#aial

The late ruler King Itchlari Raekarr Krouccark III and his wife Queen Aial. Ixal's parents who were very much love birds.

Itchlari became king roughly a little over 300 years ago when his father had passed away after his long reign. He looks drastically different from his father which is common for the Phoenix Clan. Like his ancestors before him, Itchlari had gone on a pilgrimage when he was around 50 and had adventured around the world. He had a reputation of being flirty and charismatic being well liked by his companions and subjects. He was a talented ranger and a warrior like his father though he preferred to make friends rather than enemies. He had two wives previously, both who had passed away due to age. He had loved them dearly and had statues erected for the previous queens around Cormyr. Rumor had it that his feathers and blood could cure most diseases and injuries. Unfortunately, the beloved king had contracted an unknown disease and passed away despite still being in his "youth."

Aial was the former captain of the royal guard of Cormyr. She has a strong demeanor with sass. Itchlari had fallen for her almost immediately when she came into his service and took about 2 years to win her affection. The two eventually got very close and had Ixal after some time. Due to Itchlari's untimely passing, she became the de facto ruler of Cormyr. Despite that, she has remained relatively down to earth. Like the late king, she is popular among her subjects due to this and further helped due to helping defend Cormyr from criminals and similar threats in person despite her status.

I was only half-paying attention, so I only heard him say the word “Italian”. So I said “yes”, because I ordered an Italian sub and I thought he was confirming my order (he didn’t work in the kitchen, so idk why I thought that.)

It didn’t occur to me until much later that he was asking me if I was Italian. In hindsight, it would explain why he seemed genuinely excited when I said yes.

I didn’t think much of it, until I came back today and he greeted me in Italian while waving excitedly.

Hi Aial how are you doing lately?? Thank you for sending an ask in!

Get drunk with Sakunami

i feel so guilty i had to look up this poor boy BUT idk he looks so fun to get drunk with?? he'd be the giggly happy type that's like "y-you know what? *giggles* A-Aone really like little turtles! that's s-so surprising right!?" *laughs and tumbles off the couch* and that seems like so much fun (spill allll the secrets hehehe)

Make out with Hinata

I know after coming home from Brazil this boy learned a thing or two, there is no convincing me other wise.

Date Aone

He may look scary but he is such a sweetheart on the inside okay? A bit shy at first but then he'll open up and it's just gwah 🥺

Marry Osamu

Master Chef, them back muscles, i don't think you can go wrong here

Punch Atsumu (but it’s a love tap 🥺)

I wouldn't full out attempt to punch him, it'd just be a love tap, but then he'd probably go off on me and demand he hit me back and i'd have a bruise and sore arm for the next month or so 😔

Theyre lowkey aesthetic!! Especially the black/white ones!!

31/10/16

With just one full day left until studio assessment, today was spent setting up our interactive exhibition pieces and having a play around to do some final bits of testing and polishing. Below are pictured Aaron and Marlo interacting with the Kinect-projection component. This feature implements the mechanic that nearby fish are attracted towards outstretched hands of players and will swim in a close area around the nearest hand.

Design success

While Aaron and Marlo were simultaneously playing in the space, they realised they could “swap” fish between them if they moved their hands close together. They then began to engage in a sort of “ping pong” game with each other where they tried to pass the fish back and forth without losing possession of any. I found this to be a really illustrative example of open-ended play in action that told us our design was successful at meeting our goals, which were defined as the following (taken from my research on design of interactive playgrounds):

✓ Being an environment for play, rather than a game, interactive playgrounds should not force strict rules upon the players but provide possibilities for the children to define their own games. (Tetteroo, 2011)

✓ In order to combine the merits of both traditional children’s play and modern computer gaming into an interactive playground, ideally the acts of play, or the games played within the playground should be partially contained — that is, simulated and facilitated by the playground, but not fully dependent on it. The children playing on the playground should incorporate elements of the interactive playground in their play, but not let the digital enhancements overshadow their play. (Tetteroo, 2011)

Reference:

Tetteroo, D., Reidsma, D., Van Dijk, B., & Nijholt, A. (2011, May). Design of an interactive playground based on traditional children’s play. In International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment (pp. 129-138). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Technical revision

While carrying out technical tests with their Kinect program, Marlo and Aaron discovered bugs with the moving background (which was initially a looping video of an ocean setting), where it would slow down the frame rate during runtime or freeze entirely when serial communication was sent from the e-textiles. While the video background was photorealistic and looked good, the issues outweighed the benefits of keeping it. So we made the decision to replace it with an image background instead. 

As the graphic designer of our poster, I volunteered to create an illustrated background in the same style for the projection. This was the outcome:

However the background didn’t create quite the same level of immersion without movement, and looked oddly disparate from the rest of the moving elements on the screen. So I drew more frames to produce the following simple animation, which made a marked improvement to the overall effect:

The decision to switch from the photorealistic video background to the animated illustration turned out to not be a compromise at all - the improvement that stands out most to me is the renewed aesthetic cohesion between elements of our space, with the illustrative style of the poster now echoed in the interactive projection. Our project’s starting to develop a strong visual identity which I think will be a big help when it comes to communicating Adventuary to the audience, and most importantly to the client at our final pitch. 

Studio IV: Play - Exhibition Poster Design

26/10/16

We’re on the last leg of the race and everything’s finally shaping up. At the team’s request I’ve designed the poster above, which will be going on display next to our project exhibit during Open Studio. I went with a colourful yet clean and simple illustrative style to reflect the playful and child-friendly nature of our project. For one of my first forays into vector illustration using Sketch (which I actually really enjoy), I think it turned out pretty well!

Before anyone points out that it looks nothing like the A3 size requirement, that’s because we’ve ordered it to be printed on one of these:

Snazzy, I know. Our reasoning for going a slightly alternative route with our poster is that we want it to serve as a “signpost” of sorts – a concise and visually appealing invitation for the audience to engage with the project exhibit. Its first and foremost priority is to make the project content accessible by giving just enough description to communicate what the project is, then (quite literally) directing viewers to where they can explore and find out more. This is where having our documentation book on display comes in, which details all our various processes and outcomes for those interested.