#ctech608

Brainstorming possible ideas for Studio ctech608 and digital fabrication ctech603. I am hoping to join the two projects together it will be interesting to learn more about 3D modelling and being able to produce something from modelling and having a product that can be used. I am leaning towards construction and mental health but will talk to people in class, at home, friends and family to bounce ideas off.

19-26/10/2020 Wednesday - Monday

Camera pins

The first thing I did today was to make it so that the pins now load The pop up (contains the title and short story). I did this by using the script that Matt had made within the camera scene which allows for items to be loaded when clicking on the 3D pin. I edited his script to make a pop-up appear when pressing a pin. I spent a while editing the script to make it so that each individual pin loads a different pop up. From there I made it so that after clicking on the pop-up the “long story” (contains the title and long story) would load. I made each pin have its respective pop up and long story, Ashton had already written out these stories so all I had to do was copy them over to the unity project. the last few things I did was adding a genre tags for the pop ups, and adding two buttons to the popups one will load the long story and one will close the pop-up, this was done to make it easier for the user to navigate the section. 

Player made pin

I then moved onto incorporating the user made story into the camera section. I used the code that records the title, genre tags, short story, and long story and made it so that the 4th pin will display these details. This was easy to add as I had already tested different ways for displaying the users inputted details. Since I had already created the final look for the pop-up and long story all I had to do was make base versions of them to be controlled by the user input script.

Now that I have created the ability to interact with all the pins an issue has occurred. The issue is if you interact with the pin nothing will be displayed on the pop-up and long story as no details have been entered into the creation section. To work around this I made it so that the user made pin would not be active until the creation script was complete (an inactive object will not appear in the scene).

Adding required inputs

As of right now the app is basically functioning so all I need to do is add some small elements such as making selection of objects and typing into input fields required before transitioning to the next section. I started with the avatar icon selection, I made it so that if you try to progress without selecting an icon you will be unable to progress and the text that says to select an icon will change to red. I change the text to red as most applications do this when certain inputs are invalid. I then proceeded to do the same for the sign in section, register section, and the creation section making it so that text is required to be inputted before proceeding, as well as changing the text that says what to do to red.

Updated visuals

I updated the project with the final visuals created by Ashton and Hannah in Adobe XD, this was great to see as the project looks much more professional now. I also updated all the text in the sections changing font color and enlarging it in places to better suit the look of the project.

Last edits

The last few things I had to do for the project was to add a word count to the inputs, the ability to like and disliked, creating a pop up when trying to sign out asking if you want to sign out, some small changes to the stories in the feed, and updating the user profile so that when you create a story it appears in there, and the number of stories that you have will increase from zero to one. I won't bore you with the details of adding these final edits as most of the code required I had already created for the project.

Final Project

My part of this project is now finished all that is required is for Matt to build the project to his Android and record a video of him using the application. You can see how the project looks within Unity below.

Video of final project shown through the Unity application:

Unfortunately Kelsey, the artist, has found a job that will take over all his time so he’s not able to help with the artwork anymore so I’m back to being a 1 man band. I plan to meet this part of the rubric by working closely with Dianne Lummis, the counselor, and a school for user testing.

I am currently 3/4 of the way through finishing the coding for the game so it should be playable soon just not pretty. Everything is just different coloured boxes right now. I’m gonna have to rush through the programming and get onto the artwork and animation asap to bring it to a playable state so I can have kids play it and give me feedback.

I have a school lined up that may be interested so all that’s left to do there is finalize it and get the parents to sign off on their kids playing the game. I also need to bring the game back to the counselor to make sure she’s okayed it prior to the game testing. Just so I don’t have any ethics issues :)

I’m excited with how this is turning out. I’ve gone through many iterations. Unfortunately most iterations have been done to descope so I can finish at least a prototype but it seems to be turning out well and according to Dianne, in theory, the analysis can work. If so then this might just be the project I’m gonna work on until it’s completed and at a marketable state. If this can help even one kid then I’m happy :) I’m actually finally doing something with my time at uni and it feels great. Somehow, even with a lot more work, I’m a lot less stressed out and really just having fun on the journey.

I got to talk to a psychologist, Dianne Lummis, about my idea and how I can go about identifying a mental disorder in children. She was extremely helpful, giving me endless reference material and even going so far as to helping me research as well. We decided to stray away from labeling kids with possible mental disorders and instead show results of indicators that may lead to a mental disorder or illness. She’s shown me the DSM5 criteria which is the criteria of diagnosing someone with autism. My goal, with the help from Dianne, is to gamify the different criteria and make a scenario out of each. Then the information sent to the parent/caregiver or school will be, for example, that they have trouble handling emotions or prefer to be alone. This change, while narrowing down my scope, also allows for more flexibility in the information given so the parent can take their child to their local GP and see if that information leads to a diagnosis.

Through talking with her, I’ve decided on characters being animals and other ‘unhuman’ creatures. Kids have a tendancy to enjoy that more than actual people. Through iteration and talking to kids, I will find out whether they would rather play as a human or creature.

It’s taken 5 weeks of pestering a lot of psychologists to be able to talk to someone. Fortunately an amazing AUT lecturer, Dianne, has agreed to chat and will hopefully be able to bring some insight on what to include in the game. 

My team member and I have created a timeline that we think we are able to stick to:

WEEK 3 – 4

Get in touch with psychologists

Get a group together

Get basics of game drawn out

 WEEK 5 – 6

Character movement

Character creation

Talk to psychologist

Design scenarios to gamify test questions

ART - UI design

ART - Character animation

 WEEK 7 – 8

Inventory system

Use and combine objects

ART - Character model/animation finalization

ART – Backdrops

 WEEK 9 – 10

ART – items

Input the different blocks into scenario

ART – Environment animations

 WEEK 11 – 12

Input the different blocks into scenario

Finalize scenario

Finalize art

 WEEK 13 – 14

Bug testing

Build executable