Exams is lurking...Tommorow....
Haven't have the chance to actually add the latest stuff I am currently doing, thanks to the exam tomorrow (cough cough and of course those dota moments).
Finally completed as a team, our game prototype for one of the assignment, and making the gameplay video accessible via Youtube. It is a tower defense game but rather than player building the tower as in the usual way, player have to collect resources and build their towers up while controlling that particular avatar. Oh and Of course you can shoot and do special attack....
Thursday, 23 October 2014
Getting things done
Been dead busy with all the assignment lately but finally it's over. Time for more Australia chocolate and prepare for the exam! LoL.
I am going to diverted from my "game design" blogging and show the other aspect that I have to do in my studies. The older post previously shows much of designing, the importance of critical thinking and relationship with people in order to get things done. In this assignment its kind of similar but we have to deliver a video prototype for it!
The main objective for this assignment was to think how the future of reading will be and showcase our idea to video. In this project, we are required to work in pairs and I was partnered with a local name Andrew. Combining his idea of Virtual reality and my Haptic technology we came out a solution to the brief by letting user to be engage in any form of reading and be able to feel the atmosphere as exactly to any part of their reading.
We divided our work in such a way that he will be handling the research while I be doing the UI, graphic, video editing, anything that that have to do with design and its methodologies, Still this is done with constant communication as no ideas and ui design was placed in the project without another person agreement. So behold the project we called ATMOS.
UI design and ideation
I mentioned earlier even though I was the one who did the UI design and graphic, I still consulted Andrew for feedback. In fact we work really well such to the extend I feel that our partnership actually covers each other shortcoming and lack of skills perfectly!
This is our initial concept for the project, bear in mind some of the ideation change/scrapped drastically after we did a few interviews and research.
First ideation
After we have our first discussion this is the initial concept look i propose to Andrew. We talked about how user will interact and the gestures users have to do in order to interact in the virtual space.
First ideation - Refining it
Slightly refine the concept after speaking with some of mates in Australia. The majority i talked to tell me the ideas of having a button outside the main circle might cause bad aesthetic design. Really glad I took those advice and change it to what you see in the video.
Iteration..Iteration...Design...and more design...
Here onwards it's all about critical thinking, ideate it and iterate it over and over...
Initial logo concept
User Initial navigation and preferences
Moving from space to space while in the device- sketches done by Andrew
After so many changes and amount of papers that was used we finally decided to nail it down and agreed how it should look and work on. This lead me to the next stages in getting those sketches to mid fidelity look. In this stages that I also have to start designing the UI of the system.
The main goal here is to have the visual look as clear as possible not just for the sake of doing it, it's also act as a communication between me and Andrew to refine any changes that was needed. This also allow me to "play" around the location of the button and visual look if it matched to our virtual aesthetic. Once all of this has been agreed up the final and the most time consuming is getting it all done in such a way that user was actually using this device; by making a video to showcase it.
From Paper to Video
So after we have a full grasp of the ATMOS concept we then planned things it out to get in a video as i mentioned earlier and get the storyboard done ASAP because of the time constrain (also due to Andrew getting a hangover the previous night, LoL).
So yeah there you have it, the full process and methodologies of the project atmos...
Sunday, 28 September 2014
Finalizing the game world
Cleaning the level doesn't get simple than this especially if you are using an Xbox controller. Oh well...
Bare design game look
Adding life to the world
Clearer view
After half a day i managed to finalize the look...
Make it Back
It;s been 3 month since i last update the blog. Well technically it;s been 3 month since I completed INB 180. After some thought I decided to upload most of the other school work I did here to avoid hassle in the future. Ultimately it will also act as a medium for my portfolio..
Finally since this is not going to be in any unit I will just start this blog in an unofficial manner. LoL.
Just completed the groip level design Tower defence prototype. While my mate came up with the type of game and what elements of the game we going to do in the prototype, he didn't specified the level in details. Using what i learn:-
Sketches of the level
I start with a concept from his game story and placed it in to the world. There is some thinking going on in my brain such as making the level not for me but for the player (this is what i have learnt) . Making it in a way that the level make sense and playable.
Once the group approved to the concept I started plotting which area that I should design first in the game world space.
From paper to screen
Took me around 2 hours to get this look right. It is till very bare from my initial concepts and the land was flat as it could be. Since i have promised them i will work on it over the weekends i have to keep my word ( >_<) ...dang,...
In this meeting we were clearing up the loose end for this Design Challenge. The "wizard" mentioned and showed us during lecture of ideas that is so tangled and making it straight in the end. This is how i describe this week first meeting. Over the weekend i have taken from Grant powerpoint the ideas and information of our solution and make it more visually presntable. These are the issue that we will be presenting during this week presentation. The major issues we are looking at are:- A. Issues concerning signing up with CC
Solution: An app that will allowed anyone to signup instantly on the go B. How could we make people more aware of the CC usage
Solution: Posting the new app in city billboards, informing users the latest app is available now etc
C. How could CC benefits the state in terms of profits and loss
Solution: Putting CC as one the city attraction for tourist. Allowing tour guide to bring tourist around the city with the CC route. Allowing multiple booking of bicycle instead of just one at a time
The look of the new app to match our solutions.
21/05
This final meeting was designed to prepare ourself for the role-play and last look and changes on the interactive poster that i created from Grant old powerpoint. Everything seems well. Everyone remember their part and roles:- Joey: Narrator Rahul: Brisbane stakeholder Grant: Tourist Rizal: Tourism agency stakeholder
The interactive poster design
I would have never guess how bad it could be....
22/05 The presentation really goes badly for me. No excuses. I totally choked out and really feel bad about it for my group mate. Even while writing this i feel angry on myself for choking out after all the work the team have put in. I feel as if all those ideas and design i created was worthless when i could not even present my ideas to the crowd. I have never get this choked out before when doing any presentation in my country even when presenting ideas to my boss or future employer. Totally gutted and disappointed with my performance after all the work i have put in.
Reflection of the week:
I really feel bad. So bad that i actually lay on bed the whole day reflecting on the issues. My team members have been supportive but after all we planned for our team dynamics and goals to choke out when it matters really make me feel guilty.
I will always remember "The Wizard" word of encouragement and reasons, telling me to remember Tony Wilson lecture that people will choked when the stress level risen and people will performed badly due to it. It is an experienced that i hope that i never want to go through again and will learn from this mistake.
DC3 was short and brief and initially i do question why do we need to do a roleplay presentation as i never have this kind of presentation in my country. Now i see and realised how important to empathize with user and stakeholder needs before even ideate and prototyping a solution.
Our first meeting was quick and swift as everyone come prepared. We talked about the issues that i found from the net and we realised the issues was posted in 2011! Most of the issues have been fixed, but we realised the implementation for these issues does not really fixed it completely. We quickly re-DEFINED this issues and again re-thought of the solution towards it. The major issues we are looking at are:- A. Issues concerning signing up with CC B. How could we make people more aware of the CC usage C. How could CC benefits the state in terms of profits and loss We stop our meeting once we reach that point and decide to continue in class that week.
15/05
We do a short discussion with Rohan about our solution and how we will ideate our IT innovation to solve the issue.
I draw a layout for the problem that citycycle is facing, dividing it to different issues. The main issues is the lack of awareness among the people regarding it
Before wrapping up for class, as a group we plan what we suppose to do on the weekend and prepared ourselves for the role-play presentation next week. What the team need from me is to design a main page prototype based on on the ideas we pool in at the same time emphasizing on the user needs while doing it.
Reflection of the week: Designing the prototype "look" was easier as the issues and ideas were already penned clearly among us. Compared to Design challenge 2 there isn't much need for prototyping the "page" laytout itself.
08/05
The new group consists of me, Rahul, Grant and Joey. Once we already decided in doing the topics of City Cycle we quickly discuss the current issues that the City Cycle facing now. We also decided quickly on how we will present our solution (using IT Innovation) towards the problem we raised earlier. Before the class end we assigned each of us to do a little thinking and research before the next meeting.
10/05
On the weekend, after doing a few research from the net i shared a few of the findings with the group. Most issues that was layout from the net is that the CityCycle fail to Empathize in the user needs such as helmet, pricing of the bicycle etc.
I also did an interview with some users who have been using the CityCycle for years:-
Question Q: How long have you been using city cycle? A: I have been using the bikes
since 3 years ago when I was living in Brisbane and stop using it when I move
to Sydney. Q: What is the most positive things about the city cycle? A: Easy access for me to school
during those times as the parking on campus was expensive. Good way to exercise
too! Q: What is the negative aspect of the citycle? A: HELMET! Sometimes if you are
unlucky you might get a poor bike handle and there is no way for you to fix it.
The subscription itself is a turn off during my time of usage. There is no way
for instant access to use the bike. The other main issues I had during those
time was to park to my bike when doing groceries and there are times I have to
cycle longer distance as usual as the bike lot was full. Q. Will you use the citycycle service again?
NO. Reflection of the week: A good start. From the interview we know that we have to empathize user need before we could even ideate while ideate our ideas.
Sunday, 4 May 2014
Design Challenge 2 -Mobile App
29th April [Team Meeting] I WAS LATE FOR FOR THE MEETING DUE TO A FREAK OF NATURE!!! A strong wind suddenly blew in and slammed on my room door, locked it with my keys inside the room! Have to wait for the landlord to come by and open the door for me and by the time i reached school i was 25mins late for our meeting (even after i ran like a mad dog)
The meeting was briefed, we just go through on our powerpoint slide that we have prepared individually on the weekend to see if everything was fine and everyone was ready for the presentation. Bhadjee as usual was not present for the meeting making it the 3rd time to miss out for group meeting.
1st May [Final Presentation]
Practice, practice, practice. Practicing my presentation for the past 2 days and still i fumbled when it matters.
I was doing segment of macro level explanation, things when fine, seems to getting glenn attention when i was describing about the stages on how we reach to where we are now and suddenly my mind when blank for a short while.
Luckily i regain my composure and managed to continue on pass the baton to the next speaker quickly. Knowing chloe looking to critique me make me more nervous i guess.
Some of the screenshot of my presentation:
Reflection of Design Challenge 2: Thing have not been an enjoyable ride for me on Design Challenge 2, team wise. Compared to the first team in DC 1, where everyone was working together, DC 2 especially bhadjee was really bad in both teamwork and giving out ideas, more like a passenger. Some of the image seen for the final presentation was different from what i post here(eg the restroom page) this is due that we failed to make the app in MIT. After this week lecture, i email Glenn(still have not received a reply) about the team issue but as Grant point out it is already too late to make a complaint. I really like to know how to deal with issue i faced in the group in a real world enviroment experienced. The only good part in DC2 was the learning experienced and the steps taken in doing an app. Before these course i do not even know of the Traditional paper prototyping method and its usefulness. Stuff like knowing your targeted group, research and diversity in teams, i would have never grasp on that concept without doing this course. Overall it's have been good cant wait for DC3.
Design Challenge 2 -Mobile App
26th April
Have a really short talk on facebook. Reporting what each of us have done as expected no reply from bhadjee and at this point i really could care less nor am i angry at him. Sadly as i predicted Raul really have problem getting the page in MIT up as what it should be from my design.
Grant suggested he would just reuse the powerpoint for our upcoming presentation. Since the page could not be seen on the app i decided to post all my work here.
purchase accepted
menu page
subway page
message[Social]
Main Menu page
Social Main Page Finalize
Social Main page before
Cafein Page
Cafe direction
Menu choice
Restroom Main Page
Water Fountain Main page
Social after login page
Take a Breakpage
Reflection of the day: Nothing much to reflect here. Just a quick minor changes for the toilet and water fountain page to differentiate the pages
Design Challenge 2 -Mobile App
20th April - 23rd April [The Dreaded days]
Dreaded 4 days. Since i am doing all of the page and icons with no help at all. Grant and Rahul are busy preparing, reading and testing the MIT app to work around it, Each of us are busy preparing for the app to be make and present the app in the best way possible. Things could have been faster if 'someone' could have help me sliced the page/button for the team to use on the MIT app. That someone is Bhadjee.
I am not trying to whine or be an ass. We are obviously working in 3's instead of 4's. Constant messages, private messages was send on facebook group with no reply received. I am doing 2 job:-
have to make sure the pagelayout, icon, button was up
slicing those items to individual to be put separately in MIT by Rahul
There are times i questioned myself why am i doing Bhadjee's part? The only things that make me going is not to let my other 2 team members down as i am doing the most important part of the app. Since i already promised Grant and Rahul the earliest day i could give to them as individual subject(page, layout,button) was on the 23rd, quitting is not an option.
Image below shows how i do the pages and slicing it up for Rahul and Grant usage:-
Finalize page for Caffe in
normal
onclick
norma
onclick
The top and below navigation page was separated into 2 segments:
Top - QUT Break Time features button
Below are just button for caffe in
caffein button
caffein onclick
Down- Home and Back button
back
back onclick
home
The things really is easy but it is too time consuming and as a team we lose out in helping one another.
Reflection for the 4 days: As i wrote previously i should have approached Rohan or Glen earlier to bring up the issue of bhadjee. Things could have been done sooner and as i told Rahul i could have help him with the MIT app as he is having problem in displaying stuff correctly as it should on the app. This would surely impact on our app design before the presentation.
Saturday, 3 May 2014
Design Challenge 2 -Mobile App
19th April
Over the last week we have to find our audience (2 people each) for feedback of the apps. Using Grant mid fidelity prototype, this is the feedback i received
1. what do u like abt the app? Simple to use, very useful, lots of information. 2. what did u dislike abt the app? - 3. what othe featured do u want? put a list of study rooms0 4. what features can be improved? font color 5. would u use this app? why or why not? yes, it would let people know about rooms that they don't know exist. People would learn a lot.
The team often communicate through our facebook page so any ideas that changes or added could be quickly pass to them.I was drawing a lot of design for the logo and icons for the app.
logo icon 1
logo icon 2
Shared this with the team and both prefer the 2nd icon. Trying to do a sublime messages of QUT(can you see it?). Although the group agrees on the second design, personally i hate it although it's was my own. I started to get more feedback from people. Most feedback i received was the same, either, "AMATEURISH" and "BAD". The best feedback tho was about the hand icon should be change in a different way to interpret"Take A Break" and so....
With feedback from user of icons design and i ideate it to make it more presentable visually.
finalize icon
Show this in the group facebook, Rahul and Grant agreed this is way better and we decide this is right one. Noted: Bhadjee never even reply once on his opinion even after i private message him Reflection of the day: Excited on handling the design layout of the apps. Since we are going to use MIT shown by richard in the lecture, make me more hyped up to see the product in the phone. taking Rahul and Grant user feedback into consideration as well i replot the layout of the pages.
