Post 51: Room Bryce

Yes, i went above and beyond with this whole extra blog post but I wanted to show my room rendered through bryce. I finally restored my crashed PC and got my sketchup pro and bryce up and running. No major changes to the room itself, I just thought it would look cool to add light to the scene.

Post 50: Cargo Home Bryce

I was finally able to get bryce and sketchup pro working together to finish off my cargo home project. I added lighting as well some landscape and sky features as well. This finished product not only shows my abiility in sketchup but also my knowledge of how to export and imprt objects from one program to anohter in order to finalize a project. If I had the time I would have made a video but it takes way too long in bryce. I got to call it a night. Finals week starts today...

Post 49: Final Show: RUR/final impression

The RUR segment of the show was definitely the more "together" performance. The actors knew their lines, however they had no reason not to, they were reading off a sheet of paper. I know that is what a stage reading is but i would have liked to see some sort of action. Because it was just a bunch of students sitting around and reading, I began to lose interest and got a little bored. I believe Hamlet should have been the stage reading and RUR the performance or at least switch the roles for the plays. If the plays were more exciting and more cohesive I would have no complaints about the show but I do not think it was worth the train ticket and hours commuting on a Saturday to go to the event. In all honesty it could have been done during the school week in Staller and it would have been a lot more enjoyable and cost efficient. Puting the show aside, the course itself is now officially over and I must say, my design and tech class was amazing. It opened my eyes to the world of digital media and sparked my interest in digital arts and design, I switched my specialization for my ISE major from business to digital arts. I hope to continue perfecting my skills with the programs we used in class and even explore other ones out there. For a 100 level course I definitely learned more than I ever expected to.

Post 48: Final Show: Hamlet

Now on to the performances... The main thing I was excited about was seeing out work projected at the show. And thank god that worked out. As mentioned in my previous post it is what saved the night for me. Ill admit, a part of me really did want to see the performances work out and so did my girlfriend. She is big into theater and wanted to enjoy the show. Sadly, that was not the case for either one of us. Hamlet had great potential to be the coolest part of the night. It was a great play that could have been done so much better. I feel almost as if some of the actors forgot lines and actions and were pretty sloppy in their performances. More time should have been spent on their part getting their act together and memorizing what they had to do. Like Professor always says, "the mind is willing but the body is weak." The closing scenes of Hamlet were very confusing. I do not know if it was because we were pressed for time or what but having both sub stories in Hamlet going on at the same time when it was hard enough to hear the actors in the first place was really off putting for me. Part of good design in plays includes positioning and I feel the two male actors were far too off stage for the last scene. Depending on where you were sitting in the audience, it was hard to stay focused on what gong on and it was difficult to see them and what they were doing. I give all the actors and actresses props for getting up there and doing what they love doing but for show like that I would have liked to see a tighter performance. The video I am posting shows how our work looked projected on the performers, the coolest part of the night.

Post 47: Final Show Impressions: The Tank

Before I begin to comment on the performances, I am going to comment on the space itself. All semester long we have been taught about good design in space and sadly i wished we had picked a better place to do the show. I understand The Tank is a famous theater space and all but it looks as old and decrepit as it is famous. Seats were torn, walls were wrecked, the space looked very untidy and non maintained. The seating arrangement was way too small for the capacity that we had there last night. We not only were above the legal capacity, but there was a major fire hazard present with all the exposed wires and equipment and no where for us all to go god forbid something happened. I fell a more modern, high capacity space would have been better because it would have been a prime example of what we have learned about for the past however many weeks. The visuals on the other hand were awesome, our work looked cool however I feel many pieces were not displayed. Some works were up for far too long. From day one I had high hopes for this show. I thought this place was going to be huge and well designed but sadly I was disappointed. Nonetheless, the fact that so many people actually showed and we were able to display our work that we all spent so much time and effort on saved the night for me. Our Vjs did a great job and many thanks to Ryan for doing all that he did for the class.

Post 46: Video For Cargo Home

This is the other piece that I would like to be shown at the show on saturday. Again i made a few minor changes to perfect my design. Much like I wanted to with my other sketchup model I would have liked to add light in bryce but my computer crashed and I lost everything. Thank God for flash drives.

Post 45: Video For Dream Apartment

This is my finished product for my dream apartment model. I made a few minor yet important changes to it since my origianl design, mostly changing up a few colors and textures and adding shadows to create depth. I perfect all the edges and shapes making sure they all look perfect. Hopefully before class tomorrow i can run this through bryce to add lighting but my PC crashed and am out of luck at the moment. FOr now this will have to do. This is one of the designs I wish to display for the show this saturday.

Post 44: Yet Another Kinect Hack

My Previous ideas for the future hack/applications of the Kinect covered school ling as well as fitness training. What if hospitals used the technology to train surgeons how to perform new surgeries and procedures. The trainee's avatar can be placed in a virtual hospital room with a virtual patient who has to have a procedure done. Using the motion tracking capabililites, the trainee can then practice the steps necessary to complete the surgery. IF he or she screws up, no one dies in real life, there are no law suits filed and no personal guilt is created. It would take the old Operation game and bring it to life with a real time application. Surgeons would be able to perfect their skills and methods before ever touching a human being in real life so that when their first time approaches, they are ready and confident. Hospitals can also use the kinect for therapeutic applications. Those suffering from terminally ill diseases who cant get out and explore the world can do so in a virtual world from the comfort of their hospital bed. People who need physical therapy can now get the aid they need but through fun, immerse game settings. Emergency rooms can use the facial recognition system to quickly sign in patients and sign them out so there is no more waiting around. I know the last time I was in the emergency room, the doctor cleared me to be released but I didn't get my release papers for another 2 hours after, simply because there was one women sighing patients out for the entire ER.

Post 43: Another Kinect Hack

The kinect can become the future of personal training. In the future I see a virtual gym-like space where a personal trainer and your average every day person can meet and workout. The Kinect is known for its facial recognition and movement tracking. This would make it so easy and convenient for a personal trainer to not only see a persons form when working out but their facial expressions and emotions as well. Now of course the person would have to go out and buy the equipment such as free weights or a treadmill or whatever else is going to be incorporated in the workout but in the long run this would be more cost efficient then going to the gym. No more gym membership fees, no more wasting gas driving to and from the gym and since it doesn't take much for the personal trainer to get involved, the cost of his or her services would be less as well. Who knows, maybe in the future the personal trainer can be completely controlled by AI, the software can be trained to calculate and interpret facial expressions and form and use the results to instruct the user on how to workout with perfect, precise, result producing form. This would not only provide users with calculated advice but would further reduce the cost of getting fit.

Post 42: Kinect Hack

The other day in class, Professor Baldwin brought in a Kinect and showed us some Youtube videos displaying all the possibilities that can be achieved through hacking the device. Yeah the videos were cool and the hacks interesting but I didn't really see anything practical that could be of any use. A device such as the Kinect can truly have limitless possibilities and applications. I personally would love see it used for schooling. Today we have online courses, although great, few classes are offered and too often it is simply a professor lecturing into a web cam; big deal. With the Kinect, i would love to see a totally immersive classroom environment. Using the facial recognition features and avatar creations, students as well as teachers can enter a virtual classroom setting and interact with one another from their own homes. No more rushing to get up for school, commuting in traffic or bad weather and no more sitting around in boring, white walled classrooms. In the comfort of your home, you can use the kinect to capture your movements, so raising your hand could get the teachers attention and he/she can answer your question. Teachers can take attendance and become more familiar with the students, getting to know their "faces" via their avatars. This allows for the basic idea of online classes to remain present however it does not get rid of the human-human interaction found in traditional school settings. I know I would definitely invest in this idea. The cost of schooling would decrease tremendously, commuters would not only save money on gas but wear and tear on their vehicles, and those who dorm can spend their money eleswhere and avoid living with 2 or 3 other strangers in a cramped dormroom.

Post 41: Ideas for final

Before the break we messed around with the patches in class. For the show, I think my texture video of the fan spinning is perfect for the RUR part of the show. The beeping sound patch worked great, as the fan spuna robotic noise would sound. There was a nother patch that alowwed the video's color to be distorted creating a very cool effect on the fan. I was unable to figure ourthow to export the patched video so hopefully we will go over that in class. I would also like to see how to create our own avatars using POSER. I know Professor Baldwin did it in class but it was very brief. I think it would be cool to have either all of us, the students or even all of the guests create their own avatar using the camera caprtue feature and place them into a second life space or something to that effect.

Post 40: Design and the Air and Space Museum

Over Thanksgiving break I visited relatives in the DC area. While there I took a trip to check out the museums. I was most impressed with the Air and Space Museum. Talk about design, not only was the museum itslef an architectural masterpiece but all the differents shapes and sizes and styles of planes blew my mind. Each one of them had a different purpose to them. It also got me thinking that maybe we can use some video footage of planes to do something cool with the patches for our show.

Post 39 Two Sketchup Models

The two sketchup files I wish to display for the final show are my dream apartment and and my cargo ship home models. Ive chosen these two because they are the ones I put the most time and effort into and they really show how well versed I have become with sketchup.

Post 38: comic life

In the short amount of time I had this weekend, I messed around with ComicLife. Its not much but the page I created goes along with the R.U.R. cyborg concept for the final show.

Post 37: Machine Textures 2

Post 36: Machine Textures 1

Post 35: Bryce

So im still using my ancient laptop so using all these cool programs like Bryce and sketchup can be a little laggy and frustrating at times but i was finally able to get Bryce up and running. I couldnt get too into the program due to my laptops specs but i was able to create a series of slands floating in the ocean. I added a snowy texture to the mountainous islands and I played around with the sky settings and the fog. I attempted to import one of my skethcup files but I did not have the memory to do so... Hopefully I can get my PC back up and running so I can test this out on an up to date machine.

post 34 Links to other posts

A few weeks back, the blog site was compromised, denying me and my fellow classmates access to the blog. In response to that, a new blog site was created for the class. I did a few posts in that one before access to this blog was restored, the follwing are the links to other blogs:

Post28:
http://spatialnarratology2.blogspot.com/2010/10/textures-of-time-1-and-2.html
Post29:
http://spatialnarratology2.blogspot.com/2010/10/textures-of-time-3-and-4.html
Post30:
http://spatialnarratology2.blogspot.com/2010/10/textures-of-time-5-and-6.html
Post31:
http://spatialnarratology2.blogspot.com/2010/10/pumpkin-blaze.html
Post32:
http://spatialnarratology2.blogspot.com/2010/10/transparent-shapes.html
Post33:
http://spatialnarratology2.blogspot.com/2010/11/animal-rescue.html

Cargo Home

So heres my finished product for the cargo home assignment. This home has it all, fully furnished bedroom, bathroom, livingroom and kitchen. I even made my own built in pool in the back and threw in a sweet looking spiral staircase to not only save space but give the home a unique look.

Cargo Home Start

So I had an extremely busy weekend which prevented me from really getting a chance to work on the project as much as I would have liked to. So here I have what the overall house layout will look like, i have to add all the furniture and fun stuff. That will all get done over the next day or two. But as for my design layout i will have a 5 room cargo container home, 1 bedroom, bathroom, living room, dining room, and kitchen. Stairs connecting the first and second floors obviously will be added as well. I even made my own in ground pool in the back which i will further detail for the finished product.