We have two weeks left to finish this but I think its looking good as long as we all keep our minds on whatever it is we are doing.
We had some good progress today and have decided on our game as well as how we will implement it. The game will involve the trampoline placed near a wall. The object of the game will be to jump as high as possible to touch different spots on the wall. The spots will be marked by Wii motes with sponges over them for protection. When pressed they will return a score to a program written in flash which Estelle is writing.
The wiimotes will be stuck on with velcro I guess.I'll have a look for some this weekend. I was thinking we should have a day where we take the game our and set it up for people to try, maybe in melbourne central or somewhere? We could get some great footage. To that end I really hope we can get this finished in a short time. I was also thinking that we should do some contacting of media to see if we can get published. Floyd said it is a simple matter of emailing editors of magazines/newspapers/blogs/etc. But I'll bring that up later. If you guys haven't read this by next Thursday I'm going to kill you :)
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Looks good! Well done on bringing the trampoline in. I hope you got some good feedback.
ReplyDeleteIf people jump near a wall, they will end up on the edge of the rim, can you pad it with pillows?
Or can you hang things to reach from the ceiling?
Or how about putting the trampoline up-side down from the ceiling, and you need to hit it with your head? Or hanging it from the wall like a picture, and you need to hit it with your fist?
You can use the design dimensions to get further ideas.
But most important question: what benefit does the computer add to your game???
I had another idea this morning: could you make something like a mario-game, where you have to jump over monsters etc that approach you? Combined with your idea of making body shapes, like reaching with your arms, in order to collect flying pizzas?
ReplyDeleteCan can easily track these body movements if you give players a hat with an LED light (and maybe another light attached to their arm or feet), that is tracked with a Wiimote camera: the input is then controlling the mouse cursor, simple! You can just use the Wiimote whiteboard software the bubble poppers were using: it automatically tracks any LED light and transfers it into mouse movements.
OR: you could put the camera below the trampoline, and attach a little LED light on one of the elastic bands, and then easily track how much they are stretched, then you know how much people bend it and how long they are in the air!
The opportunities are endless!
you can also duck-tape the Wiimote to the bottom, and read out the accelerometer data and send it to OSCulator and from there via midi to max/msp to make music!
or project onto the trampoline a red line that passes by (like a laser that projects a treasure) where people have to jump over, and the laser comes by faster and faster...
MIKEY
ReplyDeleteHey guys.
Well today's sample of our concept incorporating the trampoline was quite productive as we targeted what the game would involve the player to do when they would jump. I quite like the silhouette idea but personally believe the point sensor idea is great!
Thank you Floyd for suggesting using wii motes as sensors to slap; covered by a piece of cardboard and a soft object such as a sponge to slap on, so the wii mote does not fracture and break. Our team is going with this idea...
As far as the wii mote's you suggested we get off the other teams:
I spoke to Luke, however he needs his still for the bubble game...
The other one lies with Tim... :)
See you soon Floyd thanks.
MY COMMENTS ARE NOT POSTING.
ReplyDeleteby the way people the problem we faced with not having wii motes.. i can get 2 off a friend and cousin to you as the sensors :)
that first message i had send before umm :S.. yeah i can get the wii motes which ever path we take as far as the game goes...
ReplyDeleteThat sounds all right Floyd, but wouldn't that mean we will have to change our game yet again rather than sticking to the one idea and attempt to make it work and refine it?
ReplyDeleteWhat do the rest of the group think??
Mikey, what I am saying is this: stick a few Wiimotes on a wall and jump and try to press them and see how much fun that is, and then compare it to someone holding the wiimote under the trampoline and move the mouse cursor according to what the wiimote would see (so pretend-play as to speak) and see what is more fun. I don't know which one is more fun, trying it out is the only way to find out! and maybe you have an even better idea while you are doing it! it's called iterative design, you design changes because you design!
ReplyDeleteHey Floyd.. Ok that makes sense.. I managed to get my hands on the two wii motes yesterday.. Combined with Estelle's two well sample what is more fun.. guys do you want to meet early on Tuesday??..
ReplyDeleteNo can do Mikey...me and Nick have a meeting early Tuesday for another subject....
ReplyDeleteok well I will be in the games lab on Tuesday from like 9 30 or so extra early.. if you drop by we can organise a time or something..
ReplyDeleteumm i dont want to change the idea of the game but i had an idea in the middle of the night and i had to write it down on a piece of paper so that i dont forget it. like i said tis just an idea and yes i know that its due in a few weeks, but what if had something (and i dont want take the idea off floyd but its a good start) like where you are constantly jumping up and down and we make projection similar to floyds game with the logs and the waterfall but instead rather than jumping on the objects we have to avoid them so it would be something like jumping over a rake or a rock or a needle or something like that, and the animation gets faster and faster and because its a gym trmpoline people will be able to react to it alot quicker rather than a normal trampoline where when you are jumping on it it sinks in for like a secon (if you get what i mean)
ReplyDeleteso this way you are jumping up and down faster and faster and then maybe you try to jump high so that 2 objects pass you at the one time.
i duuno just thought that i would be able to put the idea out there and im not trying to compare us to floyd but if floyd made this game ina weekend then surely we can make this game in 2 weeks or whatever, ill talk to you guys tomorrow
floyd what do you think?
Don't forget that somewhere in those 2 weeks we have to create the game, test it, film it, take promotional pics etc etc. Also at the moment Estelle is doing all the work for implementing the game. If you have another idea you want to try I suggest you organise a projector, create and animation and figure out how to implement it using technology, maybe do some programming tutes. Don't wait for everyone to say "Thats a good idea!' and go and do the work for you. Do some work on this game like Estelle is doing for our other idea and we can see which is going to be more fun.
ReplyDeleteI'm happy to help you out, as I also said to estelle
ReplyDeleteno worries, well ill email floyd and ill see what he thinks and see if he can point me in the right direction.
ReplyDeleteAlright, with the current game idea, the most reasonable way to implement seems to involve placing Wiimotes behind the players on the trampoline to measure the height at which the players are able to jump. In order to read the height of the player, they would be required to wear a piece of equipment, e.g. a hat with an infra-red light mounted upon it. The light is read by the Wiimote and the information recorded upon a computer.
ReplyDeleteThe computer can store the highest height value, amount of jumps and pretty much any information needed to be recorded, simply depending upon the program used/made to interpret the data. To measure the height I would propose that the player should upon reaching the zenith of their jump, either: Push a button, or trigger some other instrument (say a computer mouse for simplicity?)
Should we also wish to record amount of jumps, that may simply entail having a sensor attached to the trampoline which registers the movement (again, a possibly jerry rig with a mouse is possible to send the signal.) This method whilst being more round about than simply counting the amount of mouse clicks, prevents cheating from the player, or misreading the signal, should they click multiple times during a jump.
A question this whole idea raises though, is; how does the mouse/button attached to the user send the signal to the infra-red light to turn on? An idea I have to address this is simply by having the light turned on the entire time, but to have the Wiimote record its location ONLY during the very brief period of time in which the mouse button is depressed.
The benefits of the above method are that it does not require a screen or projector to work, allowing the player to focus entirely upon the action of jumping, and not that of aiming at a particular point on a wall, with projectors suppling visual feedback.
The benefits of its simplicity are also the idea’s weaknesses however. Without the point on the wall to aim for, or the projector creating a visual goal, the game loses both haptic feedback, and immersion.