Infinitus Ludus

worldviews

2007-05-02T10:11:00.000+08:00

This is the first draft of the world view.

Then I change to this....

Possible things to look at for the game...

2007-04-30T20:56:00.000+08:00

heya.... got some stuff we could put in (if not into the game at least into the presentation) which hopefully would help the mechanics and appeal. But before you start reading, don't freak out. This stuff DOESN'T have to go in.

1. Goal: After talking to Donny on the bus, the idea bouncing around is that a player will end a level when fulfilling one or more of the following conditions:

Run out of film
Run out of time (we've got an intended 2-minute time limit i think)
Run out of events (i.e. all activated)
Fill up points quota (target points total for the level e.g. 500 points from photos for level 1)

The basic idea was to give a sense of urgency and challenge i guess.

2. "Shop": Based on the idea that players can go to the "shop" after levels to upgrade camera equipment (to presumably get better quality photos etc), my suggestion is that in addition to camera upgrades, we sell them film (but that means they still have a max capacity of 24) to top up from whatever they have left from the last level. [note: apparently this is a lot like fatal frame, but the idea was to give them a choice of resource management - better camera for better pics vs more film for higher chances]. This DEFINITELY does not need to be implemented. If you guys think its fine i can go ahead with a mock-up to use in the video

3. Indications that a player has taken a good shot: At the moment the idea was to put in sound
or some other visual cues so as to give the players a clear indication that they had taken a good shot. here's a few ideas i thought of:

overlaying a viewfinder ring and cross-hairs over the FPS: When the player gets a score for a photo within a certain range, the overlay will turn green for good, yellow for decent, and red for bad [note: this does not have to be implemented in-game. it can be shown in the video]
Using a points "meter" of sorts: since players need to hit a minimum points quota for the level, i figured that its possible to create a sort of meter resembling a roll of film, so that players will be able to judge just how much more points they have to earn. [note: this doesn't have to be implemented in-game either. its possible to illustrate in the video (i'm pretty sure of it)]
Sound effects such as "Good Shot!": Audio cues to reinforce player behaviour would be good for sure cos it adds to the atmosphere, but might be a bit hard to put in (especially with our time constraints)... soooo.... into the video it goes (there's capability for narration after all)

That's about it i think. Most of this stuff actually can be simulated in the video *grin* so means less stuff to worry about in-game. Do give feedback ok?

Story Builder Interface

2007-04-28T20:45:00.000+08:00

Hey guys... been working on the interface for the storybuilder. not too sure if it's ok (or doable). Tried to make it as simple as possible while trying to give the player a feel of it (and not make him feel like he's navigating through the whole thing instead of playing.

Donny suggested putting the gallery for photos at the end, so i've tried to do something along those lines. Basically at the end of a level, the player will be brought to the screen with the gallery of all his photos, where he can pick a maximum of say, 4 possible photos. Once they've been picked the player will move to the "Article" screen, where the bulk of it is supposed to look like a newspaper (a fully laid-out front page) where the photo and sentence selection will create the main front page article. the rest of the text is blurred out cos they're not important).

anyway, here's a pic:

The one at the top is the photo gallery and the one at the bottom is the article thing. hope it makes sense. Incidentally if you're wondering why there's a whole range of blanks in the middle, its because i just wanted to illustrate the that the screen could fit 4 rows of 6 pictures each.

Interface issues

2007-04-18T21:16:00.000+08:00

Hey guys!

Have been trying out the prototype Donny uploaded (using my Xbox 360 controller), and i've realised that there's some issues.

1. I don't know if its just me... but using both analog sticks to walk (forward / backward, turning) was rather awkward for me. But maybe its cos i don't play that many console games requiring this kind of mechanic (however can we assume that our target audience is familiar with this control scheme? hmm)

2. I realised that i could capture both the plane-crashing-into-building AND man-jumping-off-church in the same picture if i took it from the front. So that might be an issue in terms of layout (which i know isn't finalised yet).

3. For some strange reason i ended up pressing the LB when wanting to go into the gallery (and it meant i deleted everything in there by accident). Still not sure why that happened though.

4. Its damn tiring to hold down the camera view all the time (but that's the intention isn't it, so that can't hold it down forever)

5. That centering of the camera really needs to be done if its possible. I realise that after moving (and using right analog to set direction) it affects position in camera view (which would probably explain why i ended up looking at the sky so much). It really made my life difficult.

6. I'm wondering if there's a possibility of using left analog to do all walking-related actions outside camera mode... i.e. instead of using right analog to set direction, use left to move in the direction on the pad. but like i said earlier, maybe its cos i'm not used to the controls.

6a. IF the left analog dealt with all movement related stuff in non-camera mode, then could it be such that the right analog button will be like the equivalent of mouselook while left analog when pushed forwards and backwards would move the player in the respective directions? in this case there would be no left-right movement in camera mode (since that's handled by the right analog).

Don't know if any of the stuff i said makes sense. But i know for sure that in my first few tests of the game, i felt that it was more a case of navigating the interface than playing the game.

these are the sentence connectors

2007-04-16T21:33:00.000+08:00

1. Just as the(previous event), (sentence)

2. After the (previous event), (sentence)

3. Nearby the incident, (sentence)

4. Amidst the confusion caused by the (previous event), (sentence)

5. Soon after the (previous event), (sentence)

6. A (previous event) before (sentence). What an uneventful day!

7. When everyone's attention was still at the (previous event), suddenly, (sentence)

8. Another incident happened just after the (previous event). (Sentence)

9. After witnessing the (previous event), I saw (sentence)

10. One incident happened one after another. After the (previous event), (sentence)

11. It was not long after the(previous event) took place. (sentence)

12. It was not long after the incident happened. (sentence)

13. As I was walking away from the (previous event), I witnessed (sentence)

14. I was at the scene of the (previous event) when (sentence)

15. Fortunately, no one was injured when the (previous event).

16. Not long after the (previous event), we all thought that everything was under control when (sentence)

17. All of a sudden, (sentence)

18. While my attention was still on the (previous event), (sentence)

19. While everyone's attention was still on the (previous event), (sentence)

20. Everyone was startled when (sentence). The incident caught all of them unexpected.

21. I realised that after the (previous event), (sentence)

22. Before everyone made clear of what actually happened, (sentence)

23. As soon as the (previous event), another incident took place. (sentence)

Maybe we can randomise so the connectors appeared differently and not always the fixed sentences.

the sentences and events

2007-04-16T21:28:00.000+08:00

Index	Description	Short description	Sentences	O:S	Connectors
A	plane crashes onto building,	plane crashes	1. A plane collided into a tall building at Summer Valley. According to		plane crashed
	tilts and smashes onto the ground		investigations, it was believed to be caused by an explosion at its tail.
			2. A plane lost control and collided into a building at Summer Valley.
			3. A plane collided into a building and smashed onto the ground with a
			loud crash. Everyone was alarmed.
			4. A very loud explosion was heard. I turned around and saw a plane	30:70
			crashing into a building.

B	man jumps down from building	man jumps	1. A man jumped down from a building in a desperate attempt to		man jumped off
			save his life.
			2. A man jumped from a tall building. What a waste of life!
			3. A man fell from a tall building. I believed it was an accident as I
			saw him missed his footing.
			4. A man jumped from a tall building. It was believed to be a suicide.
			5. A man was reported to have jumped down from a building.
			Investigations were still being conducted.

C	Car knocks onto car	car2car crash	1. A car accident took place at Summer Valley Road. One of the cars		car crashed
			was flipped over when it was hit.
			2. Two cars collided into each other at a traffic light junction near
			Summer Valley Road. It was the worse car accident that I have ever
			seen.
			3. A car tried to brake in vain and collided into an oncoming car. It was
			flipped over when hit.
			4. A car accident happened at a road junction. One car was flipped
			over when it collided.

D	Car swerves and knocks into man,	car crash into shop	1. A car smashed into a shophouse when it tried to swerve to avoid
	then crashes into the shophouse		hitting a man. Investigations were being conducted.
			2. A car smashed into a shophouse. It was reported that it was trying
			to avoid hitting a man.
			3. A brake screeching sound was heard. I turned towards the sound
			and happened to see a car smashed into a shop.
			4. A car tried to avoid hitting a man and smashed into the shop. It was
			damaged and investigations were still being conducted.

E	man & woman quarrel, then man	robbery	1. A couple was in a heated argument when suddenly, the		robbery
	robs woman, & runs away		man snatched her bag and ran off with it!
			2. A robbery occurred near Summer Valley Street. It was witnessed
			that a man snatched a lady's bag.
			3. A robbery took place near Summer Valley Street. I saw a couple in
			a heated dispute when the man took off with her bag!
			4. A lady's bag got snatched away by a man during their heated
			argument. It was not known what the dispute was about.

F	Skateboarding, fell and got injured	skateboard accident	1. A boy fractured his leg when he fell while skating at the Highfly		skate accident/
			Park.		mishap
			2. A boy was practicing his skate stunts when he fell and injure himself.
			It was reported that he broke his arm.
			3. A boy was skating at Highfly Park. I saw him practicing his stunts
			when he flew out of balance and fell down as he landed.
			4. A boy was happily skating and exhibiting his skills when he missed
			his footing and landed with a thud! He was unhurt.


G	police chases robber	chase robber	1. A policeman saw the robbery and quickly gave chase. It was said		police action
			that the man escaped.
			2. A policeman immediately ran after the man. Luckily, he managed to
			retrieve the bag and return it to the owner.
			3. A policeman immediately ran after the man. It was reported that the
			robber was caught. What a relief!
			4. A police man saw the incident and immediately chased after the
			man. I saw him nab the robber and return the bag to the owner.

H	police helps injured	police helps in injured	1. A policeman immediately ran over and tend to his wound. Soon after,		kind act
			the man was sent to the hospital.
			2. A policeman ran over to check on his wound. It was reported that he
			did not sustain any serious injury.
			3. A police sprung into action and ran over to help the injured. I feel that
			he had fast reaction. Everyone should learn from him.
			4. A policeman went over to help the injured. He tended to his wounds
			until more help arrived. It was a commendable act!


Paired	A - E	plane crash - robbery
events	B - F	man jump off - skate injury
	C - G	car2car knocks - police chases robber
	D - H	car smash into shophouse - police helps injured

placements of events

2007-04-16T21:24:00.000+08:00

Hey guys, these are some of the variations in which the events can be placed. Which one would you prefer?

Bone animation Sample Tutorial

2007-04-03T02:00:00.000+08:00

1. Load the Bone setup. It has four IK Handlers: Left/Right Legs and Left/Right Hands.

2. Load your skin, and position them correctly. If skin pose is not positioned according to the bones, resize/ scale the skin and/or move the IK handlers correctly before binding. After that, select "Back_root" and the Body and do "Skin->Bind skin->Smooth Bind"
3. Lets try to do a simple walk cycle.

Before you do anything, please make sure:
A. You put the model EXACTLY where you want it to be. This is important to establish the origin bone pose to do further animation. How do you position the model+bone? you need to select :
- All the Four IK Handlers

- The "Back_root" joint
and use the Move tool to move the whole thing to your desired location.

B. After you move the IKHandlers+back_root, make sure you are at frame 1 and press "S" to set the key frame.

Now, slide the slider to frame 5. lets move the legs, the arms, like this position:

Then you select all IK Handlers + Back_root, move the model forward a bit, and set the key. If you play the animation, you will see how he will start moving forward.

4. Again, move the slider to frame 10. Use the ik handlers to adjust the legs + arms, and Select the IK handlers+Back_root, move forward a bit, and press S again to set key.
5. again....frame 15
6. again....frame 20

7. again....frame 25

8. Finally....frame 30.
9. This is cool stuff: Try to copy the keyframes so far (Shift mouse select drag and copy), and choose : Paste Connect.
Now the animations from 1-30 will be copied and put relative to the final frame! so now the walk cycle plays twice.

10. now lets export this to fbx. Again, highlight all the iK handlers+ back_root and also the Model (body).
Please remember to slide the timer back to frame 1 !!!

11. choose : File->Export Selection and choose a filename.
It will launch the fbx exporter dialog.

12. Take note of the essential options

13. Now it should be exported correctly to fbx! How to test? Well unfortunately there's no easy way, so i need to import it into xna first and test it before we jump into joy :P

In summary, this is whats important when animating:

Rule no 1: Always highlight the IKHandlers and Back_root (the root node in the skeleton) and set key frame at frame 1 before any animation.

Rule no 2: Always highlight the IKHandlers and Back_root (the root node in the skeleton) and set key frame for each modified ik handlers/ rotation.

Rule no 3: if you need to rotate the model, try rotating the back_root first. then you move the ik handlers accordingly.

I hope this guide helps everyone when animating!

Diagram of scaled down game discourse

2007-03-29T13:17:00.000+08:00

Narrative discourse update

2007-03-29T13:12:00.000+08:00

The highlighted parts are the scaled down version for our game! =)

Narrative discourse

START: Plane crashes into building, simultaneously happening:

- car accident OR

- man and woman quarelling

if choose plane crashes into building, scenes that can happen after: (only one at a time)

- man jumping off the building OR

- debris falling onto someone OR

- car swerves into shophouse with man OR

- plane tilts and crashes onto ground

ai. if man jumping off building is shown, simultaneously happening:

- debris falling onto someone OR

- car swerves into shophouse with man inside OR

- car accident/quarrelling (depending on at START what is shown) OR

- plane tilts and crashes onto ground OR

- none

I. If man jumping off building is chosen, scenes that can happen after:

- police helps the injured man OR

- man calling handphone to help OR

- above scenes happen one after another OR happen simultaneously

II. if debris falling onto someone is shown and chosen, scenes that can happen after:

- police helps the injured man OR

- man calling handphone to help OR

- above scenes happen one after another OR happen simultaneously

III. if car swerves into shophouse is shown and chosen, scenes that can happen after:

- refer to 1biii.

IV. if car accident is shown and chosen, scenes that can happen after:

- refer to 2.

V. if plane tilts and crashes onto ground is shown and chosen, scenes that can happen after:

- refer to 2biv.

VI. if none happens simultaneously, refer to 1bi.

** from I to V, scenes can happen simultaneously in decreasing number (depending on the previous scene that has taken place: for example, if debris falling onto someone is shown but not chosen, this scene cannot be happening again in later scenes)

aii. If debris falling onto someone is shown, simultaneously happening:

- man jumping off building OR

- car swerves into shophouse with man inside OR

- car accident/quarrelling (depending on at START what is shown) OR

- plane tilts and crashes onto ground OR

- none

I. if man jumping off the building is shown and chosen, scenes that can happen after:

- refer to 1bi.

**the rest follows the format as above 1ai (I à VI).

aiii. If car swerves into shophouse with man is shown, simultaneously happening:

- man jumping off building OR

- debris falling onto someone OR

- car accident/quarrelling (depending on at START what is shown) OR

- plane tilts and crashes onto ground OR

- none

**the rest follows the format as above 1ai (I à VI).

aiv. If plane tilts and crashes onto ground is shown, simultaneously happening:

- man jumping off the building OR

- debris falling onto someone OR

- car swerves into shophouse with man inside OR

- car accident/quarrelling (depending on at START what is shown) OR

- none

**the rest follows the format as above 1ai (I à VI).

bi. If man jumping off building is chosen, scenes that can happen after:

- police helps the injured man OR

- man calling handphone to help OR

- above scenes happen one after another OR happen simultaneously

bii. If debris falling onto someone is chosen, scenes that can happen after:

- police helps the injured man OR

- man calling handphone to help OR

- above scenes happen one after another OR happen simultaneously

biii. If car swerves into shophouse with man is chosen, scenes that can happen after:

- car hits the man as it crashes into shophouse OR

- car hits the shophouse with the man jumping out of the way OR

- police helps injured man (can be cowboy or the driver)

biv. If plane tilts and crashes onto ground is chosen, scenes that can happen after:

- police helps the injured

- man using handphone to call for help

- above scenes happen one after another OR happen simultaneously

if choose car accident, the scenes that can depict car accidents are: (START)

- car swerves into shophouse with man OR

- normal car accident (car crashes into car)

ai. If car swerves into shophouse with man is shown and chosen, scenes that can happen after:

- man escapes the car by jumping out of its way, the car crashes into shophouse à police helps the injured OR

- car crashes into shophouse and also hits the man à followed by police helps the injured OR man uses handphone to call for help

- normal car accident

I. if normal car accident is shown, the following scenes that can happen simultaneously:

- police help the injured OR

- someone call for help OR

- plane tilts and crashed onto the ground OR

- robbery

** the rest interchange in between.

aii. If normal car accident is shown and chosen, scenes that can happen after:

- police helps the injured OR

- man using handphone to call for help OR

- car swerves into shophouse and man (with or without knocking down the man)

I. If car swerves into shophouse and man is shown, the following scenes that can happen simultaneously:

- police help the injured OR

- someone call for help OR

- plane tilts and crashed onto the ground OR

- robbery à shown and chosen à police gives chase

** the rest can interchange in between.

bi. if choose plane tilts over and crashed onto ground, scenes that can happen after:

- police helps the injured

- man using handphone to call for help

- robbery

- above scenes happen one after another OR happen simultaneously

I. If robbery scene is shown and chosen, the following scenes that can happen simultaneously:

- police helps the injured OR

- mans using phone for help OR

- above scenes can happen simultaneously or one after another

** the rest if choose, can interchange between happening simultaneously or one after another

if choose man and woman quarrelling, the following scenes can happen:

- man robs woman and run away OR

- car accidents

ai. if man robs woman is chosen, the following scenes can happen (simultaneously or one after another)

- woman screaming for help OR

- police chases the robber OR

- plane tilts and crashes onto the ground

aii. If car accident is chosen, refer to 2bii.

sentence variations

2007-03-29T13:06:00.000+08:00

Sentence variations

Plane crashes into building (START)

An aeroplane collided into an HDB flat on Monday afternoon at Summer Valley. According to investigations, it was believed to be caused by an initial explosion at its tail. (O:Sà 99: 1)
It was a peaceful Monday afternoon at Summer Valley. Suddenly, I saw an aeroplane tumbling down from the sky and crashing into an HDB building! (O:S à 30 : 70)
A loud explosion was heard. After which, I saw an aeroplane crashing into an HDB building. It happened on Monday afternoon at Summer Valley.(O:Sà 45 : 55)
An explosion was heard first before the aeroplane lost control and collided into an HDB building. The incident took place on Monday afternoon at Summer Valley. (O:Sà 90:10)

Car accident (START)

A car accident took place on Monday afternoon at Summer Valley Road. One of the cars was flipped over when it was hit. (O:S à 99:1)
Two cars collided into each other at a traffic light junction near Summer Valley Road on Monday afternoon. It happened when one car tried to brake in vain and crashed into an oncoming car. (O:S à 90:10)
Traffic was running smoothly at Summer Valley Road when suddenly, screeching sounds of tyres could be heard. Two cars had crashed into each other. The accident took place on Monday afternoon. (O:S à 65:35)
A car accident happened at Summer Valley Road on Monday afternoon. It was the worse car accident that I have ever seen. One of the cars was flipped over. (O:Sà 30:70)

Car Accident (middle part)

Just as the plane crashed, a car accident took place simultaneously. Two cars crashed into each other at a traffic light road junction. (O:S à 99:1)
As the plane crashed, screeching sounds of tyres can be heard. It dawned on me that two cars had crashed into each other nearby a traffic light road junction. (O:S à 25: 75)
Amidst the chaos and confusion caused by the plane crash, a car accident took place at a nearby road junction. (O:Sà 60:40)
Near the crash site, a car tried to brake in vain and crashed into an oncoming car. One of the cars was flipped over when it was hit. (O:S à 70:30)

Car swerves into shophouse with man (after plane crash & capture both)

Just as the plane crashed, a bad accident took place simultaneously. A car swerves and crashed into a shophouse. One man was knocked down and the car was badly damaged. (O:Sà 70:30)
As the plane crashed, screeching sounds of tyres can be heard. It dawned on me that a car has knocked down a man and crashed into a shophouse. (O:Sà 35:65)
Amidst the chaos and confusion caused by the plane crash, a car knocked down a man, who was sitting in front of shophouse, and crashed into it. (O:Sà 60:40)
Near the crash site, a car tried to brake in vain and knocked down a man who was in front of a shophouse, in which it crashed into thereafter. (O:Sà 80:20)

Car swerves into shophouse with man (only capture car crash into shophouse, after plane crash)

Soon after the plane crashed into the building, loud horn and braking sounds could be heard. Then, a loud crash would be heard from a nearby shophouse. It was then I realized that a car had crashed into a shophouse while trying to avoid a man. (O:Sà 10:90)
Soon after the plane crashed into the building, a car crashed into a nearby shophouse. It was reported that the car was trying to avoid knocking down a man. Therefore, it had accidentally swerved into the shophouse. (O:Sà 90:10)
A car lost control and swerved into the shophouse right after the plane collided into a building nearby. It seemed to be a day full of crashing accidents! (O:Sà 55:45)
A car smashed into a shophouse after a plane collided into a building. It was said to be that the driver lost control of the car. Luckily, no one was seriously injured. (O:Sà 70:30)

Car swerves into shophouse with man (only capture knock down man, after plane crash)

After the plane crashed into the building, another accident happened nearby. A car lost control and knocked down a man, who did not notice the incoming speeding car. The extent of injury was not known yet. (O:Sà 90:10)
As everyone was still trying to maintain control of what happened during the plane crash, another tragedy took place nearby the crash site. A car knocked down an unsuspecting man! Screeching sounds and horning sounds were heard to warn the man unsuccessfully. (O:Sà 65:35)
When everyone’s attention was still on the plane incident, a car lost control, swerved right into a man and knocked him down! (O:Sà 45:55)
Suddenly, I heard the sound of tyres screeching and the blasting of car horns when I was still trying to focus and make sense of what happened during the plane crash. (O:Sà 20:80)

Car swerves into shophouse (after car knocks onto car scene, capture both car and man, either or too!)

One accident happened after another. Soon after the two cars collided, another car accident took place nearby. A car had swerved into the shophouse, during which a man was knocked down. (O:Sà 90:10)
Another accident happened nearby the car accident. A car had knocked down a man who was sitting in front of a shophouse. It tried to avoid him and end up smashing directly into the shophouse. (O:Sà 80:20)
It was not long before another car mishap took place. A car could not brake in time and knocked down a man. When trying to avoid him, it ended up crashing into the shophouse. (O:Sà 60:40)
After walking away from the car accident scene, I witnessed another misfortune. Swerving unsuccessfully to avoid a man who was in front of a shophouse, a car smashed into it. (O:Sà 30:60)

Car swerves into shophouse (after car knock onto car scene, capture only car knocks into building)

After walking away from the car accident scene, I witnessed another car mishap. A car smashed into a shophouse. It was reported that the brake was not working properly. (O:Sà 35:65)
It was not long before another car accident happened. It was alleged that a car could not brake in time and smashed right into the shophouse. Some of the car parts were seen flying off. (O:Sà 70:30)
Nearby, another car had smashed into a shophouse. It was reported that the car seemed to be lost in control and veered right into the shophouse. The car was badly damaged. A few car parts were missing. (O:Sà 85:15)
Just after the car accident, another car was reported to have smashed right into the shophouse. Investigations were still being conducted. (O:Sà 99:1)

Car swerves into shophouse (after car knock onto car scene, capture only man got knocked down by car)

Nearby, a car knocked down a man who was sitting in front of a shophouse. It was reported that the brakes of the car was not functioning properly. (O:Sà 99:1)
As I was walking away from the car accident site, I witnessed a car swerving and knocking down a man. But it did not stop and continued to drive off. It was a hit-and-run case. (O:Sà 40:60)
Soon after the car accident, a man was knocked down by a car, which drove off after that. Investigations were still being conducted. (O:Sà70:30)
In another place, a man was knocked down by a car. It was reported that the car suddenly swerved into the man and knocked him down. Investigations were still being conducted. (O:Sà90:10)

Man jumping off building (after plane crash)

It was witnessed that after the plane crashed, a man jumped off a building in a desperate attempt to save his life. (O:Sà 80:20)
It was witnessed that after the plane crashed, a man jumped off a building. It was said that he was griefing over the loss of his son, who was believed to be piloting the aeroplane. (O:Sà 70:30)
A man jumped off a building after the plane crashed. What a waste of a human life! (O:Sà 55:45)
There was fire and smoke everywhere. Suddenly, a man was falling off the building. It was believed that he could not see where he was going, missed his footing and fell off. (O:Sà 60:40)
A man was also said to have fallen off a building not long after the plane collided into the building. Reports showed that it could have been as accident as there was smoke everywhere and the visibility was bad. (O:Sà 90:10)
A man was also said to have committed suicide not long after the place crash incident. It was alleged that the man’s son was piloting the plane, and thus, he jumped off the building in grief. (O:Sà 75:25)

Police helps (after car swerves)

The police arrived soon after the car accident. One police officer immediately ran to the injured man and tended to him till the ambulance arrived. The man was reported to be suffering from a few broken bones but in a stable condition. (must see injured man) (O:Sà 95:5)
The casualty lay on the ground, unmoving. It was not known if he survived until a police officer came and announced that he was still alive but was seriously injured. (must see the injured man) (O:Sà 90:10)
No one was near the accident site when it took place. Luckily, a police car happened to pass by, and a police officer went to help. The only serious casualty was a man who was knocked down by the car. The police officer helped to tend to his wounds while waiting for more help to arrive. (must see the injured man) (O:Sà 75:25)
Although a police officer arrived at the scene in a few minutes, the injured man died of blood loss, despite the fact that the police tried to stop the bleeding as best as he could. (can see or don’t see the injured man) (O:Sà 85:15)
Everything happened so quickly! I saw one police officer running towards the accident site. He checked to make sure that the car driver was fine before he went to check on the knocked down casualty. (can see or do not see the injured man) (O:Sà 40:60)
Upon seeing the car accident, a police officer immediately dashed to the injured man. His quick reaction was commended by the public. (can see or don’t see the injured man) (O:Sà 70:30)
The car was damaged badly. Bits and pieces of the car were torn apart when it crashed into the shophouse. The police came soon after and made sure that everyone stayed clear of the accident site. (without the injured man) (O:Sà90:10)
No one was near the accident site when it took place. Luckily, a police car happened to pass by, and a police officer went to help. The car was damaged but the driver suffered only a few scratches. (no injured man) (O:Sà 60:40)
Fortunately, there was a police officer who was on duty nearby. He dashed to the accident site as fast as he could. There was one casualty and he was sent to the hospital for treatment. No news about the extent of his injury yet from the hospital staff. (without the injured man) (O:Sà 55:45)

Police helps (after man jumps off building)

A police officer ran to check on the man right after this tragedy. Unfortunately, the man did not survive his fall. (more for cannot see and accidentally fall off) (O:Sà 75:25)
A police officer ran to the suicide spot and checked on the man. It was reported that he died on the spot. (suicide case) (O:Sà99:1)
A police officer ran to check on the man immediately. He tended to his wound while waiting for the ambulance to arrive. (see injured man) (O:Sà90:10)
The man lay on the ground, unmoving. It was not known if he survived until a police officer came and announced that he was still alive but was seriously injured. (must see the injured man) (O:Sà 70:30)
Luckily, there was a police officer on duty nearby. He dashed to the fallen man and tended to his wound immediately. The man suffered serious injury but in stable condition. (see injured man) (O:Sà 60:40)
Although a police officer arrived at the scene in a few minutes, the injured man died of blood loss, despite the fact that the police tried to stop the bleeding as best as he could. (can see or don’t see the injured man) (O:Sà 60:40)
Upon seeing the man falling down the building, a police officer ran towards him immediately. He tried to revive him but in vain. It was said that the man died of severe brain damage. (can see or don’t see injured man) (O:Sà 80:20)

Plane tilts and crashes onto ground (last last scene, after car swerves into shophouse)

Just as we all thought that the situation was under control, the plane suddenly swayed and tilted dangerously. (haven fall yet) (O:Sà30:70)
Suddenly, a metallic creaking sound was heard. I turned my head and realized that the plane was swaying dangerously on top of the building! (haven fallen yet) (O:Sà10:90)
When everyone’s focus was still on the car crash, a metal creaking sound was heard. It dawned on them that the plane was tilting over the building dangerously. Not long after, it crashed onto the ground with an explosion. (O:Sà40:60)
Just as everyone on the accident site thought that everything was under control, a loud explosive crash alarmed them. It was later realized that the plane had tilted over the building and crashed onto the ground. (O:Sà 55:45)
All of a sudden, a loud crash was heard. Everyone was startled as they thought that nothing worse could have happened. The plane had crashed onto the ground. (O:Sà 45:55)
The plane was swaying on top of the crashed building. Soon after, it tilted backwards and smashed onto the ground with a loud crash. (O:Sà70:30)

Plane tilts and crashed onto the ground ( after man jump off building)

Everyone’s attention was shifted back to the plane when it started to sway dangerously at the top of the building. Eerie creaking sounds could be heard clearly and soon after, the plane tilted over and smashed to the ground. There was no further casualty as the place was condoned off right after it collided into the building. (tilting and crashed could be shown) (O:Sà 55:45)
No one noticed that the plane was already swaying dangerously. Everyone’s attention was now on the fallen man. When the plane crashed to the ground with a loud bang, it alarmed them. (tilting and crashed could be shown) (O:Sà 40:60)
As soon as the man jumped off the building, a tremendous crash could be heard concurrently. I realized that the plane had crashed to the ground! There was no further casualty as the place was condoned off right after it collided into the building. (no tilting of the plane shown) (O:Sà20:80)
As soon as the man fell off the building, a tremendous crash could be heard concurrently. I realized that the plane had crashed to the ground! There was no further casualty as the place was condoned off right after it collided into the building. (no tilting of the plane shown) (O:Sà 20:80)
Right after the man felled to the ground, loud creaking metallic sounds could be heard clearly. It was soon discovered that the plane was about to tilt over the building as its weight leaned to one side. (only tilting shown) (O:Sà 65:35)
Without warning, loud metallic sounds was heard clearly. A witnessed reported that the plane was tilted over the building and swaying as its weight leaned to one side gradually. (only tilting only) (O:Sà 80:20)

Man and woman quarrel and robbery (after car knocks onto car)

Soon after the car accident, I saw a man and woman quarreling under a tree. They seemed to be in a heated argument when suddenly, the man grabs the woman’s bag and ran off. (O:Sà20:80)
I was at the car accident when I saw a man and woman quarreling under a tree. They seemed to be in a heated argument when suddenly, the man grabs the woman’s bag and ran off. (O:Sà 20:80)
Nearby the car accident, a man and woman was quarreling under a tree. Soon after, the man suddenly grabbed her bag and dashed off with it. (O:Sà 80:20)
I was at the car accident when I saw a robbery took place nearby. A man snatched the bag of a woman and ran off. (no quarreling scene, only robbery scene) (O:Sà 30:70)
Soon after the car accident, I saw a couple in a heated argument. They seemed oblivious of what was happening around them. (only quarrel scene) (O:Sà 10:90)
Nearby the car accident, a man and woman was quarreling under a tree. The reason for the dispute was not known. (only the quarrel scene) (O:Sà90:10)
Just as everyone’s attention was on the car accident, a lady screamed for help. A man had robbed her handbag. It was alleged to contain thousands worth of value inside. (robbery scene only) (O:Sà 80:20)
Suddenly, a lady shouted for help. It was reported that a man had grabbed her bag and ran off with it. (only robbery scene) (O:Sà75:25)

Police chases robber

A police officer, who was nearby when the robbery took place, reacted immediately and gave chase. He finally caught the robber and brought him back to the station. The bag was safely returned to the owner without loss. (O:Sà75:25)
A police officer saw the robbery and chased the thief immediately. He managed to catch the latter within a few minutes. The bag was returned to the owner without loss. (O:Sà 85:15)
As soon as the thief escaped with the bag, a police officer immediately gave chase. The thief was caught in a matter of seconds, and the bag was returned safely. (O:Sà 80:20)
I was at the scene of the car accident when I saw a police officer chasing a man. I was later told that the man had snatched a lady’s bag. The police officer caught the man and brought him back to the station. (O:Sà 35:65)

animation updates

2007-03-21T14:51:00.000+08:00

hey people... as you know, the car crash animation is up. the "plane crashing into building" one is getting on ok (wondering if i should make the plane break in half... but dunno how to do that at the moment).

to jingying: have uploaded 1 of the cars as an example for you

to donny: am working on the animation for the thing with the bones for a character in the idle state of plane crash.

that's it from me for the moment.....

Character Animation

2007-03-18T10:37:00.000+08:00

Guys, I managed to animate our Photographer Main Character.
I Animated his walk sequence, idle (looking here and there) and preparing to take picture.
I Managed to put the camera in his hand. Check out the video here.

I also integrated him to the game, and it works pretty well. Basically if the player doesn't press anything, he will idle. The moment you walk him forward, it will play the animated sequence. If you press the 'ready to take photo' button, he will lift his camera up.

new files uploaded

2007-03-08T09:45:00.000+08:00

hey guys, i have uploaded a new file into our community - an update on the themes and events with the filenames. And below is the narrative discourse that I have worked out. We can scale it down though, cos this version is the full scaled one for the events that we have discussed:

Narrative discourse

START: Plane crashes into building, simultaneously happening:
- car accident OR
- man and woman quarelling

if choose plane crashes into building, scenes that can happen after: (only one at a time)
- man jumping off the building OR
- debris falling onto someone OR
- car swerves into shophouse with man OR
- plane tilts and crashes onto ground

ai. if man jumping off building is shown, simultaneously happening:
- debris falling onto someone OR
- car swerves into shophouse with man inside OR
- car accident/quarrelling (depending on at START what is shown) OR
- plane tilts and crashes onto ground OR
- none

I. If man jumping off building is chosen, scenes that can happen after:
- police helps the injured man OR
- man calling handphone to help OR
- above scenes happen one after another OR happen simultaneously

II. if debris falling onto someone is shown and chosen, scenes that can happen after:
- police helps the injured man OR
- man calling handphone to help OR
- above scenes happen one after another OR happen simultaneously

III. if car swerves into shophouse is shown and chosen, scenes that can happen after:
- refer to 1biii.

IV. if car accident is shown and chosen, scenes that can happen after:
- refer to 2.

V. if plane tilts and crashes onto ground is shown and chosen, scenes that can happen after:
- refer to 2biv.

VI. if none happens simultaneously, refer to 1bi.

** from I to V, scenes can happen simultaneously in decreasing number (depending on the previous scene that has taken place: for example, if debris falling onto someone is shown but not chosen, this scene cannot be happening again in later scenes)

aii. If debris falling onto someone is shown, simultaneously happening:
- man jumping off building OR
- car swerves into shophouse with man inside OR
- car accident/quarrelling (depending on at START what is shown) OR
- plane tilts and crashes onto ground OR
- none

I. if man jumping off the building is shown and chosen, scenes that can happen after:
- refer to 1bi.

**the rest follows the format as above 1ai (I à VI).

aiii. If car swerves into shophouse with man is shown, simultaneously happening:
- man jumping off building OR
- debris falling onto someone OR
- car accident/quarrelling (depending on at START what is shown) OR
- plane tilts and crashes onto ground OR
- none

**the rest follows the format as above 1ai (I à VI).

aiv. If plane tilts and crashes onto ground is shown, simultaneously happening:
- man jumping off the building OR
- debris falling onto someone OR
- car swerves into shophouse with man inside OR
- car accident/quarrelling (depending on at START what is shown) OR
- none

**the rest follows the format as above 1ai (I à VI).

bi. If man jumping off building is chosen, scenes that can happen after:
- police helps the injured man OR
- man calling handphone to help OR
- above scenes happen one after another OR happen simultaneously

bii. If debris falling onto someone is chosen, scenes that can happen after:
- police helps the injured man OR
- man calling handphone to help OR
- above scenes happen one after another OR happen simultaneously
-
biii. If car swerves into shophouse with man is chosen, scenes that can happen after:
- car hits the man as it crashes into shophouse OR
- car hits the shophouse with the man jumping out of the way OR
- police helps injured man (can be cowboy or the driver)

biv. If plane tilts and crashes onto ground is chosen, scenes that can happen after:
- police helps the injured
- man using handphone to call for help
- above scenes happen one after another OR happen simultaneously

if choose car accident, the following scenes can happen:
- car swerves into shophouse with man
- normal car accident (car crashes into car)

ai. If car swerves into shophouse with man is shown, simultaneously can happen:
- man and woman quarrelling OR
- car accident (the plane crash is not allowed as it is shown in START)

I. if choose man and woman quarrelling, scenes that can happen:
- man robs woman OR
- woman screaming for help OR
- above scenes can happen simultaneously OR one after another OR
- police helps to catch robber

II. if choose car accident, scenes that can happen:
- police helps the injured OR
- man uses handphone to call for help OR
- above scenes can happen simultaneously OR one after another

aii. If normal car accident is shown, simultaneous can happen:
- man and woman quarrelling
- car swerves into shophouse with man

I. if choose man and woman quarrelling, scenes that can happen: à refer to 2aiI
II. if choose car swerves into shophouse with man, scenes that can happen: à refer to 2bi.

bi. If car swerves into shophouse with man is chosen, scenes that can happen after:
- man escapes the car by jumping out of its way, the car crashes into shophouse
- car crashes into shophouse and also hits the man à followed by police helps the injured OR man uses handphone to call for help

bii. If normal car accident is chosen, scenes that can happen after:
- police helps the injured
- man using handphone to call for help

3. if choose man and woman quarrelling, the following scenes can happen:
- man robs woman and run away, happening simultaneously à car accident

ai. if man robs woman is chosen, the following scenes can happen (simultaneously or one after another)
- woman screaming for help OR
- police chases the robber

aii. If car accident is chosen, refer to 2bii.

After presentation comments given

2007-03-05T12:30:00.000+08:00

Here are some of the comments given mentioned during our presentations:
1. Is one level design enough? Can we finish it?
2. Urgency of the game --> when players are deleting the photos, the events are still happening
3. How do the players know that they have taken a good picture?
4. define the relationships between events
5. Scoring system --> through pictures or sentences (the direction the player is going?)
6. Is it the point system that determines the value of the person or how objective the person is?
7. Some background should be given to show what they should be focussing
8. How do we define the quality of the photos? For instance, capturing all the events vs. capturing all the events but with a hand spoiling the image
9. How to rate the photos? What are they being judged on? Why is it a good shot for this one and bad shot for the others?

Something Playable

2007-02-25T18:04:00.000+08:00

After playing around with laying models, I figured I might as well go ahead and make something playable with it. So I managed to load in the Player, some models and animated models, and have the player run around in the scene taking pictures.

This is the default view of the scenes.

Switch to First person view to take pictures

After a couple of shots, press the right shoulder button to view the pictures you have taken. The current active one is indicated by the Bold Red number. Here are the run through of all the picture taken above:

Will upload the source code later tonight for Monday's Lab!
It's quite fun to play, running around shooting photos and all! All it needs now is a purpose for taking those photos...In other words, it needs a GAME :P

Playing around with Perspectives...

2007-02-23T02:30:00.000+08:00

I was fiddling around with some XNA coding using mainly the Animation component, and it was quite simple to create a basic 3D universe and put models on them.
With whatever little math knowledge that i have, i created a simple perspective engine to see the 3d world from above and from first person.

See that guy above? He's our protagonist. He's standing between a copter and a Nissan car. At this moment, you can actually control him. Left/Right to rotate his orientation, Up and Down to move forward/ backwards.

Switch to first person view (Hold Space bar on Windows or Left Trigger on XBOX) from the above spot and this is what you see. Hold on to the trigger button to stay in First person mode. You can still move around, turn left or right and tilt up and down in first person mode.

Move him behind the car now, and look at the Car's plate number. I managed to find a way to tilt his head up and down to simulate looking up and down.

Here's the car's plate no.

And here's after i tilt up to focus on the copter.

This is just another view of the scene from the front of the car

Erik : I uploaded the Source code to our Project folder (not the CS4343 community), under the folder XNA, file name : 18862.rar. This is using the latest Animation Component source code, and if you look through the solution, you can see I am also playing around with another component to draw fonts in XNA, called Nuclex.Fonts, can be found here.

Next thing to do:
- Create some scenes
- Implement the Photo/ Scene Engine for the Gameplay
- Class/ Data structure/ XML ? For scalability

Steps to create a scene

2007-02-21T10:24:00.000+08:00

I don't know whether this is necessary, but it's just something to hopefully get us kicking :P

Choose your models and take note of which ones you are using
Create a new working folder, call it Scene1 or whatever, then dump all the textures for all the models that you choose into that folder.
Create a new Maya scene, import the models which you are going to use for the scene. Remember to check “Merge” to insert the model into your current scene.
Before you make your animations, please save the scene first, as a sort of base for the animation. Basically this is just a preparation for the animation, so make sure you scale the models correctly, rotate them if their orientation is different etc.
Now you can animate the models!
Save the scene as another Maya file, call it according to your Scene Name, and enumerate it well. Eg : Scene1_1 means Scene 1 State 1 or something
After you save the file, please export the scenes into .FBX, using the instructions I posted way earlier on, using the same name as the Maya scene name. If in doubt, then its okay, I will do the exporting, just as long as you have the Maya scene file saved.
For subsequent scenes, this is a bit challenging, coz we need to figure out how to remove all animations and keep only the last frame (perhaps someone can teach me?) So say in one scene you are exploding the car, then the next scene you want to begin from the last frame of the previous scene as the first frame of the subsequent scene. I hope you get the idea.

I have also uploaded an excel file which contains our rough plan and story board for the scenes. It’s available here.

As you can see, under the worksheet EventTimeStamp(2), there's a list of events and what kind of things supposed to happen at which timestamp. For now, we try to make 2 scenes first. The first series of event time stamps is what me and Jing Ying discussed last Friday. The second one has not been polished.

So we kind of need to polish all these events, and start animating! Yeay!

Assets management

2007-02-21T10:04:00.000+08:00

Hope everyone’s enjoying the holidays and break so far :P

I’ve been trying to reorganize stuff to make our project development much more manageable (trying to apply what Danien went through with us the past two weeks), but I have to say this: No matter how we organize it, it still is a hell of a work, haha!

So here it goes: an attempt to streamline our “Assets management”.

I have already downloaded, exported to fbx, resized the textures and tested each and every single of the Models on the XBOX360, and so far they seem to be correctly loaded without issues(some misplaced parts here and there, but its easily fixable)

I have put up an excel file listing all the tested/ working models, and I have uploaded it along with the whole Assets files to my server, you can find it under the folders NM4343->CS4343->Assets

Note : Uploading the files to my server is a temporary solution until we get a proper source control system. I will email you the password separately so we can upload files there.

If possible, re-create the same directory structures on your machine to make things easier to manage.

I know it is simpler to just upload one zipped file which recreates the hierarchy, but since the assets are too big, you might just want to create it yourself and download whatever models you need to create the scene.

For my case (just like on the ftp), I put everything under D:\CS4343 and the hierarchy goes like this:

D:\CS4343

Assets

Animated Models : To put all our animated scenes

Eg: Scene1 - my poor attempt at a scene. Its a plane crashing into a Nissan car.

Source Models: This is whatever source models which we used(nothing is uploaded to the server yet since the whole thing is damn big)

Source To Use: This is where I dumped all the models which has been touched up to work with XNA

Documents: To put all other documents (eg story boards, game play design etc)
Source: To put the source code for the game

We are going to be using the models from the “Source To Use” folder to create animated scenes for the game. If you open the folder, you will see many sub folders which contains both the model exported in .FBX along with the relevant textures. Please refer to the excel file for a complete listing of models and descriptions. (Last minute addition: the whole "Source To Use" folder has been compiled into one .rar file, much much easier to download. Just click here)

To use the models, open Maya and choose Import, and select the .fbx file. You will see that the textures will not show up. This is because the pointer Path to the textures are not correct, and to fix this, you actually need to go to the Hypershader under Rendering tools and point the textures to the correct path. But do not worry about this for now, just work with un-textured models first, I will fix it later (hopefully I can find a way to make the pipeline easier, if not, then I will do it manually for now)

Oh if you have read this, please put comments? just that i know that everything makes sense, or needs to be simplified or clarified? Cheers!

Scenes and events

2007-02-12T22:58:00.000+08:00

i have done up the scenes and events in the old version of excel format. I would be transferring it onto the new one. But take a look at the scenes and events and see if they are do-able or not ya? Comments are welcomed! Oh the file is at the ivle our own community at the moment.

XNA Animation Component now works on Xbox360!

2007-02-10T10:27:00.000+08:00

After figuring out what Erik did to get the Flight Simulator to work on 360, using the same knowledge, I've been debugging the Animation component again and managed to fix it and at last get it to run on the XBOX360!

Deploying...

Crane animation, captured in low speed.

Here are the steps to compile your own Animation library from this component.
Note since this component is also a Work In Progress, what I've done here might be obsolete soon. But it's just great to finally be able to see something moving on the 360, so here it goes:

I used Release #17738 from the source control and do some minor tweaks to be able to get it to run.
1. Create a new solution, add a Windows Game Library project, I call it Animationx86. Include the source code for the Animation component and compile it. It should produce Animationx86.dll

2. Add another Windows game library project, call it Animation.Contentx86. Include references to the above project Animationx86 and .net frameworks:

CustomMarshalers
Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.Pipeline
System.Xml

Copy all files under the Content folder from the source package.
Now when you try to compile it, it will fail because it is looking for a .cs file which is not available in the source package.
I found out that it is actually a file from the earlier release, so for my case i used Release #17349 and include the file SkinTransformReader.cs into the Animationx86 project.
Recompile everything and it should now work, producing a Animation.Contentx86.dll content processor.

3. Now we need to modify something in the AnimatedModelProcessor.cs.
What we need to do now is to create a DirectX Effect configuration file. I don't understand why, but I just figured that the content processor fails to run when used in an xbox game on line 72:

CompiledEffect compiledEffect4 = processor.Process(effect, context);

So we need to create the effect by capturing the code and writing it to a file. Just write a file writer function (mine is called writeEffectToFile)

private void writeEffectToFile(String filePath, String content){
FileStream file = new FileStream("C:\\"+filePath, FileMode.OpenOrCreate, FileAccess.Write);
StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(file);
sw.Write(content);
sw.Close();
file.Close();
}

and do this after line 69:

effect.EffectCode = BasicPaletteEffect.SourceCode4BonesPerVertex;
writeEffectToFile("SourceCode4BonesPerVertex.fx",effect.EffectCode.ToString());

You should now see a file SourceCode4BonesPerVertex.fx created under your root directory, and include it in your project. Now change line 72 into

CompiledEffect compiledEffect4 = Effect.CompileEffectFromFile("../Animation.Content/SourceCode4BonesPerVertex.fx", null, null, CompilerOptions.None, TargetPlatform.Xbox360);

Now your Animation.Contentx86 should work both on Windows and XBoX! And there goes the complicated part!

4. This time create a Xbox library project, call it Animation360, and add all the Source files from the Animationx86 project. If you try to compile it, it will fail because it is looking for SortedDictionary, so just change all declarations of SortedDictionary into SortedList.
Also, remove the file ModelViewer.cs from the project, since it is using a MouseState class not available for xbox360 and not essential at the moment (Need to tweak it into Gamepadstate later on so we can use the ModelViewer, quite useful)
Compile, and it should produce Animation360.dll

5. Create the Xbox Game, include reference to Animation360, include the Content Pipeline processor Animation.Contentx86, include a model (.fbx) and change the Content Processor into Model - Animation Library. Write your game code and deploy. It should now work perfectly!

Problems
- Not all animations can work! Sometimes it failed to build the BasicPaletteEffect on some animated models. I am still trying to figure out why.
- Some animations are not animated correctly. I am not sure whether this is the problem of the component or is it something to do with the settings during exporting to FBX. Hopefully its just the latter.

At least we're moving on, so I think we can start to combine the flight sim engine and animation component to start build up the game engine :D
So I guess its now time to get some Real work done? Hmmm ...

I am now officially...

2007-02-08T00:53:00.000+08:00

$79 poorer...I decided to just go ahead and shell out some bucks for a 4 months XNA Creators Club subscription. Here's what they kindly remind me after punch in the payment:

Note that your subscription will automatically renew to a 4-month subscription at the then current price, unless you change your renewal or cancel before your subscription ends.

Uhm, okay, yeah sure...

Anyway, I think the subscription would be of benefit to the project and also to satisfy my own curiosity in playing around with XNA.

So Erik, you have a reason to rejoice! I think it is possible to load in my profile to the XBOX at the lab and we can use the XNA using my account. Or I might just pass you the Hardrive to make things more convenient. Lets just hope that the subscription is tied only to the profile and not to the machine or any other things...

Maya Effects. One more bad news..

2007-02-08T00:37:00.000+08:00

I've been doing some research on Maya effects as well, trying to learn how to create explosions and all that. Found this good reference:
http://petershipkov.com/development/overburn/overburn.htm

Kaboom!

This guys was kind enough to share some very interesting animations, but unfortunately, I could not manage to export it to an animation that we can use for the game. When I tried to load it using the utility that i wrote previously, it showed nothing.

So I played around with Maya, try to create a simple fire effect, which is quite straight forward:

And this is how it looks when you render it:

Cool huh?
Wait until you see it running on XNA:

Oh nooooooo! Again, the Animation component is the culprit... I think it doesn't know how to read or interpret the fire effects information stored in the animation...
So for now, it seems we couldn't use the fancy effects which are included in Maya...until I found out another way, the solution now is to create explosion/ fire animations using simple shapes with textures which we move around or somehow manipulate using simple transformations...

So sad..

The not so good news…

2007-02-07T22:53:00.000+08:00

Warning: The following entry is very distressing. Proceed at your own risk.

First of all, apparently the author did acknowledge that his compiled XBOX360 Animation Components (the one which we have been trying to use) indeed HAVE problems.

This is what I understood to be the issue:

The component comprises of two parts: Animation.dll is the animation library itself and Animation.Content is the content pipeline.

Trying to recompile the Animation.dll as XBOX360 library, I encountered a problem:

The type or namespace name 'SortedDictionary' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)
The type or namespace name 'MouseState' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

To solve the first one, I tried changing all declarations of SortedDictionary into SortedList instead. The MouseState issue is due to the ModelViewer class referencing to a mouse library which clearly only available in x86. So I just removed the ModelViewer class for now, since it’s just a utility to view models and not essential.

It compiles successfully after I made the above changes.

Now here’s the more daunting issue:

Apparently, Animation.Content can only be compiled as an x86 game library, because it is using XNA.Framework.Content.Pipeline and some other x86 only libraries.

So it seems for now there is NO WAY (well at least, not to my knowledge) to recompile it as a 360 library. My guess I that in the first place, content processors are meant to be for x86 only anyway.

So what I did is just make it as a Windows library instead, and I tried to compile it using the source code provided, making references to the above successfully compiled 360 Animation.dll. It failed to compile, because of some library conflicts:

The type 'Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Matrix' is defined in an assembly that is not referenced. You must add a reference to assembly 'Microsoft.Xna.Framework, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=51c3bfb2db46012c'. D:\XNA\Recompile\Animation\Animation.Content\X File\XModelImporter.cs 114 21 Animation.Content

So I cheated, I just created another Animation.dll for x86, call it Animationx86 and use it to build Animation.Content.dll. And it works! At least it does compile successfully…

Then finally I tried to create an XBOX360 game, use the above compiled Animation.Content as Content.Pipeline, and added reference to the compiled 360 Animation.dll. I put a model (.fbx), successfully change it to Model-Animation type ( meaning the content pipeline successfully loads the x86 Animation.Content.dll), and when I try to compile it, I got the following error:

Building content threw NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. At Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.Pipeline.Processors.EffectProcessor.CreateContentIdentityFromErrorString(String& errorString, ContentIdentity oldContentId)

…

One last thing, I then try to create a Windows Game instead, using the Animationx86.dll and Animation.Content.dll, it works, it loads the model and animations.

In Summary, here's what I have tried so far:

Platform	Library	Compile	Run
x86	Animation	OK	OK
x86	Animation.Content with x86 Animation	OK	OK
xbox360	Animation	Can Compile with Minor tweaks (SortedList, removed ModelViewer)	Cannot Run
xbox360	Animation.Content with x360 Animation	Cannot Compile (Looking for x86 XNA framework)	Cannot Run
x86	Animation.Content with x360 Animation	Cannot Compile (Looking for x360 XNA framework)	Cannot Run
x86	X86 Game with x86 Animation.Content	OK	OK
xbox360	XBOX360 Game with x86 Animation.Content	Cannot Compile	Cannot Run

I have been trying to look for alternative Animation components to no avail, so looks like we are stuck with the codeplex one for now.

It seems there are other people facing the same issue, and the author has actually noted the issue and hopefully working on it, so for now, we can only wait for him to update his library to work for 360, which he claims to be Possible…

Note: The source code is in our CS4343 Community, Recompile.rar

Some good news...

2007-02-06T13:51:00.000+08:00

Donny, it seems you solved the microsoft.xna.content.pipeline problem without realising it.
The reference file we couldn't find, is in the Xbox360\AnimationLoader360\bin\Xbox 360\Debug folder. So unless you've placed it there, and know it doesn't work, I think we're done with that problem :)
[EDIT] Of course, it could just be the .dll for the windows platform and not the one for the Xbox 360, but we'll find that out later...[/EDIT]

As for the effects.fx, but a stroke of luck, I think I found an alternate way of loading it that doesn't involve CompiledEffect and thus should work on the 360. I'll check that now, and see if I can get access to the 360 creators club account again...

XNA 3D Animation: It works!

2007-02-01T00:49:00.000+08:00

Hi Guys!

Before I say anything, I just wanna show you guys something, to illustrate the result of 4 sleepless nights...
Behold...
Models in XNA!!!! Animated!

Model Trial 1: Nissan Car (Without Image textures)

Model Trial 2: Helicopter (With Image Textures)

Model Trial 3: Truck (With Image Textures)

All of these models are freely available from the net, and converted from .3ds format to .fbx using Maya.

A quick run through of work-flow to create, animate and export to XNA:

1. Get your Models (duh!)

2. If the Models has textures, please copy them to the folder where your XNA Content assets will be included (I will explain the significance of this later on)

3. Now this is the most Tedious part: Apparently XNA only accepts textures whose resolutions are power of 2 ( see here for details), in other words, 2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512 etc, so if one of your texture is say, 300x500, please open using photo shop and resize it to say, 256x512. This is very Important! Otherwise the models will not be able to be imported into XNA, and I will have a hard time debugging which textures to fix later on.

4. Before you start animating, please test that the models will indeed run in XNA. I will (or Erik will :P) write a simple utility to test out whether the model and the textures are importable by XNA.

5. If the models is fine, then you can start animating the models.

6. When ready to Export to XNA, use the File->ExportAll Option from Maya to export to .fbx file. This is the settings which works all the time (so far) for me:

7. Export your models to the Content->Textures/ whatever path of the XNA source code which you are dedicating for Textures(Even if you are not coding it, please set it to the working directory, otherwise I will have to open one by one the FBX and do a replace and search for all). We will go through this in details later on.

8. Test the animation in XNA. For Multiple Animations, We have no choice but to create a second animation based on the same model, but when you export, just click "Export Animation-Only", like follow:
9. Save this to a Separate .fbx file. At this moment, it seems like the only way to have multiple animation in one .fbx is by opening up the animation only-.fbx and copying the animation information manually to the other .fbx which contains the model/ textures information. Until we can write a tools to automate this, we have to do this manually, so remember, rule of thumb:
- First animation : Export All
- Second animation onwards : Export Animation Only
- I will then integrate all the animation manually into the first animation file (the one which is to be imported)

10. At this moment, I am facing a problem with loading a model with lots of bones, because apparently the Animation Component library which I am using has a limitation of 56 bones

///

/// The max number of bones in the effects matrix palette.
///

public const int PALETTE_SIZE = 56;

I am not sure whether we would face this problem or not, but as we go along, we might need to investigate why, and how come the moment I change that value, the whole thing doesn't work anymore.

I think so far it looks quite promising:

We can load .FBX without having to export to the dreadful .x format.
We can load the textures, although a bit laborious as we have to manually change the texture resolutions to be powers of 2
We can embed more than one animations in one .fbx, again, laborious as we have to manually embed the animation one by one
The models render smoothly in XNA, so hopefully as we put more models on the screen at the same time, the performance will not suffer so much.

I will keep you guys updated for more developments!

-Donny

A very brief high level view of what needs to be done

2007-01-26T00:02:00.000+08:00

I'm just posting this so that we have ideas of what to discuss on Friday.

What needs to be done (in order of importance i guess?)

1. 3d Engine Framework in XNA/ C#

2. Scene Engine

Open space with walls?
Create Maps from Textures or 3d models?
Isometric Camera View angle, projection and corresponding First Person View

3. The Player

controls

Movement

Walk

Jump/ Duck?

Collision detection with environment & NPC

Camera controls

Camera view (limited viewing angle)
Screen capture

Recognition of elements of the events
Storage system for shots

4. Objects

Non Interactive Objects

Attributes
Animation
Interaction with NPC

Non Playable Characters

Attributes
Animation
Interaction with Objects

Events

Relationship between Objects and NPCs
Animating and Customizing Elements
Putting Events into the scene

Translate into Game objects
Code Game objects

5. Photo Appraisal Engine

Events Data Structure

Point system
Profile creation/ progression

6. News Report Creation Engine

Interface Design
Vocabulary Listing
Story Creation
Story Appraisal Engine

Point system
Profile creation/ progression

7. Content Pipeline

Game rules & Awards System
Level design & progression
Storyboarding events / Script writing
Narrative
Art design for Non playable Event/Object
Events relationships and hierarchies
Dilemmas/ Challenges

Some plots and names

2007-01-22T20:40:00.000+08:00

here are some simple plots based on local contexts, there are a couple can be used as general contexts:

1. Nicoll Highway scene (not in order)

at first, very peacefully driving at the expressway when there is an explosion suddenly
smoke and fire
cars screech and stop, some cars crash
people climbing out of cars to take a look at the situation
people running away, screaming
sometime later, another bigger explosion
causalties, burnt, injured, blood etc
people calling for help using phones
someone stuck in car, unable to escape
overhead lamps snap and started to fall
someone helping others to put out fire
someone helping the injured

2. Mrt Stations

couple fighting, quarrelling
pushing one another, one fell down onto the platform
incoming train
rescuer
in time/not in time
unknown bag, terrorist suspects
robber
mrt braking and horning sounds
the next mrt clashes, no time to stop
explosion
glass shattering

3. Earthquake tremors

buildings shake
windows break
glass falls to the ground level
cars on road stops, screeching sounds
cars bang/hit each other
people running out of the houses
explosion, fire and smoke
someone try to junp off the room with fire
police and ambulance
calling handphones
children lost, ask for help
roads crack a bit, pipeline bursts
flowerpots crashing down

4. Zoo/Night Safari

a tiger escapes
blood trails
dead carcass of animals
broken branches and trampled grass
police searching the area
curious people looking
others trying to help

Name for our group:

EyePlay Studios (direct translation from the ludus)

First posting

2007-01-22T13:41:00.000+08:00

Infinitus Ludus is basically a crappy literal translation of "Infinite Play" in Latin. I used an online dictionary to come up with the term, so if it does not make sense, who cares, who speaks Latin anyway? =)p

We haven't come up with a Studio name yet, so perhaps this could be our first exercise and also to test whether everything is set up correctly.

My suggestion: iLude Studios