Monday, 30 May 2011
DSDN 142 Project 3
I finished my animation on Saturday and tomorrow is the presentation. I am quite proud of the way it turned out. After showing it to some people at the hall I found that with out any knowledge about what the animation was about people did not get it. Once I explained that it was a metaphor for a coding operation, those who had experience with coding all knew straight away that it represented a loop. Those without knowledge of coding got what the metaphor was after an explanation on what a loop is and how it works, and generally thought it was a good metaphor.
Another aspect that people were impressed about after seeing other animations I have done this year was how smooth the car moved compared to my normally jerky animations.
From what I have observed, I believe that the metaphor I have made is a strong metaphor that helps people with little knowledge of loop to understand them.
Another aspect that people were impressed about after seeing other animations I have done this year was how smooth the car moved compared to my normally jerky animations.
From what I have observed, I believe that the metaphor I have made is a strong metaphor that helps people with little knowledge of loop to understand them.
Saturday, 14 May 2011
DSDN 142 Project 3 interim presentation
Yesterday I had an interim presentation to the class about my ideas for the third project. Due to my busy week my ideas were not yet fully formed, but from what I come up with so far the strongest metaphor for a loop was the racing car track.
When we first broke off into our groups to discuss our ideas the group suggested trying to make the track using slot cars. I thought this was a cool idea and so did the tutors but due to the probably high cost and my little knowledge of slot cars the idea was dismissed. Instead I decided to show my metaphor through a short animation.
When I went up to present my idea to the whole class the idea of using fuel was thought to be a bit too much for the loop and so was taken out, instead just focusing on the laps left which gave a clearer idea of how the variables change over time. Also I have to come up with a way to show the laps left without using numbers as the tutors that using numbers would be to obvious and that a more subtle way of showing the laps left would produce a better result.
Overall the tutors thought my metaphor to be very strong which makes me confident going further into this project.
Monday, 2 May 2011
Final hand in for project 2
Over the easter break I made very few adjustments to how the program actually worked. Most of the work that I did on the assignment was to make the code easier to read and commenting the code to make it understandable.
There were two changes I made to the program. The first was originally the sound made was based on the x position of the ball on the screen. I changed this to the x position of the blocks that the ball collided with, as this seemed to make more logical sense.
The other change I made to the code was make it so that when the down key is pressed the ball changed color. When the ball is white it bounces better than when the ball is black. I added this because the white ball makes more interesting sounds when thrown around the screen but if it is bouncing in one place it can take a long time for it to stop moving, which makes an annoying sound. The black ball stops bouncing a lot faster and is not so annoying but can but does not make as interesting sound.
I will try to post it on the blog but I am having problems with uploading it to open processing which is why the reserved space in the last post is still there.
As a final note, which I forgot to put in my code, thanks to Richard Marxer for his fisica libary, it helped me HEAPS!
There were two changes I made to the program. The first was originally the sound made was based on the x position of the ball on the screen. I changed this to the x position of the blocks that the ball collided with, as this seemed to make more logical sense.
The other change I made to the code was make it so that when the down key is pressed the ball changed color. When the ball is white it bounces better than when the ball is black. I added this because the white ball makes more interesting sounds when thrown around the screen but if it is bouncing in one place it can take a long time for it to stop moving, which makes an annoying sound. The black ball stops bouncing a lot faster and is not so annoying but can but does not make as interesting sound.
I will try to post it on the blog but I am having problems with uploading it to open processing which is why the reserved space in the last post is still there.
As a final note, which I forgot to put in my code, thanks to Richard Marxer for his fisica libary, it helped me HEAPS!
Thursday, 14 April 2011
Final presentation for Project 2
I have finished my project for the final presentation of it today. Changes i have made to it since the last version include adding color, moving the edges off screen, adding sound to collisions, removing the possibility to move the bottom blocks with your mouse and adding a top layer of blocks which can be moved with the mouse.
Adding sound was not difficult but I had to redo the code a couple of times until I got the code working as I wanted. One problem I had was defining the sounds in the right place. Also at one point when I was first testing the sound I had the sounds sharing a name with another variable which cause a whole lot of problems which would not let the program play. After identifying the problems it was easy enough to fix.
One interesting addition were the blocks along the to that can be moved around the screen. While playing around with the code and trying to make each note block and individual object which could be have methods called on it I deleted the original code for the blocks. When I decided to base the sound played off the position of the ball I no longer needed the blocks as individual objects so copied the code from the previous version to this version, which still had the blocks as movable objects. After I decided the screen looked a little bland so added the top blocks. While testing the program I notice that the block could still be moved so after setting the bottom ones to non movable objects I left the top row as movable as I believe it made it more interesting.
(this space is reserved for the sketch which did not upload properly to Open Processing.)
One of the main thoughts I have for changing the program is to make the sound based on the position of the blocks instead of the ball and changing octave compared to how high the block is off the ground. I do not believe this would be hard to code, but to make all the sound files would take some time. Also I find the sound gets annoying after awhile, so I am considering trying to find better sounds.
Adding sound was not difficult but I had to redo the code a couple of times until I got the code working as I wanted. One problem I had was defining the sounds in the right place. Also at one point when I was first testing the sound I had the sounds sharing a name with another variable which cause a whole lot of problems which would not let the program play. After identifying the problems it was easy enough to fix.
One interesting addition were the blocks along the to that can be moved around the screen. While playing around with the code and trying to make each note block and individual object which could be have methods called on it I deleted the original code for the blocks. When I decided to base the sound played off the position of the ball I no longer needed the blocks as individual objects so copied the code from the previous version to this version, which still had the blocks as movable objects. After I decided the screen looked a little bland so added the top blocks. While testing the program I notice that the block could still be moved so after setting the bottom ones to non movable objects I left the top row as movable as I believe it made it more interesting.
(this space is reserved for the sketch which did not upload properly to Open Processing.)
One of the main thoughts I have for changing the program is to make the sound based on the position of the blocks instead of the ball and changing octave compared to how high the block is off the ground. I do not believe this would be hard to code, but to make all the sound files would take some time. Also I find the sound gets annoying after awhile, so I am considering trying to find better sounds.
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Playing With Fisics
This is the sketch that I did to find out weather my idea would work. The first sketch I did (not posted)I didn't use a physics library and the movement was odd and did not look natural. Also the code that I used gave to much control of the ball to the user. With the use of the physics library, fisica, the control factor was lessened by the fact that the arrow keys accelerate the ball. This means that the speed at which the ball goes is not set so that things that you expect to happen may not straight away as the ball still has some motion in the opposite direction.
One problem i had with implementing the arrow keys on the keyboard was that the ball variable was defined inside the setup method. This meant that the balls position could only be changed inside the setup method. To fix this the ball was defined outside of any method so that it could be manipulated by multiple methods.
Something I noticed only after uploading it to Open Processing is that the blocks and ball can be manipulated buy the mouse. this is unintended and I plan to change this for the note blocks but may leave it in for the ball as it gives it that extra bit of interactivity.
Finally the edges of the world can be seen on screen and when hit will change color as well. I don't like this and I believe there is a method some where in the library that allows me to make the edges appear off screen but still cause the ball to stay in the confines of the screen.
So far i think this project has been good as it has taught me about how to use libraries from outside Processing's own. It has been difficult but interesting going trough the Fisica documentation finding methods that do what I want to do and then trying to implement them. One such example is the contact method which is what I used to make the note blocks change color when the ball collides with them. The examples that came with the library helped me immensely with this.
Next I have to add sound to the sketch so that when the ball hits the different note blocks they make an individual sound.
One problem i had with implementing the arrow keys on the keyboard was that the ball variable was defined inside the setup method. This meant that the balls position could only be changed inside the setup method. To fix this the ball was defined outside of any method so that it could be manipulated by multiple methods.
Something I noticed only after uploading it to Open Processing is that the blocks and ball can be manipulated buy the mouse. this is unintended and I plan to change this for the note blocks but may leave it in for the ball as it gives it that extra bit of interactivity.
Finally the edges of the world can be seen on screen and when hit will change color as well. I don't like this and I believe there is a method some where in the library that allows me to make the edges appear off screen but still cause the ball to stay in the confines of the screen.
So far i think this project has been good as it has taught me about how to use libraries from outside Processing's own. It has been difficult but interesting going trough the Fisica documentation finding methods that do what I want to do and then trying to implement them. One such example is the contact method which is what I used to make the note blocks change color when the ball collides with them. The examples that came with the library helped me immensely with this.
Next I have to add sound to the sketch so that when the ball hits the different note blocks they make an individual sound.
Friday, 1 April 2011
Project two- what have I done so far
The two images below are ideas for the interactive program i have to write for this project. The first image shows the basic idea which is a ball which can be manipulated around the screen and hit the 'key' blocks and make them make a sound. next to that is a variation which is a circle. The notes around the outside are from the first presentation and are based off ideas that the tutors gave to me.
The second image shows further variation. One is like a platform video game where you can jump on to the different platforms and make them make noise. the second has two rows of keys and two balls either controlled together or separately, I am not sure which yet.
My idea for this came from the two sketches from the last post. My original idea was to make an environment where a character can interact with objects in the world much like the mouse thief character, and could jump when you clicked the mouse like the fur ball. After a lecture in which Angela showed us a video of Norman McLean's Synchronomy (1971), I thought that the basic shapes and colors would look better than a more complex design of say flowers and drums like I was planning.
The first thing I hope to achieve is to get the first idea working and then maybe after that work on some of the other ideas.
The second image shows further variation. One is like a platform video game where you can jump on to the different platforms and make them make noise. the second has two rows of keys and two balls either controlled together or separately, I am not sure which yet.
My idea for this came from the two sketches from the last post. My original idea was to make an environment where a character can interact with objects in the world much like the mouse thief character, and could jump when you clicked the mouse like the fur ball. After a lecture in which Angela showed us a video of Norman McLean's Synchronomy (1971), I thought that the basic shapes and colors would look better than a more complex design of say flowers and drums like I was planning.
The first thing I hope to achieve is to get the first idea working and then maybe after that work on some of the other ideas.
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