Contributions to Collaboration 18/07/09

At the beginning of this semester when we learnt of our new team groups, I sort of became the project manager of the group and felt that it was my responsibility to make sure that the team would progress and achieve the desired goals. Throughout the project my contributions to collaboration include pretty much all things water hence my specialisation being advanced water. As we were doing an underwater hotel I took on this role because I wanted to make sure that it would all work out. My other contributions include helping team members with designing the interior of the shell and minor texturing. Most of the texturing that I was responsible for was the underwater environment, making sure that it looked as realistic as possible. I also contributed to the team blog as well as the videos. I feel that the last two videos which are the trailers for the Hydropolis are some of the best videos that my team have created and really capture the essence of the Hydropolis.
To conclude I just wanna say that learning to design and build a project with newer group members has really helped broaden my knowledge in collaborating with others. Also learning how to cope with other group members and project issues has also taught me a few things; such as issues that could of been handled differently and better between team members and the project itself.

Final Map 17/06/09

Well, team Atlar has finally finished the Hydropolis Map. I feel we have acheived our desired goals and have stuck to the proposed schedule. Although we had some problems down the line with the project such as layers being overwritten and work lost, everything got sorted out in the end. Id like to thank my team for the support and helped that we have all given each other to get our project to a completed stage.



Working on this project and using Cryteks engine for creating a real-time environment has inspired the way I approach architecture and visualisations. Thinking about using 3dsmax to create visualisations seems to be the medium of choice in this industry. But with emerging real time environment engines getting better and better, we might see this taking over the traditional non real time rendering programs. At the moment Crysis is setting the benchmark for realistic and good looking graphics and it is only going to get better.



Through research of the project I have also stumbled upon some apps on crymod that dramatically improve the visuals of Crysis. These files are config files that you only need to download and insert into the crysis directory. Using these configs improve visuals in almost every aspect from better shadows, water, reflections, vegetation etc. Upon using this I also came across a custom time of day file that was created by Hawkeyepuppy from the crymod community called Real Lifesis. Looking at some of the screenshots posted by hawkeye using this ToD file I was really impressed with how light can improve visuals. Here is a link from hawkeye's forum that contains come really nice pics using his ToD file that I recommend looking at:http://www.crymod.com/thread.php?threadid=44080.



After reasearching about these configs and ToD files I added it to the Hydropolis File and was quite amazed to see the difference although it really took a hit on the frame rate. At some stages becoming almost unplayable with a choppy framerate. But using this config file really starts to improve visuals into an almost lifelike state. I believe that this tool here together with the Crysis engine could really be the future in real time architectural visualisation.

Hydropolis Update 16/06/09

Well today is the last day to work on the Hydropolis. At the moment we are nearing completion. Ran into a few problems last night with layers. We tried bringing in layers of stuff from a previously saved file but it overwrote one of the furniture layers hence we lost all of the underwater room furnishings. We managed to re-create the furniture in a few rooms but could not copy the room to the other underwater structures as they became unselectable. We are still not suer why this is, if it is a crysis glitch or what not. The game itself is becoming nearly unplayable in the lab 2 computers because of a 1-3fps rate when shadows are turned on. Will try to resolve this before the presentation on Thursday.

Hydropolis Update 14/06/09

Group met up at uni today to work on last tasks for the Hydropolis. Although we havent finished yet, we are quite close. We have worked out most of the problems that consisted in the previous assignment and are quite happy with it now. I added sound areas to the Hydropolis map which have really enhanced the ambience such as waves crashing, sea breeze and air-con noises for the interiors. We are now working on bringing together all group members specialisations into the one map as well as adding others from our class. The tutorials that our classmates have used have become very useful in helping us complete our map.

12/06/09 - Hydropolis Update

12/06/09 - Created clouds for Hydropolis map which really made the map lagg; so will have to reduce the number of cloud entities in the sky. Also textured some solids that were left as default since assignment 2. Added the cafe that Philip exported through 3dsmax, and created an area for it inside the shell.

11/06/09 Hydropolis Map Update

08/06/09 - Finally got all my other subjects out of the way for this semester so I can finally concentrate on Studio. Spent the last couple of days with Stephen in the labs fixing up everything. We are still having issues with importing models from 3dsmax to crysis and it seems we have reached a dead end. Although it worked in Team Omegas map, Kennith helped us but was unable to get it to work. So we have decided to texture everything in Crysis. With the help of Harold, Phil was able to edit the pictures that we wanted to add to our presentation room into .dds format which crysis would read. We were then able to add pictures to objects in-game which was really good. Also Thanks to Michael for letting us to know to switch off source control, otherwise all materials would reset to default.
Fixed up the underground train station; It was having alot of graphical glitches because of the visareas and portals. I remade them and aligned them up and they seem to be working quite nicely now.

10/06/09 - Added a wharf to the Hydropolis that will enable another type of transportation route to the island via the mainland. I will also model another wharf on the mainland. We are hoping to add some AI so that they will get in a boat and drive it to the Hydropolis and dock it.
Finally fixed up the elevators and with the help of Wing was able to make the elevators stop at individual levels. However although this method works, the switches that you press to make the elevator move are left hanging in the air, "left behind". We can fix this but in order for the lelevator to move to different levels we need to create two individual switches for each level; one to go up and one to go down. So for example of we have a 4 level structure, we would need 8 switches and then an extra two at the top and bottom of the structure to call the elevator to your current level.

11/06/09 - Today I worked on fixing up the doors. As most of Hydropolis's doors were sliding, they needed flowgraphs. Since our last assignment the some of the doors stopped sliding and this got really annoying. I finally figured out that some of the flowgraphs that Phil and I had orginally done were missing from the proximity entity's, which basically links the sliding doors together and gives it a sensor allowing it to know whe someone walks towards it. I re-created these and it all seems to work now.

Medium-Advanced Level Specialisation Tutorial 03/06/09

Today I created my Medium-Advanced Level Specialisation Tutorial for creating Particles and a waterfall. Originally I wanted to create a standalone particles tutorial and a waterfall tutorial but thought that since particles are a main requirement for creating a waterfall; I would merge the two together.

Here is a link to the tutorial: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?izt1m1gozqm

Studio - 28/05/09

1:00pm - Today for studio we met outside the iCinima room. After we went inside the complex we were shown pictures and real time renderings from a panorama scope. This room also situated 12 channel surround sound and it was quite amazing seeing the effects of iCinema. What made it even more special was how Matthew McGinity utilized 3D glassess to give a 3D effect. I really see potential in this sort of application in terms of real time architectural visualisations. The potential to show a 3d real time building to a client would be phenomenal.
3:00pm - After visiting the iCinima complex we went back to studio and were briefed by the tutors on our specializations and our upcoming fabrication that's due in the next 2 weeks.