Some Days You Throw All Your Work Away
posted by Kevin Williams at
9:02 AM
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9.11.2008
1.23.2008
10.02.2007
New AVP2 Trailer on IGN
http://www.avp-r.com/
Labels: projects
posted by Kevin Williams at
10:05 PM
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9.27.2007
1.30.2007
Paper Shoes Lives
It seems like every few months this project dies and comes back to life. It's based around the question "Can you try your hardest and still fail?" and every time we make a little more progress, I feel like we are carrying on the spirit of the piece.
My senior project, which is a collaberation between myself, Alexander Manresa, and Rob T. Miller with the help of Sean Feeley and Kyle Mohr; and yes, Thomas Kim pulling together a background - is back on track after nearly a year on hiatus.
A small technical background - During the Summer of 2004, we started preproduction, storyboarding, design, and modeling. This was on Maya 6.0x. During the Fall and Winder of '04, we rigged, prevised, and began animation. This was no small feat - none of us had done a short film before, and we were going to do dancing. Ballet dancing.
Maya 6.5 was released, but we didn't start using it until the labs at SCAD upgraded. I was working off of my own computer during the summer, and I didn't update either. I was apprehensive about upgrading, but it actually worked better. 6.5 was the most stable release since 4.5.
We weren't able to complete animation by the time we graduated, but we had built most of the assets. We needed to texture, light, shade, and render. There were a few shots to finish animating, but nothing undoable.
Then came Maya 7.0. Maya 7.0 had several errors in the file referencing, and it would not hook up the animation curves to the control curves. I believe this was in the namespaces, which is a confirmed bug. I had access to Maya 6.5 for awhile, and continued to work on it.
Most people upgraded to 7.0, and I upgraded to be able to continue working on other projects. Originally my plan was to write a script to connect the attributes of the anim curve nodes to the appropriate controller, but a cross country move and a couple months of switching jobs pushed Paper Shoes to the back burner.
Today, I upgraded to Maya 7.01 after reading the fix list - there were about a dozen fixes. As far as I can tell, the only problem is in Nemi's spine - it doesn't seem to be connecting the arcLen node to the spineScaleFactor node. That's a simple fix, and all the animation has transferred over correctly.
I'm pumped. I feel like I can get this done in a matter of weeks, which in real world time translates to months. I'm hoping to get some support and get things DONE so I can share it with all of you. I've learned so much in the last year, I can't wait to throw it all at this project.
Ugh. Time to stock up on Red Bull.
My senior project, which is a collaberation between myself, Alexander Manresa, and Rob T. Miller with the help of Sean Feeley and Kyle Mohr; and yes, Thomas Kim pulling together a background - is back on track after nearly a year on hiatus.
A small technical background - During the Summer of 2004, we started preproduction, storyboarding, design, and modeling. This was on Maya 6.0x. During the Fall and Winder of '04, we rigged, prevised, and began animation. This was no small feat - none of us had done a short film before, and we were going to do dancing. Ballet dancing.
Maya 6.5 was released, but we didn't start using it until the labs at SCAD upgraded. I was working off of my own computer during the summer, and I didn't update either. I was apprehensive about upgrading, but it actually worked better. 6.5 was the most stable release since 4.5.
We weren't able to complete animation by the time we graduated, but we had built most of the assets. We needed to texture, light, shade, and render. There were a few shots to finish animating, but nothing undoable.
Then came Maya 7.0. Maya 7.0 had several errors in the file referencing, and it would not hook up the animation curves to the control curves. I believe this was in the namespaces, which is a confirmed bug. I had access to Maya 6.5 for awhile, and continued to work on it.
Most people upgraded to 7.0, and I upgraded to be able to continue working on other projects. Originally my plan was to write a script to connect the attributes of the anim curve nodes to the appropriate controller, but a cross country move and a couple months of switching jobs pushed Paper Shoes to the back burner.
Today, I upgraded to Maya 7.01 after reading the fix list - there were about a dozen fixes. As far as I can tell, the only problem is in Nemi's spine - it doesn't seem to be connecting the arcLen node to the spineScaleFactor node. That's a simple fix, and all the animation has transferred over correctly.
I'm pumped. I feel like I can get this done in a matter of weeks, which in real world time translates to months. I'm hoping to get some support and get things DONE so I can share it with all of you. I've learned so much in the last year, I can't wait to throw it all at this project.
Ugh. Time to stock up on Red Bull.
Labels: animation, character, film, paperShoes, projects, self promotion
posted by Kevin Williams at
11:13 PM
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1.05.2007
Games
I have subscribed to PysOrg.com's RSS feed to dig up interesting science tid bits to be used in A4H. Today, however, an article turned up that related to a meeting at work.
The department I'm in, Branded Entertainment, is studying what makes games fun. One of the things that we discussed was the difficulty of the objective - what makes it fun.
We had a good discussion. Then I read this article about a simulation where a computer plays ping pong against a human wearing lenticular goggles.
http://www.physorg.com/news87121098.html
"The avatar itself played quite human-like. It could adjust its level in response to its human opponent, in a sense mimicking the human—although the scientists programmed the computer to perform slightly superior to the human for greater enjoyment. By restricting the area of the table where the avatar hits the ball on the human’s side, as well as restricting the height and speed of the ball, the scientists could program different degrees of difficulty. Further, they could allow the avatar to make occasional mistakes by adding random noise, and even make the avatar fatigued by increasing noise over the game. "
This is exactly what we were talking about. The computer is an opponent who can be flawless. The computer actually has to be programmed to lose. In this simulation, the user is giving a problem, a computer opponent who can to play perfectly, and a slight edge. As long as the user has more stamina and accurracy than the computer is programmed to have, the user will get a workout and a win.
When you exercise, muscle mass gets built from the resistence of the weights. It tears down your body a bit, your body builds itself back up, and you feel better.
Playing a one player game, like Solitaire, Tetris, a crossword puzzle, etc. generally means being given a puzzle, a rule, and a chance to break the rule. This rule provides resistance that provides a challenge. The rule breaker helps make it slightly more achievable, and create an environment that fosters strategy.
In solitaire, the puzzle is in how you arrange the cards. The rule is that you can't place cards on blank spaces. The rule breaker is you can put Kings down in blank spaces. Without the rule breaker you would have to recieve a deal in which all four kings were at the bottom of separate piles, a pretty unlikely occurrance.
In Tetris, the challenge is to keep the playing area from filling up with blocks. The rule is that the blocks do not go away. The rule breaker is that if you fill up one line with no gaps, that line dissappears.
In a crossword puzzle, you are given one hint and must come up with the word with the same number of letters. Because the words cross, answering one question correctly gives a hint at the other words. Answering it wrong keeps you from getting all the clues right.
Ok, maybe that's a bad example. I was trying to avoid using video games. The idea is a bit of a work in progress, but it's interesting.
The department I'm in, Branded Entertainment, is studying what makes games fun. One of the things that we discussed was the difficulty of the objective - what makes it fun.
We had a good discussion. Then I read this article about a simulation where a computer plays ping pong against a human wearing lenticular goggles.
http://www.physorg.com/news87121098.html
"The avatar itself played quite human-like. It could adjust its level in response to its human opponent, in a sense mimicking the human—although the scientists programmed the computer to perform slightly superior to the human for greater enjoyment. By restricting the area of the table where the avatar hits the ball on the human’s side, as well as restricting the height and speed of the ball, the scientists could program different degrees of difficulty. Further, they could allow the avatar to make occasional mistakes by adding random noise, and even make the avatar fatigued by increasing noise over the game. "
This is exactly what we were talking about. The computer is an opponent who can be flawless. The computer actually has to be programmed to lose. In this simulation, the user is giving a problem, a computer opponent who can to play perfectly, and a slight edge. As long as the user has more stamina and accurracy than the computer is programmed to have, the user will get a workout and a win.
When you exercise, muscle mass gets built from the resistence of the weights. It tears down your body a bit, your body builds itself back up, and you feel better.
Playing a one player game, like Solitaire, Tetris, a crossword puzzle, etc. generally means being given a puzzle, a rule, and a chance to break the rule. This rule provides resistance that provides a challenge. The rule breaker helps make it slightly more achievable, and create an environment that fosters strategy.
In solitaire, the puzzle is in how you arrange the cards. The rule is that you can't place cards on blank spaces. The rule breaker is you can put Kings down in blank spaces. Without the rule breaker you would have to recieve a deal in which all four kings were at the bottom of separate piles, a pretty unlikely occurrance.
In Tetris, the challenge is to keep the playing area from filling up with blocks. The rule is that the blocks do not go away. The rule breaker is that if you fill up one line with no gaps, that line dissappears.
In a crossword puzzle, you are given one hint and must come up with the word with the same number of letters. Because the words cross, answering one question correctly gives a hint at the other words. Answering it wrong keeps you from getting all the clues right.
Ok, maybe that's a bad example. I was trying to avoid using video games. The idea is a bit of a work in progress, but it's interesting.
Labels: A4H, design, directors, Feed on This, games, interactivity, internet, life, links, projects, ramblings, the buddy group, theory, work
posted by Kevin Williams at
12:18 AM
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