StudentHeadz

FIS 2011

2011-06-04T07:07:00.000-07:00

So.. The exhibition was a huge success, with people of all ages enjoying the project, with fantastic feedback, we walked away with our heads held high. We all worked very hard throughout the year to complete the project, and it was amazing to here such great compliments about the project. We set out for people to have fun, and when we seen people smiling and laughing while playing the games, we knew we had done well.

Congratulations to all the members of our team who worked tirelessly around the clock in the run up to the FIS 2011 Exhibition.

TSHIRTS

2011-05-26T01:01:00.000-07:00

HI guys heading into town now at 9.30 to get Tshirts :) I'll be back before half ten.

Fis Information

2011-05-25T03:16:00.001-07:00

For Newspaper

2011-05-25T00:57:00.001-07:00

near there

2011-05-23T10:52:00.001-07:00

The Chairs Keyboards footboxes

2011-05-22T08:25:00.001-07:00

Eventually they are all done.......!! I've spent all morning testing them!! Sammy Well done on the graphics just keep going with them, Facebook cop needs an overhead of a student at a computer etc. You need to talk to james as you said you dont know how they being programmed.. Everybody keep it up.. 3 Days till we have to hand it in!!!

final

2011-05-20T05:48:00.000-07:00

facebook cop ......

2011-05-20T02:28:00.001-07:00

Guys need to know will this work bescause i am unsure of how the programing will work for this game ???? nearly there so delighted , Tunde and Gocky send me any animations you do, just with any graphics so i can then see what graphics you need for it for continuity. Eg. the chair dash intro, il get backgrounfd for it, then il do feet n stuffs,:)

Exams over, heads down..

2011-05-18T02:04:00.001-07:00

With the exams out of the way, our focus is solely on completing the project, working on finishing off graphics for the games, programming the navigation, and gameplay of each game. Sounds and audio will have to be integrated shortly also, with the hardware well on its way to being completed. Its mainly just about tidying off and smooth running at this stage (not to mention loads of programming).

Sammy, Im going to send you on the games, and you design graphics for them, background, characters etc. and also design them for roughly a 550 x 400 screen, thats the resolution we are going with for now, until we decide what screen we will be using. (most likely much bigger)

Paul, when your done with the hardware, will you animate the instruction screens, go over the ones we have and polish them up, work with sammy if you need graphics. Then any other animations you can think of that we will need.

Tunde, work with Paul and the animations, and putting sound in them, I am sending you the games also, that way you can see what tempo's match the games, and what sound effects can be included for the games, we need a consistent style of audio throughout, intro, main menu, each game, and each intro for each game also. (maybe more) but start with them.

Im sending everyone a copy of the main programme so you can see how its laid out and what will need to be done, work with the time line, so go intro, main menu, game 1 etc.. so that you can see what work you must do. Also, this project is due in next Wednesday 25th May, so for one week, we must clear the scheduals and finish this off, we did really great work a couple of weeks ago before the demo, if we can do that amount of work again, we will be flying, seriously. So with that being said, I was talking to paul yesterday and we decided that we must come in next Monday and Tuesday, to sit with each other and discuss, I know its grand working by yourself, but communicating is the key, we work better when we are together. Also, the buttons I ordered came to a total of €35, so on monday, I will need to collect €8 off each of you please. Keep in touch, text, twitter, email, we are all around, so will be easy to get in touch. :)

Its only 2. More. Weeks... then its over, heads down till then :)

Progress

2011-05-09T06:38:00.001-07:00

Hey guys we have made serious progress and well Done James you keep plugging away at that programming and we will be fine. Yea the demo went well and there was amazing work put in before it and it paid off so well done everybody!! Loving the buttons james. I have got 3 of the chairs done here is a picture..

Just one more left to do, the yellow one.. I have been experimenting on a fifth keyboard to see what its like and have discovered that it is going to be an awful lot harder than I though but I have one of my mates helping me and we think we have discovered a way of doing it!! For these experiments I had to buy different buttons and see which ones actually will fit.. These are the ones that we are going to have to buy...

Unfortunately they are €3.95 each and we need 16 of them It works out at €15 each and we also need to buy spray paint for the foot boxes and for the keys on the keyboards!! which a 5er will cover, so really sorry guys but this is the last thing that we have to buy.. So if possible could every1 bring in €20 tomorrow and I will go down and buy them buttons and order the spray paint.. Thanks..

On a lighter note we have an exam tomorrow and thursday so I understand that the next three days will be taken up by these! But it is really important that we keep working away at this project as it has to be finished in two weeks so we can start testing it!! We can meet up tomorrow for a little chat after the exam.. Good luck with your study.. :-)!!

Cheers

Demo over... Buttons arrived

2011-05-09T01:33:00.000-07:00

Successful Demo last Thursday (5th may), a lot of constructive criticism that we can take on board and improve upon, graphical style, continuity, audio tempo throughout the games and introductions. We will discuss more tomorrow if we meet up for a quick chat, and decide what to work on next. I am currently working on the 9am Rush game, programming etc. and to my surprise, its actually easier that I thought. We gotta get some audio and graphics into it now!!

In other news, I woke this morning to find that the post lady brought me a present, now that we have all the buttons and an awesome footbox, we can duplicate these and have all the correct colours for each individual in game character... Things are looking up, just keep working.

Hardware

2011-05-05T02:38:00.000-07:00

Today is our Demo Day and here are some pics to show you how where we are now on the hardware side!!

again

2011-05-04T07:22:00.001-07:00

FINAL DRAFT

2011-05-04T03:50:00.000-07:00

finnished

2011-05-04T03:28:00.001-07:00

chair dash start

2011-05-03T14:56:00.000-07:00

this is background for canteen, i put people in tomoro :)

Buttons ordered

2011-05-02T07:36:00.001-07:00

I have ordered the buttons, an in the different colours we want them, i got 2x Blue, 2x Green, 2x Red, 2x Yellow, and another white one to mess with and text, and just incase one breaks.

Also, I have the keyboards, and the wiring for them, heaps of it, so we should be ok in that department! Keep it up guys. :)

2011-05-02T06:04:00.000-07:00

Guys PSDs are sent to Paul. I wil pass logo now. I am in Tuesday and I will caht with Paul and Tunde about the animation .... oh and good work Tunde I like sample. :) See you all then

Chair dash intro music

2011-05-01T11:04:00.001-07:00

Chair dash intro music by tundeesho

Sample music for Chair Dash

2011-05-01T10:59:00.000-07:00

http://soundcloud.com/tundeesho/chair-dash-in-game-music

Main Menu Concept

2011-05-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

The main menu will have the studentheadz in the title (with the same font as the logo, Chalkduster). The play button will animate into the middle, just lower than the center, paul, its up to u how its going to look, what shape etc. Use sammy's main menu design as the background, Tunde, help paul with the animation, then put audio, into it, make sure it fits in with the style and theme. Also, forgot to mention, get audio, sound effects for the intro screen also, thanks guys, get working on these for tuesday, plz try have these done, we are behind. Me and paul have been discussing new ideas too, we will talk more on tues bout them!!

PS. Everyone be in on tuesday, we have caroline at 11, so at least be in for that, then we are staying until we have some real progress with this project. See You all then

Intro screen concept

2011-05-01T09:30:00.000-07:00

Guys, too much time has passed with no real work done, and if gocky didnt ring me there I wouldnt have realised myself! Sammy, send paul the StudentHeadz logo again, to make sure he has it. Paul, as we discussed, you know what to do, just animate it to your liking, either coming in from left, right, big to small etc. whatever... Its your call on it. Tunde, get in touch with paul and help him animate as well as doing the Audio

KEEP COMMUNICATING WITH EACH OTHER!!

intro for game pages

2011-05-01T05:29:00.000-07:00

here all work il send to Paul now :)

2011-05-01T04:18:00.001-07:00

Index/main menu

First Page

intro for 9am rush

2011-04-29T08:52:00.001-07:00

All the intros for each game are the same, the reason is to follow the theme of the game and i feel it will work well as if it wer a book. the main menu i tried to make it look like the cover of a book also. All the graphics tie in together as the appear colourful and simple. its goin good

Main Menu

2011-04-29T07:49:00.000-07:00

Easter work

2011-04-17T13:42:00.001-07:00

Hey guys,

Just made out a plan during the week to keep working on the project. I didnt see you all, so have to mail you the plan.

Basically:

We will start by getting something substantial in for the demo, I aim to get;

- Intro Screen

- Main Menu

- Intro to Game 1

- Game 1

- Intro to Game 2

- Game 2

This is a large portion of the project, but I think we have been at it long enough now to get it together.

The order in which we will get this done is;

Sammy - You make the graphics, and have the same style and theme throughout the whole project. When you finish with one screen,

put the files neatly into a folder (well labelled to avoid confusion), and pass them immediately onto Paul. Continue this for all screens,

you will be creating backgrounds, gathering fonts, making parts to animate for Paul. Spend roughly 3 days on each screen.

Paul - As we discussed, Animation primarily, but see if you can start building or gathering material for the hardware, but focus more on the software side for now.

Get the graphics from Sammy, and build on them, and animate them. Again spend roughly 2/3 days on each screen. As soon as one screen has been animated and graphics

fully integrated into a Master Housing Program, pass immediately onto Tunde.

Tunde - (Obviously) work on the audio, but now, Paul is sending you the files so you can see what audio can fit in where and what specific sound effects we will need, for example, you can view the swf. of what Paul has sent you, then figure what we need at part of the timeline, ie, Screen it like a blank canvass then put the files in, you wont even need to animate, or adjust anything, but you will have to integrate the Master Housing Program that Paul will send you. Work on it as best you can, and make sure you critically evaluate where each sound should go, and where When this is finally done, send the work (neatly foldered and labelled) to me.

Neo - Keep working on the games, make sure they are working efficiently and without flaw (errors), then we can start working on a proper scoring system after the demo. when you have a game complete, send them to Paul, to futher animate and integrate graphics. Make sure you get at least one game done though.

James - I will be programming the Master Housing Program and working on the games, basically tying it all together, but also, keeping in touch with all of you to get the wok done.

This plan means that if there is one person not working or pulling their weight, then we will know about it, its a cycle, the next person after you needs your work to continue developing the project. It means we all do our little part, and help each other out as a team. We will need to communicate, if there is any problems, or you cant get a part of the work done, then contact the next person after you, or me, or Caroline, just let us know.

Have a good Easter,

If there is anything I left out here that concerns you, let me know, Thanks

James

2011-03-28T07:10:00.000-07:00

Some of scenes

2011-03-24T08:19:00.000-07:00

2011-03-21T06:49:00.000-07:00

All graphics going well shall post them soon have to change formats :)

IPAC costs

2011-03-11T05:32:00.001-08:00

Hey guys, i dunno if paul was telling you, but the invoice for the ipac came, and due to tax, and shipping, the total cost came to €104.70, so in order to pay this off, divided by 5 it works out at €20.80c roughly, so we need to each give paul another €8 to cover the total costs.

This will arrive soon and we can begin prototyping, we dont meet up enough, and we dont know what each of us are doing anymore, this thing has to be pretty much up and running for the demo at the end of april, we are doing well, but still very slow i think anyway. we just need to come in and talk more often, email each other, and txt, i know uz hav my number, i may not have urs, so when u read this, plz txt me ur number so i can stay in contat with each of you.

Thanks

Poster

2011-03-10T02:41:00.000-08:00

progress

2011-03-10T01:12:00.000-08:00

Hi guys, just letting you know poster will be uploaded onto the blog today, I am working on the logo at present and the scenes for each game. All is progressing well. :)

Task sheet!!

2011-02-21T11:13:00.000-08:00

Chairs:

-Get Four identical chairs
-change colour of chairs
-Build and connect arm to chairs

Interaction:

-Research pressure - pressure pads, pedals, switches etc.
-Build the foot interaction unit
-Get Five keyboards
-Break the Four apart, colouring and leaving the buttons that are being used for the interaction

IPAC:

-Bring in money
-Order IPAC
-Start programming it and get use to the language

Keyboard:

-Hac the keyboard, work out which keys are being used for each game
-Keep working on the programming

2nd Game Complete

2011-02-17T02:41:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, I got the second game done yesterday in class. we now have 2 games rolling in our project. :)

1 Game Complete

2011-02-09T15:34:00.000-08:00

Today, i finished the programming for 1 game, the pass the assignment game. all that needs to be done is to put the appropriate illustrations in, but we have one game fully functioning now!

GOOD TIMES!!! :D

OUR LOGO

2011-02-07T05:27:00.000-08:00

Guys here is the logo, it is ready for script. :)

2011-02-06T07:00:00.001-08:00

Interaction for floor hardware design.

The Design for the intro of script
Our 2nd prototype for logo. I was thinking that this would be good image to use for our logo and in illustrator I can put studentheadz to it in different colours making it stand out from image.

DESIGN FOR SCRIPT

2011-02-03T02:28:00.000-08:00

Mock up of our aim for exhibition day ( 4 chairs, one screen )

The Characters For StudentHeadz

Designs for Characters that appear throughout our game

Our Student ( each player will have a different colour hat)

games

2011-01-30T16:23:00.001-08:00

Pass the assignment

The game is four player game. Four player sit together. Then one of the players will be given a brief , then the player can pass the brief whoever the player wants. Continue like. Then at some moment, the brief will got you and the player who got caught will lose mark. The others will got mark.

Keep up with the lecturer.

Background is the lecturer is speaking (teaching) to us. We need record everything the lecturer said. The lecturer will talk faster and faster. The players need get busier and busier.

Rag week staggel.

Background: this game is like during the rag week, people go out and drink. When people got drunk they will try to keep the balance. So the game is trying to keep the balance for the drunk people

9am rush

Every day, people who have car are worry about to get a space to park. So they come to college 5 to 9am in the morning which is before the first class to fight for a parking space.

Chair bash

In the noon students in dkit have a break for lunch. As we know that the chair(place) in canteen is limited so student has to rush to fight for the last place for themselves.

Facebook cop.

As we know facebook is forbidden in the library. There will be a person in the library walk around to patrol see is anyone who is logging on the facebook. So student who wants to log on facebook has to move around to avoid the person who will catch you. The player control the averter to dodge the person to avoid being caught.

my role

2011-01-30T14:58:00.000-08:00

Pang Chenhao(NEO)

In this project my role is the programmer. My aim in this project is to make the program for games and make sure that the games work fine.

After I got this role our team discuss that we are going to make the games based on flash cs4. We are going to make the program on flash actionscript 3.0. I began to research the program that we need to make the game. A part of the research is from the book which is the adobe flash cs4 professional, classroom in a book. There are lots of scripts in that book and there is the explanation as well. So I can understand the program and use it easily. Another way to look for the research is the internet. I found that one website is very nice which is www.actionscript.org . This website has a lot of resource of ActionScript. So I can find what the project needs to put the code in our project.

For example one of our game is called “pass the assignment”, that game is like pass the bomb. Four players will sit together when the game begin. Then one of the player will be given a “brief”, then the player who has the “brief” can pass it to anyone else who play the game. So continue like this. At some moment the “brief” will got you and the player who got caught will lose mark the other will got mark.

For this case I asked ken that I can Boolean variables for each player, each key. Than I can say if for example every player has 4 bottoms, one is the player itself. Another 3 bottoms stand for the other 3 players. So if I variable one bottom say if when that bottom is pressed is true the other were fault the brief pass to player 2. So something like this. I will also need to make a motion tween for the action that the brief pass from player 1 to player 2. So something work like this.

I will continue to do the research for each game and make the program one by one.

Draft of Theme

2011-01-27T08:02:00.001-08:00

Theme of Studentheadz

Our Aim is to create a fun interactive collection of multiplayer mini games for students.
The theme of our game is college life, we plan on creating a game based on our daily encounters at college. Here at Dkit students often can forget that college life is supposed to be fun, these days are meant to be the best days of our life yet we spend them worrying and stressing about our academic year. As creative multimedia student s we sometimes can lose our ability to enjoy the creative process of our course as deadlines linger. This project we want to bring back the fun in not only our course but in everyone that interacts with it.
Our theme being college life itself, we have decided to create a college feel to it. We will portray this through our graphics and our hardware. Also the mini games are quick and fun and each user will be working in teams of four making it competitive as is our regular college life. From grades to computers in the library we are constantly competing.
The visuals of our game will be the carrolls building itself, we want to create this envoirnment as it is recognisable for students.
For each mini game we have chosen encounters that students face daily and we plan on making them fun and enjoyable. These games are as follows; Facebook Cop, Pass the Assignment, Drunken Stagger, Chair bash, 9am Rush and Keep up with the Lecturer.

For Script, Any thoughts on it? Everyone think it's enough?

2011-01-27T06:18:00.000-08:00

My Role

Role: Designer for Studentheadz
Aim: My aim in this project is to create graphics for our game which collaborate with our chosen theme.
After chosen this role I began researching different gaming graphics and the styles in which they were created. For the production of the game itself I will be designing the Logo, any promotional Posters we plan on distributing to make awareness about our project. In order to complete this task I will be researching different examples of posters that work well at present. As all of the members in our group agreed we really wanted to make our game fun and enjoyable I have to create the graphics to work hand in hand with what we want the user to feel.
For this project I will be sketching up the Character and scanning them onto the computer, I will be doing this as I feel it is much better as I can then use Flash or Photoshop to trace over them. All my designs will be new, memorable and will match the visual identity of our game.
As well as the game design I will also be working collectively with Paul Gneockey our hardware designer. Paul and I both feel we can use both our skills in order to create the hardware for the complete look of our game.
As I create each element of design for each mini game I will be getting feedback from my group. Each member will let me know their thoughts just so we are all in agreement that they are happy with the quality of the work.

StudentHeadz Logo (prototype)

2011-01-26T06:54:00.000-08:00

Script Part 1 (Brief Description/overview of the Project)

2011-01-26T05:34:00.000-08:00

StudentHeadz

What??

Our project is based on the college year, the idea is a series of mini games based on selected enconters that students of DKIT encounter on a daily basis. Not so much the problems they encounter but issues that are apart of life around and within the college everyday. We plan for the games to be both collaborative and multiplayer(4 players), we decided to go in this direction because after extensive research into game design, specifically mini games, we came to the conclusion that games are better when they are either competitive against another human being’s or when they are collaborative with another human being’s, due to this fact we decided to incorpoate both. For example one of the games that we plan to design is “The 9am Rush”, the idea behind this game is that it is 5 to 9, the four players enter the car park at the bottom of the screen, there is only one car parking space at the top of the screen, (this is a common situation that students do find themselves in, in the college)

How??
We plan to have different forms of interaction for each game, some may overlap. Using actionscript and illustrations designed in Adobe Illustrator, we plan to design these mini games based on the daily encounters of the students. The idea is for the games to be as physical as possible and the design is planned to engross the user as much as we can. We are going to build physical controllers and through keyboard hacking we will program them ourselves in compliance with our games.

Why??
We like this idea and want to go with the idea because we are the target audience and strongly believe that the target audience will thoroughly enjoy this project. They will be able to engage in it much beter than any other game as they can relate to it on a personal level. It is what they go through, see and deal with on a daily basis, combining this with the fact that collabrative and multiplayer games proved to be the most enjoyable we think our target audience will really enjoy this project.

Script & Meeting

2011-01-24T04:32:00.000-08:00

Hey guys,

We have to have a meeting asap. We need to discuss what roles we are taking for the script, There are a number of areas that we could split up and take, but we all need to sit down and talk to each other and decide who is taking what part, so that confusion (and then, duplicate copies of a section) is avoided. We have plenty of designs, and games etc. we can easily bulk this script out. it is doable, its just daunting to start. Everyone should have at least their part that we talked about last week done.

Me and Paul have the description of what must be in the script, so we need to meet up. Don't be afraid to txt each other too, if u cant come to a class, txt me.. or if your just stuck with a piece of work, or don't know what to do just let us know :)

New Year, New Start

2011-01-18T02:22:00.000-08:00

Hey Guys, Happy new year, long time no post everyone needs to start coming in to classes. the people who were in today know, that we dont have to go to every class in the timetable. We should go to 2 classes each (at least), so then there is someone else who can help with that particular area. The way I have devised it is:

Monday - K.Nolan, Interactivity. (James, Paul, Sammy)

Tuesday - J.J, Graphics/Animation. (Paul, Sammy, Neo)

Wednesday - K.Sloane, Programming. (James, Neo)

Thursday - P.McCaul, Audio (Tunde)

This isn't written in stone, you can go to extra classes if you want, I just thought these were our strongest areas, and the roles on which we agreed, But You have to go these classes at least, if not we will fall behind. I think that Tunde is string enough for audio that only one person can go. but you will need to go to the class. Check your timetables, and see when the classes are that you need to go. We will start 0n the script very soon, but we need to have a meeting with Caroline ASAP, and just for ourselves to know where we stand and to refresh our memory, because im sure everyone forgot over the break (i know i did). I think we should have meetings with Caroline on the Wednesday, this will give us a chance to meet up after the weekend before we meet with her to discuss our progress. Comments? What do you guys think?

Script

2011-01-17T03:54:00.000-08:00

Hi guys I can't make it up today or tomorrow I have nobody to mind Adam, I think you's should really have a meeting.. Define whats needed in the script and break it up.. A piece for each person!! Can you's just blog what you need me to do and I will do it at home... Cheers

Final Draft

2010-12-14T15:47:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,
I have completed all the changes to the presentation and have it sent to Caroline. So hopefully we will know in the next week or so whether we get the go ahead. I need you's all to get back to me about when you's can meet up, cheers..... Fingers crossed!!

Feedback

2010-12-14T13:51:00.001-08:00

Myself and Tunde met with Caroline today and had a meeting about the presentation, there were a few mistakes in the presentation I have got feedback and am going to try and make all the changes tonight or early in the morning to get it back to her so we can get the go ahead. We need to start to using this blog and break down exactly what is needed for this script. We will have to have a meeting and break it up into sections and we can then all take certain pieces, then at least we can put together the first draft of the script!! I can't stress enough how much we need to have this part at least done before christmas...

Because there is a lot in it and we are still behind everyone else. Please start blogging and let me know if you's are even looking at this??

Hi Sammy

2010-12-13T10:54:00.000-08:00

I have not looked at the blog I didn't see the post, sorry! I would not have been able to anyway but apologies for not replying. I have emailed Caroline the presentation and am planning on meeting up with her tomorrow to get some feedback!! Probably around 11, so any1 who could make it can you let me know

cheers
Paul

Meeting Saturday

2010-12-10T05:58:00.000-08:00

Hi guys
Seen as we are all in on Saturday for our exam I was just thinking we should meet for a little bit. I just want to go ahead in doing all my designs over christmas and I've no software at home so I will be starting them next week in college. Could you all let me know if that is okay to meet?
Also we have two weeks when we are back to piece together the script so we need to get a start on it asap. I just want to see which ideas you's think I should go with and that we all like. :)

Thanks

Presentation

2010-12-08T10:51:00.000-08:00

Hi guys, I have everyones slides now and am in the process of putting it all together. Neo I'm not going to put the 5 steps you have because I don't think its necessary for the slides. If we were presenting it, it would be perfect but since we are not I not going to put it in.. Is that ok??

Presentation

2010-12-07T11:36:00.001-08:00

Hey guys, I was just on to Paul there, and he was talking to Caroline today. The presentation is cancelled tomorrow, and quite possibly cancelled altogether, due to adverse weather conditions, and the fact that we have not met since Friday 26th Nov because of these conditions. Its unfortunate that we could not go ahead with it tomorrow.

So, what's happening now... We have to send Caroline the flash presentation, and will then give feedback to us if we need any changes made to it. The presentation will then be sent around to the rest of the lectures, where they either give us the go ahead, or not..

What we do... is make a word document with your bullet points that you would be talking about in the presentation, ie, Tunde-Audio etc. And email those points as a word document to Paul, he is making the flash presentation to forward. Also, remember to attach any important files that you would use in the presentation, Sammy, attach images. Tunde, attach audio clips, if you were using them. Everybody Understand?? If not contact someone in the group, but it should be very straight forward.

Thanks guys, unfortunate that we couldn't present, but put a lot of effort into your slides and bullet points, we can still do it, we may be at a disadvantage not being able to stand in front of lecturers and properly explain our idea, but if we have a very impressive presentation, it will do all the talking for us!

Meeting

2010-12-06T08:26:00.000-08:00

Hi guys, I just had a meeting with Caroline there. The weather has completely thrown us all over the place, but we really need to be doing some research ad work at home. The presentation is still going ahead on wednesday so far, Depending on how the weather is tomorrow everyone try get up tomorrow. If it is bad in the morning that is fine because if its bad I won't be able to get up myself and Caroline is aware of that fact so don't risk anything to get up.

Just so we are clear, who is doing what in the presentation:

James; introduction (give a brief outline of the project, for example what the idea is, the fact that it is a year in DKIT college and there will be a result at the end, the ideas that relate to the college, its problems that students encounter on a daily basis etc.

Sammy; look and feel, mock-ups of characters pics of what the settings will be like, explain that they are going to be aimated versions of the pictures that you have taking, maybe look into a little animation for the characters etc. You seemed t ave a fair grasp as to what you are going to say anyway today.

Tunde; audio, audio that is commonly used within little games. Some sound effects that students around the college would recognize. Take a few examples of the games that we have mentioned and explore the different sounds/audio that you could incorporate into them.

Paul; I am going to talk about the different forms of interaction that we could use e.g. web cams, keyboards etc. I will also discuss the reason behind why we are going multiplayer and collaborative and what the survey has revealed.

Neo; Programming, I know you have looked into all the different ways of programming. Discuss the fact that you are making a game in code over the xmas and will try gain as much knowledge and that we all have to do it so you will have some help.

James; conclusion, talk about the fact that we feel the game will be good fun as all the students and staff can relate t it, we believe it will be a success because... Time line, blogs twitter discuss the script a little bit too, explain when we plan to do it etc..

Does everyone agree to that?? Everyone please comment so I know that you have all seen this post. So everyone, taking the weather out of the equation, have your slides more or less ready to go for tomorrow. I have the template made in flash so its just a case of lobbing them on.. If people can't get to college tomorrow it will be fine, as I said above Caroline is aware of this fact that people can't make it up, especially myself and James as we live the furthest and there will be a plan B put into action. But can everyone let me knoe if they will be able to get up or not either this evening or very early in the morning so I can let Caroline know please, thanks?? But for now just take it that the presentation is going ahead on Wednesday!! Ok??

For Monday

2010-12-02T09:20:00.000-08:00

Hi guys, as you know I made it up to college on tuesday and had a meeting with Caroline. The presentation is now on this wednesday. We are doing a mock presentation to Caroline on monday so we've all got an extra week to research more into the idea and into our own parts of the presentation. We will present to her and get feedback so we can change/alter what ever she says is wrong on tuesday and have it ready for wednesday. I will be try get into college tomorrow so if any of you's can make it in it would be great, we can have a meeting and maybe start putting some slides together. Myself and neo got the survey's filled out by all of the students. I still have to go through them and work out the percentages, I will have that done by monday so please evrybody upload your progress onto the blog so everyone can see how you are getting on...!!

Wedensday Presentation

2010-11-29T07:06:00.000-08:00

Lads, are we still going ahead wedensday? The buses are canceled and the weather is predicted to get worse. Please let me know whatis happening. I am writing up my bit for presentation today but I don't know if I will have a way in.

Survey

2010-11-28T08:19:00.000-08:00

Hi Guys, I have the Survey's Printed now and all. Here is the content as to what the questions are??

Survey
3rd Year Multimedia

Do you find Parking in DKIT Satisfactory??

Yes No Its ok

Would you log on to facebook everyday in the College??

Yes No Not on Facebook

In Carrolls, do you struggle to find the rooms??

Yes No

Which would you visit more often, StarBucks or the Canteen??

StarBucks Canteen

Name one hinderence/Problem tha DKIT students encounter everyday??
(e.g. Parking etc.)

..........................................................................................................

The last question is the one that we are going to use the feedback from the most, I currently am looking at the different interactions online and some of it is really interesting, Tunde I agree with you the web cam looks as if it is definitely possible to do, I think that it would be a really interesting method of interactions with our games. I will keep looking up different forms of interaction and everyone research the part of the presentation that you presented the last time, yea??

2010-11-27T08:40:00.000-08:00

Guys these are my mock ups of various characters. I'm still unsure of which way to go so I'd appreciate a little feedback off you all, let me know your opinions. Thanks

Webcam interaction

2010-11-26T00:15:00.000-08:00

I was looking at ways we can interact with a webcam and i came across this link.
http://www.adsinteractive.eu/news/webcam-interaction-over-the-web/

Getting the Idea Nailed Down

2010-11-25T11:56:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone, today we really got somewhere developing the idea. We are getting close to getting a concrete decision on our narrative. Tonight everybody is researching about the different games within our project and is to come up with three of thier own.
They are to consider:

-The look and feel to the game
-The main idea behind the game
-The location
-Whether its collaborative/multiplayer and reasons why

And also if Sammy, James Neo research what makes a game good and keeps a user interested. while myself and Tunde will research into different types of interactions..??

What do you's think??

Brainstorming

2010-11-22T08:37:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone I was talking to caroline today and we are going to have a meeting with her tomorrow. I cancelled the meeting today just because we have not got a chance to meet since our last meeting with her. We are meeting at 1 tomorrow, the hole group try be there because we are really behind and have to really get cracking to catch up.... We are going to go into a room and brainstorm using the board. We have to come up with a narrative. We came up with the theme of a game show, that does not have to be a concrete decision either as we are still at the beginning of the brainstorming process, so if anybody has any other good ideas think about them more tonight and say them tomorrow..

If we decide to stay with the theme of a game show the next thing we need to do is to come up with a narrative. A beginning a middle and an end to our story. Tonight we should all be brainstorming about issues and elements of our everyday life as we are who we plan who we plan to aim our projects at. Just be thinking about what's current and what is popular among our age group. We don't have to even consider how to turn it into a game, we just have to get a theme that we can base a game around. Maybe have a look at a few game shows that are different to your normal game shows. Just generate different ideas in your head and will be flying tomorrow. I really just think that we have to seriously start doing a good bit of work to get this idea moving..

If any ideas post them up here and we can start discussing them tonight!!!

Narrative

2010-11-21T09:03:00.000-08:00

Hi guys, Firstly we are meeting Caroline at 4 o clock on monday so everybody make themselves available. We have decided that we are going to go ahead with the narrative of a game show. Tis broadens the possibilities of what direction we can take, for the meeting we have to have the story-line of our gameshow. A beginning middle and end Because our target audience is students our age, we need to have a story that is current and popular to keep our users interested and engaged.

We are not to think of the game itself or the physical aspect of it yet, just the storyline in which we want to use. Has any-one any ideas??

Storyboard

2010-11-17T10:02:00.000-08:00

hi guys~
do you have something about our storyboard yet~? our game seems like something about team-work, competition, challenge, visual impact or something like that. i have some video games like that. first one is the strike 1945, it is a arc game with high difficulty and can play with 2 people. another one is like the wow, a team beat one boss. they will have tank to suffer the attack and wizard to have magic attack, priest to heal them and maybe some other dps. that just an idea about that. do you have some other idea about that yet~?

Project Manager

2010-11-13T15:41:00.000-08:00

Hi guys as you know for this week only I am project manager. I would like us all to meet Monday after college to discuss what we have done over the weekend and to chat about our plan of action. Monday @ 4 in Starbucks. Il text you all to remind you. If you cannot make it please contact me and I'll arrange something else.

Look for Inspriation...

2010-11-11T08:22:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, as you have heard, we need to go back to the drawing board for an idea, so i went back through the notes from weeks passed and decided to post up links to websites with interesting projects.

We have Caroline for our supervisor, and we are meeting up with her within the next week, I want everybody to get at least 5 brilliant/weird/wacky/interesting/stupid/funny/Original.... ANYTHING, just something that interests you, it can be a theme or a hobby, anything, just come back in next week with 5 links to projects.

Here are some to get us started:

http://www.pixelsumo.com/ (wacky/interesting Projects)

http://www.pixelsumo.com/post/the-pool (use of light in a game)

http://www.pixelsumo.com/post/sound-interjection-yuri-suzuki (drawing colours and sounds)

http://www.pixelsumo.com/post/reactable-mobile

http://jklabs.net/projects/visualscratch/chirp.html (Audio and Visuals, using a turntable)

http://www.6emeia.com/ (Urban, Street art)

http://notsonoisy.com/ (Interesting Projects)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYk0I5lY9Tg (worlds largest drum machine)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv8kNTH-KDY (Spray paint)

These are just a few to get us loking at different idea's, even is u draw nothing from the idea's, maybe you will get something from the theme, or something from the graphics or the style.

Preparation for tomorrow

2010-11-09T11:38:00.000-08:00

Ok, well we know we are going to be aked how our project differs from Audio Space and also DJ Band. We have to all be prepared for the questions.

Audio Space: Floor emotion is based on feelings and through audio and visual techniques the user will express these. Our project will not allow the user to create their own audio as we are creating the sequences. The user interaction is to chose one of them by selecting a emotion. Also, we do not want to have our display in a room for the exhibition. We would like to have it out in the open for people to watch and want to interact with.

DJ Band: It differs to DJ Band because our sequence dictates the tempo/speed the user moves. The combination of our audio and our visuals will create this expierance of the users chosen emotion.

That is example of answer, if you want to tweak it or beef it out please blog it so we are all in tune!

Final Parts for Presentation

2010-11-08T09:09:00.001-08:00

Hi everyone, it was only me and Neo at the meeting today, the presentation has to be on the machine by 5 tomorrow, so what everybody has to do for tomorrow is what I said yesterday, no matter what everybody has to elaborate on their speech from last week and have everything they want on the presentation in bullet point form, also anyone that wants graphics/images will have to bring them in with them tomorrow.

One more thing, James do you fancy coming to our class at 9 in the morning, the four of us are there and Kieran is letting us work on our presentation, and i'm not being bad but I think Tunde James And Sammy are going to have to miss audio.. Me and Neo are off at 1 for the day and we really really need to get this nailed early in the day so we can practice and make any changes..

What do you's think??

Presentation

2010-11-07T08:02:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone, i don't know if you have seen the email. Our presentation is at 25 past 12. We are the second last group. I don't know whether that is a good thing or a bad thing... but it is what it is, I have been looking at this flash presentation and it seems to be more difficult to do than I thought. I'll keep at it, but for tomorrow everybody storyboard what you want on your slides, even do it on paper because the font, colour etc all have to be the same throughout the hole thing. Any graphics you need, design/Download them for tomorrow. We need to get a good start on this tomorrow. I'd even like to have it done tomorrow so we can be tweeking it on tuesday.

One more thing, I think that the visuals slide to our presentation is still way too weak, so for tomorrow if everyone researches 1 mood and visuals that correspond with it, will take 15minutes, and bring in an example of it(Even just a jpg)..

Mock Presentations (roles etc.)

2010-11-03T10:40:00.000-07:00

Today we finalized the finishing touches on the roles for the mock presentation on the 4/11/10.

James= He is going to read out the sentence that we have constructed as a group on what our project is/going to be in one sentence. He is also going to give the introduction and a brief run through what our project is.

Sammy= She is going to come in then and go through the feeling/emotions theme to our project. What way we are planning on basing the project around this theme and some mediums in which we are going to use to portray this.

Tunde= Since Sammy has been working very closely with Tunde because audio is the main way in which our user will experience the theme of feelings, he will be the next speaker. He will describe the work and research we have done to make a user feel emotions and certain moods through audio.

Paul= I will then come on and describe the hardware, how it is going to be built? How it is going to look? And, what materials will be used in the making of it. I will also mention the visuals that we are planning on using, there is still some decisions open for debate on the way we are going to do this. We have numerous ideas of implementing emotions through visuals. To be decided later!

Neo=Neo will then come on describe the technical side of our projects. The way in which the switches will work and the way in which the audio will be interactive to the user. How the user will interact with the audio through the sequence method that we have designed.

We will meet tomorrow from 11 to 12 and put together a little powerpoint presentation and practice by presenting it to another group in our class..

Mock Presentation

2010-10-31T09:49:00.001-07:00

This Thursday is our mock presentations are on. We must follow the list of deliverables that our on our brief, we plan to split the presentation up into 5 different sections so we can all speak about what our project is and talk about the different areas that we are all planning on working on individually. Some of the deliverables include gantt charts etc...

We have to meet up before wednesdays class so when do ya's want to meet up?? Like what suits everyone, i'm easy!!

Development of the Idea

2010-10-28T12:39:00.000-07:00

Our idea has come along a lot since we first came up with it a few days ago.

The slant we decided to put on it to make it more original was to base the concept of our idea around the theme of feelings. In the first week our lecturers asked us what do we want the user to feel, with this idea the user can feel whatever they want to feel (they can choose from a selection of feelings for example angry, sad, happy etc). We plan to convey these feelings by letting the user interact with different genre's of audio/music i.e. heavy metal for angry etc.

How is the project going to work??

Well for example taking the genre of Happy, and that the user has decided to play the drums from our instrumental floor, a happy song (upbeat and relaxing) would be playing in the background. However the song would be minus the drum element that we would have subtracted from the song, we will take the complete drum part to the song and slice it up into small segments (parts), we will then encode all of these segments into a sequence that the user would have to reproduce by physically standing on the drum section of our instrumental floor and stepping on the parts of the drum that light up to keep the sequence going and the song flowing.

If it is the happy genre that is selected, the song/sequence would be nice and slow and easy to keep the happy feeling flowing. We will explore a lot more feelings that can be expressed through this means. For example if the user wants to feel energetic/active we could have a nice fast paced song and a rapid moving sequence to make the user move quickly.

We will research this area a lot more and see what else we can incorporate in. We are excited about this new idea and feel strongly that it is original enough to get the go ahead from our presentations, with a bit of luck...!!

New Member / Roles within the group

2010-10-28T10:14:00.000-07:00

Today, a new member joined our group, WELCOME SAMMY! :)

and with this new entry to the group, we have also been thinking about group project roles, and after meeting, we have decided upon our roles:

James - Project Manager / All-rounder

Paul - Concept Development / Graphics/ Programmer

Tunde - Audio

Neo - Programmer

Sammy - Interaction Design

These group roles will give us a clear indication of how we ourselves will go about creating the project. Also, I set up a forum for us to privately chat.... http://floormotion.forummotions.com/forum.htm

Who, What, Why, How???

2010-10-28T08:56:00.000-07:00

Our instrumental floor now has feelings! we based our new idea around feelings so that the user has more of an involvement emotionally to the project, we feel this adds a greater spin on the idea, and allows it to develop more personally with each individual. We have been researching constantly since the change of our idea at this late time. but we have a solid idea of where we are heading now...

Who? - The project its aimed at people who want to express feelings through music, wether they are musically experienced or not. And the age group we have on it is, 13+ (because we felt that any age younger would not be able to experience or understand the emotive side of the project).

What? - The User will be interacting with audio sounds, through a sequence, and expressing their feelings through sounds

Why? - we aim to create a unique experience (that hopefully a user will want to use) by expressing emotion through interactive audio.

How? - Right now we are not worrying about this part of the project and will comeback to it, after presentations, but to give a short insight to the project... We will be using an interactive floor idea, with musical instruments. These instruments will be active through touch, and since its o the ground, the user will be interacting with it through there feet. They can choose an emotion to use to coincide with each instrument, just for example, angry, they will be playing a fast beat, sad, they will be playing a slow beat etc.

That is what we have come up with in the space of literally 2 days, so I think good progress, we will post up mockups of the design as soon as we can, but for now, let your imagination wonder.

New Idea

2010-10-27T05:58:00.000-07:00

After extensive research previous to this idea, we seemed to get caught out by our supervisor's at every corner that we took, so we decided to take a step back, and look at the project from a user and outsiders point of view. After doing some research on different projects, Paul came up with a great idea, having found inspiration from a film.... The idea was to have a floor that the user could interact with and turn it into different musical instruments... I thought, "GENIOUS". We were not getting good feedback through our other project and found that there were a lot of loose ends with the project, that not many members of the group could get to grips with or understand. Myself and Paul, met up this morning and went through the fundamental plot of the new idea he had in mind, and after he explained it, I was on board, so from now on, we will be working on a (currently untitled project) interactive instrumental floor.

The floor will be aimed at people who have no musical expirience, and no interest in learning how to play an instrument, but just want to have fun with different sounds. You do not have to know how to play it (of course it would help), but just experiment around with different sounds of the instruments under your feet (or you could get down on your knee's and play).

We will be designing how the floor looks using Adobe workstations (perhaps Photoshop/Illustrator), and have contacts if in case any construction is needed to build anything. Of course we are going to try create less hassle then anything else, but worst case scenario... we do have people. We have talked about what material the floor will be constructed out of, and we have settled on a plastic sheet, with the instruments printed onto it.

After, the first (mini) meeting we had today, we decided to stick to this idea, as time was becoming late in terms of project and presentation times. But at the same time, it is something we as a group are interested in doing. We are looking forward to getting on with this project. After researching it this morning, I could find anything that was related to what we want to do (then again the web is a big place), so for this reason, I am happy to be participating in something that hasnt been tried many times before...

Twitter

2010-10-26T13:08:00.000-07:00

I just set up a twitter account for us at

http://twitter.com/Loopz_dkit

Putting Our Spin On Our Idea

2010-10-26T11:25:00.000-07:00

James I was checking out completely different ideas that you can interact with audio, I was searching the internet and came up with the idea of kinda using the idea that we had originally, but instead of a touch screen put it on the floor.... Not exactly what we planned originally we can explore different things/ways of putting stuff down, we can incorporate visuals too, check out these links. I got the idea from the film big, check this out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KosJK_ZMMu0 and here is a link to a page that is exploring the idea even further http://www.gesturetek.com/gesturefx/introduction.php?gclid=CNy4ipqF8aQCFQ_-2AodjyYx2Q. I think we could do something really cool if we mixed both, what do ya think??

Logo

2010-10-26T10:47:00.000-07:00

In our recent meeting, we were discussing the design and interface design of our project, all group members will be working closely together to get the look and feel of the design correct, and rightfully reflecting the aim and idea of the project. We discussed the logo design of the project, this will have to be made as soon as the we get the go ahead from our supervisor's as to promote and 'sell' the project, and as to give it a sort of "Brand" feeling. We were thinking that, since the name of the project (so far) is Loopz, it will have a kind of spiral or circular feeling (is what I'm thinking anyway). Some colour schemes I am looking at, at the moment are, Grey, Blue, Yellow. Obviously these will not be the defined final colours that will be used but thats just my idea so far, and things are liable to change in these early days, as I said, we still havn't got the go ahead for the project. But, Soon..........

Group Meetings

2010-10-24T03:18:00.000-07:00

Our last class, we decided that our meetings would take place before the wednesday class. we have yet to decide when the time will be, but all of us are still researching our idea's and keeping each other informed of our progress with their part of the project, be it promotion, research etc. we are all doing our part. Our project will be aimed at people who know nothing about music, our project will hopefully ecourage them to have fun with different sounds and audio. We are trying to envisage how we will finally implement this, possibly a game, or a simple sequence, either way we are exploring a multitude of different ways of how a user may be attracted to using this final project, and how they will interact with it.

I have been delegated the role of project manager, while the other roles of who will take on audio, visuals, programming have yet to be properly assigned, we will all be helping each other in these areas.

While researching this morning, I thought I would throw up a few images so that people have a bit of an idea of what our group wants to do...

Recent inspiration

2010-10-22T01:18:00.000-07:00

Show this in class yesterday by the lecturer, this is a similar idea to the one our group want to implement, which I found was great inspiration, check out this website, for an idea of what is ahead for us, also check the vid: http://www.beatbearing.co.uk/

Loopz

2010-10-21T09:22:00.000-07:00

This is the first post of the DkIT CM3 Project Loopz. Loopz is an interactive audio piece that aims to inspire the user to have fun and enjoy audio sounds. The Group Consists of James Butterly, Tunde Esho, Paul Genockey and Chenhao Pang.

Our idea, is aimed at people who don't know anything about music and wish to mess around in a creative way to get a better understanding of sounds and structure