Stressing out
It’s the day before our first deadline!
I thought it’ll be ok, we got our programme sort of doing what we wanted it to do, so I thought today would just be a case of tidying up what we have and adding any additonal features we want.
However it’s been mainly me stressing over, even though the drop and drag worked it still wasn’t doing what it needed to do so we got rid of that (I commented out the code because we still want it if we can get the other stuff to work) so that the cells collide when they cross with the module cells.
We got that hit test working eventually but the cells don’t change back to normal when they collide with a student cell but change back automatically (which is what I thought we wanted it to do but Ollie had other ideas for that).
We also haven’t managed to get them to change size when they hit each other either, they do change colour which is progress!
But right now we’re running out of time and still don’t have much to show, no more than what we had last week in the practical…just hope we can get it sorted by tomorrow…looks like another long night tonight!
And we still have to think about our presentation!
Today’s Practical
I arrived a bit late to the practical but still had time to run some things by Katina, the most important bit was checking that using a model would be OK if I reference it properly so she knows who made it.
I looked on the website but the only details of the person who made it I could find was their username, which I can give you also.
The site I got the shoe from is www.turobsquid.com and the person who made the converse shoe is lynnart3d.
After clearing that up with Katina, I went through my idea with her again, just showing the different styles of shoes there are, and the wide range there is, appealing to many different groups of people.
I also mentioned to her that I wanted to make my own object as I won’t really be making the shoe just changing the textures and colours etc.
I was thinking about doing something similar to what the girl last year did with the converse and have the logo spinning around and at the end of each advert…Katina gave me an extra idea which is I like very much and most probably go with it’ll be a bit hard to explain but I’ll have a go.
Basically I’m going to have the logo spinning around, and on one side of this logo will be the converse actually logo, and then when it spins on the back it’ll be a pattern of one of the shoes in the adverts, when it spins again it’s the converse, spins again and it’ll be another pattern from a different shoe.
It’s a way to link all these styles of shoes together, even though they’re all aimed at different audiences they can be brought together by the converse logo.
a .lwo file
While looking on the Internet for 3D tutorials in making a shoe in Studio Max I came across a few good sites, with some tutorials on but none of them for a shoe I could build a Bugatti but not a converse shoe!
I did find a video tutorial on http://hammerbchen.blogspot.com/2006/11/tutorvideomaking-of-canvas-shoe-nurbs.html where he goes through making a canvas shoe.
I even downloaded the plug-in he used, but watching part of the video I realised it was very ambitious for me to try and follow, as I wasn’t sure if he had already done most of the side and was working on the bottom or what, he also moved really fast and was hard to hear him. I also hadn’t learnt the basis of 3D Studio Max to follow the tutorial thoroughly to get a good result.
I was panicking a bit considering others have gotten quite far on their object and at least had something to show and I had nothing…however I did find another site that I could download a free converse shoe, the smallest style when it’s cut off just below the angle and I don’t think there was a label but I could do that myself…
I downloaded that opened it up in 3D Studio Max and I couldn’t really change any of it…couldn’t change the colour, the size etc…which was a bit crap at least it was free.
On the same website I found another model for the Converse Shoe and it was a proper shoe, and it looks really good, however it was a LightWave model the programme I downloaded.
I could open it in Cinema 4D but I was worried that if I did the textures etc would be lost and it’ll look nothing like it does in the picture, especially as I have to pay for it.
I decided to risk it, and I’m glad to say nothing bad happened when I opened it in Cinema 4D I even managed to add the logo as it was black so i changed that and now I have a shoe! in Cinema 4D…I am now going to try and re-create it but drawing it myself…
The picture of the shoe I’m using as a model is
Trying a 3D shoe
As I couldn’t find out how to create a shoe in 3D I was looking at other ways I could get a 3D shoe in the programme, and while I was scrolling through the menu’s on 3D Studio Max I stumbled across the import option (I knew there was one but I hadn’t looked at in any detail).
I clicked it to see what file formats I could import and one of them was an Illustrator file, I got an idea that I thought might give me an opportunity to make the shoe.
That was to draw a converse shoe in Illustrator and then import the wire-frame of it into 3D Studio Max and make a 3D object that way.
It was a lot easier to draw the shoe using that method as I could manipulate the lines to bend and curve the way I want them too, and to follow the shape of the shoe.
I later found out that I can use an extrude and a bevel tool and turn it into a 3D object, that I did and with the wire-frame function I was able to see what the shoe looked like in 3D.
I saved that and imported that into 3D Studio max but it didn’t show in 3D only as a 2D object and when I tried the Lathe tool nothing really happened, again it didn’t look anything that resembled a shoe.
The shoe that I drew to around is this
Below is what the image looked like once I’d drawn around the shoe
Finally this is the Extruded/Bevel shoe the one I imported into 3Ds Max
The illustrator file is a lot clearer but I can’t upload that so this is a jpeg form of it.
Finally a breakthrough
I had just about given up with this moveforward and release thing for the cells and had e-mailed Chris Speed to see if I could arrange to meet up with the flash teacher (if there was one) when I changed one thing and it worked!
So now me and Ollie have the both the module and student cells moving, and when you click on the student it 1) stops moving and 2) follows the mouse and when you release the mouse button it drops!
I can now get on with the code to make it change!
Simpsons
We watched the Simpsons in the lecture today which was a bit different and fun lol. There was a kinda catch without it, we had to think about their use of contempary art how they portrayed it etc. And what we took from it.
It was a funny episode and I kinda liked the idea of how they portrayed the art world etc not sure if I got much from it though…like I’ve said before I don’t know too much about Art or different styles of art etc.
As for my essay I’m still thinking about doing it on Adverts in magazine, papers etc and look at how they’ve changed but I’m still not 100% sure about it, depends if I can find much information about it and can get arguements that I can either agree or argue against to set the groundwork for my Essay.
Action Script problem/solution
I looked into why the dragging thing doesn’t work…and honestly didn’t have a clue as to how to solve it.
Claudia suggested I e-mail Chris Blunt and see if he’ll be able to help me, and I’m so glad I did, he asked me to send over my project which I did in a compressed folder and he looked through my code for me.
He later e-mailed me back with answers to my dilemma and how I could go about to solve them…which is very helpful as the deadline is 2 days away (full days) and I need to sort it out so it can be joined with Ollie’s XML code and test the programme with both pieces of code together and see if the programme does what we want it to do.
Time is running out and we still have so much more to do! I’m sort of a bit stressed at the moment….think I’m gonna be pulling a few long nights in for this one!
But if it all works and it looks good then it’ll be worth it in the end…I just hope it is :S
Memory and stuff
Today in ISAD we went into memory again for half of the lecture, the long term memory, short term memory and the working memory and how we can use these when making our system.
We then went on to looking at focused and divided attention…how to get people’s attention and stuff like that.
The practicles this week have been moved around and because of the time they’ve been re-schechued for I am unable to attend…but I will continue to work on my essay.
The system that I want to look into is the Self Scan checkouts are the supermarkets Asda and Tesco’s, as I work at Asda and normally supervise these tills every Saturday and Monday evening I can see them being used by different people of various ages and computer ability.
I am also right there to take note of how people interact with them, think of them, how easy they think it is to use etc, given me a bit of an advantge on the research I need to do for this essay.
However I haven’t yet passed this idea driectly to John Forde, I mentioned it a bit at the end of the last practical but haven’t discussed it in depth.
I also have to re-read the brief and see if doing the Self Scan checkouts will be approriate to meet the critea to pass.
Organism update
On Thursday I spent the whole afternoon working on the organism project, I wrote the code to get the cells (circles used until Ollie is finished with the design) and have them moving around the screen.
The code is very similar to the asteroid game I made last year, so I just went through the code and adapated it for this purpose.
The next task was to get the student cells to drag and drop, I got the code by searching on the internet and Ollie’s flash book he brought last year. The drag function worked and the cells could be dragged, but when you go to drop them they still follow the mouse, but only some of the student cells do.
Will have to look into that and see if I can fix it and get it to do what it’s supposed to do!
Over the weekend I’ve thought about this project and the code I still have to do, as well as how to code it etc. and a thought occured to me.
We’re going to have the names of the students appear when you hover over their cell, however the cells are created in an array…so we’re either going to see if we can assign a student to each cell in the array or make indivudal cells for each student and try it that way.
Will post this to Ollie and see what he thinks the solution should be.
But for now we’ll leave it as it is.
What is known as the “Converse”
As I’m doing my 3D object on a Converse shoe I thought it’ll be a good idea to research into the history of them just to get a better understanding of the social culture behind these shoes.
It will hopefully help me to pin point the idea that I want to get down on screen for my 3D object…which is how over history the whole view point of Converse shoe’s have changed.
For instance why they were first produced and who wore them compared to now when there are so many different styles around that they attract different groups of people
( this is just a site where you can see what types of styles there are www.schuh.co.uk)
First off though the history of Converse needs to be established.
The history of Converse with a timeline:
What most people espcially those who wear Converse know is the name Chuck Taylor whose signture appears on the logo…however he’s not the man who made the first Converse.
There was a company set up in 1908 by Marquis M. Converse which was called Converse Shoe Rubber Company.
Orginially they were making winter rubber shoes for everyone, and in 1915 they moved into making sports shoes mainly tennis shoes. It wasn’t until 1917 that they moved into making Basketball shoes.
However in 1921 Chuck Taylor a basketball player at the time walked into the factory complaining of sore feet…thus the Converse shoe we know today was born.
At first they were only made in black and white but as other basketball teams wanted them customised they added more colours.
1923 Chuck Taylors signiture was added to the logo on the ankle of all Converse shoes, but he didn’t stop there.
1935 he improves the shoe by making the first “stichless” basketball shoe, this improves the bounce of the shoe or something.
In 1949 the NBA was formed and Converse shoes pretty much are worn by all pro basketball players.
In the 1970’s other sport companies were being set up mainly Adidas and Nike, which put pressure on Converse to remain the main shoe for basketball players…but sadly this was not the case.
And as a result they are no longer the main shoe worn in basketball…instead they have added to their styles to attract different people and groups thus creating the shoe we all love today.
The few sites that I used for this history are:-
http://www.converse.com/LiveFiles/7/11/Timeline.pdf
http://www.hoophall.com/halloffamers/bhof-chuck-taylor.html - the offical basketball hall of fame site.
I also used http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Converse but checked all the details from the sites above.
I have also been to the Bakset Ball of Fame in Springfield MA USA, so I have some of this information in my head already.
