Record (revised)

Why record?

Keep recording is important during the design process, not just record the correct result,
but also the mistakes; as it might help to get the develop process smoother and prevent the same mistake happen again.

According to Budd (1996), it is important to keep recording the procedure during the development process;
even though it might not be the final result, yet it may help to inspire the new or better ideas.
“Important to produce this (record) while the ideas are fresh, not in hindsight when many details will have been forgotten.” Said Budd (1996)

Record is not only being valuable during the design process,
as well as benefit for maintenance stage,
as Potts and Bruns mentioned,
“Without such a record a maintainer may repeat mistakes that were made by the original designer…” (p418,1987)


Reference

Budd T.A. 1996, p37, “Responsibility Driven Design”, Introduction To Object Oriented Programming, accessed 28.4.2009 from cs.kun.nl

Potts C and G Bruns, 1987, p418, “Recording the Reasons for Design Decisions”, accessed 28.4.2009 The ACM Digital Library


The meaning of Records within our course

- may refer to keep the evidence and progress of our work.
Some courses require us to write or draw on the journal; some may need us to show works to tutor regularly.
Collaboration Studio is a computer based course,
so we are required to update our individual blog and team blog in order to show the efforts we put in this course,
not only for tutors, but also colleague.

Moreover, we also share our knowledge on the class wiki,
which another way to record our contribution to this course.

Lighting feature of Cénotaphe de Newton

In the Easter break,
I was assigned to model the lighting feature of Cénotaphe de Newton.
As we do not have the measurement of the actual model,
so it would be a challenge of redesign the scale by myself.
















I built the lighting model in 3Ds Max,
and also apply the most approximate material on it.
Finally it looks quite good.

Here are some captures and video.





Video of the ring spin over the sphere(light)



The next stage, I am going to import this model in to crysis,
and also figure out how to use flow graphs to make the ring spin.

Method of importing CGF file into Crysis Editor

1. Create a folder named "objects" under the directory
C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis\Game\

2. put the CGF file in the "objects" folder

3. Launch the editor

4. from the RollUp bar, choose brush

5. choose the imported CGF file in the browser

5. Drag the file to the map.

a. Synchronous Messaging; e.g. Skype, Team Speak, MSN

Synchronous messaging describes communications that takes place between two applications or systems, where the system places a message in a message queue (also called an Event Queue in enterprise messaging systems) and then waits for a message response before it continues processing.

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/synchronous_messaging.html


Synchronous messaging is a huge benefit for collaborating with group mates, especially it has no distance, time and location limited once there is Internet access.

The contrast between synchronous messaging and asynchronous Messaging is the interactions between the userS, which allow more than 2 people to interact in the same time, people can either chat through messages, talk and video talk.

The Synchronous messaging example including Skype, Team Speak and MSN, another example including ICQ, Net Meeting etc.

Convert 3Ds Max file to CGF file

In 3Ds Max,

1. choose Utiuties from the tool bar left hand side,

2. Choose "MORE" button

3. Select Cry Engine Exporter from the list.

ps. Need to download a program called "SDK" before converting the file

Here are some snap shots from 3Ds Max of our model

Tech test - Lighting within Crysis

Lighting is one of the main features of our selected unbuilt Architecture.

So I did a quick test for the lighting in crysis.

1. turn the Time of day to NIGHT.
simply choose Terrain > Time of Day, and upload a suitable default setting from library.

2. In the RollUp bar, under 'Objects' choose "entity",
find and expand the 'Light' folder from the browser.

Indirect light
- radius - 100

I chose red to be the diffuse color,
because it would be easy to reckon the result.

Here are some images of the result.



Light within the model



Light at outdoor - interior perspective within the sphere

Captured images of tutorials from InCrysis

http://konakona.nbtxathcx.net/sb2/

Creating a new map

we edited the terrain by setting the slope angles and adding material.

Vegetation

Adding the palm trees from the vegetation library to make the map more interesting.

Modifying Terrain

Using the 'paint' function in 'edit terrain' to flatten the land,

which can provide more space for creating objects in game.

Placing Objects

There are many awesome default models in the entity library,

which can easily import to the map.

Prefabs

Adding the objects from the library which can be punch around.

Voxels

This is a excellent function to edit terrain and make the map being specific and interesting.

an easy but powerful tools to make the differences.

Time of Day

The lightness of sky can be edited in crysis by importing the default time of day file.

In this tutorial, the environment is brighter than the previous images,

which can create the suitable scene for different purposes.

Solids

Use vertex, edge, face and polygon to edit the shape of solids

Roads

using the Misc funtion to draw the path of the road,

and it will curve automatically

Adding AI

Adding the default AI can make more fun of the map,

which the AI would attack the player ingame.

Flow Graphs

Using the flow Graphs to make the interaction within the game,

these reactions can be set by using trigger and other nodes.

AI walk from the triggle to the tag point

Example to make the AI get on the vehicle.

New blog

We changed our team blog and my individual blog from tumblr to blogspot, as we found that blogspot is more user friendly and clearer interface (we can put the links on the side of our blog which more convenience for us to work with.)
During our group meeting, we compared the strength and weakness of these two blogs , finally we decided to move all our stuff from the original tumblr to the blogspot.