Week 11

Today we visited iCinema, which is located towards the upper campus of UNSW. Matthew McGinity guided us through into the cinema where we were guided into a room surrounded by projected screens 360 degrees around. The place is made up multiple cameras each projecting on the the screen. 3D glasses were provided to us to have the full experience of iCinema, firstly we were showed ancient sites, such as Angkor Wat, and other temples and sites, this experience was amazing especially the part when they had the Indian god Shiva dancing, you could tell its computer animated but it really feels as if you are standing a meter away from it. Next we were in a mine, this mine was to provide training for new miners about the hazards in the mine, and what precautions should be taken in a state of an emergency, I really think this is a great way to teach lessons to miners, as it is probably as real as it can get visually.


The tutorial this week was short, just had a discussion on what was going to be happening in the following weeks, and what should be done, and what we should be prepared for. During this week we should be creating our second tutorial which is the "medium difficulty", also apply it to our fabrication and add two others from people of other groups.

Reference:

Source: iCenema, Sydney Festival, http://2008.sydneyfestival.org.au/events/icinema_centre_unsw/icinema_centre_unsw.htm, (Date Accessed 29th May 2009)

Creating a HUD

I was further researching into how to create a HUD, I came across this great, but difficult (for me) tutorial. Previously I stressed the point that I'm no good when it comes to Flash and C++. I attempted this second tutorial really thinking that I was going to nail it this time, but somewhere along the tutorial their instructions became misleading to me, and things just didn't happen to work, also I still dont have the Mods folder within th Crysis Folder.

Above: A rough idea of what the HUD could look like

This tutorial Creating a HUD is really useful and I'm pretty sure it will work, apparently its rated easy, but once again unfortunately for me it wasn't so easy as they say, more time is needed for me to finish this tutorial, time which I don't have due to the load of work to be done to my teams final fabrication. I thought about writting up a tutorial, but there isn't really much point, as it will just be re-worded by myself. This tutorial has enough information to get you through, and I believe that its possible to complete with more time given.

Beginner Level Specialisation (is a no go for me)

This is a tutorial I found which the outcome of it is having a display of your liking on the Crysis HUD. Before attempting this tutorial I think it is highly recommended that you have some knowledge on how to use Adobe Flash, the tutorial uses Flash CS3, I used CS4 and another thing to point out is that I have never used Flash before. Whilst "trying" my best to complete this tutorial it was minor things that let me down, also you will need to know a bit of C++.





Everything went smoothly until here, I couldn't find the Hud.h which was supposedly located in the GameDll project, under the HUD folder, which did not appear in my folder Crysis.

For those who are willing to try it the link below will lead you to the pdf of the tutorial.
http://crymod.com/thread.php?threadid=21294&hilight=hud+tutorial
Good luck, I 100% sure that this can be done, but unfortunately for me it cannot be.

Week 10

Today's guest speaker was Andrew Wallace who was a recent FBE graduate now working for Lara Caldea Architects. Andrew specialises in creating architectural models in real-time engines, he has worked with the unreal engine and also the crysis engine. Using real-time environments is very time consuming but can show the clients great detail on their project's development and also rack in alot of cash. LCA entered a few competitions which they submitted real-time environments, I'm really impressed with the one they submitted on Sydney harbour, the detail of the environment was just amazing, real-time is truly another experience especially for clients to see, just mind blowing.

Below: LCA's design for the children, made with the Crysis engine

Below: LCA's Eco house design in the Crysis Engine

During the tutorial our group (which only was Jackey and I) wanted to test if our fabrication worked inside the game mode of Crysis, but unfortunately this test couldn't be completed as all the XPS laptops were taken. I discussed with Graham my field of specialisation which is the heads up display for Crysis, I realised that its not about getting the HUD to show what you want, its all about the method of doing it, cause if you know the method then endless possibilities are open to you.

Reference:

Source: Design for children video, LCA Architecture Design, http://www.laracalderarchitect.com.au/index.html, (Date Accessed 25th May 2009)

Source: Eco Design House, ARCH1392 Blog, http://arch1392-2009.blogspot.com/, (Date Accessed 25th May 2009)

Specialisation Reseach HUD

These past couple of days I have been searching for sources on how to modify the HUD in Crysis, most of my research is from the crymod website which had lots of information, and some tutorials that I will attempt to do. The forums were useful as they provided feedback on troubles individuals had when attempting to modify the HUD.

The sandbox 2 manual, useful for having a better understanding of the overall editor
http://doc.crymod.com/SandboxManual/frames.html?frmname=topic&frmfile=index.html

A tutorial on creating custom text using Adobe Flash.
http://crymod.com/thread.php?threadid=21294&hilight=hud+tutorial
http://www.crymod.com/thread.php?threadid=45607&hilight=hud+tutorial

Problems with modding the HUD
http://www.crymod.com/thread.php?threadid=11891&hilight=hud+tutorial

Video on creating custom health and energy bars on the HUD.
http://www.crymod.com/thread.php?threadid=48278

Specualisation HUD Outcomes

Easy Outcomes
- Easy outcomes of modding the HUD can be changing the HUD that is already there, removing it, changing the look e.g. colour, shape etc.
- Adding custom art, pictures, logos.

Medium Outcomes
- Creating a totally different HUD display, which basically everything is custom made, high chance that you may have to create your own images which will be used in the HUD.

Advanced Outcomes
- A section of the HUD displaying something totally different such as weather, time of day, temperature, and health of enemies etc.
- Different HUD display for certain types of weapons that's used, e.g. rocket launcher may have a tracking system.

These outcomes are challenging to do, but I think the most important thing now is the "method" on how to alter the HUD and add different displays to the HUD, if you can get the method right, everything else is basically customising to your liking.

Week 9

During the lecture today guest speaker Shilo McClean talked to us about the computer graphics world and the filming industry. Alot of movies now days use computer graphics to the max extend in order to create a sense of reality during the movie, a good example of computer graphics in play is the movie "Transformers" by director Micheal Bay. Transformers computer graphics is by far the best I have ever seen. Shilo talked about techniques film makers use in order to keep the audience entertained and attracted to the movie, for example you do not want to over exaggerate a movie or scene.

During the tutorial every had an opportunity to choose a field in which they will specialise in, e.g. creating better bump maps, lightings, making teleporting spots, advanced doors and windows. I chose to specialise in HUD (heads up display). What I have to do is research everything possible about HUD and how you can change it, edit it, add more gadgets, and maybe change the interface.

We then had group discussions with Jeremy and Graham, although only Jackey, Wirada, and myself were present during this discussion we received feedback on what needs to be changed, or improved on. We agreed that we will detail our building more, having a theme for furniture instead of having all sorts of different furniture is not appealing to the eye. Wall textures will be changed to a darker stony wall, the building will be altered and a set of ramps will be put in, which runs through the whole building. Window textures will be more detailed, since we have a series of buildings which spreads across the land, we decided to make each and everyone different. Working on the final "Polished Fabrication" will indeed be another challenge and hopefully the final product will be awesome.

Reference:

Source: Transformers, Tripsc, http://www.tnpsc.com/downloads/Transformers.jpg, (Date Accessed 20th May 2009)