Week 12 - Final Assessment

This was the big day. The powerpoint presentation had been created by the other team member I think she had done a really good job of it.

The presentation seemed to go quite well and our machinima was well recieved by the group. I had thought that it would be better to show the machinima first and then describe the events. However, this point was picked up by the assessors saying that we should have explained the storeyboard and the events of the video. I felt quit guilt about this because this is how the original presentation had been planned and I had been the one to insist we changed it.

Week 11 - machinima

This machinima project has proved harder than I had imagined, we have encountered problems at every step of the way. This has taken over my life. These problems and set backs will be well documented in my final report so I won't go into them here and now.

Because the filming and acting have taken so much of my time, I have been unable as yet to develope my scripting skills sufficiently to get a liquid to pour from a can.

We have downloaded a free recorder package called CamStudio. CamStudio records all events as they occur on the screen.

The video clip below highlights a number of the problems encountered while attempting to film a car race. My car is virtually undrivable but we have got some fantastic crash shots. There are only two of us in the team and it is just not possible for us to film the vehicals interacting with each other from the front. The cars move quickly and the environment can't keep up (not shown in this clip) we also keep filming pop up messages.

Week 10 - Audacity

This week we were to download and use Audacity for editing sound.


This is free versitile audio editing software, allowing the addition of multi tracks and sound effects. Each track and effect can be edited seperately but are combined into one track for export.

Week 9 - Machinima Filming

This morning second life was finally permited on four of the college library computers. I had previously been on one computer for one of the other students only. I really would have made a lot of difference had this facility been available earlier in the course.

I have been looking at scripting in second life and have followed in world tutorials to make a sword that thrusts when I walk forward and a helmit that I can comunicate with. The helmit doesn't look very good but I can hide it so that it is not visible. The helmit will inform me if other avators come within 30m. The sheild tells me if it has come into contact with anything. Its not that cleaver so if I walk into something it informs me.

Scripting in second life is quite a bit like Java, using a similar format with paired braces { }

Now I need to learn how to use scripting to make oil pour out of the oil can for the Machinima

This Roman equipment was achieved using the scripting tutorial at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kings%20Bishop/183/205/113

Week 8 - Create groups for machinima assignment.

We have devided into groups, I am paired with Tina.

We have decided to film a race for our machinima project. The music is yet to be decided as all uncopyrighted music sources have been barred by the systems administrator at the college. We have agreed an outline storey for out project. The jist is that our aviators will race against each other using vehicals in second life. My aviator will try to cheet by thowing nails infront of the other, she will turn round to watch the effect of her action and crash. Tina's aviator will win a gold cup.

I don't want to fill this website with moans and groans but I do think it is worth a mention that I only recieved clearance to access second life from the college computer adminsitrator for the final 1/2 hour of the session. So really I had to sit doing nothing waiting for them to sort it out for me. I do feel disadvantaged by this.

Week 7 - Building and structural content

This I found the hardest task to date. I had no end of problems with this. Somehow I got traped in an area and could not move around to work on my house. I got repeated messages to say that objects couldn't be inserted because the parcel was full. I asked other aviators but none of them seemed to recieve that message.

I had random objects apearning in my house as it was created and I found texturning an absolute nightmare. No matter what I did, I could only apply a texture to the whole prim and not to one side only.

However, with percerverance I did manage to achieve the following, incidently the little box is nothing to do with me and I can't delete it. I just had to work around these random shapes;

Week 6 3-D Drawing

This week we were required to create some 3D images in second life. I created the chess piece inserted bellow.

I created the chess piece following a tutoral guide. The piece comprises of different shapes which were then linked together, given colour and texture. I took a snapshot of the completed piece, still in the Anglian Ruskin sandbox. However, I din't link all of the objects correctly so that later when I tried to retrieve the piece one of the crosses from the top was missing.

So I created another chess piece, this time I gave it a different texture (waterfall ) and added two base colours yellow and grey.

Chess piece mark 2