Research Assignment Idea

Write a paragraph describing the the tutorial subject that occupies the intersection between your work in EXP1 or EXP2 and one of the gaps in the body of knowledge. This will form the basis that you will expand upon for the final 500 word text.

For this research assignment, I have decided to base my tutorial on proximity triggers, in particular the notion of trigger a change in the time of day. In engaging with experiments 1 and 2 of this course and research undertaken for my porosity lens, I discovered that there was little information on the internet in the form of tutorials and forum topics that thoroughly explores proximity triggers. Additionally, I found throughout my research that there was very little infomation on the Time: node, in particular how to change the time of day. For the second experiment, I wanted to use these two concepts within my porosity lens to record the interelationship between the crysis environemnt and AI Characters. With the old form of trial and error, and basic knowledge aquired from the WIKI-CRYMOD and MAXEDGAMING.COM, I was able to finally get the game play to trigger a change of time. However, there was a delay between the time the player triggered the change of time and when the sky updated. This is the fundamental idea behind my tutorial.

References:
http://wiki.crymod.com/index.php/FGNode:Time:TimeOfDay
http://maxedgaming.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=3074&p=31546

First Draft

Sketch Installation

Sketch Instillation in Google SketchUp

Porosity Lens Brief

The focus for my Porosity lens explores the way in which the human race interacts with specific and different environments. In this case of this porosity study, there is a central focus on Sydney's Town Hall station, and the public and private nature of this environment.

In evaluating the way people use the specified environment, I have employed the use of several Crysis AI characters to reflect the human race. Using flow graphs I intend to control the movement of these characters, stimulating a public space that rapidly changes during the low and peak times of the day. When the AI characters enter the "trigger" area a light will turn on and when they leave the trigger area, the light will turn off. This will enhance the clarity of the way these changes are documented and presented. In reality, these changes are usually triggered by the time of day. For example, the busiest times of day for Sydney's CBD are when people are traveling to and from work and lunchtime. Consequently, I aim to document these represent these trends in time through my Real Time Interactive environment. When the "trigger" area is busy, occupied by a relatively large number of AI characters the time of day and consequently the natural sunlight will change, and the time and light would change again when the public "trigger" area falls into disuse throughout the day.

These flow graph node will successfully enable me to reflect and comment on not only the way people use the public space of Town Hall station, but also determine how long people spend in the environment.

Node 3: Entity

This video is supposed to be of an AI character entering a proximity trigger and when this event occurs then a light will be turned on. Moreover, when the AI character leaves the area, the light will be turned off. Each AI character has an individual light associated with it, so it would be easy to determine whether or not the character was in the active area.

However, I am struggling to achieve this idea at the moment. More research into the Entity node is needed.

Node 2: Time

This video reflects my mastery of the Time node. By implementing the time node, I am able to document the changes in time and light with in an environment in relation to certain aspects. When the game character enters the proximity trigger, the time of day changes. The exact time is set in the flow graph. One issue with this node however, is the time delay between when the character enters the trigger and when the sky changes.

S.W.A.T Analysis

AI_Node:
Strength: The AI node is able to control and manipulate the movement of characters.
Weakness: The AI node becomes difficult to manage when numerous AI characters are being used, especially in regards to the flow graph.
Opportunity: The AI node can be used to explicitly document and represent the movement of characters through an environment.
Threat: Using many AI characters may overload the program, possibly causing it to crash. Additionally, flow graphs may become hard to maintain.

Time_Node:
Strength: The Time node provides a way to change the time of day as well as the lighting in the environment
Weakness: In changing the time of day, there is a delay in the changing of the sky. This may just be my computer, but nonetheless it is a weakness.
Opportunity: In using the Time node to change the time of day, its possible to present changes in the environment at certain times of the day.
Threat: The time delay in the change of sky mention as the weakness, may affect the overall quality of the scene.

Entity_Node
Strength: the entity node is vast, associated with almost anything in the editor. It allows the user to create and control a range of aspects in the editor.
Weakness: In employing the entity node, there are endless possibilities; inputs and outputs and the flow graphs are hard to maintain
Opportunity: Control dynamic aspects of the editor.
Threat: Large, uncontrollable and disorganised flow graphs that are hard to interpret and comprehend.