29 January 2014 Production Diary

It's a painful and tiring day today. Today I need to confirm whether continue to explore web socket, which one of our lecturer think that it's a very back end software which is impossible to be learnt in few weeks time, or switch to Adobe Flash which is the software I am more familiar with...

These few days, my researches about HTML5 and web socket never stop:

http://www.html5gamedevelopment.com/html5-game-tutorials

http://blog.kaazing.com/2012/01/26/the-simplest-way-to-use-your-smartphone-as-a-game-controller-a-websocket-race-car-demo/

http://developer.kaazing.com/how-to-use-websocket-to-add-a-mobile-joystick/

http://demo.kaazing.com/frogger/scripts/frogger.js

http://demo.kaazing.com/frogger/scripts/joystick2.js

It's disappointed to say, but I do not have the confident to learn web socket. In the end, I decided to do the game in Adobe Flash, with simple mouse click interaction. 

For the projection mapping, with the software introduce by my lecturer last semester which is Resolume, I manage to find some information about what it can do:

http://resolume.com/software/index.php?qc

http://resolume.com/manual/en/r4/output

http://paulbourke.net/texture_colour/edgeblend/

http://www.blendy.in/

Fortunately, I manage to do simple projection mapping on 3D background with Resolume today before we end our class. The result was quite impressive, and this give me encouragement to continue the project.

References:

Bart Van Der Ploeg, E. D. K. 2012. Resolume VJ Software - Resolume 4 Avenue & Arena Features. [online] Available at: http://resolume.com/software/index.php?qc [Accessed: 29 Jan 2014].

Blendy. 2012. Blendy. [online] Available at: http://www.blendy.in/ [Accessed: 29 Jan 2014].

Html5gamedevelopment.com. 2013. HTML5 Game Dev Tutorials. [online] Available at: http://www.html5gamedevelopment.com/html5-game-tutorials [Accessed: 29 Jan 2014].

Kaazing Developer Network. n.d. How to use WebSocket to add a mobile joystick. [online] Available at: http://developer.kaazing.com/how-to-use-websocket-to-add-a-mobile-joystick/ [Accessed: 27 Jan 2014].

Moskovits, P. 2012. The Simplest Way to Use Your Smartphone as a Game Controller: A WebSocket Race Car Demo. [online] Available at: http://blog.kaazing.com/2012/01/26/the-simplest-way-to-use-your-smartphone-as-a-game-controller-a-websocket-race-car-demo/ [Accessed: 27 Jan 2014].

Paulbourke.net. 2011. Edge blending using commodity projectors. [online] Available at: http://paulbourke.net/texture_colour/edgeblend/ [Accessed: 29 Jan 2014].

Resolume.com. 2013. Output Setup - Resolume 4 Avenue & Arena Manual. [online] Available at: http://resolume.com/manual/en/r4/output [Accessed: 29 Jan 2014].

YouTube. 2012. Projection Mapping Tutorial - Resolume Arena 4. [online] Available at: http://youtu.be/SauJLNhnWNQ [Accessed: 29 Jan 2014].

YouTube. 2013. Blendy VJ Tutorial 2: Resoume Arena. [online] Available at: http://youtu.be/xNu72ZyhdUU [Accessed: 29 Jan 2014].

23 January 2014 Production Diary

We decided to do a virtual side-scrolling game in real world experience. At first, I thought we will using Adobe Flash to create the game, so I have looked for tutorial about making side-scrolling game in Adobe Flash:

http://www.makeflashgames.com/tutorials/tut4.php

However, I have no idea how flash going to link with projection mapping software. Referring to the software recommended by my lecturer, which are MadMapper and Syphone, I discovered that both software only available in MAC version:

http://www.madmapper.com/

http://syphon.v002.info/

Although I able to find the window version of Syphone, which name Wyphon, but it still not stable and not easy to learn:

http://wyphon.wordpress.com/

In addition, my group plan to let users control game characters using mobile devices, so I need to look for software that able to link mobile devices to the game. One of the option available is web socket:

http://www.websocket.org/demos.html

One of my group mates actually suggested me to refer to multi-player online game created by google, Chrome Super Sync Sports:

http://chrome.com/supersyncsports/#/en-US/about

All these software are totally new language to me. I don't have the confident to learn them all. Moreover, I still need some time to digest all the information I have found about side-scrolling game:

http://softwaresolution.informer.com/Free-Side--Scrolling-Game/

http://www.giantbomb.com/side-scrolling/3015-299/games/

http://www.miniclip.com/games/gravity-guy/en/

It's definitely not easy to be a good technical leader...

References:

Chrome Super Sync Sports. 2013. Chrome Super Sync Sports. [online] Available at: http://chrome.com/supersyncsports/#/en-US/about [Accessed: 23 Jan 2014].

Giantbomb.com. 2013. Side-Scrolling Games - Giant Bomb. [online] Available at: http://www.giantbomb.com/side-scrolling/3015-299/games/ [Accessed: 23 Jan 2014].

Madmapper.com. 2003. MadMapper | The Video Mapping Software. [online] Available at: http://www.madmapper.com/ [Accessed: 23 Jan 2014].

Makeflashgames.com. 2010. Flash Side Scroller Tutorial. [online] Available at: http://www.makeflashgames.com/tutorials/tut4.php [Accessed: 23 Jan 2014].

Miniclip. 2010. Gravity Guy - A free Action Game. [online] Available at: http://www.miniclip.com/games/gravity-guy/en/ [Accessed: 23 Jan 2014].

Softwaresolution.informer.com. n.p. Free Side-Scrolling Game Downloads - Free Side-Scrolling Game Software. [online] Available at: http://softwaresolution.informer.com/Free-Side--Scrolling-Game/ [Accessed: 23 Jan 2014].

Syphon.v002.info. 2010. Syphon. [online] Available at: http://syphon.v002.info/ [Accessed: 23 Jan 2014].

Websocket.org. 2010. WebSocket.org | Demos. [online] Available at: http://www.websocket.org/demos.html [Accessed: 23 Jan 2014].

Wyphon. 2013. Wyphon. [online] Available at: http://wyphon.wordpress.com/ [Accessed: 23 Jan 2014].

YouTube. 2012. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game - Episode 01. [online] Available at: http://youtu.be/wp3cOJqhwns [Accessed: 23 Jan 2014].

YouTube. 2008. Castle Crashers Gameplay. [online] Available at: http://youtu.be/HhPHRm-kJ5w [Accessed: 23 Jan 2014].

22 January 2014 Production Diary

There is a huge change to our project today. We unable to convince our lecturers with our idea, end up our idea being rejected by our lecturers.

Jazmi, our lecturer, suggested us to try a experimental installation about creating virtual game in real world experience. It is a new topic to me, although it sound interesting.

So, in the end, I need to do another research on the new ideas...

17 January 2014 Production Diary

We have an online meeting today. We discuss about our contents and also interaction of our game. As the technical leader of the group, I focus more on the interaction research and here are some examples I have found from Kinect games:

Most of the researches I have found are from a game called "Kinect Adventure", a game that inspire me with different kinds of interesting kinect interaction.

References:

YouTube. 2010. Kinect Adventures: 20000 Leaks. [online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_Vg8f06wfM [Accessed: 17 Jan 2014].

YouTube. 2011. Tour Through Kinect Games: Episode 1: Kinect Adventures. [online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6pwkYf9xz0 [Accessed: 17 Jan 2014].

15 January 2014 Production Diary

Today is the presentation day. We need to present our idea to our peers and lecturers. From the feedbacks given by the peers and lecturers, I found out there are several things I should consider as a technical leader:

1. What motivates people to play again? How to make it as repetitive experience?

2. Enhance that interactivity, try to create interaction that unable to perform with mouse and keyboard.

3. What should I do if the users stop playing in the middle of the game?

After our presentation, I suggested to my group that in order to create repetitive playing experience, we can make the the game more competitive by inserting high-score elements, where users can compete their high-score after they play the game. 

Before we end our class today, we manage to have another consultation with Jazmi, our lecturer and here are the suggestion he gave us:

• motion gesture is best fit for balance & accuracy
• Speed is not recommended for motion tracking because it requires high ram to load the animation and might cause some technical problem occured.
• we either choose towards adventure game or casual game
• insert more actitivties in our solution part sort of like ' detective game' 

13 January 2014 Production Diary

I have done my part of technical specification today. From my lecturer's information, I do researches on another 2 kinect and projection mapping software, which are NIMate and Synapse.

http://www.ni-mate.com/

http://www.openni.org/files/ni-mate/

http://synapsekinect.tumblr.com/

I found out that NIMate can be used in our project production, but on with free trial license, because the commercial license is too expensive for students like us.

About the Synapse, after I looked through the software introduction, I found out that we may unable to use it: There’s some newer Kinect hardware out there, “Kinect for Windows”. This hardware is slightly different, and doesn’t work with Synapse. Be careful when purchasing, Synapse only supports “Kinect for Xbox”.

References:

Ni-mate.com. 2012. NI mate: The Kinect Motion Capture and Sound Control Software. [online] Available at: http://www.ni-mate.com/ [Accessed: 13 Jan 2014].

Openni.org. 2012. NI mate | OpenNI. [online] Available at: http://www.openni.org/files/ni-mate/ [Accessed: 13 Jan 2014].

Synapsekinect.tumblr.com. 2011. Synapse for Kinect. [online] Available at: http://synapsekinect.tumblr.com/ [Accessed: 13 Jan 2014].

YouTube. 2012. The Kinetic Bunny ("What is NI mate?" feat. Big Buck Bunny). [online] Available at: http://youtu.be/wNSMgX5t1RQ [Accessed: 13 Jan 2014].

6 January 2014 Production Diary

Today we have a face to face meeting after our class. We discuss about technical specification and stage design. We also need to finished the proposal before Wednesday.

I have found some references that I think is useful to our group project:

In addition, I also need to start finding tutorials on Kinect programming as my group decided to use Kinect to perform the interaction:

http://vimeo.com/18562642

http://scratch.saorog.com/

http://vr.tu-freiberg.de/scivi/

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-11-07-xbox-ones-kinect-code-scanning-is-lightning-fast

http://www.ign.com/videos/2013/11/20/testing-xbox-one-kinects-qr-code-reader

http://vimeo.com/18645886

http://www.slideshare.net/sayaku/kinect-for-flash

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/kinectforwindowsdev/start.aspx

http://rhuno.com/flashblog/2011/07/02/tutorial-kinect-to-flash/

http://www.primesense.com/

http://luckylarry.co.uk/programming-tutorials/creating-a-simple-flash-app-with-kinect/

https://github.com/OpenKinect/libfreenect/blob/master/wrappers/actionscript/org/as3kinect/as3kinectWrapper.as

http://www.openni.org/files/nite/

https://github.com/avin2/SensorKinect

In addition, because one of my group mates suggest me to use Adobe After Effect to link to Kinect to create the interactive installation, I also spent some time to look for resources about this concept:

Arr...such a tiring day...

References:

Eurogamer.net. 2013. Xbox One's Kinect code-scanning is lightning-fast. [online] Available at: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-11-07-xbox-ones-kinect-code-scanning-is-lightning-fast [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].

GitHub. n.d. OpenKinect/libfreenect. [online] Available at: https://github.com/OpenKinect/libfreenect/blob/master/wrappers/actionscript/org/as3kinect/as3kinectWrapper.as [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].

GitHub. 2012. avin2/SensorKinect. [online] Available at: https://github.com/avin2/SensorKinect [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].

Howell, S. 2011. Scratch and Kinect. [online] Available at: http://vimeo.com/18562642 [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].

IGN. 2013. Testing Xbox One Kinect's QR Code Reader - IGN Video. [online] Available at: http://www.ign.com/videos/2013/11/20/testing-xbox-one-kinects-qr-code-reader [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].

Luckylarry.co.uk. 2012. Creating a simple Flash app with Kinect. [online] Available at: http://luckylarry.co.uk/programming-tutorials/creating-a-simple-flash-app-with-kinect/ [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].

Microsoft.com. 2013. Start. [online] Available at: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/kinectforwindowsdev/start.aspx [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].

Openni.org. 2012. NiTE 2.2.0.11 | OpenNI. [online] Available at: http://www.openni.org/files/nite/ [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].

PrimeSense. 2002. 3D Sensing Technology Solutions - PrimeSense. [online] Available at: http://www.primesense.com/ [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].

Rhuno.com. 2011. » Blog Archive » Tutorial: Kinect to Flash. [online] Available at: http://rhuno.com/flashblog/2011/07/02/tutorial-kinect-to-flash/ [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].

Scratch.saorog.com. 2011. Kinect2Scratch 2.5. [online] Available at: http://scratch.saorog.com/ [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].

Slideshare.net. 2013. Kinect for flash新手上路. [online] Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/sayaku/kinect-for-flash [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].

Team, T. 2011. - 3D Scan 2.0. [online] Available at: http://vr.tu-freiberg.de/scivi/ [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].

Vimeo. 2011. Flash Kinect Demo. [online] Available at: http://vimeo.com/18645886 [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].

YouTube. 2013. Virtual Reality-Creative Idea for Consumers' Interaction. [online] Available at: http://youtu.be/dwCCD6cgp94 [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].

YouTube. 2010. Cadbury world - Interactive Installations. [online] Available at: http://youtu.be/RsHOPvGpqDM [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].

YouTube. 2012. "Love Your Eyes" - An Interactive Installation. [online] Available at: http://youtu.be/93rRrTpwwPw [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].

YouTube. 2012. "Love Your Eyes" Interactive Campaign. [online] Available at: http://youtu.be/_IHKsn2zpGM [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].

YouTube. 2009. Interactive Window Projection - Interactive Store Diesel. [online] Available at: http://youtu.be/YnusWcttUp0 [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].

YouTube. 2011. 3D scan 2.0. [online] Available at: http://youtu.be/VTsAudLo-ws [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].

YouTube. 2013. Scanning a QR Code with Kinect on Xbox One. [online] Available at: http://youtu.be/So5iK2Y7_BE [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].

YouTube. 2012. Introducing KinectToPin. [online] Available at: http://youtu.be/VWNhwSNazDE [Accessed: 6 Jan 2014].