{"id":140,"date":"2011-01-01T13:04:57","date_gmt":"2011-01-01T18:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/heavymetal2\/?p=140"},"modified":"2011-04-27T15:43:09","modified_gmt":"2011-04-27T19:43:09","slug":"newsletter-issue-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/heavymetal2\/?p=140","title":{"rendered":"Newsletter 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Programming in Unity<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the game engines in which we are working is Unity 3D. It is an engine that
\nhas become very popular recently because of its user-friendliness. It is easy to
\nstart working in Unity as its visual interface is very powerful, not being restricted
\nto programmers. Just drag and dropping you can create a a highly detailed world
\nand tweak almost all their characteristics.<\/p>\n

However there is more than a friendly user interface in Unity. The logic of the
\nworld and the interaction of the characters (may those be human, vehicles or
\nmonsters) must be programmed using a scripting language. This is what gives life
\nto the world. The languages admitted by Unity are Javascript, C# or Boo, and most
\nof the documentation is made with Javascript, probably because it is a seasoned
\nlanguage and there are thousands of programmers familiarized with it. But for our
\npurposes we are using C#, which is a language much newer, with more potential
\nthan Javascript, and better supported by the well known Microsoft Visual Studio.
\nC# could be seen as a mixture of two of the most successful programming languages,
\nC++ and Java.<\/p>\n

UDK Research<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the past week, I\u2019ve been researching higher-end features in the Unreal Development
\nKit; such as Kismet, Unreal Matinee Editor, PhAT, Unreal Material
\nEditor, and the Fracture Tool. Kismet is Unreal\u2019s scripting solution for the artist,
\na visual interface where one plugs nodes into other nodes to form scripted events,
\nsuch as light switches. Unreal Matinee is completely housed inside Kismet as an
\nanimation editor to animate different things, for example, an elevator or animated
\nmaterials. PhAT, or the Physics Asset Tool, is used for applying physics proper
\nties to various objects while the Fracture Tool allows one to make objects crumble
\nto pieces when force, such as a gun shot, is applied to it. The Material Editor
\nis a visual graph node-system, in which it allows one to edit materials in real-time
\nwith a visual preview.<\/p>\n

For next week, I aim to develop some working prototypes in UDK to test some
\nof our theories and find whether they\u2019d work for what we want in our simulation.<\/p>\n

Applying Knowledge Learned<\/strong><\/p>\n

This week I have focused mostly on setting up a scene to
\ndisplay examples. These examples will show the possible
\nroutes we could take for simulation. The purpose of doing
\nthis is to see what would look best and be compatible with
\nother aspects of our project. An example of this would be,
\nsay what would work with the terrain deforming system
\nthat was developed last semester. Or say, what could be
\ndone in real time and still look good.<\/p>\n

These demos will consist of collision, animated textures
\nand particles. These three things I have been looking into
\nfor awhile now and wanted to display them in a more complete
\nmanner. Other new demos I will be looking into were
\nsuggested to use during quarters; with are cloth and water
\nsimulation. The hope for these demos is that they will give
\nus clear illustrations of what would be possible by halves.<\/p>\n

Preparing for the Next Few Week<\/strong><\/p>\n

This week has been full of preparation: both for the trip
\nnext week to Tucson, AZ and getting ready to texture the
\nMTL. In preparation for visiting the Tuscon Proving
\nGrounds, I checked with Sam K to make sure they had everything
\nwe would need for accurate measurements of material
\nchanges (markers, flags, etc). In regards to the MTL,
\nI\u2019ve finished the high poly model with the exception of the
\ncab, as I\u2019m currently waiting on Caterpillar for how much
\ndetail they want inside of the model. While I wait to hear
\nback, I will be texturing the rest of the MTL (the treads,
\nthe bucket, etc). We had our client and representatives
\nfrom NREC come in to help discuss where our project is
\ngoing, which provided us with more theories and ideas on
\nhow to proceed with the project\u2019s development.<\/p>\n

Next week I will spend time texturing the MTL before I go
\nto Tucson, and adding more features to the rig.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Programming in Unity One of the game engines in which we are working is Unity 3D. It is an engine that has become very popular recently because of its user-friendliness. It is easy to start working in Unity as its … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-letter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/heavymetal2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/heavymetal2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/heavymetal2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/heavymetal2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/heavymetal2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/heavymetal2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198,"href":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/heavymetal2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions\/198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/heavymetal2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/heavymetal2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/heavymetal2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}