The Thing Growing - Diary and ToDo List

Dec 1st	check the scene 1 with networking OK - except the morphers don't in the networked version add new thing to scene 1 add sounds to afterRox Chase- change timing of rock release need new global move- runto gloat pos add scene 2 to all and make a switch I think I have to rename things in thingscene beause its finding things of that name and turning them off? - they are all _purple shorten the taunting scene Move Sam models into regular model directory-pftransform them Make the welcome start automatically Check you dance - made the actions global move do nothing RocRelease tad later haha you're trapped louder - made it 0.6 rocksuck is 0.4 starts dancetwo in angry?- still seems to? thing into pit comes down too soon by at least 1 sec change first action -still looks wrong - check all thingInPit actions sticks through wall Check in CAVE with 4 trackers and networking Need to FIX that avatar DCS /rock mess Check Backup
Nov 28th/ 29th	added thingscene 2 to floor.all - timed thng and fourthings should fourthings be further back to start with - yes - move 10 feet add some speech as they retreat the thing's excalmation when user falls must be earlier add path for thing so its part of the advance add a pit (black)- to fall into add jeeers of fourthtingz and thing- half length and time of their last path make fog less (CAVE)? Looks good in EVL CAVE Make Backup
Nov 27th	Fix the advance added double layers to the heads added waiting actions raised the two end ones need make last advance a bit earlier - also have wrong motion- fixed Add the Thingmaybe advance sript should be more modular - Need to merge Motions see Aug 31st 98 - I wrote a new script having put the stuff in a MOTIONS directory - thus foreach i(*.tail) merge $i:r $i ../../DATA/temp/$i:r end nb alias merge srcdave/mt/merge Should make one function instead of the repetition getEmerge Action, getSULKNHIDEAction etc in tgNewBrain- maybe Added the retreat to teh fourthings - next must add thing - but I made it separetly for now without timing between them?
Nov 24th	Not convinced entirely by the advance colors of 4things - blend too much into background - especially the black one looks bad I think all but the one speaking should not move the local body It would be good to have flapping mouths Maybe they should all be taller The outside ones need to look in towards the user more I think the space between the front 2 and back 2 in y should also be greater Now what has to be recorded - I think we can grab the 4 things motions from other places But I need the Thing grovelling Motion captured thingWith4things and started on thingInPit before getting completely nauseous and stopping - cave sickness?, stomach flu? or there seems to be some adhesive or somthing that all these buildings smell of.
Nov 20th	OK - I made a file with the four things advancing may have to change to some global body thing, advance and pause like the rocks? should be easy to do but then won't they bump into each other as they converge? I have given temporary motions - but I actually quite like them - may want to look at them in the CAVE, before capturing a whole new set of motions at the moment they are simply start on a button push only the advance not the come with us/retreat need to add the thing we crash every now and again on the impact the sound is bad on the impact
Nov 19th	wrote Yesi saying we could deal with the set up for Mediartech must ask Dan if we can bring tracker stuff - Yesi can get a pc can't do the motion capture today but I will set up the 4 thing welcome scene finished the advancing plan cleaned up the fourthing scenefile remove all extaneous stuff each brain has its own actionstore added a welcomeActionStore and state to the newBrain - which simply moves things to offstage when its out of actions sounds /voice - do I crash if there's no sound file? - NO! avatardcs moves - files made for the advance plus I made a script_advance, but the advances are not correctly timed as of now also need to put in the thing!
Nov 18th	started the comp entry
Nov 17th	NB - enter competition deadline Nov 23rd - also check Sig deadline Process sounds - aiff and 32 and normalized - start with the 4things welcome scene and things responses 4things sounds, normalized topped tailed and converted to 32 aiff thing sounds, normalized, topped, tailed, not converted yet
Nov 13th	Sound Recording type text into website afterRoxChase text 4Thing - Advance/Welcom 4Thing - berate Thing - answers to the above Thing - in pit Cleaned up directories and thre away old sound samples Made a back up of all sounds currently used (bak) Recorded sound as above and moved ot from dat to sgi Made back up of THING and SOUND directories
NBs	to find all rocs use the rocks rocklist not find rocks by type there's still an anomolies in the teach dance (see notes under Thurs Oct 12)
Nov 10th	Yestereday Made alterations to teachdance and newbrain dancetimer(s) is now in teachdance - added one to time reprise made an outofTimeorPatience() which checks the first dance timer and the number of times the user has tried to run away (defaults are time 120, number 10, with second dancetime of 20 or 30) if the timers have elapse messages are set to the brain firsttimer elapsed -> sulknhide second ditto -> for now "offstage" later -> next scene First Thing Today - I need to check all these functionalies - neeed alterations to scenefiles - basically the teachdance node now parses the danceduration and catchusermax info hitch 1 - all the previously working runafteruser stuff has now ceased to function user/thing distance is not being calculated in scenefile teachdance was not getting pointer to correct global body hitch2 - not getting the rocks to release/user not moving! - because there ain't no release function - duh! - so I wrote one reused scatter -but with the trap timer - to make the rock piss off - of course this means all the other rocks piss off again too only send releaseRock message once/ rocks then HIBERNATE - now it completely skips over everything (== not =) the thing does not seem to regain its place scatter is fine but a bit short hitch3 - not getting to second dance experence at all at all So we have working code for getting the user out from under the rock and resuming the teachdance I need to clean up the couts. I will need some gesture/noise for it removing the rocks both from thing and from rock? (You've 'ad enuf' cork pop) I shortened the time with navigator off in the script_blowup - no I didn't put lots of #tmps in the thing scene to make it load quick! BACK UP - twice of fuchs have failed - try other tape drive other tape started making files of dialog to record for thing and 4 things
Nov 9th	several things to do make grey and black transp thing parts add code to thingdance for letting user out from rock OK I just need some text to go into the afterRockChase ActionStore Taunting - see your're trapped - should have been nicer to me OK - if you're nice I'll let you out Bam Rock comes off and scarpers? (how send message?) - just an eventoccurred that I time in the scenefile - wrote in code now put in scenefile! Not getting release message through and then suddenly I'm getting the catch message again Now that probably made you forget where were so lets just review from the beginning So I need something that times the Second interruption type up all the text before we record 4thing sound nb to find all rocs use the rocks rocklist not find rocks by type
Nov 6th	In the CAVE I quite like it can't actually see any of the Franz sky! (tone down fog?)- cut texture size make floor fourX as big make them all red and white (and black and grey) with a black inside body make heads longer? sizes diff? but they are maybe too big to stand in a row maybe each one has a relative position its moving too? remember they may be on avatar paths as well as moving freely? - just have the whole thing fixed - including user on a path? give them formal/slower dancemovements for now I have stood two side things a little in front Choreography of things/thing! Starting Pos for 4Ts - I've put them at 25 - good? Falling into PIT- I planned to know the exact square I was on and remove it But I could have an invisible floor that I remove - user falls through the floor - in which case I don't have to bother about gridding the whole thing out? I could assemble floor in soft - import and size? This could also cut polygons? I will need a record of where they fell in, so they come back up at the same place? But as they fall can be transported (navigatorly) to PIT I have made a floor scene that I like - kinda stonehengian! - however it has: 11840 triangles (mostly samrocks - can they have less tris and be fun? 1660272 texture(which since I'm reusing textures seems good) and as yet it has the four things but not The Thing and user(networked)
Nov 5th	finish transforming thing models -done I decided on some colors for the main thing - it has yellow head, purple body and reprise of yellow in the tail - this is in test scene then I started a fourthingscene - at present they have these colors 1 white and blue 2 blue and red 3 red and green 4 green and white I am not sure of these colors Need to sort out the globalbody for these four things I gave each one one I made one I put around them all Problems they must look at user even when in a row should they have varied heeights? how can the globalbody go around all four? When we enter the scene I would like to come down from the sky - so I need a path that will bring me down slowly - could come down on/with the floor? It would be good for the four things to be gathered in some circle - then to make their line and advance - they also could be in a line already Instead of worrying too much about the globalbody - maybe they could advance on a path? Not necessarily a good idea because what happens if the user fucks off in the other direction. However maybe the fixing of global body - creation of a class based on entity that moves in relation to the user - should wait
Nov 3rd	made floor textures and models - do I like color? put in floorscene - need to look at it in the cave. it crashes (on the impact) if I add sam's rock - are we breaking through the texture memory thing? or what ? too many textures and polygons in floor - would it crash if I doubled it? it ain't too big! should be caching textures, is it? - what if I half size them? redid eyes and I think thye're good also need to check in cave
Nov 2nd	Thing Model (in CAVE) added solid blue arms and I think they look good added solid blue-green body added solid green head added solid yellow tail pieces nb - must redo eyes open with wider mesh? Thing Model - todo make note of all rotations and translations = thingTransformInfoScene/2 and testscene have this info currently actually move all models to comply with those rotes and translates order matters! do nearest ones first
Nov 1st	I worked some on the script for the next scene designed the QuartreChose arena ToDo finish working on thing model - Dave says solid inside trans will not disappear make the QC floor in photoshop and soft make a fourthingscene and pick their colors design QC arena, using the models of Sam as pillars (elongate?) and sky? finish thingdance - when thing gets user outfrom rock and commences dance again - just add code/actions to currect model write up script and add part when user gets out of hole record QC voices and actions (rehearse 4 voices/shouting) process QC voices record Thing sound with QC design interaction code for getting out of pit figure out how you'll explode QC transition - world crack - put in lightening bolts/darkness, then descend into next scene? networking/ networked menu
Oct 30	mmm - tried the head with old head inside and I rather like it - but maybe the heads must be less transparent ( I so like the old tail and wonder if somehow I can keep it!) I made an entirely green thing and I think its even more confusing than the old one - need to look at it in cave put in the floor and added Franz's red sky - they do not go!!!!!!! - try the rocks of Sam
Oct 29	Models in softimage thing models head,body,arm in green, white, red, blue, yellow, purple thing eyes - open and closed all these are taken to model directory made into pfb and checked - see names in the jot file 29oct98 in the models directory did not get the chins also floor - texture map tiled 4* also flashlight (the showcase one is better) also transparent cones, gunflash and lightbeam I need to check how the new head works with the old motions make necessary translations and rotations to one color set (green) remember the eyes will need same treatment keep these numbers so I can reproduce the work for all colors keep numbers in case I want extra models with diff transparancies
Oct 28	Today I'm starting to GET ON WITH IT So I made a floor, flashlight, gun and escapeslabs need to size them and make them iv's need to make the floorpattern into a power2 I started a floor scene which simply checked that the iv's loaded Also need to get to the thing models - urgh