virtual space

something positive

2009-06-02T09:18:00.000-07:00

the project is back on

last week (or at least the final couple of days)

2009-06-02T08:16:00.000-07:00

This is kind of a "downer" message..... (just as a warning)

Myself, Dan and Sam all turned up to Dan's house to get the final part of our project finished..... The kind of things that we had left to do where:

*change the website so that any unnecessary pages where deleted & all the work had been uploaded
*complete the timeline of the project
*add the php
*change some of the script so that it all worked with and without interactivity
*change some of the sound
*upload it all and finalize everything

We also needed to

*have the board set up and working with the making things kit
All of this needed to be done by thursday morning, which wasn't to out of reach.

Anyway, we all get to Dan's house at about 1 and start working....... Myself and Dan looked at the script which makes the planet grow when you shout down a microphone.
After looking at it we found that it was alright. We then started to look at how to make the planet bigger and smaller using the scroll bar. Soon after it was suggested that we call it a day on the project becuase none of us have the knowledge of actionscript which would make this work..... Which is true, but to be fair we got this far with our knowledge of actionscript (as in 70-80% of the project).... We all kinda agreed that we wasn't going to finish this in time, so I guess we all just give up.

Gutted, we may try to finish it, but finishing it is still a mile away.

Leon

3rd to last week

2009-04-28T07:39:00.000-07:00

So weve got a couple of more weeks left and things are coming together. We still have alot of work to do on this to make it a success.
The work which will need to be completed by this time next week will be:

Look into what, where and how much stuff we need to buy electronic wise for our project - Dan
Make sure the anomometer is working with the making things kit (mtk) - Leon
Finish the user interface for the website - Leon
and the interactive side of things so dan can start working on the php - Sam
have an idea on how to test our interactive interface - Leon, Dan and Sam
make sure all the sound effects are working and collected - Dan
Take some screen shots in order to display on the big screen for user testing - Sam

All this will NEED to be done by next week

The work which we have done over the last couple of weeks is easily going to have to be doubled in order to have this project done and working on time.

Talk to ya soon, Leon

March 31st.... week????

2009-03-31T08:04:00.001-07:00

gutted, unfortunately I've just written a long section explaining all our aims and objectives over the Easter holidays. I clicked on save post and unfortunately the comp timed out. As a result i lost the blog update and now can't be bothered to write out another long explanation of our work to date. So here's a short one.

During the Easter holidays the group have agreed to come into uni and work on our project a couple of times a week and put in over 20 hours of work over this period of time. After all, what's the point in having free time if your not going to be doing anything productive with it.

So our list of jobs to do over the next couple of weeks is:

Leon-build a mock up anemometer
Dan-carry on with sounds
Sam-finish off planet sound implement
Leon, Dan and Sam-finish off the web site
Dan-work on PHP in flash
Sam and Leon-work on main project in flash
Sam-make a video for and of the project development and big screen showing

And then when we get back from Easter we should have about another month to finish off the project and make sure everything is working fine.

Untill next time, cheers, Leon, L8rs

weeks 7-8

2009-03-16T14:27:00.000-07:00

firstly I'd like to apologise for any spelling mistakes i have made during this blog. Especially on the url. Rookie mistake which wont happen again.

So, this week has been a little hectic. We've all been working really hard on many different projects. I really think that this semester may be the hardest semester by far. So much to do and so little time.

I myself have been mainly working on this week the site and it's functionality, accessibility and design. I've pretty much created everything from scratch in a couple of days. All my work has been ok'd by the guys so that's good enough for me. Sam has been working hard on the Planets and Dan has been working on the php side of things.

We've not got much time left but I don't think we've got a massive amount of work to do so i think we're set for the next few weeks.

I'll keep ya posted, l8rs, Leon

week 6/7

2009-02-24T08:52:00.000-08:00

Goodtimes...... J is all well, good and out of hospitol.
We had our second or third proper tutorial of this project today. It's crazy how much work we've got to do in such little time. That, topped off with the feeling that we are a couple of weeks behind schedule on the project (which i think everyone is) it isn't a good time to be starting the process of putting theory and planning into action. I mean, we haven't even got our hand on the 'making things kit' and we're already into week 6 or something.
I'm losing track of what week we're on. It would be nice if we can get some clarification on when we need to have this done by (wink wink, to any tutors who are reading this)

Anyway, about the project, well another week and another concept. Now the idea is to create a virtual universe which consists of people individually created and personal planets, which comes with it's chosen name and date of creation. Each planet will be individual to users through a series of variables that when changed creates a planet with it's own unique characteristics.

Possible ideas for further individualism, for the web variables could be decided by a series of questions i.e.... what time do you normally get up? options (early bird 5 - 7, earlyish 7-9, mid 9-10, late 10-12, ridiculas 12-2)...... a further 5 questions can be set with similar outcomes. so to summarize, users answer a series of questions with all answers attached to different variables which in turn effect the possible outcome of the inderviduals planet. Just to note this idea is just that, an idea. If we coud use it to better our project or user experience within the time scale which we have to complete the project then it could work. But, at this moment in time it's just a seggestion put forward by myself (Leon).

This weeks to do list goes as:

Leon
- organise planning and all other work so far into one stuctured folder (or for any hand written work and tutorial records to be together)
- create 101 different texture maps to go onto different planets
-update blog

Sam
-crack on with creating the interactive universe and planet skeletons
-look at the making things kit on-line
-look at creating a group on-line planner with Sarah Humphreys

Dan
-look at creating a php data base to store peoples planets and information, date of creation, name, ect.
- organize sound files into background music and sound effects
-find some more sound effects and background music.

I'll Keep'ya posted. Talk to you soon, Leon

during reading week

2009-02-22T09:51:00.000-08:00

OK, so we, as a group haven't got together to work on our project at all this week, but hopefully we can make up for this during next week.

Personally, I have created a couple of texture graphs for the 3D globes and thought a little about a user guide/intro animation for the project.

Hopefully we can make up for lost time during the next week

Leon

Virtual Space week 4

2009-02-13T07:46:00.000-08:00

So, we've settled on the idea, we're ready to crack on with the project but we're stuck on how we're going to implement it. Unfortunatly James has been in hospital so we've not had him around to help out but Sarah Humphreys has taken his place and we've had our first session with her.

We presented our work to the rest of the group and to Sarah the other day, and Sarah pointed out a couple of potential down sides of the project. After the session we headed off to the pub to sit down and chat about how we're going to counter act these problems. Which involved yet again more changes to the project

It's gettin a little crazy now, the amount of times we've changed our minds with the direction of the project, but after doing a group project last semester for the big screen I know how proected can go through plenty of changes before final one is settled on.

The work we needed to do this week was.

Leon -
Space Background
Texture map for the earth
Blog
looking at creating an animated user guide

Sam-
looking at the making things kit
creating the biggining of the actual project, starting with the 3D globe

Dan-
sounds
PHP within Flash

Vurtual Space Week 3

2009-02-03T08:30:00.000-08:00

Keeping upto date with the blog, we are into week 3 now.

Tuesday afternoon myself (Leon) and Sam came into uni looking forward to the lesson only to be told that it wasn't on...... I didn't mind coz since I was in I thought it would be good to get some work done, but, I bet people who had to travel in like James B and Rich T would have been a bit peeved off. Anyway, no dan today. This is the first time he's missed it so me and Sam set to work on some of the stuff we could do.

Last week we came up with an idea of an interactive peice exploring the nature of space. The idea is that the user can travel from planet to planet leaving a little 'tag' (picture and initials of themselves) on one of the planets....... Initially this is the main idea we have coz a couple of the other ideas wasn't really applicable. I'm shore we will do something to the concept to make it a little more substantial and fitting for the theme of nature.

The kind of things that we have done to date is:

*planning

*concept

*graphincs

*research

The kind of things we have done this week is:

*settled on concept

*develop graphics i.e, background image (which you can see above, created by myself), loading screen, planets ect.

*project blog and keeping up to date with work progress and organization

*wroked on motion on the planets, traverling through space

As we are into week 3 and I think we are quite ahead with our work. Myself and the group are happy with the progress we are making

Week 2 - Work Progession

2009-01-26T18:16:00.000-08:00

Week 1- 2

Ideas & Familiarisation
Over the past two weeks since our initial introduction to the brief we have achieved a decent amount of research and planning. We have been brainstorming our ideas and researching the nessecary information on how to setup and use the 'makingthings' teleo board. Now accustomed to the inputs and outputs on the circuit we can start to imagine what the variables for interaction should be.

4 x Analog Inputs
2 x Digital Inputs

2 Digital Outputs
2 PWM Outputs (see below)

PWM - Wiki Definition:

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) of a signal or power source involves the modulation of its duty cycle, to either convey information over a communications channel or control the amount of power sent to a load.

WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT
The first ideas for the website version of the piece have set in motion, we discussed various designs and the layout, colour themes etc. We discussed the possible use of a 3D navigation and/or using video footage with a green screen effect (using Premiere Pro).

Week 1 of the vurtual space brief year 2, semester 4

2009-01-22T16:00:00.000-08:00

This week we were given a brief for semester 4, year 2 called vurtual space.
you can see the full official brief by using this url - http://www.newmediahull.lincoln.ac.uk/modulesIndMD.php?briefId=9&year=2&courseId=1

Myself, Sam Topham and Dan Wrigley are again working together in a group on this project, so yet again it means weekly group up-dates in the pub to go over what we've all being doing, which is fine with me.

After our first brief we set to work, spit balling idea's and concepts and cooming up with a to do list for the first 6 weeks. Although we havent got a set idea in mind at the moment, we plan to have a solid idea by week 3 so we're using these first 3 weeks for reaserch and planning. You can use this url to see week ones plans - http://www.flickr.com/photos/14824772@N07/sets/72157612878527790/

so far so so