Digital Collaboration Arch1392

References

2009-06-18T20:24:00.000-07:00

Here are some references we used.

Textures:
www.cgtextures.com

All quotes have been extracted from
www.landonreiszahnarchitects.com

Pictures have been taken from many places but all rights belong to the original architects

Final Fabrication

2009-06-18T04:38:00.000-07:00

The final fabrication of our Bodo Cultural Centre has finally been realised after weeks of hard and consistent work. After receiving feedback from our last submission we needed to include more interactivity, add interior textures, create landscaping near the surrounding buildings, add more AI and include interior furniture. We feel that we have successfully addressed all these elements within the final stage of our fabrication.

Our intent for this final submission was to create a successful environment within Crysis that adhered to and fulfilled the architects and our initial outcomes:

· a social, public and communal space;
· a space that connects both the local community and its visitors;
· a space that responds to the expectations and imagination of both the local community and its visitors – tourists and/or migrants;
· a space that enhances the local democratic and social traditions, as well as the natural and pre-existing built environment;
· a space that seeks interaction (open to communal and diverse ranges of activities), playfulness and poetic contemplation
· an accessible space, a place to be proud of and belong to.
· a glistening jewel which plays with the diverse qualities of light in the arctic region and brings the spectacular atmosphere of the northern landscape into the buildings
· an urban project that seeks to create a cultural ecology
· a space intrinsically linked to the sense of human scale, participation and creativity.

Working on from our last submission we have included detailed immediate surroundings to the building in the form of parks and communal walkways that lead from the pier along the sides of the building. We have designed the landscaping to reflect the sense of community use and public space that is an essential aspect of the Bodo Cultural Centre. The juxtaposition between the stark white features of the culture centre and the surrounding landscape and harbour further enhances the architects notion of creating a building which emulates the ‘natural glacial topographies and the rigid city grid’ of Bodo harbour. We have explored this through the addition of detailed harbour features in the form of drainage pipes that lead out to sea, access ladders along the piers into the water, as well as rock walls that run the length of the pier. We feel that the implementation of these elements creates a greater sense of understanding and coherency within our environment and creates a realistic representation of what the harbour would actually look like in Bodo.

Being a highly conceptually motivated building, we have expressed particular efforts in modelling the environment and context of which the Centre belongs so we have also implemented much more realistic 'time of day' features which represent the overall environment within Bodo and the harbour. The inclusion of interior furniture and realistic textures inside and outside the building further enhances the overall sense and understanding of the space within the crysis environment.

It can be seen that the forms and masses of the Culture Centre emulate carved forms and a same solid mass; through this final stage we have developed and refined the angular and irregular walls that make up the shell for the Culture Centre. After receiving feedback there were certain elements within our building that needed to be analysed and re-evaluated. We feel that we have successfully implemented these changes within our building to create a more uniform and consistent culture centre. Within our environment we have also implemented various elements from our specialisation tutorials, such as advanced AI, custom loading screens and videos as well as custom animated models.

Within the final submission we have further developed the most significant element to the Bodo Culture Centre is how well people can use the spaces created by the forms. We have considered people using our space from a macro perspective (walking through the city) and then from a micro perspective (using the actual Centre). Through artificial intelligence we have been able to analyse and understand the dialogue between The Cultural Centre and the people who use it.

Finally, we have successfully managed to implement our own custom trailer videos at the start of the game launch. This then leads on to the menu where we import our custom map and it starts loading along with a custom loading image. We have then packaged the map so that a cut scene is triggered as soon as the game starts, which flows through the map up to our building where the cut scene stops and we can walk around and explore our building.

All in all we feel that we have successfully and coherently realised our final fabrication environment of the Bodo Culture Centre. The realisation and achievement of our intentions has created a successfully and pleasing environment within Crysis that adhered to and fulfilled the architects and our initial outcomes.

More Final Images

2009-06-18T04:30:00.000-07:00

There are many more images on the team blog, here are a few select ones.

Specialisation

2009-06-18T04:17:00.001-07:00

My specialisation area was AI. I wrote 3 tutorials on how to program AI to achieve various tasks. These tutorials vary from Beginner to Medium to Hard. They can be found either on the wetpaint wiki or on this blog. I suggest you do them in order.

The first tutorial teaches you how to create AI that follows a path. The second 2 tutorials talk about making AI randomly walk to tag points and doing tasks.

I think i got along way with my tutorials and learnt alot about my specialist area. It would be good to continue to work on the area and see how far i could take it. I didn't quiet get as far as i orginally set out, but that is because it seems impossible to have completely random AI, they need to be told where to go to a large extent.

AI Problems

2009-06-17T19:52:00.002-07:00

In our final fabrication there is a few problems, one major problem is that the major AI objects do not work, some stage in the last few days of the project the Random AI disappeared, this means we are missing a lot of the crwod behaviour. In some original fabrications we had a fair number of people randomly walking around and doing things. This would have really added to the environment but we did not have time to reimplement it into the environment, as well as when we tried to place it all back in we had alot of problems with the program crashing.

Contribution

2009-06-17T19:52:00.001-07:00

Here is a list of some of my contributions.

Building Model:

> Find objects (artworks, furniture, lighting etc)

Surrounding Buildings:

> Research
> Modelling
> Façade
> Textures

Presentation:

> 10 Still Images
> Trailer video
> 2 minute video
> Cut scenes within crysis
> Presentation boards

Crysis Environment:

> Skyboxes
> Time of day
> AI
> Birds (seagulls)
> Sound (natural / artificial)
> Water (level, colour, movement)

Individual:

> Blog
> Specialisation

Final Fabrication

2009-06-17T19:45:00.001-07:00

So we have finally finsihed out final fabrication. I am quite happy with how it turned out. There are still some problems but there are also some very good parts. We put alot of effort into finishing this fabrication and doing our final videos.

The way the environment turned out was really good, we have good attention to detail and it really gives people a great idea of the building and how it fits into the harbour and environment.

The AI gives a good sense of the community aspect of the building and the environment.

30 sec Teaser Trailer

2009-06-17T19:44:00.001-07:00

2 Minute Extended Trailer

2009-06-17T19:43:00.000-07:00

More Screens

2009-06-16T20:41:00.000-07:00

Some Screen Shots

2009-06-16T20:34:00.001-07:00

Team Meeting

2009-06-16T20:04:00.000-07:00

Today we met up at uni again to get as much done as possible, and to finish off the main environment. The main areas to work on where:

Implement final building model

Cut Scenes

Screenshots

Level Loading Screen

We started off doing the cut scenes which where fairly easy to put in, it is just a case of moving the camera around and recording, and then telling the game when to load the cuts from the flow graph. So we placed in 2 Scenes, one for the start of the level and one for the end.

While doing this we realised all the AI i placed in on Saturday was missing. So sometime between me leaving on Saturday and Today someone has edited something and deleteded my big AI system. This means we will have to rely on the AI paths and basic AI for the level because there isn't enough time to place it all back in.

When Ken got to uni we implemented the final building model with much higher detail that the previous one. While he was doing this, Alichia and I worked out how to place level loading screens in, so when we load our level from the game a picture of our building shows up.

Finally we took a few screen shots to palce on our presentation boards. I will upload these later.

Team Meeting

2009-06-14T19:58:00.000-07:00

So yesterday we all got together at uni again to work on the environment. We wanted to get as much done as we could. The main things we where working on was.

AI - Make the AI as Random as possible

Loading Videos - Make the game display our own personal loading screens

Cutscenes - Make some cut scenes for our environment

Building Model - Finalise the building

We completed alot of work and got most of these things done. Firstly i created a big AI system involving about 30 people who all randomly walk around the building and do various things. After that was implimented i made some quick loading videos in After effects. Me and Alichia then implimented these into the game so that when you start the game our screens show up instead of the default crysis ones. This adds a good look to our environment.

While we where doing this Ken was working on the model and finalising it.

I worked out how to do cut scenes and an elevator but we didnt have time to place them in the level itself.

Hard Specialisation Tutorial

2009-06-13T19:52:00.000-07:00

For my hard specialisation tutorial I added onto my medium one. In the medium one we created AI that pretty much walks around randomly. In this tutorial I extended onto that to make the people walk around stop for a little bit and then complete a random action.

This tutorial is posted up on the Wetpaint Wiki.

http://arch1392-collaboration-2009.wetpaint.com/page/Tutorials

Medium Tutorial

2009-06-07T19:57:00.000-07:00

For my medium tutorial I have created random AI. This tutorial tells you how to create a number of tagpoints around the environment and make the AI randomly walk between these points. Once they get to one point they will walk on to another point.

The tutorial is located on the Wetpaint Wiki

http://arch1392-collaboration-2009.wetpaint.com/page/Tutorials

Week 11 Lecture

2009-06-07T19:43:00.000-07:00

For week 11, Russle Lowe came in to talk about real time environments and how he has used them. Russle is a lecturer at UNSW and takes a number of real time courses.

He is currently working on a big hospital project and he is using Real-Time to allow doctors and nurses and others to walk around the hospital. This means they can check if there is adequate spacing and other things in the rooms. They already ran into one problem where the lift in the rooms for heavy people didn't have enough room to work and it also collided with the doors when opened. This may not have come up if they where not using real time and could have been a really big expensive problem if the hospital had been built with it like that.

He then went on to show us some of his work in Crysis, such as a piece he is working on to go in a small Sydney alley way. He is working on the theory that global warming happens and the water level rises to flood a lot of the city.

Week 11 Excursion

2009-05-30T19:35:00.000-07:00

For Week 11 we went on a little trip up to the UNSW Scientia building. Up in this build is what they call iCinema. iCinema is basically a 360 degree 3D cinema room. It is set up with 12 projectors each projecting onto a giant curved projection screen. The images projected are 3D images so you must use 3D glasses to get the full effect.

They showed us a number of videos showing off how this cinema could be used. One was simply a video taken from a car showing a 360 Degree panoramic so it was like you are actually driving the car and can look around.

The other main one they showed us was an interactive real time environment that could be used to educate miners of the dangers they may face. It showed how this type of technology could be used in many ways, specially in the way of real time environments.

Progress

2009-05-27T18:55:00.001-07:00

So after the Presentation and the Crits from other groups we have decided on some areas that we need to work on. More detailed Crit comments are on the team blog.

Summary of crits from other groups.
- Need more interactivity in the building
- interior spaces need more textures
- Better surrounding landscape
- Texture and detail the surrounding buildings
- materials and textures
- more AI
- interior furniture

So as we make our final environment we wil all work on different areas to fix these problems.

Basic tutorial

2009-05-27T07:33:00.001-07:00

Here is a link to my basic tutorial on creating AI that drives along a path

Tutorial Link

Week 10 Lecture

2009-05-23T19:29:00.000-07:00

Week 10's guest lecture was from Andrew Wallace. Andrew recently graduated from UNSW doing Architecture and is now working for LCA (Lara Caldera Architects).

Andrew has explored many real time engines to help promote architecture. Has has done some excellent work with Crysis recently. He showed us a few of his big projects including one to do with a school in Africa and one to do with Sydney Harbour. He uses ArchiCad to create the models and then puts them in real time environments.

He alos explained how LCA was starting to use real time environments to show off architecture to new and existing clients and he explained how he thought the development of real time environments would greatly improve the field of architectural visualisation.

Week 9 Studio

2009-05-16T19:12:00.000-07:00

Week 9's guest speak was Shilo McClean. Shilo is writer, lecturer and specialist in the field of digital visual effects in the film industry.

Shilo talked about how digital effects and digital computer graphics and film had been derived largely from computer games, and how the film industry has started to accept and appreciate the use of computer graphics. She explored how computer graphics could be used to aid the story telling process. She also went on to demonstrate how different fields that use film or video have also been adopting computer graphics to help portray their message. One example she gave was to do with a documentary on "Hurricane Katrina" by Spike Lee.

Special effects, computer animation and computer graphics and film used to be looked down on in the film industry and was assumed that it would destroy the film and take away from the story. Shilo was once told "you can't put it into the script if you can't capture it on film". This comment has been greatly proven wrong with the advance in computer graphics, specially in big budget films as transformers, harry potter etc.

She explained the differt types of effects or computer graphics that the industry uses, they are mainly:

Fantastical effects - This is where effects and computer graphics are sued to create a fantasy world or fantasy story. Heavily based on computer graphics and present here.

Hybrid-real - This is where there is a mixture between real and computer graphics to get the story across. The idea is to make the difference between real and computer invisible so the viewer can't tell which is which.

Hyperrealist - This is computer graphics that are so real and lifelike that is is difficult to tell if it is real or computer generated.

Surrealist - This is the use of computer effects and graphics to portray an almost dream out of this world feeling. It is almost impossible to achieve this effect with out computer graphics.

Week 8 Crit

2009-05-13T22:52:00.000-07:00

Team: Digitalism

Pros: Digitalism have a strong concept for their design. It is a concept and design that can be quite emotional to people, as it has a strong history behind it. Due to this the whole concept and realisation is quite strong. Rather than just being a random building or environment it has a background, history and emotions.

The building itself was well realised, it had been built well and a lot of effort into the actual building itself. It is a believable and strong building that works with the concept and the environment.

Cons: The surrounding environment isn't really resolved, and doesn't fit in with the concept. While the immediate surrounding buildings are modelled they do not give a sense of busy, over crowded and thriving city, it just looks a bit like a desolate city on a random island. The scale of the building is a bit small, the building is meant to be much higher and tower over everything else.

Team: Orange

Pros: The building is very well modelled and detailed, there has been lots of work put into the modelling of the building, this makes it look very resolved and like it could easily be a real building. The surrounding environment is very highly detailed with alot of work put in. It has lots of cars driving round, people and everything. This gives a good sense of the context and environment of the project.

Cons: The textures on the building itself where a little lacking. There could have been more texturing making the building a little more life like. The same goes for the interior spaces, they could have had some more textures, and maybe a little more interactive to make the environment more immersive.

Team: Evolve

Pros: Evolve had some very good videos for the presentation, they where quite entertaining and used some humour which is good for a presentation. This meant people payed more attention because they didn't get bored too easily. The way they presented the videos also gave a better idea of what they are aiming for in their concept. They also had some very good internal spaces in the environment. These internal spaces where very well resolved.

Cons: Evolve had limited interactivity in there level, there was not much that the person could interact with, and not much that helped the person feel immersed or involved with the level.

Team: Urbans

Pros: The good thing about Urbans environment is that they where going for a grand scale building and they have managed to achieve that. The building itself both inside and out looks extremely grand and large, which is what they where looking for. This definitely adds to the overall effect of the environment. They had a good presentation which showed off exactly what they where trying to achieve and how they did it. The presentation of the building itself was quite good as well.

Cons: The surrounding environment could be improved. There was a lot of effort put into getting the landscape from Google Earth and the like, so its a shame things like the lake in the middle was out of scale and the surrounding environment was not quite resolved.

Team: Atlar

Pros: Atlar had some good presentation renders, that showed off there building in a very good way to make it as realistic as possible. They had a good concept that suited Crysis very well. Crysis is good at things like water and environments so the concept involving water was a good choice. This means that presentation renders could be at good high quality. There was a lot of good thought out interactivity in Atlar's level, so the environment felt very immersive and resolved.

Cons: The building itself and some of the interior spaces could have used some more textures, this would make the whole concept and design look much stronger and more resolved. I think this would greatly add to the environment.

Progress

2009-05-07T22:54:00.000-07:00

Final Environment

2009-05-07T22:53:00.001-07:00

So finally we have created our final design environment, after many late nights and computer issues it is done. I am quite happy with how it turned out, we all put alot of work into it and it came together nicely. I think it really shows off the design well, in terms of the design itself and the context. As you walk around the environment you can really get a feel for the design and how it would be if it was built. This is a strong point of Crysis which makes it a really good Realtime Architectural tool. The environments are very submersive so it feels like it could be real. The ability to walk though the design and look around itin realtime is a great plus, specially with our building which has many different internal and external areas, which could not be completely shown if we just had renders or architectural visulizations.

We all put alot of work into the project and helped each other out, and helped other groups out. So there was not only group collaboration but entire class collaboration as well which is good.

The main areas i worked on where:
- AI -
The AI in crysis is a good tool to visulise circulation in the design and see how it feels and looks with people walking around. Circulation and people is a very important aspect in our design because it is a cultural centre. So the AI was a very big itegral part of our design. As well as people i added birds and animals in to emphasize the harbour and the context.

- Sound -
The sound in Crysis adds to the whole feel of the environment and makes it more submersive. It means as well as being able to walk around and see the building you can also hear surrounding sounds to give you a better feel for the design and its context. Since our design is on the harbour this is another very important step.

- Surrounding Buildings -
We modelled a fair few surrounding buildings. This was to help give better context for the site and design which is an important part of our design, as it is designed to fit into the environment and be part of the environment and culture of Bodo. In the end we ended up importing a context study from the original architect so alot of the surrounding buildings i made did not get used.

- Lighting -
I did a fair few tech tests and experiments on how the lighting works and different types of lighting to enhance the experience. This includes normal lighting for the building and the wharf as well as Time of Day lighting and environmental lighting.

- Interactivity -
We added a fair few itneractive things such as cars, boats, birds and people that once again make the environment more submersive. These things add to the overall environment and its impression on the viewer.

As well as these main parts i also helped with a lot of other things, such as the roads and the furniture in andaround the building such as on the wharf and in the city. I also conducted alot of experiments so that when it came to doing the Crysis environment we had things sorted so we could streamline the process and there wasn't too much stuffing around and redoing things that wouldn't work.

Final Design Pics

2009-05-07T22:53:00.000-07:00

Here are some pics from the final design, these and more can be found on our team blog.

AI Issues

2009-05-03T22:59:00.000-07:00

So as we continue to develop our design we are running into many issues. One such issue is that the AI can be quite messy and not very streamlined. The problem arose when i was trying to clean up the AI. Where the AI follows paths and walks around the level it is very messy and many repeated commands, so i was looking for a way to combine them all into one.

After many hours stuffing around trying to find a command to containt them all, such as an "All" command that would tell all the AI to do the same thing, i got no where. So i went and had a look on forums, and after another few hours i finally found what i was looking for, the command Logic-All. Problem was in Crysis i couldnt find it, after making sure everything possible was turned on i finally found it under the WIP (work in progress) set. After all this time i them found out that it doesn't acutally work, which is probably why its in the WIP set, so it was many watsed hours and it means that the AI will just have to stay messy.

AI and Sound

2009-05-03T22:54:00.000-07:00

These pictures show some testing and work with AI and sound for our design, this was mostly done on test levels for efficiency.

Sounds are fairly easy to set up, you just need to draw a shape that will contain your sound. In otherwords a shape that when you are inside it you will hear your sound and when you leave the area the sound will fade away. After you have drawn your shape you just need to link the AmbientVolume object to the shape and chose your sound and volume levels, that is basically it.

With the AI i was trying to clea up and stream line the AI flowGraphs, this wasn't very succesful due to the command i wanted to use not working properly.

Did some more stuffing round with the AI and seem to have it in an organised flowgraph. Also have worked out how to add good area ambient sounds, so that we can have a harbour sound as you walk around our level.

Biggest problem with the sound is that for some reaosn crysis will not import external sounds, even though they are in the right format they just wont play in crysis, this means that we can not have the sound fo birds and the like we wanted on the wharf.

I have added a few WIP pictures of working on the AI and Sound.

Team Meeting

2009-05-02T22:55:00.000-07:00

We met up today so we could all work on the model. Due to other commitments a Saturday was the only day we could all come in and work on it. After a slow start we managed to get stuck into things such as the surrounding environment, AI, Sounds and the main building model. I did alot of experiments and stuffing round to try and get people to randomly walk around and to have random AI but it didn't seem to work.

One experiment was to use the chicken system where chickens randomly walk around the level but the problem with this was that once you changed the model to people the animations didn't work so people just floated around instead of working.

We got a fair bit done during the day and had some good discussions to do with what needed to be completed and how we would do it.

Progress Blog

2009-05-01T22:56:00.001-07:00

Since the draft proposal we have done alot of work on our Crysis environment. We have added many new things and fixed problems, and generally made it a better real time environment that shows off our design.

The main building has been continually added to and edited in ArchiCad. Interior spaces have been added and the exterior has been improved. For the final presentation we hope to have it completely modelled up and resolved. As well as this, the surrounding buildings have been worked on. Immediate surrounding buildings have had more details added and have been refined to give a better site context. As well as this, roads and vegetation has been added so that it feels more like an environment people can relate to and see in context.

The harbour and the wharf which is a big part of our design has been greatly improved on. With many things add and refined. We have many boats in to show how the harbour is a very integral part of the site and is fairly busy. The wharf itself has been edited and built apon, with better walk ways, benches and lighting, once again to lift the whole environment to a higher level. The harbour plays a big role and these changes help to emphasize that.

These additions have not been with out drama, the level and editor itself has many issues abnd constantly crashes, at times loosing lots of our work. We also learnt the hardway with the uni computers, because they delete everything off the main drives when you log off. At one stage the computer where we had most of our work crashed and needed restarting and hence we lost several hours work.

There have been some team conflicts as well, not in the terms of arguments or fights, but the fact that everyone has other commitments such as work, family or other classes and assignments, this means that we ahven't been able to get things done as quickly as possible.

Our environment is coming along quite nicely and i am confident that it will be finished to a high level for our presentation.

Week 7 Lecture

2009-05-01T22:56:00.000-07:00

For our week 7 lecture Dr John Barton from City Futures Research Centre UNSW came into to talk to us about Urban development. Firstly he ttalked to us about a project that he had a lot to do with which is called UrbanIT Project 2030. It is a large scale design project for the re-design of Sydney, almost like a city of Sydney Masterplan. He showed us an interesting video that they created showing off how different buildings and transport systems had been removed or relocated, new parks and walk ways had been added as well as new buildings. It was an interesting look at what Sydney could look like in 20 years.

He then showed us a set of images based on research that was undertaken near the city in a housing development. His research showed what different people relate with different things, such as happyness, lonelyness, danger and death. This gave an interesting insight into how different people related different things, and a good 3D representation of these themes.

Week 6 Lecture

2009-04-28T22:57:00.000-07:00

For our week 6 lecture we had UNSW School of Psychology. Tom Denson talk to us about Psychology. Mainly relating to group and peer dynamics. So how people react to others in a group, and if how they follow along with what other people say even if they know it is wrong.

Tom Denson showed us some of the previous experiments that have been conducted in groups, where all except one of the people in the group knows about the experiment. In one of the experiments they where asked a simple question and then told to call out the answer. It showed that when all the people who know about the experiment call out the wrong answer, the subject is around 80% more likely to knowingly say the wrong answer to fit in. If asked to write down the answer privately then the subject is almost always correct.

I thought this was a very good lecture, i learnt alot of things and it is ashame that the lecture was cut short due to time constraints. It would have been great to hear more about what tom ahd to say. I felt he related his lecture to our class very well and we all had some very good discussions.

Conflict

2009-04-21T00:20:00.000-07:00

In broad terms, conflict can be defined as the "the process resulting from the tension between team members because of real or perceived differences"

With regard to conceptualizations of conflict, differentiated between two distinct components: task conflict and emotional conflict.

Task conflict occurs when group members disagree about task-related issues, including procedures, goals, and decisions.

Relational or emotional conflict is characterized by disagreements or tension with regard to personal taste or interpersonal style.

An additional conceptualization of conflict that has regained attention is the idea of "constructive conflict," which involves searching out a variety of opinions, openly confronting differences, and critiquing alternative options . A group that manifests constructive conflict could be characterized by high task conflict and low relational conflict. Importantly, it may be this type of interaction that ultimately facilitates effective team performance through constructive divergence.

"Much of the work in the area of conflict has contrasted task (i.e., productive, cognitive conflict) and relational manifestations (i.e., emotional, interpersonal conflict; Pelled, 1996b). On the one hand, dissimilarity has been linked with productive forms of conflict (demographic diversity, Chatman et al., 1998; educational and functional diversity, Jehn et al., 1999; functional diversity, Pelled et al., 1999; functional, education, tenure diversity, Simons et al., 1999). On the other hand, dissimilarity also has been linked with destructive forms of conflict (social category diversity, Jehn et al., 1999; gender diversity and time urgency diversity, Mohammed & Angell, 2004; ethnic and tenure diversity, Pelled et al., 1999). Thus, despite a few examples that diversity and conflict may be inversely or not at all related, the research evidence reviewed here suggests that heterogeneous teams are more likely to experience conflict (whether productive or destructive in nature) than homogenous teams (see also Grossman, 1997)."

Reference - Conflict and Cooperation in Diverse Workgroups. The Journal of social issues [0022-4537] King yr:2009 vol:65 iss:2

Wikipedia Page Analysis

2009-04-20T22:39:00.000-07:00

Collaboration - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration

The Wikipedia page for Collaboration is a well set out and contributed to page. It talks about many different aspects of collaboration. from Trade to Military to Education. This broad range of information and topics is essential in a wiki so that it gives the reader a broader education on the topic or topics.

This wiki also breaks down the topic into 2 main headings, "History" and "Contemporary Examples". The first of these talks about how collaboration was introduced in different areas and how it came about. The second talks about how collaboration is used in the present day in different areas. This gives the viewer a broader udnerstanding of what collaboration is and the history of it, as well as how it is used today.

There is a lot of contributions and edits to this page which is, in-itself a good example of collaboration, where many people are all working together to create somthing. Although what this page is missing, is alot of referencing and citations, which is important for a reader to do any further research or simply to prove the validity of an article or what is written.

Social Networks

2009-04-09T22:57:00.000-07:00

A social network is a group of people or organisations or similar that all have a common interest. This may be common visions, or friendship or even a common sexuality. Social networking sites such as Facebook or Myspace are internet based tools to help people in these social networks collaborate. If you take Facebook for example, which is fast becoming one of the most popular social networking sites, you can browse people all around the world based on different social status. Such as where they went to school, what their religion is or simply what they enjoy doing.

Social networking is a very important tool for collaboration, specially on a project like ours, because as well as allowing our team to communicate with each other, it means we can find a social network that is interested in similar things or has undertaken a similar task and collaborate with them to find out more information or tips and tricks. This can be very valuable in projects similar to ours, since you can easily find other people with the same interest, it also means that other people can follow our projects and learn from us as well as us learning from them and the project itself. It helps broaden the whole concept of collaboration.

Here are some examples of similar sites.

- Facebook
- MySpace
- Twitter
- Flickr
- Bebo
- DeviantArt
- Flixster

Planning

2009-04-09T07:44:00.000-07:00

Types of planning:

* Envisioned Future: 10 to 30 years. Here, a vivid description is gathered from the data and molded into several BHAGs (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals).

* Critical Factors: 5 to 10 years. What are and will be the mega issues? What are some basic assumptions (based on best-available data) about the future (what will we be doing, what will we look like, etc.)? What will be our guiding strategic principles?

* Strategic Planning: 3 to 5 years. Strategic planning efforts define the short- and long-term goals, objectives and strategies needed to turn plans into action.

* Action Planning: 1 to 2 years. The organization sets priorities, plans programs and incorporates actions into the overall operational/day-to-day planning. It's at this point, just when all seems in sync, that the horizon turns from a flat line into a circle, and the process begins again.

A few points about Planning

1. Having a plan puts you back in control.
2. Planning is the only way things can get better.
3. Planning allows you to set priorities and to allocate resources effectively.
4. A plan shows you (and others) how to spend your time.
5. Planning is the key to staying ahead of the curve and the competition.
6. A good plan motivates and inspires.
7. People follow the person with a plan.
8. Planning permits you to spend less energy on putting out other people's fires and start building some of your own.

There's nothing mysterious about planning. It's just looking beyond the moment and visualizing how things might work out. It's playing out possible scenarios in your mind. Planning is weighing possibilities and choosing alternatives. It's putting a name on your dream. Planning is deciding what's desirable and figuring out how to make it happen.

Most of all, planning is simply asking the right questions and plugging in the right answers answers that are right for you and your organization.

Make Plans, Not Excuses, Supervision [0039-5854] Ramsey yr:2003 vol:64 iss:2 pg:14 -16. Plan or Die!, Professional Safety [0099-0027] Kendrick yr:2004 vol:49 iss:3 pg:8
GESCHICHTE UND GESELLSCHAFT 34 (3): 305-326 JUL-SEP 2008 Year: 2008 Abstract: During the era of modernity

Hierarchy

2009-04-09T07:04:00.001-07:00

The concept of hierarchy is used in two ways. First, hierarchy is understood as a continuum on which one actor has more or less political authority over other actors. In this conception, for example, liberal democracies with limited governments are less hierarchical than totalitarian states that in principle regulate all social interactions.

Second, more sociologically, hierarchy is defined as any form of social differentiation and stratification, such as caste, class, status, or any other dimension on which individuals, groups, or organizations can be categorized and ranked from higher to lower. In international politics, for instance, hierarchy most commonly refers to stratification by prestige (great powers, middle powers, and so on), development (first, third, and fourth worlds), or capabilities (superpowers, supporters, clients, etc.)

Hobbesian Hierarchy: The Political Economy of Political Organization, Annual review of political science [1094-2939] Lake yr:2009 vol:12 iss: 1

Social Networks

2009-04-09T06:39:00.001-07:00

Here are some examples of similar sites.

- Facebook
- MySpace
- Twitter
- Flickr
- Bebo
- DeviantArt
- Flixster

Environment Description and Technology Evaluation for Assignment 1

2009-04-06T19:37:00.001-07:00

Within our Draft Fabrication Environment we aimed to portray a sense of our building, the Bodo Culture Centre within its proposed landscape, highlighting the surrounding urban and harbour areas. The vision for our building was to create a culture centre that is ‘intrinsically linked’ through its various architectural elements and by the spaces within and between these elements. These spaces needed to be ‘cohesive, connected, fluid and dynamic’ in order to create and define the culture centre within the surrounding urban setting as well as creating a connection to ‘other public spaces located in the immediate vicinity and in other parts of the city’. The culture centre was aimed to create a foundation for diverse activities including: - recreational - cultural - communal - commercial Within our draft environment we have aimed to portray and create a sense of all these underlying factors and elements which were intended by the original designers. We decided to include and focus on the immediate urban areas surrounding our building as well as the harbour and the pier. We also included the island beyond the harbour as in reality this could easily be seen from the building as well as from the pier. We constructed our landscape and terrain using an imported heightmap which showcases all the relevant information about our building, the surrounding terrain and landscape as well as how our building is situated on the site. We aimed to portray the terrain and landscape that could be seen by a visitor to our building, particularly the pier and the harbour as this is a focal point for our building and its surrounding spaces. We aimed to create a sense of what the pier would look like in relation to the landscape by constructing it on wooden pylons which rise from the water to meet the pier. We chose wooden planking as our material for the pier as this is similar to the actual fabrication of the pier. We established from plans of the area that there was an L-shaped element within the harbour that was not connected to any piers, and from research we concluded that it must be a rock wall to stop ships from entering the harbour too close to land, so we chose to create this rock wall within our environment as well. We also included some roads surrounding our building and showcasing its relationship and distance from the surrounding urban landscape. Through the creation of our draft building we chose to portray a sense of the overall shape and size of the building in relation to the surrounding landscape. We felt that this would showcase how our building relates to the urban landscape as well as the harbour, and also how it is situated within and on the terrain. We also chose to create several of its internal and external spaces to portray how the building circulates internally and externally. We also added a basis element of daylight to enhance any materials and textures which we applied within our environment. Within the building itself we also created artificial light in certain areas where artificial light was necessary in portraying a sense of space and allowing the viewer to gain a sense of being within the space. We have also chosen to highlight certain areas of our building by applying various textures and materials to enhance the overall aesthetics of our building within the surrounding landscape.

Technology Evaluation:

We feel that through the creation of our Draft Fabrication Environment that the individual tech tests that each of our team members explored has played a vital part in the successful execution and creation of our building and its environment. We have analysed the success and struggles of each of the tech tests below:

Importing and exporting models from 3dsMax into Crysis: (executed by Kenneth)

Through the help of this tech test we able to successfully import and export our building model into Crysis from 3dsMax. When we first tried this is worked well although none of our textures worked within Crysis. After much research and trial and error we successfully managed to import our model as well as all the textures and materials we applied to it in 3dsMax.

Object Manipulation: (executed by Kenneth)

Through the information provided by this tech test we were able to employ the skills to creating solids within Crysis. Once we had created these solids we were able to manipulate and edit certain aspects to create certain elements within our terrain, such as the pier and the wooden pylons that support the pier.

Landscape / Terrain: (executed by Alichia)

We found the tech tests performed for Landscape and Terrain quite useful once we had imported our heightmap into Crysis. We were able to edit and manipulate the map in various areas as well as add / subtract certain elements within the terrain, such as water height and map scale. Throughout the process of creating our terrain and landscape we learnt numerous helpful steps within the Crysis editor, such as setting up the correct scale and making sure that the terrain in the correct height etc.

Materials and Textures: (executed by Alichia)

Though this initial tech test was futile we eventually discovered how to apply materials and textures to various objects within Crysis after researching and watching numerous tutorials. This was a great help as we were then able to apply textures and materials to our roads, pier and pylons. We also were able to work out how to import materials and textures from 3dsMax into Crysis which aided us in showcasing the various surface elements of our building.

AI: (executed by Cameron)

Through this tech test we were able to learn and understand how AI is executed within Crysis. This would be very useful for the future development of our Fabricated Environment as it will enable us to portray the various circulation systems that are in place within our building and its numerous internal and external spaces.

Sound and Acoustics: (executed by Cameron)

From this tech test we were able to identify how to add sound and acoustics to an environment or space within Crysis. This will be useful in our future design and development of our Fabricated Environment as it will enable us to create a sense of the surrounding urban and harbour environments.

Natural Lighting: (executed by Essmael)

Through this tech test we were able to establish how to add natural lighting within a Crysis environment. We were also able to learn how to edit and manipulate lighting to create the desired effect. This was useful in adding natural lighting elements within our environment which further enhanced the realism of the landscape. Time of day and weather conditions were also explored, this will assist in providing an analysis for the project in coming weeks.

Artificial Lighting: (executed by Essmael)

Through this tech test we were able to establish how to add artificial lighting within a Crysis environment. It was here where we learned that textures and materials hold illumination values, and hence can provide artificial lighting without a direct light source. Crysis also provides a range of direct and indirect lighting, which can be further manipulated to provide the appropriate and realistic light desired.

Contribution to Task 1

2009-04-06T19:12:00.000-07:00

For task 1 we as a team had to complete and submit a draft environment in crysis. It had give people an idea of the environment and the building that we would be creating. Our environment showed the site, the building and some surrounding buildings and environment such as trees. The full draft environment and videos can be found on our team blog.

My contribution to the draft environment was as follows:

Programming and adding the AI
I added people into the environment and then had to add AI and paths for these people to follow, this gave our environment a better feel as a community based environment, since it is a community centre.
This adding of AI required alot of stuffing round due to it disappearing every time we loaded our map back up. This was solved by making sure you save all the flowgraphs and programming to an entity in the environment.

Wharf
I did a fair bit of work on modelling the surrounding warf in the harbour, and making sure the textures where right. We still have some work to do and hopefully work out how to boolean the objects correctly so we can get a seamless texture for the wharf, or at least make the pieces meet up properly so the texture fits properly on the whole wharf.

Wharf Piles
I helped Alichia create the piles that will go underneath the wharf, this was a simple case of cloning one element over and over, and rotating or moving to fit into right position.

AI and Sound Tech Tests
As mentioned earlier in my blog and on the team blog i did AI and sound tech tests. We didnt end up using any sound for the draft environment because we didn't deam it necessary. AI wa implimented

Hieght Map
I did alot of work working out how the height map works in crysis, and playing with photoshop to work out what we needed to do to import it into crysis. You need to use a format such as RAW or BMP8 bit and it must be grayscale. This took a fair bit of stuffing around to get working properly.

Presentation
Helped with the presentation. Me and Kenneth created, edited and composed the 2 videos for our presentation as well as took some screenshots to show important aspects of the design and environment.

I helped or did a few other things as well that i can not remember at the moment, so if i remember i will add them in the future.

Relationship of words

2009-03-25T18:29:00.000-07:00

Planning - This relates to our project because we have to plan out how we are going to tackle challenges and go about the project. Who is going to do what, when are things going to happen etc.

Hierarchy - This relates to our group because we will have to work out a group hierarchy, in terms of who will do what, and what peoples jobs and places in the team are. As well as the hierarchy of the program and editor, so what needs to be completed first or completed before other things can be started.

Planning.. More Stuff

2009-03-25T17:46:00.000-07:00

Planning in organizations and public policy is both the organizational process of creating and maintaining a plan; and the psychological process of thinking about the activities required to create a desired goal on some scale. As such, it is a fundamental property of intelligent behavior. This thought process is essential to the creation and refinement of a plan, or integration of it with other plans, that is, it combines forecasting of developments with the preparation of scenarios of how to react to them.

The term is also used to describe the formal procedures used in such an endeavor, such as the creation of documents diagrams, or meetings to discuss the important issues to be addressed, the objectives to be met, and the strategy to be followed. Beyond this, planning has a different meaning depending on the political or economic context in which it is used. - Wikipedia

Types of plans or planning

Hierarchy.. More Stuff

2009-03-25T17:39:00.000-07:00

A hierarchy is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) The word derives from the Greek ἱεραρχία (hierarchia), from ἱεράρχης (hierarches), "president of sacred rites, high-priest" and that from ἱερός (hieros), "sacred" + ἄρχω (arkho), "to lead, to rule"^[1]^[2]. The word can also refer to a series of such items so arranged. Items in a hierarchy are thought of typically as including or being "above," included by or being "below," or independent of (being "at the same level as") one another.^[3]^{[4] - Wikipedia}

Examples of Hierarchy: - Family Tree
Business (Boss, manager, worker)
Churches (pope, priest, alter boy etc)
Royal Family (king, queen, prince etc)
Construction Team (Foreman, workers etc)

Tech Test Images

2009-03-25T05:02:00.000-07:00

During the week i have done some tech tests on AI movement and programming. Our group has decided that AI is important is so that we can show circulation and movement through the space in crysis.

I found it fairly easy to do AI. For simple movements it is just a case of placing either a path or a target, and then choosing the AI person to follow the path or go towards the target and what they should do once they complete the task.

The only complicated parts are understanding the flow manager, although it helps since i have done some work with 3DS Max particles which has a similar flow chart system. You must also take care when placing paths, specially if placing paths in the 3D view, because you must make sure you are placing all points of the path on the X plane.

PLANNING and HIERARCHY

2009-03-25T04:51:00.000-07:00

Planning

an act of formulating a program for a definite course of action; "the planning was more fun than the trip itself"
the act or process of drawing up plans or layouts for some project or enterprise
the cognitive process of thinking about what you will do in the event of something happening; "his planning for retirement was hindered by several uncertainties"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Planning in organizations and public policy is both the organizational process of creating and maintaining a plan; and the psychological process of thinking about the activities required to create a desired goal on some scale. As such, it is a fundamental property of intelligent behavior. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning
The Planning (Hazardous Substances) Act 1990 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom to consolidate certain enactments relating to special controls in respect of hazardous substances with amendments to give effect to recommendations of the Law Commission.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_(Hazardous_Substances)_Act_1990
plan - have the will and intention to carry out some action; "He plans to be in graduate school next year"; "The rebels had planned turmoil and confusion"
plan - make plans for something; "He is planning a trip with his family"
plan - a series of steps to be carried out or goals to be accomplished; "they drew up a six-step plan"; "they discussed plans for a new bond issue"
plan - make or work out a plan for; devise; "They contrived to murder their boss"; "design a new sales strategy"; "plan an attack"
plan - design: an arrangement scheme; "the awkward design of the keyboard made operation difficult"; "it was an excellent design for living"; "a plan for seating guests"
plan - design: make a design of; plan out in systematic, often graphic form; "design a better mousetrap"; "plan the new wing of the museum"
plan - scale drawing of a structure; "the plans for City Hall were on file"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
planned - designed or carried out according to a plan; "the planned outlays for new equipment"
aforethought(ip): planned in advance; "with malice aforethought"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

plan (pln)

1. A scheme, program, or method worked out beforehand for the accomplishment of an objective: a plan of attack.

2. A proposed or tentative project or course of action: had no plans for the evening.

3. A systematic arrangement of elements or important parts; a configuration or outline: a seating plan; the plan of a story.

4. A drawing or diagram made to scale showing the structure or arrangement of something.

5. In perspective rendering, one of several imaginary planes perpendicular to the line of vision between the viewer and the object being depicted.

6. A program or policy stipulating a service or benefit: a pension plan.

v. planned, plan·ning, plans

v.tr.

1. To formulate a scheme or program for the accomplishment, enactment, or attainment of: plan a campaign.

2. To have as a specific aim or purpose; intend: They plan to buy a house.

3. To draw or make a graphic representation of.

v.intr.

To make plans.

HIERARCHY

Definitions of HIERARCHY on the Web:

a series of ordered groupings of people or things within a system; "put honesty first in her hierarchy of values"
the organization of people at different ranks in an administrative body
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
In mathematics, a hierarchy is a preorder, i.e. an ordered set. The term is used to stress a natural hierarchical relation among the elements. In particular, it is the preferred terminology for posets whose elements are classes of objects of increasing complexity. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_(mathematics)
In computer science's object-oriented programming, the mapped relationships of sub- and superclasses is known as a hierarchy. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_(object-oriented_programming)
A hierarchy is an arrangement of objects, people, elements, values, grades, orders, classes, etc., in a ranked or graduated series. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy
A body of authoritative officials organized in nested ranks; Any group of objects ranked so that every one but the topmost is subordinate to a specified one above it
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hierarchy
hierarchic - hierarchical: classified according to various criteria into successive levels or layers; "it has been said that only a hierarchical society with a ...
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Hierarchyism is the belief that society requires a symbolic hierarchy, such as a constitutional monarchy, in order to function properly. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchyism
hierarchic - hierarchal
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hierarchic
Relationship based on degrees or levels of superordination and subordination, where the superordinate term represents a class or whole, and subordinate terms refer to its members or parts. ...
www.iskoi.org/doc/development.htm
The Cosmic Hierarchy is a "Universal Chain" of Individualized God Free Beings fulfilling Attributes and Aspects of God's Infinite ...
www.templeofthepresence.org/glossary.htm
A hierarchy is a system of ranking and organising things or people, where each element of the system is subordinate. ...
www.autonomousgeographies.org/glossary
Any system where there is a parent-child relationship.
www.davidgould.com/Glossary/Glossary.htm
A hierarchy is a series of classes or groups in which each class falls into a subgroup of a larger group, which in turn forms part of an even larger group.
plc.fis.utoronto.ca/tgdemo/Glossary.asp
Slave-like veneration of the seniors and thus verbal or physical submission to them, is common. Abject 'etiquette' required of pledges or ...
www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Hazing

hi·er·ar·chy (h-rärk, hrär-)

n. pl. hi·er·ar·chies

1. A body of persons having authority.

a. Categorization of a group of people according to ability or status.

b. The group so categorized.

3. A series in which each element is graded or ranked: put honesty first in her hierarchy of values.

a. A body of clergy organized into successive ranks or grades with each level subordinate to the one above.

b. Religious rule by a group of ranked clergy.

5. One of the divisions of angels.

Tech Tests, Tutorials etc

2009-03-25T04:21:00.000-07:00

Here are some online tutorials i have used for various tech tests etc

SOUND

AI

Unbuilt Architecture 3

2009-03-18T03:58:00.000-07:00

3 - MacQuarie University New Library Building Competition
http://www.archaust.com/unbuilt/resources/entries/2008/029.pdf
Location - MacQuarie University, Australia.

JCY Architects where one of the 5 selected in Australia to design a new library building for MacQuarie University. It was designed to create a new entrance and heart for the university connecting both entrance road and a new university square. The design created a highly sustainable new generation library which would take the university into the future with confidence.

I think think this building would be a very interesting piece of architecture to build in Crysis, and to see in 3D. I think it is a good piece of architecture and would be good to develop more and discover what it looks and feels like to walk around in 3D Realtime. It is deffinetly buildable using the Crysis level editor and leaves room to design and innovate the project.

Unbuilt Architecture 2

2009-03-17T00:16:00.000-07:00

2 - An Ideal City - Competition to design Canberra
http://www.idealcity.org.au/46/shortlist-18.html
Location - Canberra, Australia.

In 1911 a competition was held to design a capital city, this city is known as Canberra. 137 entries from around the world where considered. In May 1912, Walter Burley Griffin won the competition to design Australia’s capital city. Although submitted in Walter’s name, the plan was formulated in collaboration with Marion Mahony Griffin.

Second place went to Eliel Saarinen. Eliel Saarinen’s monumental massing of architecture around formal water basins was grand. It has imposing axes linking prominent locations. The river is forced into an artificial configuration, and has ten bridges, making it an expensive plan to build.

It is this second place entry that I think would be a interesting design to develop and build in Crysis. It would also give people a chance to experience what Australia’s capital city could have been like if this entry had won instead.

The large scale of this design and its early design phase means that there is a lot of room for innovation and exploration. As well as giving the chance expand upon it to create a very large scale realtime environment.

Unbuilt Architecture 1

2009-03-16T23:29:00.000-07:00

Unbuilt Architecture

1 - Zira Island Masterplan
http://www.big.dk/projects/zir/zir.html
Location - Baku, Azerbaijan

The Zira Island Masterplan is a island master plan created by BIG a an architectural firm that works mainly with competitions and unbuilt architecture that doesn’t often get created.

The master plan is a design for a zero energy resort and entertainment city on the island or Zira which is situated in the Caspian Sea, within the bay of Baku. The island resort is designed to be a sustainable model for urban development.

I think this is a very significant piece of unbuilt architecture because Azerbaijan as a young, developing Post-soviet democracy, are rediscovering their national identity. A master plan like this is a significant and dramatic step in the right direction for a developing country. Architecture like this encapsulates a region or community, and shows it off to the world.

I think this would an ideal piece of unbuilt architecture because it is of large scale, so different parts can be completed by different people and it can be expanded on and built upon. Since it hasn’t been entirely resolved and designed it leaves plenty of room for interpretation and design of our own. I think it would be entirely possible to create with the Cryengine. I think it is a great master plan and could lead to some amazing results and resolutions by building it in Crysis.

Welcome

2009-03-16T23:28:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog. My name is Cameron Hallam, and this blog is for Digital Collaboration. Here i will post all my work and research for these tasks.