Game Design and Semiotics -- Do they go together?

Seriously. Do they? I want to hear what you have to say about it so please leave me a comment about it.

Right now I'm attempting to bridge the gap between narrative design, level and environment design (not always the same thing), and game / game-play design using semiotics. Semiotics is a pretty good fit for this type of design challenge, as I can certainly apply some different types of analytic to it. So far I'm still trying to figure out which ones would really work best.

On a slight tangent in the research I've started looking at what my brother worked on with the subject on his thesis for his masters in architecture. The reading he pointed me to has been immensely helpful (Thank you, ed).

I have a handful of notes already, but I'm only a couple of days into this project. It's mountainous amount of work, but I can see that there will be some real formalisms at the end of it that will really help with game, level, and narrative design in the future.

Renderman Assignment

Here are my results for the renderman assignment. Kind of neat.
The first is just edited shaders that were provided.


This image is a little cooler. I modified and combined two shaders to create a ... wall of meat? Kind of gross but pretty cool result.

Assignment 7

Here are my completed images for Assignment 7.

Default (looks like assignment 6)

Reinhold's Tone Reproduction with an lMax of 1



Reinhold with lMax of 1,000

Reinhold with an lMax of 10,000


Ward's Tone Reproduction with lMax of 1


Ward with an lMax of 1,000

Ward with an lMax of 10,000

Assignment 6

I've completed transmission through my spheres.


I've altered the size of the floor to better accommodate seeing through the spheres and noticing the bending of the reflections. Also there seems to be a problem with my specular highlight on my transparent sphere ... hmmm ... I wonder what's causing that weird rim around the top right-hand corner?

Assignment 5

I have completed reflections on my spheres, as controlled by their kr value.



I had some problems with my vector math, but it all seems to be sorted out now. I also fixed my specular highlights, which were not actually being calculated properly at all. Next week: transmission! We're getting down to the end of this project now.

Crowd Flow Statistical Modeling in the Unreal Development Kit Mid-quarter Update

Crowd Flow Statistical Modeling in the Unreal Development Kit

Brian May and Eric Baker

Computer Graphics II; 4005-762

Prof. Reynold Bailey

http://bam1286.blogspot.com/

Project Objectives

To generate a statistical model that will project actor behavior in a given space based on heatmap data from previously generated data.

• Crowd behavior implemented, still needs tuning

Heatmap Generation

• Parser written, needs tuning to get the appropriate data for our crowd agents
  
• Heatmap not generated yet

Project Responsibilities

Brian: Parser and heatmap generation
Eric: Crowd behavior and UDK Environment implementation

Project Timeline -- Currently on track to complete the project in time

• Week 5 - setup environment
• Week 6 - Initial Algorithm implementation / Heatmap generation
• Week 7 - Refine and identify problems with algorithm and statistics gathering
• Week 8 - Finalize implementation and begin to gather data
• Week 9 - Present Findings

What has been done so far

• Crowd behaviors implemented and working as we will want them to.
  
• UnrealScript is supporting our data collection nicely with its native logging functions
  
• Logging crowd agent positions effectively
  
• The log is parsed pretty easily in a simple C program
  

An assessment of your (team's) progress
We're in good shape to have the project done before the end of the quarter. We only have a couple more steps to achieve our goal of producing a heatmap based on the data gathered. After that we will need to tune / refine / revise our implementation to actually make it into a useful tool.

Assignment 4

Here is my screenshot for my results of Assignment 4. The system is extensible to as many squares as you want to make the checkerboard out of. Pretty cool.