Project 3 - Reflective Statement

In this project, there we're some expectations and predictions which I thought during the start. I was expecting that I would gain more knowledge on mechanism in relation with modeling and physical aspects of an animatronic. My prediction in this project is that this project will have a deeper meaning in terms of putting your ideas into the character and attain a life form in the film. I wanted to become focus on my programming as well since I'm doing an all through out programming paper electives the whole year. I was fond of doing and making things become alive and move because it felt like I'm really creating an artificial life form. In the end of the process I kind of achieved what I was expecting and thought of improving myself in terms of physics so that making an animatronic alive would be more realistic. I love how how the group went well. We came together as a group and help each other out. When someone got stuck in their work, we all come and help so we could move on to the next task. I myself carried out like a leader but not to the point that I just point out what to do. I made a lot of decision for them even on the hard times because they knew I can act out fast when things go wrong and the time is already running out. I thanked the group for giving their best out in this project and I hope can work again with them in the future.

Project 3 - Conceptual Statement

We've done a structured brainstorming from the start where we did research from creatures that we had liked in the beginning. The idea was make an animatronic tentacle which it will bend from side to another. I like the idea of how it bends and the physical motion on how it works on the movies. During our development on our concept, we did a process where as we build the animatronic creature, the story also being made at the same time. Likewise it's a building towards the top. Since we were told about putting a story and character personality on it rather than the opposite of putting the story as it is from the animatronic creature being built upon every moment. I think it is more appropriate to do that kind of approach since a character creature should consider it's personality in order to decide what's going to be the movement of the animatronic creature. As the research came to the focal point, I told the group that we should do an animatronic plant. It would be the same from a moving tentacle and we could put a character into it which it would interact to human senses or the biological environment. On researching the movement of the tentacle, I saw some tutorials on how they did the bending of the tentacle. One good process if to make a fishing rod where the pulley pulls the wire connected to the skeleton of a tentacle where it's going to bend its body when the wires are getting pulled by the pulley. Step Motor is the most appropriate use for controlling the wires rotating clockwise and counter-clockwise. In terms of the character we also decided to make it more friendlier, getting out of the flower eating monster concept cliche. So the movement would be subtle and gentle rather than aggressive and mad. At all the cost we're going to buy all the stuff in order to get the animatronic plant creature to get it working.

Project 3 - Film!

Withered Season from John Dexter Abaya on Vimeo.

Project 3 - Uncanny (Day 10)

I just finished the editing so the only thing left is to make DVD case. One bad news, the motor got lost during the clean up last friday. I just don't know how we're going to be able to demonstrate it during the presentation. The motor is one of the key for making the animatronic work. We can't use the small servo because it wouldn't hold up enough torque to pull and bend the animatronic. Probably what we could just do is if in case we have to demonstrate it, we're just have to do it manually. Exhibition is coming up as well so we definitely have no time for replacing the stepper motors. I still have to think upon the looks and design of our exhibition since that part is also going to be assessed. I'm also just waiting for Amos to refine the paper works (Backstory, Character Profile, Storyboard) so we could put it on our exhibition. It is sad that we can't make the animatronic works but I hope in this blog it will explain it well enough on what happened for our project.

Project 3 - Uncanny (Day 9)

The unfortunate event happened when I didn't find my battery charger and divine can't make it today for the filming. I had to think of another person who could do the role for our film and the only person available would be my girlfriend. She can do the film but after she finished her work which the filming would take place during the night. What I did is shoot all the things together and tweak it in the editing. We were all set in the evening including the plant creature and so we went through my girlfriend's place to shoot. I also thought of re doing the shots from the storyboard because we won't be able to shoot in the daylight anymore. In the end we we're able to film everything and did a good job on controlling the animatronic plant which tells a humanistic personality.

Project 3 - Uncanny (Day 8)

Today is the filming day and we chose divine as our actress for our film. Her roles is to be the little sister of the family who have a great compassion with her brother. We shoot during the night because I wanted the film to have an emotional scene and the lighting should be dim lighted. The setting would be in a bedroom where she will go inside with an angered and saddened emotion. Since I'm the one doing the editing, I just did the directing so I could choose the kind of shots that we need. In the storyboard that Amos did I did some refinement in order to have some connections between the scenes so the audience wouldn't be confused on what's happening. Tomorrow we will shoot in the daylight where they will have a flashback with the character of the brother who died after. The good thing was I was able to use my mom's DSLR camera to have a good quality film but unfortunately the battery died and I can't find the battery charger. If I don't have the camera by tomorrow, I might just use the handycam instead although the quality wouldn't be as good as the DSLR camera.

Project 3 - Uncanny (Day 7)

I worked a lot for the stepper motor today. I borrowed Tom's step motor and tried it working with the H Bridge that I bought from TradeMe. I researched on making the step motor work and found lots of tutorials on it. I found a neat instructions on plugging the H bridge to the Arduino and the stepper motor. After the wires are connected all together, I tried to run it with the code that I've found and it turns out the motor is only vibrating. The knob isn't working at all. I tried several codes to work on it even the example from the Arduino which is the MotorKnob and nothing made any difference. I tried to contact Tom and he gave me some advice on how to work it. Several attempts has been done and nothing follows up with what it suppose to do. I got some readings from the H bridge when I ran the code from the Arduino and I my thoughts is that the step motor doesn't have enough power to run the knob. One problem that I've found with the help from Tom, is the 5V socket is not wired. The H bridge needs a 5V from the Arduino and the ground from the Arduino should be wired to the H Bridge as well. Tom came to studio and helped me on solving the problem. He tried a lot of trial and error and in the last moment, we run the code at the rate speed of 5 and the knob turns but really slow. We tried the strength of the knob and it does kind of turn. In the end I'm considering if we're still going to use these motors since it's not working as much as I wanted.

Project 3 - Uncanny (Day 6)

Today we're wondering about how to do our stuff for our project that will would be able to stable our animatronic creature. We wanted to show to maggie that our character is solid and has a personality but at the same time have it's good functionality in terms of mechanism. I had something to deal with my other paper during this week so I haven't got much time to do on doing the arduino stuff but I already had it planned out on what it needs to be done. 

Project 3 - Uncanny (Day 5)

I encountered a lot of problems today that we would be dealing if we continue on using the wrong materials. We cut the hard wood that we had yesterday in some circle sections from biggest to smallest. After we had cut all of it, we compiled all the wood that we cut and realize that it's going to be heavy in terms of the motor that I was thinking we will use. I talked to Sam (3rd year student) whose good on building mechanical stuff and he also thought that as well. We should have gone for a plywood or an acrylic material so that the cable wires can hold it together. He's not sure if those cable wires can hold the hard wood which is really too thick and heavy that it would need a much thicker wire to be able to stand. One thing he suggested for the wire is either we could use a hose for holding the wooden plates and put marbles on the hose. Marbles would be flexible enough to bend since it's rolling inside. Another thing he thinks it would be the best is to make a thread out of a cable wire and make it thicker. He also suggested another that it might work, a motor that sticks on an oval shape structure and there's going to be a lever that would stick on another shape structure near the base of the tentacle. It's like a train wheel that's going up and down. But after I showed him what I saw from the youtube where they use motors as a pulley, he thinks that method would be better for us since we want something that is more controllable. 

In terms of motion design, I bought a dc motor in surplustronics today which is a big one and have high torque speed. 

At first I was doubting if the motor would be too much as the speed is really fast and it would not be a good motion for the animatronic tentacle plant to execute. Then another realization came to me. A dc motor can only change it's direction and speed but not the momentum. Then I thought of using a stepper motor. Stepper motors are more efficient when it comes to control. I saw some video that using a stepper motor is more efficient and it has quite controllable rather than a dc motor. 

I ask Tom Drake (2nd year) if he has some stepper motor and he does have one but he doesn't suggest to use it for what we are making. It might not handle enough strength to pull some strings in the pulley since he already had some experience on using it. He suggested to use a big servo which can handle 5 kg's of weight and it's more efficient in coding. Another option that he told me is a gear motor that can handle the same weight of the big servo motor. But it would need an h-bridge to handle it and it would cost a lot for those materials. As for me as long as we have the correct materials to use even if it's expensive, it would be fine to spend a lot since it's a good investment for the project. One last thing that he told me that we could use as a support material, a spring wire in the middle section of the tentacle plant. It is flexible and it could help a lot on supporting the frame when it's bending

I guess I have a lot of options to go when it comes to building it but it would matter in the end for the story and the character that we're going to make and it could be more easier and efficient to build it than I think if we could agree on the motion of the character that it suppose to do.

Project 3 - Uncanny (Day 4)

We talked to James about our project and how we will make it and he suggested we should put foam on every gap section of the animatronic tentacle so it wouldn't torn much by the force when it's being pulled by the pulley. Afterwards we went to the 3D labs to look for a material that we're going to use as the skeleton of our plant animatronic. But due to the busy area in 3D labs we were able to go at 3:00pm which we don't have much time left to gather some materials and cut the skeleton section for our animatronic tentacle plant. The guys in 3D labs told us they have acrylic which is 6 mm thick and it should be enough for us to use for our project. Since we don't have much time we just went on looking for a scrap wood. We found a hard wood which is 16 mm thick. It is really heavy but we decided to use and cut it in some circle portions by tomorrow. We also talked about getting some wires in any hardware stores so we could build it till the end of this week. In other aspects, the motion design will be made by tomorrow. I'm planning on buying the motors and look upon some codes for controlling the direction and speed by a potentiometer. 

Project 3 - Uncanny (Day 3)

We have initialize our concept and structured it to the point where we are now settled. We told maggie about our project. The concept would be a animatronic tentacle which is based from a plant that's going to sense its time if it's day or night. During the night the plant would only move rather in daylight. We also told her that we're going to build the story as it is when we build the animatronic plant. The story will be based on a alien scientific concept where scientist will find it in a park. They will study it and have some video recordings of the plant on how it grows in Earth. After we told everything on our concept, she had a thought of a cliche movie that's similar to our story. She told us not to go into that path and we should critically think about the character of the subject. I already assumed that feedback since I know that we don't have a purpose on what we were doing for our character. We should think about how the character feels, what it thinks and how it reacts, then we could build the story out from it.  But rather than a short story, I suggested to the group that we should make a commercial kind of thing since we only have 60 seconds time limit for the video. After the discussion she thinks that we have a solid character which we need to think about it's personality to be based upon the story. 

Project 3 - Uncanny (Day 2)

Today I went on testing and refreshing my memory on arduino and have a test run on dc motor. I have a research about the function of animatronic tentacle and base from what I saw, motors will probably do the thing when it comes to power. But the thing for using motor is that I don't know if there's any controller that could control the speed and rotation of the motor in order to control the animatronic tentacle. I also search about the mechanics of the pulling strings for the tentacle. Here's what I've found

It looks like strings are being pulled and the whole structure will also affect on it which will curve or move in other direction since it is attached to the strings. Another thing that I was wondering about if the arduino can handle two motors at the same time. Tim said about using an H-bridge, and here's another video that I found that it is possible to run two motors in arduino by using a H-bridge

Since this is possible I've tried testing again my arduino to the motor that tim gave me. It's only a mere to refresh my memory in arduino. I guess I would make a circuit board for this when it comes to the building stage. I would also need an H-bridge to put on the circuit board as well. It's either I buy the kit or make one myself. Either way I would need it as much as possible. 

Project 3 - Uncanny (Day 1)

On this day I went through on looking some of the videos on how they did the tentacle arms. What I saw is some wires sticking with the circle bearing which holds the wires down. Some controls it with a servo consecutive to the arduino.

Some of it was also controlled by motors

I prefer doing the motor controlled one since it has more stability and it has more control to it. The motor is pulling up and down the 4 pulley which makes the tail looks like real. The motor also has more  torque and power rather than a servo. 

In this video, if you would look on the description he said about the servo not having enough power to move the tongue of the creature. It's effective but not smooth enough.

Project 3 - Uncanny

We were given the main brief and the last project for the 2nd semester. The project is to do an animatronic character that will be filmed for 60 seconds and has a storyline on it. Our group consists of Me, Tim and Amos. My role for this is to develop the motion of the character and program it. First thing I would do for this project is to decide the movement of the character that we would make. I think that this would be one of the functions that's need to focus on because this would be also one of the results that's going to develop the character. When we talked about making the character Tim had something in his mind about the character of what we're going to make. He tells about a worm like creature or a tentacle monster which wiggles and moves in a dangerous manner. However I thought about researching it in other materials so we could have something that could use as a reference for our character. I went to the library and look upon weird creatures or anything that would be likely the same as what Tim had thought about. I immediately went to the film section and browse on anything about character development. During my search, I thought about tentacles as like plant like creatures. I went to the plant section of the library but nothing much about I could use. Then I went back to the film section and found a book which is "The Art of Avatar".  I looked on it and found some art pictures of the creatures in the film Avatar. At some point I found this page where there's some pictures of the plants that was made in the film. I immediately borrow it and showed it to the group. They like the idea of the plant like creature and so we decided to make a plant creature that moves and will probably have senses like a human does. 

Project 3 - Initial Response to the Brief

This project had got me excited about a new kind of process that we're about to make. It had me thinking about new kind of stuff that I would never imagined. Robots, talking animals, a clone of yourself and a lot more. This is the best situation where you attempt to put your creativity on the line and become more aggressive and experimental about it. The way I see it, the project wasn't suppose to do a whole functional animatronic but rather just a part of it's body where it's going to relate to the film. I also thought of this project as going for an imaginative ride of excitement. It's totally going to be a meaningful thought for the project that's going to be made. It like putting your soul into the body of an animatronic and have itself become a humanistic character. Supporting a storyline it will become more part of the social environment and have itself an importance in the world as it will have something to tell us in a film, more or less a lesson. The brief also tells about how technology also becoming senses of a human where it can also feel and be sensitive to the surroundings. All of this aspects will be combined into one short film where it's going to be put as a part of the showcase in the exhibit on the last day of assessment. One thing for sure, this is not just about the personality and meaningful character of the animatronic but the mechanism of how does it work should be considered as well. From the last two exercise that we had, I guess it all comes together in the end where we going to have our own product that's going to be a life form from the process and hard work that's going to be done by ourselves.

Project 3 - Eye Mechanical Exercise

For another exercise we were given the task to do an Animatronic Eye to make some simple movements. First we need to 3D model of an eye and eventually print it out on the 3D printer. We will be given an additional items that's gonna be put on the eye by thursday. We got taught about how to use SolidWorks. It's by far the software that is suitable for doing mechanical models. I had some knowledge for doing SolidWorks in the past so it I just need to refresh my mind on how to use it. I think this exercise is easy and what I believe that we're going to make for the main project would be somewhat about robotic stuff that would deal with flying or other stuff. 

Project 3 - Flying

This new project is a new one even from last year we haven't done this. I thought that this going to be something interesting since this is kind of new. We we're asked to do an orniothopther which is a small wooden flying contraption that looks like a toy. We we're given a piece of wood and a small plastic thing that will connect the cutted pieces. I'm not really good at cutting the pieces of wood because I keep on cutting it in a wrong shape. I'll try more on improving the cutting before I decide to glue it all together 

Conceptual Statement - Project 2

When deciding for my musical instrument, it wasn’t that hard enough for me to choose what am I going to make. The exercise that was given from the past is a good precision of things that will be base from the last part of the exercise. I wanted to put up a chaotic yet controllable sound for my musical instrument and it will be flexible to the other group when I play it in a flamboyant manner. The idea of using the oil drum came from last year, which I think it’s a good device where the sonic vibration from the metal rods will vibrate through the oil drum. During when I was building the musical instrument, I thought of many ways on utilizing every parts of the oil drum. I could use the body as the sound when knocking it with hand or scratching it with something else. I could also put any type of liquid or things that inside the drum that will make a unique sound when it’s knocked or scratched. In short, it could be anything that will carry out sound for the oil drum. In the end I just decided to have metal rods sticking on top of the oil drum in order to vibrate on it when making the sound. Different size of rods will make different volume of sound. After I set it up, I test it and it works kind of fine but I wondered if I still need to put more something in order to have a complexity of sound when vibrating the metal rods but I guess it wouldn’t matter much since the sound is loud enough to be heard in a quite long distance. This musical instrument was a good producer of sound during the performance when it was vibrating with the other instrument, which coincides and blends with the other musical instruments. The performance is played within the followed flow of the visual graphics and I kind of played as I go and just listen to the other to have the timing. It was great in the end and I learned the lesson of the importance of sound not just music but the other types as well.

Live Performance

On our performance the group consists of Kate (Recorded Sound), Divine (Shaking of maracas), Gino (Ruler plucking) and Tania (Guitar Strings). They told mine is loud enough to make sound for the performance so I don't need to make my sound louder by a piezo mic. I was thinking from the last time if I'm still going to improve it by tying the metal rods with rope that's going to the hole and tied up with a stone or any other object. 

I believe that using the oil can's metal texture by scratching or knocking it should be fine enough to make other sound. I also experimented when practicing that shaking the oil can while the metal rods are vibrating has a unique effect which is a good thing that I can do for the performance. In the end I just go with it as it is.

Here's the video of our live performance.

Making of the Sound Instrument

From the last blog I thought of using the kalimba instrument as my reference. I decided to use metal as the material which will make sonic vibration in some way it will get a longer vibration of the sound. I got a metal oil can from my work which will serve as the base, then I'll have the metal rods in the 3D labs which is the vibrating sound that will make of it.

I cut a hole in the metal oil can in order to put the metal rods inside but I decided not to go with that process since it wouldn't make much sound when it's plucked.

I just went to making the metal rod on top of the oil can just like the kalimba. I cut different size of metal rods in order to have different sounds when it's plucked. I also thought of cutting a hole on the face of the can near the bottom and tie the metal rods with some rope that goes to the holes and at the end it's tied up to a stone or any object that's heavy. It would be a complicated instrument but I would check first if it's going to work out for me and to think if it's rather important to have it or not.

Sound Instrument (Thoughts)

It comes to the final exercise where we get to do our own sound instrument. They told us to make an instrument that have the sonic vibration when it's played. I had this idea from last year that I didn't manage to do. I was thinking of the kalimba instrument where the wooden sticks get plucked in order to make a sound. The sticks have different sizes and each one of it makes different sounds as well. 

I just knew that this one will make a sonic vibration by plucking it. In terms of experimentation, I think other materials like metal, plastic would be a good startup. I also try to think of other ways to make this kind of instrument into non-musical. 

Sound Appropriation

I remember how I did this from last year but this time I might do it in different way. I decided to use other ways of connecting loud sounds with soft sounds which will be a composition that is different from the past exercises. I tried using sounds that I made by doing childish things like scratching wood from trees, clanking the bottle in the fence, splashing water in the fountain etc. My approach is to explore sounds that I don't usually hear and to experiment on sounds that's out of the context. By means is to get unique sounds which will be an extra ordinaire piece of art. 

After getting all the sounds, I decided to make my composition into a sound that goes into a deep and meaningful at the end of the track. What I mean is, people should decide whatever they think should be the next sound that they should hear. It's more like a guessing out of of the air. 

Here's my track 

Sound Collage Exploration

During outside, exploring in albert park, in queen street and other places that I would be interested on going, I was very fascinated on making sounds out of many things like smashing the wood with a stone, scraping the metal fence with a bottle etc. These sounds aren't too much to be compromise, and not usual to be heard by many people, that's why this is some things that are force to be reckoned. Every sound is like a piece of image that has structure, texture, harmony and other properties on image that has to give. There were similar pieces of sounds that has similar properties and I got interested on it which I thought of a theme which would be the opposite of what I've done for the art collage. Instead of having a chaotic and noisy sounds, I would prefer the peaceful and harmonious one and it's that's what I want to hear as well in terms of my personal taste. Example of these sounds: Running water, Medium Frequency, Some Clanking, Footsteps, Birds, Swaying of Leaves, Airconditioner and many more. 

In other terms of exploring things, I also thought about modifying the sounds during the edit to minimize the sound audacity/volume in some ways where it would mix up with the other sound that would have some flexible structure in between. 

Sound Collage

At this point we were about to do our sound collage which talks about putting all kinds of random sounds together in order to have a piece of art that is quite unique to people who doesn't usually hear it. One way of doing this will be likely the same process as what we did for the art collage. Thinking about having a theme for the sound collage wouldn't be too hard for me as well since I'm going to use the art collage as a reference. I would probably put all of my sounds that I would be interested, and anything that has sonic vibration. I like to explore more stuff about things that collides which makes a new kind of sound that is out of the context. I will look more on the outside environment and see stuff which kind of like what we did for sound walk.

Art Collage Part 2

After quite a while of patiently cutting a lot of black and red images, I put it all together by sticking it with glue. But it became crumpled and wet because of the stickiness of the glue but nevertheless it looks good somehow. The idea of putting it all together in one whole source is just surprising.

After I finish putting those stuff for the background, I started on putting the images that I cut and carefully arranged it in an order where it will look stunningly structured and themed. After quite some time on deciding for the position of the images, I glue it all together and came out as a political violent theme collage. But I call it chaotic collage. It serve us some information about how the world is covered by blood and darkness with all those aspects of black and white images and some cut outs that is rough.

Art Collage

When I was doing my art collage, I just searched for things that interest in my perception of an art. I just like themed that is dark, gritty and chaotic. I searched for black colours in the magazine that I have been looking on. Afterwards I cut the images that I got interested. During the search for images I thought of political issues and the conspiracy around the world. This triggers on the theme that I would make. Then I thought of having a black background for my collage with the red on the middle which symbolize the blood in the darkness in the whole entire collage. 

I cut a lot of black colours from magazines and newspapers. I just cut it in any kind of shapes and arrange it in an order that would fill the entire paper. I experimented on putting it in a lot of order. A lot of time took on deciding about the position of the images that I'm going for. 

A lot of newspaper and magazine was taken out in order to search for a lot of images. It was kind of easy to think of for the theme that I was going because there are similarities for the articles and pictures that's inside these printed newspapers/magazines. 

Sound Walk

As I went through the sound walk, The feeling of focusing to the sound is such an amazing experience. It reminds of how wonderful the world is and things shouldn't take for granted since it is something that we could use on in order to share it to the world.

Here's the part 1 of our Sound Walk

Part 2 of the Sound Walk

Collage & Sound Part 2

Deciding the art collage is kind of tough because I always consider dealing with themed structures. I kind of think that collage is something that is abstract which you just put together all random stuff to make it an art. I also thought of collage as a way of expressing yourself by putting images on things that you'r interested and put it all together to make a whole new piece. One of the tutors told me that to make this collage a creative one is to surprise yourself. By means is to put your work that you wouldn't expect on. For example, when cutting images probably cut something that isn't always likely would go into your theme and it might make into something that is unusual to the viewer's eyes. 

Put all those stuff into one image and structure it according to how you should arrange it accordingly in order to have a consistency and thematic inspiration on it's aspect elements. When deciding how the theme should go, I just search for pictures that interest on me, and put all those things together wether it will work out good or not.

Project 2 - Collage & Sound

Starting with this project, we were hand in a brief that's about sound and the details of the artistic side of it. To start off with this project the brief exercise is to make a three types of collage. We will have to make an art collage, digital collage, and a time-based collage which is base on a video. When I heard this project, it felt like this is going to be the same from last year when we did the Audio Foundation project. Last year was about combining sounds together and putting all of these sounds in a random combination but with some structures depending on the theme. Sound itself is something to be reckoned and people don't usually appreciate the sound that surround us. In this case, in my perception, the collage exercise is to have a good understanding of putting random stuff all together to make an art. To make this point, doing the art collage is a good learning experience in order to have a good understanding of what sound art is all about. It also helps to appreciate the sound art.

Transformation - Artworks

Here are the artworks that I've done for the "Badass" game..

Transformation - Reflective Statement

At the beginning of the first project, when we’re told to make a game, as the concept would be transformation, the challenge is quite good but not really much complicated to think about it. I was placed with Will and Anders in our group and we started talking back and forth with our ideas of transformation. I told them that we should focus on the transformation rather than a game with a storyline or other types of game play like a shooting game, RPG game, dancing game etc. It’s good that they understand it easily on where we should go.

In the first week I told Will that we just go on research on what’s the transformation is all about and come up with the ideas base on the research he’s going to take. The finalization of our ideas was finished by Tuesday second week when I met Anders as well. Anders pitched to us the game that he felt on working. In those few days we got stuck on putting ideas with unoriginal one and I felt that it wouldn’t do better if we just remake something.

On Tuesday, I told them that we should finalize it since the second week of the project is already starting. I didn’t came by the last two days of the first week due to personal issues at home, but I didn’t left my work behind on the weekends so I put all my sketches and drawings in my diary and came up with the boxing game which I had researched upon the internet.

When I pitch the game and the controller that we’re going to make, they agree into it and tried it first thing by coding it up in processing. The second week of the project would be likely the production and further polishing of ideas. I haven’t got in touched on working with the project for a long hours due to my working hours outside the BCT. For the first two days I just talked over to them about what’s going on with the project and the development of it. There were some ideas that I felt left our and didn’t have my approval since I wasn’t there first thing in the morning.

The tutors are the one that keeps on changing their ideas of the game and I wasn’t there to tell them my opinion about it. What I think is, from what the tutors have suggested, they will have to go on doing it. But since I haven’t talked to them much of the ideas that we’re working on, there were problems that we’re going back and forth with our ideas. Since I’m the one started the concept, I know how the game should work.

This have me thinking that it is important to be in every session in the morning so that there wouldn’t be any fuzz on putting the ideas and making the group behind schedule.

I chose the artwork side of the game since they told me that both of them aren’t much experience on working with it especially with the software Photoshop. So on Wednesday second week, I told them that I’m going to do it but it might not be that great. I suggested to them that I’m going to do an original character since it’s a brand new game that we’re going to make.

I told Anders that I’m going to pass the images to him on Sunday. But due to our winter road trip over the weekend, I wasn’t able to till Tuesday. I got stuck over my head about the original character that I was about to make and the decision was really tough because it should mean something to the player about why they’re punching that particular opponent. Anders was also struggling with some of the coding which put us behind schedule for the last week. So on Tuesday I crank up all the things and started working on it.

I was thinking of making an animation in processing but it would be really hard for us since the only way of doing it when we have to use our own graphics is by using gifs. Anders doesn’t know how to do it so I gave him some code examples on how to use gifs in processing. Afterwards I started doing the artwork snippets and the gif animation through out the last week. There were few times that I was asking Anders if he could be able to do some of my ideas that came up but due to the lack of time that we had, it wouldn’t be able to.

During the development of the artwork, what I did is to use some several image and manipulate it Photoshop. Nevertheless, in my opinion, as long as the images we’re manipulated by yourself, it wouldn’t matter much on having it reference on the images that we used.

In the end I managed to finish all artwork and Anders had put it all together. I have gathered some of the sounds that we’re going to use but Anders hadn’t got much time on putting it since he got focused on doing the combo system.

The only thing I realize for this project is that time management and being in the morning session is still lacking on me. But I never make any project undone by the end of the day.

Here's our presentation of our project

Transformation - Conceptual Statement

As what is asked from the brief, we chose the concept of a boxing game where the player has to punch the controller in order to defeat the opponent on screen. We thought that this idea is fit enough to distribute all of the aspects of transformation. That includes the player and the game play. We focus on the player’s experience in order to interact with the game as much as possible. In these experiences, the game goes on as the difficulty arise when the time decrease down to zero.

The game play is that the player should hit the controller which depends on where the colour yellow hit panel is assigned. When the yellow hit panel appears, they should punch it a lot in order to gain a lot of score. There’s also the combo panels where there’s red hit panels assigned with numbers and you have to punch it in chronological order for the player to gain rage meter.

The rage meter is one of our best features of this game, where the player could use it and punch anytime in any panels even without the colours. The rage can be only used once it bar is full.  It gets harder when the round progresses.

Before the start of the game we put a storyline so that player would know why they are punching those opponents. In some cases this is a good way of changing the story from one thing to another. They got more reason to punch harder as the level progresses. The first stage looks like they have to fight the evil robot. The second stage becomes the robot was destroyed and transforms into a flying ship. Then the last stage would be the monster that is controlling the whole thing and the main antagonists of the story.

So in the end, transformation is not only made through physical aspects by changing speed of the player by punching faster or harder, it also affects as the player’s experience when the story goes onwards. In the further development, we thought about changing the number of players as well. For example, in second stage someone will have to keep on pressing the two buttons while the other players will have to punch those buttons.   

Transformation - Crunch Time

At this point, I wasn't able to give them the artwork on time and I need to catch up with Anders with all of his code that he already put in. I started by putting the artwork of the bad monster which started as a space ship with four eyes. 

At first I was thinking of a cartoony style game which robots will invade the planet earth and the player would need to destroy the four eyes of each. I'm starting to do the other simple artworks like the text and the interface.

Transformation - Added Ideas

In further developing our boxing game, we thought of having four hit panels in our game in which players will have to hit them. When we talked to some of the tutors, they told us to explore more than what we have now but we're getting to the point on where the concept is already set up and it's already solid. One of them suggested to have a combo system on which player can get more points when they hit some of the hit areas, it will make more points. That initialize on evolving the idea of what we had into putting up an ordered hit area where they need to punch it in chronological order. For example the in the upper left panel is the first one to hit before the bottom left. This is also a good idea where the difficulty changes as well. 

In this case I had this reference from the arcade game Point Blank where player needs to shoot the targets in a specific amount of time. In implementing this idea, I thought of putting the aspect of having a time limit in order to move on to the next stage. The targets are one of the main elements of this game and I would also like to put it into our game as well by having four panels to be hit which could lead on to making the combo system as well as gameplay.

I also suggested to them if we could add some LED on the punching pads that we're going to use similar to this video. I wanted to make the LED light up in the pads when the yellow indicator in the game appears as well, synchronizing the processing and the arduino side of it.

It would be great if we could do this but time limit is wouldn't be good enough to implement it.

Transformation - Start of Work

As the start of working on our project, Anders had a lot of worked on the programming more than I expected. Since he knows more of what's in the program code, I just decided that I'm going to do the artwork for the game but I'm also helping Anders some hand if in case he's struggling in some bits of the programming. When we were deciding on the artwork, I had some struggle on deciding what's going to be the character opponent that's going to be in the game. I had in mind that instead of referencing from the internet and copy a character, I decided to make my own character from scratch. Since we're making a game, it should be an original character that we made too. It's somewhat logical when you think about it.

I also talked to will regarding the controller that we're about to make. Initially we thought about having a stand with a wooden platform that players could punch it. There's going to be two kind of platform, One is the box type where there's 4 holes that players could fit with their fist when they punch. Another one would be a square type which there are four panels in each side including the rage button on the middle.

In the square type box controller, we consider about the player getting carried away with the game. If they punch too hard, it might fall over or destroys the back of the box. In the 3D Labs, someone suggested to us to make the stand in a U shape so that it would balance itself when someone strikes too hard.

We're considering the use of metal bars for the stand so the weight would be distributed to the ground entirely and wouldn't be easily to knock of the controller. 

Transformation - Inspiration of the Boxing Game

From the last weekends I had thought about the game which I always see in the arcade and searched for that boxing game where they had to punch a sort of boxing pad and when they punch it it would transform into being destroyed. This had me worked out on looking for that name of the game and finally got it in the end. It's called Sonic BlastMan

This is a transformation of not just the enemy/opponent but also how you punch hard in order to destroy completely the opponent. I got to say this is a great reference that we could use for the game since the transformation has two aspects. One for the game and another for the player. I had a thought of using accelerometer to sense the strength of a punch

This punch acceleration is one of the ideas that I

had in my where we could get the data of how strong is the punch and be able to connect it in processing to manipulate the data through the opponent. The only problem for this is that the materials that are posted from the tutorials isn't available here in new zealand. We have to order it and it would take days till it get's here.

Here's the list of the materials it would need if we're going for this type of controller.

http://abieneman.wordpress.com/2010/04/04/punch-acceleration-sensor-%E2%80%93-part-2/

Transformation - Statement of Intent

I was interested on making the transformation as the gameplay goes on, the character will change it's elements like size, speed, and difficulty as the player does it's moves for the game. These connection between the physical and the virtual will have good side of perception of what the player needs to achieve. 

One of the games that I made from the past is this ninja roll ball rolling game http://eyemobi.com/games_fattyninja.html.. This is somewhat similar to the brief of what we are doing at the moment. 

In other terms of transformation, I also have an idea of changing the use of the controllers in terms of player's game experience. For example a fighting game where the player should use either a weapon or it's fist to handle different situation or environment on the game.

Exploring ideas is like waves of the beach. Sometimes you would gather all these information and compile it then it would turn out that some ideas aren't going to be as good as unique when it comes to having an original idea. 

But having a purpose of the game is most important. It's like putting a backbone of what we're doing on to this project. I told the group that we should consider why we're doing this type of game and in the end we would agree that we like this type of game. 

I think in making a game, it doesn't matter much on what the player's experience. You make the game because you like on doing it. It's like an expression of what we're doing as well. This also makes the player fascinates on the game that you made, just like looking on a masterpiece of an art. 

So on the basis of this project is to do what you like to do within the concept of transformation. It would be great that combining all the aspects of transformation into the users would be such an aspiring work and a good practice for us in designing and implementing.

Transformation - Start of Ideas

During the start of second week, I haven't got in touch from the last two days of the group. I catch up to them with all of their ideas and hear them out on the progress of the research and development. As I heard about anders who made an initial game on somewhat like a spaceship game that transform colours when he hits the enemy. 

At first, my response is that it doesn't explore much in depth about what is transformation in other environment of a game. There's need to be something that is more complex but not over to the top since our time budget is very limited. 

After seeing what anders had made, I pitched to them about my idea of transformation for the game. During the weekends I was searching for many games that includes today's game as well. I saw a lot of different transformation in terms of the gameplay, but I got more interested on the side of some games where they need to change their speed or pacing when playing the game. Just like an example in wii sports where they need to change their position or speed of smashing their racket, this would be a good exploration of in depth transformation. 

I told them that we would make a boxing game that has a storyline which it changes it's enemy into something else. They agree on it and got into trying it out. Anders and I worked on making the game as soon as we all agree on it. We went on sampling an image that we got from google and tried it if it's going to work. There's also a source code from openprocessing where there's also the same boxing game. We used that as a reference 

http://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/26864

Will started on drawing some sketches for the controllers for the boxing. This was a very productive day for us.

Transformation - Technicalities

I suggested to the group about using the game maker called Construct 2. It's a html5 script game environment which it is good for web base platform game. I was thinking of using this since it would be easy for us to make the game itself and might have more time to spend on making the hardware controller. The only problem for this was, no one isn't knowledgeable on using this platform, and I myself isn't good enough on using this. The chance is that we would go on using processing instead. Since I had experience on using processing, I told them that I could do the coding since it would be a great help on having more experience on it since I'm also taking simulated environment. Anders is also on board on doing the coding as well. I guess before choosing Construct 2, we have to ask Daniel if we're allowed to use it for this project.

Studio II: Transformation - Initial Response to the Brief

Our brief is to start off a 2D gaming with the concept of transformation and a customized controller. Our group is consist of me, anders and will. When I heard about making a game and a customized controller on it, I felt nostalgic about this project. From last year, I made a customized controller for making a game base from the short films that we made form last year first semester. We brainstormed on the game itself before moving on having the concept of the game. There were a lot of games out there it could go with the transformation concept. The game snake is one example of transforming of a small thing into a long huge snake. If there's thing to consider for transformation, it's about changing an image into another by using the physicality of the human. And another thing for this brief is that they point out those old retro games that has those elements of transformation. So my initial thought is that, the game wouldn't be too much complicated but yet there's a uniqueness on its aspect. It also has the element of transforming the players experience within the game that affects the gameplay as well. Base from my experience on making games when I was in first year, I lead them on to how it would work base on the time frame that they had given us. We wouldn't go for too much complicated stuff, yet something unique to the eyes of other people. I consider budgeting the time to what we would like to do in terms of making the game lively and fun. 

Stage Process

As part of research and integrating the whole process from designing a website to putting the codes into it, we made a stage by stage process on where we’re going to achieve all the elements of our skill search engine website. From what we had experienced and asked from other students, we narrow down a lot of ideas into 5 features. We decided we’re only going to have 5 pages, which we think it’s most important for us other students to be use. Carefully we observe every detail of those pages on what we’re going to put on. This is as much as possible limit those details on making the website, like for every pages this is the function that will work. Being considerate on every aspects of making a website helped us on maintaining a consistent workflow. It also solves some of the problems as well where if we’re going to decide on not limiting it to the BCT students as the end user. Our roles has been set to a building stage rather than doing their own things. Hoping that it would work, this half of the semester, it would be having two options. One would be doing it from scratch and second is having a template laid out and just re-design the theme. 

Drupal 7: Intro to Views 7.x-2.x, Pt. 1

Database Input Software

I stumbled today a useful tool that we could use for implementing a database which also makes a map of nodes out of it. The tool is called mySQL workbench, and it's a neat tool that you can easily integrate your data into your database server. Now first of all, the application needs to establish a connection between the software and the database server. At first I used the log-in credentials that I created for the database server and it didn't work. I tried to find a lot of tutorials about how to connect the application into the server that I'm using (cPanel). A lot of trial and error and some coding including opening the terminal in Mac in order to check if the connection really works or not. There we're two type of connection that I could use, TCP/IP or TPC/IP over ssh, but both failed on me In the end, I found out from my friend, who provide the web host for us, that they don't allow ssh connection. I might have to let my friend make an additional remote access host to mySQL so that I could enter the static IP in the localhost and work out the connection of the software. I know it seems like I'm trying to take a lot of time just to use this application, but I believe that it would benefit us a lot if we could use this such amazing tool. I could also use this in the future for managing database. here are some screenshots of the application that I use including the other one called "Sequel Pro". 

 Sequel Pro

 MySQL Workbench

Here's the terminal connection I made 

using ssh connection in order to check if there's 

a route going on with the username/hostname credentials

skillBase update

This week, while trent was doing the design for the website, I was finding some tutorials about making a search engine database. There were a lot of it are very complicated but I try to understand every bits and pieces of the process. The first foremost process is it should connect to the database to get the data from the database. Afterwards it will select the table and row from database to find the specific skills that they typed in, then in their screen it would appear what they have searched. It looks simple but it gets complicated when putting it in code language. After quite sometime we were gonna plan ahead for our the next semester which will be added for the website. 

start of building the website and database

One thing we should need of to work on our website is a web host and a domain name. I have a web host that we could use so the only thing we need is to register our domain name. I have a friend who has a web hosting service which is cheap as well and we have registered our domain to them. The web host has a lot of features that they provide. It has php and mySQL integration that is obviously what we need in order to work on our search engine website. It also has a phpmyAdmin, that is for putting up database.
       

Web Host

Database











We decided on our roles and my main role would most likely coding the database and integrating it to the website. It's gonna be a challenge but it's gonna be worth it in the end.