It was a busy weekend for team Growl. The countdown is on for the debut of our Hydropic Project and we’re concentrating on all aspects right down to the marketing….or the lack of. So to get us started we stepped out of the box and decided to combine two great things people love. Unconventional marketing and cookies!
The Ben's showing off their work.
That’s right, fish shaped sugar cookies decorated in blue homemade frosting. Keep an eye open because they could be showing up in a lobby near you.
In addition to all this awesomeness we now have the coolest frame to a three walled projection screen NMTP has ever EVER seen on this side of the Mississippi. Lets watch from start to end.
First we got a plan….
Then we assemble the parts
That all came out of Neon. Just try to imagine, halarious!
It’s been a rough few weeks for Team Growl, while the looming deadline of ImagineRIT is coming soon, there is also much work to be done to secure plans for after graduation. However, that has not stopped out Team from accomplishing great work!
A major part of our project is the physical aspect to it, without the proper screens and controlling devices to support our idea the overall atmosphere of the game might not be realized. This is a picture of Nycole with a screen.
Note the bubble print skirt. That’s called attention to detail, kids.
The designers did things too. Here are some comps.
Cool right?!
Totally badass? You bet.
We’re made of win.
The developers have done stuff too! Development in XNA has had it’s learning curve but overall has been not bad, and even kinda fun!
Stay tuned for branding and more actual code talk.
Coming down to the final month, there is still a lot to do, but so far all looks to be in place to reach the ImagineRIT deadline!
Team growl has been busy since spring break. We are concurrently designing several design directions while improving our prototype.
One of these directions was to continue in the science fiction deep ocean look. We decided that we would continue in this direction and that we needed some further inspiration. A designer meeting of watching James “Jimmy” Cameron’s The Abyss was then scheduled, and there was much rejoicing.
Ragged ocean floors with translucent critters
Another direction was with a more bright geometric sense to it. After critique and further review we decided that we will continue to push this direction into the extremes. It needs to be to fly off the screen and scream “LOOK AT ME! I’M A FUN INSTALLATION!” Which it will.
The third direction took the characters in an illustrated paper look. The initial idea intrigued us but the direction needed further exploration.
On the development side we have a full greybox running! a Greybox is a developed version with very minimal place holder graphics. Flocking, Avatars, USS Enterprises, you name it! We would post pictures but it’s still top secret. Maybe next week we can give a sneak peak. Maybe. We have solidified on a triple-head back-lit projection setup for our installation room. This will give the users the most space without disrupting the projection. We our still exploring several controller ideas, but nothing is set in stone yet. Next blog post we should have some new design revisions and progress on development.
LAST WEEK TEAM GROWL MARCHED INTO AWESOMENESS AND KICKED IT’S ASS!
ARE YOU SITTING DOWN? YOU BETTER BE!!
Objectives were set for a beautifully productive Friday night meeting.
The way team growl approached the meeting was quite simple, come in looking to fix the details of our project and combine/collaborate on design directions. There was also a goal to come up with a functionality list.
TEAM GROWL DESTROYED THESE OBJECTIVES IN A MATTER THAT CAN ONLY BE MILDLY COMPARED TO CHUCK NORRIS IF CHUCK NORRIS HAD CHUCK NORRIS’S INSTEAD OF HANDS AT THE END OF HIS ARMS.(see fig.1)
fig.1: Chuck Norris if Chuck Norris had Chuck Norris for hands.
The design team once again was presented with a problem. And once again left the problem cold and defeated in a dark alley wondering what it did wrong.
CHECK OUT THESE COMPS!!
ARE YOUR EYES BLEEDING?! THAT MUST BE THE AWESOME. I’m sorry to inform you but IT WILL NOT GO AWAY EVER!
THATS RIGHT! TEAM GROWL IS HERE TO STAY*
FINALLY GOT BACK UP TO LOOK AT MORE I SEE! Well LUCKY YOU!! We GOT MORE!!
THIS ONE HAS THE WHOLE FRIGGIN GAME IN IT!?
Wowzers!!!
How could there possibly be more? I mean really…they’re only some students.
FASTEN YOUR SEATBELT! THERE’S MORE!
KAPOW!!!
Wow… Productivity. Awesomeness. Complete.
HOLD ON. BACK UP! THERE’S DEVELOPMENT WORK TOO!?!
You bet your ass there is!!
LOOK AT THIS XNA PROTOTYPE! IS THAT NOT THE MOST AWESOME SCREEN CAP OF AN XNA APPLICATION YOU HAVE SEEN IN 5 MIN?!!
How about some learning and controller action?There’s no way we had any of that…
OH WAIT. WE DID.
…is your mind blown yet?
BECAUSE IT’S ABOUT TO BE!!!!
3D PROTOTYPING!!! + STARSHIP ENTERPRISE!(Bonus points)
…and of course Team Growl had many more prototypes that were TOO GOOD FOR FILM!!!!!!
In short. Team Growl kicks ass like Samuel L Jackson on any normal Tuesday.
The end.
*or the end of the spring quarter…whichever comes first.
**************THE OPINIONS IN THIS BLOG POST (while all completely 100% accurate) ARE NOT REFLECTIVE OF THE ENTIRE GROUP…OR EVEN MOST OF THE GROUP. OR MAYBE ONLY JUST ONE GROUP MEMBER WHO WAS BORED WITH THE BLOG POSTS…IT’S ENTIRELY POSSIBLE.
HE WILL PROBABLY REWRITE ALL OF THIS. HE REGRETS NOTHING.*************
With week 9 underway, we want to have prototypes prepped for our final presentation, both code-wise and design-wise. The designers all brought research to discuss their individual design directions, as each is developing a skin for the interface wireframe to be combined later.
Rachel’s moodboard further developed her jellyfish/smoke style. Ben McChesney focused on watercolor style for a new direction to the design. Steph looked up textures and patterns she wanted to use in her wireframe, and also worked on node maps for the game. Ellen looked over the old image boards to dig up styles and details for the interface.
Nycole presented on Unity for the tech side, and Ben McChesney wrote code to play with brush drawing, which we’re looking at using for directing avatars in the game. Matt worked on an initial class diagram, and Gian met with the team again to discuss controllers. This time we discussed using webcams and fingertip gestures for a more organic input than a wii-like controller.
We also had our last book discussion per video as usual.
Ben McChesney and Ellen Rockett recently discussed their findings on coding experiences within Dawes’ book. Ben started the discussion by describing how little things in life can influence one’s coding experience. For instance, Dawes had an old McDonald’s wrapper that intrigued him visually, thus inspiring him to create “McGoogle.” However, although this was a useless project for him, he still was able to learn heavily from the experience. Projects that had no practical use turned out to be great learning tools for Dawes, and he advised the reader to get inspired by outside sources and experiment with code, even if it does not relate to anything that’s currently being worked on.
Another project Ben discussed was a data visualization at the Los Angeles airport, in which Dawes used his webcam. Dawes noticed different patterns of people walking by him, which inspired this visualization. He set up his camera for a certain amount of time and used pixel values to visualize the data of the people walking by, once again making the point that anything in life can inspire a project.
The last point in which Ben made in his discussion was that changing only one or two variables within code can make a large difference in the outcome. He discussed a project about an endless spiral, in which the picture of the end result was shown, to help illustrate this point.
Next, Ellen began discussing different short examples of Dawes experimenting with code in the book. Some examples include how he used code to calculate the distance between two points, a website in which a sound clip plays as the user input moves closer to objects, a Batman visualization in which Dawes used letterforms to recreate images within the retro television show, and a visualization of movie frames. Overall, Dawes felt that as a developer, he notices things that he might find useful as he goes along in his everyday life and he decides to design software to accomplish these desires, which in turn, saves him time later on in his daily activities. For instance, he created software to save bookmarks for his vacation research, so that he did not forget to do so, which saved him time overall by not having to go back and research the same findings repetitively.
The focus of this week’s discussion revolved around the importance of designing a comprehensive experience for users, both in terms of usability, as well as visual appeal.
The first example of this involved a hunk of cheese the author had purchased and had delivered to his home. He admitted that although he could indeed have purchased cheese of equal quality from a local store, the element which made the difference in his purchase was the presentation, or the “experience of getting to the product”. In order to open up the package, he had to first remove the cheese from the plastic, branded shipping package – very high class. Inside, the cheese was wrapped in some ridiculously lavish paper, and sealed with a couple of gaudy stickers branded with the “Harvey Nichols” logo.
While this unnecessarily fancy wrapping job raised the price of the cheese slightly beyond that which could be purchased locally, the author argued that the experience of unwrapping the otherwise mundane product gave it a sense of worth beyond the store-bought variant. Though this may have seemed somewhat preposterous at first, we ultimately decided that products endowed with a special, branded experience of some sort definitely feel more special than more generic product.
Our main discussion on this topic concerned the differences between name-brand cereal and the generic store brands. Many name-brand cereals go out of their way to build an experience over that of the store brands. Between mascots, colorful box art, and hidden toys, nobody contested that the “experience” around brand-name cereal is far superior to those surrounding the more generic brands.
Another interesting example we discussed is how the flashy 3D presentation for James Cameron’s Avatar was likely the largest contributing factor to the film’s humungous success in theaters. Although the story, dialogue, and characters break no new cinematic ground, the visuals, for once enhanced by 3D, immerse the audience much more effectively than any movie ever has to this point. Without a doubt, the strongest aspect of Avatar is the visual experience.
In short, no matter the quality of a product, the deciding factor of its effectiveness often comes down to one thing: PRESENTATION. The presentation and experience of an otherwise mundane product can ultimately elevate it beyond its competitors, serving as a hook for prospective users or customers.
The next topic of discussion was the importance of effective and intuitive interfaces. The author recalled an instance where he was on an airplane, and his neighbor was having difficulties with a video interface on the back of the seat in front of him. When the man tried to interact with the touch screen, selecting a video to play, the device ended up taking longer than he thought was reasonable. Instead of waiting patiently, the man did what came naturally to people faced with frustratingly slow technology – he punched the button – again and again, harder and harder. While this would ordinarily be a minor problem, this particular interface was mounted directly on the back of the seat in front of him. This way, every time he hammered his finger into the screen, the person sitting in that seat had to suffer having their head pummeled forwards over and over.
One such example of a poor interface we discussed was the confusing layout of burner controls on certain infamous kitchen stoves. While conventional stoves have four burners arranged in a square, many of these stoves do little to indicate to the user which dial controls burner. In addition to being a nuisance, this kind of poor interface can create hazardous conditions, leading to severe bodily harm.
The point of all of this is that a confusing or ineffective interface causes problems for more people than those directly using it. By pounding on the screen, the man seated with the author caused the passenger in the next seat to become agitated, who in turn may have had less patience with others over the course of the day. No matter how impressive the capabilities of a system may be, the whole experience can be quickly ruined by a poor interface. After all – what use is an interface if nobody can figure out how to operate it?
The last subject of discussion focused on the subject of “evidence of use”. The author argues that these marks of physical wear and tear are something that is sorely missing from the digital medium. In a world where everything is sterile and static, he feels that we lose part of “that which makes us human”. Where beloved books have telltale marks such as coffee stains, creases, worn edges, and broken spines which indicate fond use, there are no similar signs of wear on, say, our favorite MP3 files.
While I don’t fully grasp the relevance of this, I understand where he’s coming from. There’s just something comforting and novel about looking through an aged family photo album where all the pictures have been discolored and faded over the years. This same sort of novelty is most certainly lacking from images scanned or transferred into the digital medium. Despite this, I fail to see what such a “wear and tear” feature would add. In my opinion, it’s this level of indefinite preservation which made the digital medium preferable to analog in the first place.
Very productive meeting this Sunday! Gian (our controller expert) came in for the first half to discuss possibilities for controller setups and components. So far, building our own controllers looks like a very manageable and cost-efficient task. However, we still have a lot of research and brainstorming to do! More on this as it unfolds.
We spent the second half of the meeting talking about the progress we’ve made in our teams. On the dev side, we’ve started some rough prototypes and code experiments. Nycole set up a server to run the game in two rooms for both teams.
Ben Mo showed us an RTS “engine” he created featuring knights and castles (still frames can’t really do these justice, but here’s a few screenshots to give you an idea):
Ben Mc set up a sweet demo of flockers with trails in AS3:
We’ve also made some progress on the design side.
Ellen showed us some preliminary underwater terrain sketches she’s been working on with sand and with volcanoes and lava (we liked the idea of integrating the nodes into the environment/story):
And Steph had a few environment concepts as well (using marine life as terrain):
And I started working on some rough character ideas including trail styles (we liked the idea of incorporating angler fish into the character designs, but we felt that considering scale, simpler is better).
Gian also brought up a good point during the meeting–that our game still doesn’t have a strong “hook.” What makes it more than just another wii game? Why is our game unique, unlike all others? We think this is a very important question, so we’re going to take some time to focus on refining the “hook” to our game.
As for the next installment of our discussion meetings, here is the run down about what you will see.
Matt reports to the group what he found to be the strongest points within the reading.
First he explained to us how Dawes actually hooked up his doorbell to go off every time someone visited his site. Although we could see how that was cool,
at the same time we realized how annoying it had to be. The message though wasn’t about the end means but the process to get there. Start from the very beginning with something simple, and then work your way up
Another Strong point was to not try to reinvent the wheel. Multiple times it was discussed how that is true and helpful. If you’re not spending all your time
trying to restart from scratch you have more time to focus on other things like details.
The next topic was a little bit controversial. The section was label Jazz and Computing. The message was if it works go with it, even if it’s hacked. It was argued that enjoy happy mistakes, but from a developers view accidents only mean trouble down the road. With code it’s really black and white with no gray, if something in your code is happening that really shouldn’t you’re probably going to run into an app issue down the road.
Finally Dawes stresses bringing in real life experience into what we do. For example with designing a game, people have a tendency to move around depending on what they do in a game. That gave way to the idea behind the Nitendo Wii.
Tuesday we had our weekly progress meeting with Adam. He seemed more pleased with where we are at with our project, and not totally objecting our direction. Both of which are major pluses. This meeting in particular was really helpful, he helped develop an attack plan on how we’re going to accomplish our idea. It came to an odd looking tree format.
Ok, so it’s an upside down tree but the it put in prospective to what we needed to do next.
We decided to meet after our encounter with Adam and brain storm for our next step. We talked about a setting, characters, environments, and a reason why someone would want to play with our game . All of these elements we decided on would help us develop a story line and game play.
This is what we came up with….
Setting: abstract underwater
Character: abstract creatures based on marine life
- can knock off color
- creatures abilities are linked to what type of creature they are
Totally badass? You bet.
We’re made of win.
