Week 13

Week 13! The end of the semester and a demonstration of our prototype!  The whole team were super focused and excited this week.  We all worked really hard and thankfully were rewarded for our efforts with an awesome presentation.

The week started off early with Hamish finishing off the installation, painted and beautifully finished.  What he managed to create far exceeded the expectations of all of the other group members, the set up is gorgeous and was all ready for Max to step in and make it even better with the addition of appropriate art.

The installation, painted

Max delivered shortly after with some sketches of characters from the story I had written.  More specifically Sir Metema and Sir Doujos from the fantasy section of the story I had written for the scenarios.  These pictures were brilliant and the design of having half their body on each side of the installation was brilliant.  This particular design problem really played to Max's strengths. I am very happy with the way that Max managed to capture a part of the story so perfectly.  

Max's initial sketches for the arcade characters

While all this was going on I was putting the finishing touches on the story and making sure that the storyline you finished on had an ending.  The final storyline was the one featuring Metema and Doujos and was six scenarios long, rather than three which the two previous story arcs were.  This, in addition to the fact that I wanted to keep a consistent storyline for this part meant that the storyline didn't diverge quite as much as the previous ones.  What I did instead is mainly customise the introduction to the next scenario, telling the user how they got to that part from where they were.  I also realised that it doesn't really matter too much where the user goes, since they don't realise the alternatives, the main thing being the response we get rather than the storyline.  That being said the story was important for immersing the user into the experience so a happy medium must be met.

Max, while making progress on the sketches, was also making progress on the textures, his final one for the fantasy one being particularly striking because it was, I believe, a very interesting interpretation of the setting.  He made a smoky/sepia type texture which I think both encapsulated the old feel of the scenario and the fire from the dragon.  I think, while he struggled a bit with how to do the textures initially Max finished strong and showed huge improvements on his texture making talents.

The texture for the fantasy scenarios

All this time Kyle was working on the actual program.  Especially considering this, hugely important, part was all his responsibility Kyle did amazingly well.  He exceeded all expectations the group had, creating a beautiful app which ran almost flawlessly, getting accurate height and weight measurements very quickly and having no bugs that we could find.  Choosing answers to questions was easy and accurate and the feedback page was well designed.  The feedback page allowed the user to press on each category to get an overlay telling them how well they did in each category.  I can't stress enough how impressed and pleased we all were with the app, especially since it can be the trickiest aspect to pull off.

The opening screen of the app

Max finished off, doing some beautiful colouring and highlighting, each image specifically designed to fit perfectly on the side of the installation.  I think that these pieces of art add a huge amount to the whole design, drawing people in by peaking their interest.  Overall this is a continuation of the excellent visual design that Max has been doing, particularly in the last few weeks.

The final characters

Max was also in the process of making silhouettes for the feedback page of the app, we wanted to make our own to avoid any copy write issues and to allow us to customise them with the aesthetic of the app.  He did a nice job with this, creating a set of silhouettes which easily conveyed the four body types: underweight, healthy weight, overweight and obese.

Silhouettes

We were on last so we had some time in the morning to make final refinements.  Kyle pointed out to me that some (most) of my scenarios were far to verbose to be put into the app as they would be both too small and also be too much reading for the user to handle.  I struggled with this a bit but soon realised that it wasn't about having a full and well rounded story it was about having short and snappy scenarios which communicated only the information we needed to get the data required.  After I had come to this revelation I made short work of cutting down the scenarios, making sure they were only two or three sentences each.  I was actually surprised how much of the story was preserved, despite their vastly shortened length in some cases.

Everyone was putting the final touches on our designs, including Hamish putting the final touches on the logo he designed for the installation.  The logo worked particularly well because it highlights the last letter of health and the first of venture, luckily the last letter of health is the same as the first so the highlighted letters initials of the app.  Hamish also effectively used textures, drop shadows and a range of other techniques to create a very high quality logo.

The logo

One of my favourite moments throughout this whole process was when we brought the installation into 313.  The gasps and excitement from the other students over our piece was very exciting and gratifying after all the work each of us had put into the work.   We managed to finish all our work several hours before the actual deadline which was great as it allowed us to relax for a bit before the actual presentation.  We were all extremely excited about completing the prototype and eager to get into the actual demonstration.

The completed prototype

The demonstration came soon enough and went extremely well.  We carried the installation into the room and set it up, next to the projector screen. This allowed us to follow along on the projector screen, making it easier for the markers to see exactly what was going on.  I ran the initial example adventure and explained, with Kyle, our concept, research and technical information   Max and Hamish interjected where necessary.  Most of the markers had a go on the installation and it seems as though they had a really great time.

We didn't get a huge amount of feedback which was mainly positive it seems as the markers seemed to really like our idea. Overall I'm very happy with what we achieved, everything went off without a hitch.  We've got a lot of work to do before the exhibition but we're all prepared to put in the extra effort to get our design to be even better than it already is, putting in a bigger screen, buttons for interaction and a wide range of improvements.  I'm excited to finish this off and have a beautiful completed product to show off to industry, fellow students, friends and family.