Last week

Last week till the final presentation. Just some thoughts and list of things I am still working on that are yet to complete. I will be hunting on the materials for flashlight and stand first. Then sound I might make my own sound effects with garageband and also download some sound effects and free source (freesound.org) then mix them in Adobe Audition.

1. Sound (ambience, SFX)
2. Special crafted Flashlight
3. Stand for sensor and laptop

 

Another thing that I am a little worry is the exportation of the sketch it seems to be abit laggy in windows but work perfectly fine in Mac. As when I preview the sketch in Processing in windows, it starts to take quite some time to run it. One last thing is that i bought USB 3.0 extension cable for the sensor has arrived but I am not sure if I want to use it during presentation or not because of the laggy-ness of the sketch, I am afraid using an extension will worsen the situation.

 

Processing little bugs

Processing is making me frustrated. The functions that are called and run cannot be called again. The mousepressed sometimes works like click once sometime like mouse hold. driving me crazyyyyyyyy

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UPDATES:

I revolved the function rerun again by separating them into new tabs, instead of in the same file, now everything looks neater.

Sensor > Wii mote situation

There’s a minor problem with the may flash sensor bar to wiimote. The sensor needs to be connected to the laptop, while the laptop needs to be connected to the projector. And of course for the set up, I want the sensor bar to be as minimal  as possible so that it won’t disturb the experience of user navigating the screen. I tested using an USB extension cable to connect sensor to laptop but the connection signal became really weak, sometimes it’s even not detecting it. The extension is used so that I can hide the laptop and project behind somewhere that is not visible. 

I talked to my lecturer about it he suggested that it might be the cable signal not strong enough, can try getting an extension that has a booster signal or it might even be the sensor itself cannot support. So I need to have a back up plan, to design a sensor stand that can hide a laptop with it. In the meantime I’ll try to get the USB extension cable with booster as well. 

Progress Updates in class

We had our WIP updates on last Thursday in class with some creative industry guests from C27 company. I presented my project by giving a short introduction about the project issue, concept and solution then gave a short demo on my progress with what I have produced so far.

• connecting Wiimote to the laptop with sensor bar and wireless connection
• Landing page with video background
• instruction page with auto proceed to next scene after seconds
• flashlight effect following the mouse cursor
• click on shapes (placeholder for animals), and triggered video (placeholder for motion graphic)

Below is the screenshot of what I shown them.

//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js
 

 

Feedbacks

After presenting and showing the demo, they gave me some valuable feedbacks on the user journey and experience. They said that my current flow might be abit too repetitive even though there will be a new vision filter each time user found an animal, it seems to be less things to explore as there’s only 1 scene to look for all the animals. They suggested that maybe I can show other scenes instead when ex: user found an owl, the next scene will be an owl vision and a different view from human. Even more, if its owl vision, then it should sees better, maybe removing the flashlight effect and seeing thru owl’s eyes. The other thing that they mentioned which I think I should really make a decision asap, when user found an animal and see thru that animal’s eyes, does it stays at that animal’s vision till they found the next one or the animal vision simulation will go back to human’s one after some time.

These are the feedbacks I got that I think its really important and worth-well. I should really re-plan, ponder and reorganise my user journey flow.

Review: List of Tasks

Semester Break List of Tasks

According to the gantt chart I created, during the sem break these are the things that I should be doing and check out.

Technical:

• prototype & troubleshoot, < 50% completeness

Content:

• refine narrative plan
• choose and compile animal’s information

Visuals:

• explore possible art styles
• draft of animal’s infographic
• create mood board

*strike = checked out

Well, honestly I did not complete all of them but will make myself to complete them asap. Therefore, some modification will be made in the Gantt chart to tally with my progress.

Zoology <3

Absolutely love this art style! And I even message the artist about how she made it haha So basically she use Illustrator is create the vector shapes, then use Photoshop to add texture, lighting. This might be my new benchmark of visual art style, cause it looks clean but at the same time mysterious and rich with the texture overlay.

Processing or HTML5?

In my plan of choosing the suitable technical platforms, I did struggle abit because I dont know and not really sure about my capability.

First of all, my initial plan was processing because my benchmark used processing. I was thinking processing is a confirm possibility for my project. But there will be a lot of challenges..

• new learning of programming language on my own
• No tutors to help in my coding
• Tim constraint for me to learn a new language while building for my project

Therefore, I look to another alternative of using HTML5. Something that I am familiar with and have used for a number of projects. But then it will be like I’m staying in my own comfort zone…

Should I take up the challenge ?

“As humans, we rely on vision and are less aware of the nocturnal world,” said Noga Kronfeld-Schor, a biologist at Tel Aviv University. “Many of us are afraid of night creatures, and it is more difficult to see and study them.”

“Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.” – Midfield Interactive

Idea #2 it is!

 

 

Source: Pinterest

 

Decided to go with idea #2 (nocturnal animals) as the contents of it are much more solid compared to idea #1  (graffiti wall) but it will sure have more risks in the technical/execution parts.

I will work on some research and meet with Lin Yew for my first tutorial session and update it on the blog.