mind. New York: McGraw Hill

Monday, June 1, 2009

Progress and Week 11

Week 11

Today we had lecture in ICinema Centre of UNSW. The iCinema Centre was established for Interactive Cinema Research into digital interactivity for benchmark applications across the arts, culture and industry. It brings us in new media, aesthetics, cinematic theory, multimedia design, computer science, cognitive science, software/hardware engineering and mining virtual reality. We had the priveledge of watching some amazing video's that the researchers had made.
I found it to be quite an experience, and i think it would be really rewarding if you were to design or make innovative movies such as the ones showed to us today.


Started researching on the screen text overlay,
Not much luck so far. So just did some research on the other two topics that were not given to us, but i would like to do them anyway. The topics are Communication and Culture, i think they should be interesting topics, im going to chose to define the different types of communication that exists, since it is a very broad topic.
In regards to the definition of culture, that also is very Broad, but i will see how it goes.