Zuma Beach

Our group have purchased an island in second life, we have the island for 7 days, which cost around £20 (about L$10,000), whilst this was a lot, the island was freely transformable, meaning we could terraform the land, and make necessary restrictions to make the game playable.




As we were playing two games we decided to separate the courses with a wall, this meant that the contents of the two maps remained a secret to the users until it was time to enter (as the players had no flying ability.


We wanted the games to be themed, the original idea was to have a game of "cops and robbers" in which the players would be dressed as robbers if they were not it and a cop if they were it, this however wasn't possible as it wasn't possible to code the outfits onto the players.
We stuck with the theme of cops and robbers but in a fairytale enviroment.




I then decided to have one area themed as a sort of fairytale land, this area would have castles, dragons, magic trees (not the air freshener!), a humpty dumpty, an insie winsy spider and all other manor of things, getting the castle was easy, i found a store which sold them for about L$5 with loads of free furniture, I put a few trees in at the top of the hill and went on the hunt for other things. This proved a lot harder than anticipated and all the items I found were either rubbish or lagged the game up so much they weren't worth the effort.





I therefore moved onto the other area, as this was totally blank and something needed to be put there for there to be any sort of event, I settled on a sort of housing estate, which would restrict the movements of the players to a street with houses lined along it meaning people would be hiding in houses as well as running around the streets making almost like hide and seek and tag mixed together, this was also a problem however as there weren't many prefab houses that matched up enough to build up an estate, I was also unsure about how to make a road.
The theme for this was Zombies, sort of like the film Shuan of the Dead



I tried to build my own items but the interface in second life didn't seem to agree with me and I just ended up getting rather frustrated and building very primitive items.


What we ended up with was frankly rubbish! This was due to me not finding many prefabs, my lack of experience at playing SL and also with only a few days to build it (for the first game) the final result wasn't very impressive.
For the second game I have somewhat improved this but it still isn't quite as good as I'd have liked.


In hindsight I was very over ambitious as to what I could achieve and should have went for something simpler with the time-frame we were given, however if we had land and more L$ from the beginning I'd have probably been able to easily complete the two courses.

Map Designs

Below are some hand drawn map designs for our event in second life, the map is from a birds eye view and is in the theme of cops and robbers.
I have also added numbers to all the items which have larger drawings with a more detailed explanation of what they are.
Sorry if some are upside-down my scanner software makes everything into pdfs and i dunno how to change the settings!

FileDropper Free File Hosting

Second Life

For the next part of this module we have been asked to create an event in Second Life.
I have never used Second Life so my first task is to have a look at what it is!
The following paragraph from Wikipedia describes Second Life quite well.

"Second Life (SL) is a virtual world developed by Linden Lab that launched on June 23, 2003, and is accessible via the Internet. A free client program called the Second Life Viewer enables its users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars. Residents can explore, meet other residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, and create and trade virtual property and services with one another, or travel throughout the world, which residents refer to as the grid. Second Life is for people aged 18 and over, while Teen Second Life is for people aged 13 to 17."

Along with this video, I have a pretty good idea of what it is.

Introduction to Second Life

We have been asked to develop out event in groups of 4 or 5.
I will be working with Will Skates, Joshua Bond, Chris Tough and Jessica Dimmock, and together we have come up with a few ideas, which are shown below.

A "300" themed party. In this we would create all the Spartan costumes as well as mimicking the famous kicking animation from the well known scene in the movie. We would purchase a small plot of land and recreate the buildings and area from that scene (including the big hole). Which would teleport people into a black cave (built in the sky) which they could exit and start again.

A theme park. For this we would create lots of rides that users would be able to sit on and interact with. This would require a lot of modeling a large area of land and lots of scripting so it would be a very hard option given the 6 week time limit on the build.

A big game of Tag. This would be a fun yet challenging option. We would probably make it a theme as this would make it a lot more interesting for potential players. For this idea I feel we would need to remove the option to fly as it would ruin the game.
We will also include prizes for the person who is "tagged" least.
We now need to find a way to code the event so Second Life knows when people have been tagged. The most likely way is to use objects on the shoulders of players of the game to show who is playing we believe these objects can also be used as a way to recognize who is tagged.


Our main idea is to have an event of Tag themed as Cops and Robbers.
With dress up and a map themed as cops and robbers
An example below shows how we could make the costumes look.

More Work!

We have now added a hutch, food and water bowl to the design.
We now need to add barriers to the outside of these so the rabbit doesn't just walk through the side of them. We have found a few tutorials and it seems quite simple if we want to make big barriers but however we need to make very small so the rabbit can still fit in the hutch. We have also found out a way to detect when something touches but not to do anything about it when it does.

As well as this we have also found out how to make a clock. We now need to find a way to link the clock to the lifetime of the rabbit.

The Health and Time Bars

We have found a tutorial online on how to make a health bar. It doesn't work in the way we'd like our to as yet as it uses buttons but we feel we can change the code around and add parts to make it so when the mouse hovers over the areas the Rabbits health then changes. Until the point it dies and re-spawns.

We have also started looking into having a time bar for the rabbits lifespan this will mean the rabbit will die after a pre-determinded time, we want to keep the deaths random but not so the rabbit had the same chance of dying after one second as it does to die after 24 hours. This means we are going to have to search hard for a way to do this.

Research into techniques

As we have such little time, we are now having to work at a much higher rate than we'd like.
We have both been researching different ways of making a digital organism have some form of AI and have found it rather difficult to find anything of relivence to our Adobe Flash rabbit.
We have both however found a lot of info on flash games. This means we can start work on the interface and after this is complete work on coding the rabbit to have AI after this is done.


We have found how to make an object track the mouse in a flash tutorial. This means that once we have an acceptable rabbit drawn in Adobe Photoshop we have a very very basic organism, the start of, hopefully, of A Life!

Below is a link to a mouse follow flash online. It is somewhat similar to the one we have designed. However ours turns to follow the movements of the mouse. This means the rabbit is always facing forwards, and not walking like a crab sideways.


www.kirupa.com/developer/flash5/animation/followfinal.swf

Discussions and a change of tact

Mel has now started to recover for being ill. We have talked about it and think we should try to get the work done to our best standard for the deadline as we still have a week until it. We are going to meet and work out the best plan of action for this.
We think the app will probably now be a lot more basic due to the lack of time, but we still want to make an organism that in some way can live on its own.


Our rabbit has now slowly starting to take shape, after some discussions and research we have decided to change a few elements in the application as we feel it will work best this way and it will also remove the need for buttons to control the digital organism. The rabbit will now follow the movements of the mouse, this will mean that the user can have an influence on the way the rabbit moves without any clicking.

With this addition in mind we are also going to make it possible for the user to physically move the rabbit to the different areas in his living space, i.e the food, the water, his bed, hazards etc.

We may let the rabbit roam on a random path with the user is not using them but this will mean the rabbit will have to avoid obstacles and go to food and bed on it own.

Problems

We have had a set back in our work, due to Mel becoming ill and going home to Cheltenham to recover, this means our project has taken a real set back and no flash work has been completed. We are currently considering applying for extenuating circumstances as we feel our work has been greatly effected by this situation.

Advancing Ideas

I have designed some ideas using Adobe Photoshop, this means that we can easily transfer any elements from these ideas that we like straight into Flash. I have designed the screen in a slightly cartoon style, i feel this will suit better as using real photographs or realistic characters and objects may look out of place in the final design.
This is a slightly updated version of the rabbits hutch, I've used the gradient to give the hutch depth and a 3D effect, I've also added a half moon on the end of the hutch to appear as a doorway. I've added the lines to add the the reality of the hutch.


I have tried to make a water feeder similar to the sort they have on the side of rabbit hutches, I don't feel that it worked however as the perspective was wrong and it wouldn't go on the side of the cage, therefore it is just floating in the air. I will probably change this in the final design.
The bowl again is made using perspective, I made an oval with a smaller oval inside of it of a darker colour to give it the effect of it being deeper than the other part of the bowl.
I also wrapped the text "Russell" around the shape, this gave the bowl the look of having a lip around it.


This is the the side of the fence, I've repeated this shape around the side of the "playpen" for the rabbit, I don't feel it works however as it is at a strange angle and it is unclear what it actually is. I'm still trying to work out a way for it to work however it is hard to do from a birds-eye view.
The litter tray was made in the same way as the bowl was, the only difference with this was I added an extra lip to the top and also put a gradient on the inside of the tray.

The rabbit isn't designed in the same way as how the final design will be but I have added it as a representation of size.
The ball was designed using the blending tools in Photoshop, this will be there for the rabbit to play with.

This is part of the tool bar, I feel this is one of the stronger elements, I may change some of the subtitles but other than this I will keep it essentially the same.This is the final design together, I feel the layout works well and would probably suit mobile applications such as iPhone's best. The grass area is lacking decoration so does look plain.

First Ideas

We have started to define our ideas in a more detailed way. Looking into how AI in flash works and whether our original idea is conceivable. We have a drawing of how we want our idea to look, we feel that athetically very attractive with the potential to be enjoyable for the user. At the same time it should be quite easy to make.
Below is the hand drawn version of what we intend to make.

We have buttons on the side of the screen, one is to feed the rabbit, the user will have a choice of foods, each will fill the rabbits hunger bar but some will fill it quicker, and some will also effect the other bars, such as salty food will reduce the thirst bar and fatty food will reduce the health bar but increase the rabbits enjoyment. It will all be about getting a good balance. If you over feed or over water the rabbit the heath will deteriorate rapidly.
Drinking water will increase the rabbits thirst bar and also have a sligt effect of the rabbits heath, increasing it slightly. It will make the rabbit need to use the toilet more also.
Play will entertain the rabbit and increase the need to eat and drink for the rabbit. It will also make the rabbit more tired.
Sleep clearly stops the rabbit being tired, all the other bars will start to increase/decrease as appropriate whilst sleeping.
Using the toilet will of course reduce the rabbits need to use the toilet! The user will be able to teach the rabbit to use a litter box but we haven't worked out the interface for this yet.

IDAT - 204 - "Digital Organism"

Introduction

Our digital organism, "Russell", is going to be developed in Adobe Flash. The intention is to make an organism which mimics the behaviour of a pet Rabbit, living in a cage. The user will be able to manipulate "Russell" Our digital organism, "Russell", is going to be developed in Adobe Flash. The intention is to make an organism which mimics the behaviour of a pet Rabbit, living in a cage. The user will be able to manipulate the space "Russell" lives in.

Research

Domestic Rabbits
After doing various research on rabbits we found out the following;
Life expectancy : Depending on the breed, domestic rabbits can live from 5-12 years and require commitment.
Diet : Rabbits are herbivores and their diet consists of the following;Rabbit mix/pellets, hay (fibre vital for digestion), fresh fruit and vegetables such as carrots,cabbage, celery etc. and also plants/flowers. They have to eat these things daily in order to maintain their health.
Cage/Hutch : The rabbit will need a home which will be 4 times the rabbits length

The Content
Russell's environment - A square garden with various different areas to it

Areas of garden - hutch (sleep), Eating area (a bowl?), Water area (Bowl?), Play area

Lifespan of the rabbit - 1 hour = 1 year of its life which means it can live up to 12 hours

Needs bars - These are bars which show the rabbit's basic needs and whether or not they are being fulfilled. If the needs are not met, then the baron that particular need will decrease with time. The basic needs will be;food, water, sleep, (to take care of its environment), stimulate it and it's overall health. If you don't fulfill Russell's needs he will eventually die. e.g. if it isn't fed then food/hunger bar will decrease which will also affect stimulation bar because it will be less active.

Design layout
Top-down perspective view of the rabbit similar to computer games such as "Grand Theft Auto" and "Mirco Machines" (see below) we will keep the environment static whilst the rabbit moves around it which is different to the afore mentioned games. The rabbit gets to the edge of its environment it automatically changes direction which will be random. The reason we chose it to be random is so it does not end up, stuck in a loop.




There will also be a menu on the side out of the rabbits environment which will give the user options to fulfill the rabbit's needs e.g.selecting different types of food which will in turn affect the rabbits needs bar, giving the rabbit unsuitable food will decrease the "hunger" bar.Also a bar along the bottom (also out of the rabbit's environment) which will display each needs bar, similar to the game "The Sims" created by Maxis (see below). We will also make sure that the hutch is an accurate size in relation to the rabbit which should be 4 times the rabbit's length. The hutch will have to be closed off so we will have to code the application so that it sets barriers so the rabbit is not walking through one end of the cage and coming out of the other. It will have an enter/exit point.




Our plan so far is to use the information above to create a life form which the user can interact with, however, we could develop it further if we meet the targets we set ourselves. The reason being so that we do not underestimate our work load in the time set for us to complete the project.


Extensions
We could have an area of the garden which is harmful to the rabbit if it enters it such as nettles etc. and we could train it to avoid these certain areas.
Also we could teach the rabbit to use a litter tray which could be any part of the garden, if the rabbit fails to use it, it's health bar will decrease.



Bibliography

Pet Website. "Pet Website - Rabbits". Web http://www.petwebsite.com/rabbits/prepare_rabbit_cage.htm (12 Oct 2009)

Downing, Elisabeth. Keeping Rabbits. London: Peltem, 1977. Print.

Dungeon Master. "Micro Machines 2 - Turbo Tournament." Web. http://www.software-dungeon.co.uk/images/3932_micro-machines-2-3.png (12 Oct 2009)

Stephan Albrecht. "Online Portfolio." http://www.s-albrecht.com/wordpress/wp-content/demo_thesims1.jpg (12 Oct 2009)

Amazon.com "Askville" http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/askville/4048118_9237020_mywrite/cute_rabbit.jpg (12 Oct 2009)