This Year

This year i have learned a lot about computer programming and design. The start of this year was coding and developing skills in the implementation of ideas and making computers work for me. I moved on to app development and game development for a while through the year creating my own side scroller and trying to build an app.  Then I moved on to Maya for a week to try and do three dimensional modeling; this was not my idea of fun. At the end of this year i came back to where i started and got back into coding.

My first venture into coding was C++ and Microsoft visual express. this was eye opening and informative on the ins and outs of creating code and the value of white space. I made some simple command line games and build upon the knowledge gained to make adjustments to a game engine that would be used to power the side scroller later.  This base in C++ made transitioning into java script and more front end coding a lot easier and more intuitive.

Once I finished with making command line games i wanted to venture into UI and creating a game that was visual and appealing, i decided to go with game maker, and app developer. App developer felt to clunky and was not able to be tested effectively on the laptops so i stayed with game maker and made my side scroller. The sonic enters Mario world idea i went for was fun but there were too many glitches to make a running version of the game off of my computer. It was not responding to new rooms and i decided that i needed to use my time more effectively.

This led me to Maya, Maya was a lot more intuitive than blender last year which is why i chose it. In Maya i made a sword and shield and some general polygon work, this was fun and engaging. I soon tried to move on to more organic work but this proved to be too hard for my limited experience on an independent project. I made a couple more simple models and then headed back to where i started; coding.

Coding is what brought me into info tech class this year and I hope that i will be able to explore this a lot more effectively next year. This is what was fun and makes something use able, make something in text and see how it interacts with other pieces of a very intricate puzzle. Next year i plan to come back to coding and focus on it for the whole semester.

June 9th

Almost done java script

, got stuck building a cash register, had to look up how to implement a constructor again..... it is just remembering the syntax that is challenging, the actual language is quite simple

June 6th

got to finish this section and moving on to the next section of javascript

also got some achieves.

June 5th

UGH GOT STUCK for some reason this one exercise took all class.....
it was not my code, at the end of class i remembered the glitch with codecademy, this whole class was almost wasted but i found out you could assign floating strings to variables for for loops.

June 4th

Almost done javascript, at least this section, did work with private/Public variables

got up to passing arguments

June 3rd

Finished up with inheritance and started the next section 

Public/Private variables

June 2nd

Did Codecademy, started in with classes

                             
 and got up to dealing with inheritance.

More java script/Codecademy

Stared my day by trying to unlock the door with scissors... once we got into working with the computers, i started learning how to work with "typeof" and for-in loops, these allow you to call up the types of properties in a given class and can be used to see the parameters of said class, 'what makes it up' e.g. name/location/etc. Also found out that you may need to call a new page because Codecademy can glitch out, use CTRL + F5.

I Started learning about Object Oriented Programming, witch moves toward more class setup and how to use constructors and objects to make objects have more depth and be more useful.

This sort of programming gets away from the nitty gritty and mores toward the simplicity of the job, figure out what you need to get done and build a framework to apply to may outcomes.

Codecademy

Was able to get through two sections of the building and address book lesson before the site crashed, i will continue when the site comes back up.

Codecademy came back up with 45-50 minutes left in class and i was able to finish the lesson and am continuing on to the next one

Learned how to build constructors and pass variables from a constructor to an array and to read them back into the console.

Got stuck on using bracket notation in Intro to Objects II 5/30

Back to Coding.

Couldn't get the hang of modeling very well and decided to go back to where i started this year, Coding.

I am on code codecademy learning java script.

This is where i started today, I learned how to use methods and functions to do work, calculations.

Finished the The introduction to objects and i am now able to make objects consistently in both constructor and literal notation.

Maya

Found that dealing with Maya is not for me i need to find another program to work with, Maya is just to much of an art I lose interest. I got the hand model almost done but i will find another program to work with.

More Modeling, basic

Started modeling a hand

found out how to import image planes to use as reference

Ball Bouncing

 Found out how to use the custom shelf in Maya to save often used tools (Shift + Alt + Click)

Found out how to use the graph editor to smooth animations and make them look more natural, the lines represent different translations, movement up-down, movement left-right, and rotation. these can all be fine tuned after using key frames.

I used key framing and the graph editor to animate a ball bouncing and had a good amount of success getting it to look natural.

Voila.

Modeling prowess

Made an ice cream cone similar to this one but it got deleted because Maya crashed.
Learned how to use lattice editors and use more of the attribute menu so that i can make my one creations match in scale and not get lost in rendering.

Sword Model.

Basic modeling is actually rather fun, i made a sword to get a hold on Maya's controls and it turned out well i am going to keep going through the tutorials and making objects so i can make some sort of animation my the end of the month.

I am getting the hang of the basic movement and i learned how to extrude to do basic modeling.

Goal for may/june

Got maya to install and started running through the basic tutorials, object manipulation and creation.

I am going to try and make an animated scene by the end of the month including some of my favorite video game characters. I will be leaning more to animation and less toward the actual modeling within Maya at least to start.

Maya or Revit

Spent most of class trying to come up with an idea of what to do during may, i have no idea, if i can get revit i will try that or if i decide on Maya modeling i may do that. sort of lost...

Office

elecrical/power/uility room

break room within utility

 Front Office

 Backrooms in Office

 Cont.

 Picture for perspective

Gym offices and School store

Finished the layout of the gym, the ceiling is so high because of the minecraft scaling again and having to have extra room for lighting

Made the exchange hall to the small gym look correct

and made the team room and the school store.

Team room/small gym

Inside of School store

Front of school store.   And a bathroom door....(oops)

April 29th (oops) Gym Lobby

Finished off the gym lobby and added details to science classes

Built vending machines, they look out of place because they are so over sized for the scale.

Cut wall to show doors added to hall and desks in class

All classes in this wing resemble their real life layouts

Pictures of progress.

Made the auto shop and the insides of the band rooms and art rooms

Before insides

After

 Before auto and metal

 After

Art Room

Built a lot and am making major progress. Have about 15 rooms left to finish

Just about done

Built dramnasium and added detail to classes upstairs and downstairs in the math wing. (desks, etc.)

Building the school and adding detail

Build tables in library, built inside of the front office and finished adding lights to the auto area. overall progress is swift and i should be able to have this project done in a week or two.

SCHOOL SAVED

Early into the build

Polishing the exterior and moving inside

Saved the world, lost the texture pack
 continuing to build and adding windows.

Building a room, and fixing spawning

fixed my spawning problem the engine i'm using has a y coordinate set to a static value and i had to change it to be relative to the spawning object within the room, i also made the scoreboard translucent so that i can utilize the top fifth of the room. most of the class was figuring out where in the code the spawning coordinates were decided and building th background for the second level.

Sprites April 14th(forgot to blog)

Made corrections to sprites yesterday and started work on a custom swimming sprite. took until around 3:15 Photoshop is not on this laptop and i had local saved over the weekend, i was at home and got a bunch done although i feel like my swimming sprite does not match am considering editing running sprite to work for swimming

Polishing, resolving hit boxes

Fixed the offset problem with my sprite character in my game, it became apparent when i added enemies that the hit box is based on the origin in this game engine. So i centered the sprite for the player and added some aesthetics to the first room. Here is my progress so far.

This is the level in room editor so you can see the hidden objects, the boxes and grass are hidden for background tiles that look a lot cleaner.

Making Sprites

Today i was at home making sprites because i have Photoshop on my computer, i was able to get a large amount of work done on movement sprites and to make more intricate tiles for room building. This saved me around half of the class installing Photoshop.

just an update on making a game

Finally solved my hit box problem so now i'm actually developing levels so that i can make it into a game! i was unable to correct the problem but i was able to correct for it in level design.

Tiles

April second spent about 10 minutes setting up objects for my first level when i found out about tiles, tiles allow a game to be made with a lot fewer objects, run faster and in general look better, you only need one object for collision and you can hide it to make the game look a lot nicer, so i spent about half of the class fighting with a tile sheet that i found and at the end of class i was finally able to make the tiles work correctly. tiles make putting the level together more like a puzzle and less like a giant project of animating and designing each piece.

Mario is so useful.

Installing GM/setting up sprites

April first installed game maker and got started on implementing sprites, a lot of the day was cutting and pasting image files to make animations. Overall removing the dead space and placing sprites an equal distance apart makes it a lot easier to implement the animations into game maker.

App Dev isn't for me, at least not like this

Started using game maker, this is something i believe was ill considered, i think i should just go back to coding. i learned how to import sprites so that may come in handy later. will continue to code tomorrow. kinda feel like i learned a lesson that i don't like the app development software that i have tried.

App Inventor

Finished half a section of java script about objects and more review. Mr.Bilesky suggested app inventor and it sounded intriguing so i'm going to do it.simple setup and able to make app easily. could be fun with the way the user interface works.

More Objects

Used search and made more objects, this was more time consuming than i thought but i was able to get through a whole section, i already knew...

All it was objects in arrays but i see how it could be used in many ways for multipurpose access.

Cyclical Division and Objects

Refresher on arrays, leaning how to create objects, and Cyclical division.

Cyclical division is where you divide a number by another number over and over.
Objects are an easy way to give as variable multiple properties like a name, a age etc.

var me = {
       name: "Today"
       age: 219
};
this would be an object called 'me' with the name Today and the age 219.
Simple!

Switch

Learned about isNaN, checks if a value is a number and returns a Boolean. true/false.

this can be used in congruence with if/else.

Switch statements, basically if/else. they just use different syntax and were originally used instead of (else if)

started with && witch is both/and ,Ran out of time afterward. will continue tomorrow.