Studio AIR part B journal by yuchengy

AIR JOURNAL

MENG SIYU 843376 YANG YUCHENG 715927 SEMESTER 02/2016 TUTOR: ALEX HOLL AND & JULIAN RUT TEN

CONTENT B1 - Mapping B2 - Gaming B3/B4 - Prototyping A B5 - Dynamics B6 - Prototyping B B7 - Proposal, Testing and Assessing B8 - Matrix

B.1 Mapping Initial attemps of generating intensity maps are shown in this sector. Beside creating seperate map for different game element, we have also tried to merge maps to display the complexity and intersection of each map.

Initial attempt to map out the greenery on site using image sampler

PART B

MERGED DATA

Reflection In the process of doing the whole part B project, I have encontered plenty of problems which sometimes make me have no idea of solving them. However, I have also learned a lot of valuable skills and knowledge. We develop the game together and both doing the grasshopper and unity. For example, generating the intensity maps in grasshopper and editing csv and code in unity. Siyu understand some skills quickly than me, we often discuss the process. I think she is contributing more on technical problems and even sometimes I aksed questions to her to help me. I found that editing the code is annoying for me, mistakes always happen when I though it was right. However, through the development, this situation get better. And for the game settings and organizations, we changed frequently in first several weeks, we discussed to find a playable and meaningful solution. And I think the intersting part is we went to most of the restaurants near by the unimelb to aks whether they provide the composting function. And throught making this game, not only the technical skills have developed but also we really discovered the surroding environment need to pay more attentions by people.

- Yang Yucheng

PART B

At first we spent quite a long time to come up game ideas for our task, the unhealthy vegetation. As Melbourne Forest Visual does not cover tree condition on campus, we have assumed 4 trees that look unhealthy from appearance as the targets in the game. However, soon after the first presentation we have realized the game does not carry much meaning by just wandering around the trees and looking for collectables that are not related to the site. I am glad how we have pushed our game ideas further to a larger scope, engaging with a real social issue. Composting is a new idea to me, and I was shocked by the fact that how much our waste food contributes to the landfill when they can actually be composted and become useful resource. I really hope to promote such an idea through our game. After the midterm presentation, we have received some valuable comments. At first I was too fascinated by creating cool shapes and landscapes by exaggerating and inverting the effects of agents, neglecting that the player may be confused and moving towards unwanted direction. I will keep developing and think further of this issue. In addition, there is not necessary a winning condition for this particular game, as we are encouraging and promoting this sustainable habit to be ongoing. As a group, we have generated game ideas together and surveyed almost 30 restaurants around the campus. I am in charge of both grasshopper and unity, as well as visual presentation and compiling the works. Where Yucheng was contributing on wording and figuring out the game rules and settings. Hovering between both of the new software, I might not become specialized in either field, but I have found the similar algorithmic logic of the two, and I felt excited every time I truly understand a component or a coding. I hope I could have explored more, but I also learned to seek a balance and do my best to the most extent within the situation.

- Meng Siyu

B.2 Gaming - â&#x20AC;&#x153;Rescue That Treeâ&#x20AC;&#x153; By discovering the unhealthy trees on campus, we hope to redirect the route of how people walk around the camous, and pay more attention to our surrouding environment which we always take for granted. We have targeted four unhealthy tree on campus, and distributed the fertilizers and water station according to a designed ideal path. The player will first need to seek for the unhealthy tree to start the game. Fertilizers and water are our pick ups. And by walking the whole campus, the fertilizer and water also could be found. discover the unhealthy trees to start the game. When they find those trees, they start the task to rescue them by finding the fertilizer first and water.

Water Station There are water stations along the designed path, players are expected to find it to add 1 score, only by obtaining 10 points and collect a fertilizer, one can successfully rescue a tree

First test on the phone

look iny pick up, and we made inmprove

PART B

ement in unity

PART B

Unhealthy Tree Distributed as shown location on campus, player need to find any of the trees to start the game

Fertilizer Located at the spot

where has lush greenery

Game interface - Initial attemp to build in phone

Modified winText, whereas did not show up while first playing the game

PART B

First attemp to add in different models representing the unhealthy tree

The fertilizers appear more than expected , we did not want them to be all over the place

The water stations have shown a path that we intended to create, but still more than wanted

So many trees, which one is unhealthy ...

PART B

Reflection After the presentation in class, we decided to change our game area and settings. We move the map outside the campus basically around three large vegetation area which are University square, Lincoln square and Aygle square. This is because one of our pick up “water” is difficult to achieve in campus. And also there is a problem of players recognizing whether the tree is healthy or not. Therefore, they are difficult to find the unhealthy tree at first stage. Another reason is lack of tree data map in unimelb according to city visual forest. So, we changed the game map. The water would be replaced by seeds. Our aim also changed to plant trees instead of rescuing the trees. We want to draw people’s attentions to our surrounding environment, encourage them planting more trees.

B3 / B4 Prototyping A In this part, we have changed our game settings and whole system of pick ups, agents.... The shape of final game have been developed including some intensity maps and unity program. The original shapes of unity game world have been generated.

Our new target site covers an approximately 300,000 sqm near the campus of University of Melbourne, include main public parks University Square, Lincoln Square and Arygle Square.

PART B

Initial attempt using point charge to visualize the potential path that how we want our player to move towards

Using point attractor to visualize nearest distance to the seed and fertilizer location, and merge the two datas to see the intersections.

PART B

M e s h g e n e r a te i n U n i t y t h a t has an inverse effect compare with the scape generated in the grasshopper, which is an accident but surprising

Mesh generate in unity using the data from grasshopper, create almost a similiar scape

The corners always appears to be the highest intensity, which does not comply with the real world situations

Mesh generate in unity using the data from grasshopper, create almost a similiar scape

PART B

The "valley" could clearly show where the buildings are

Mesh generate in unity using the data from grasshopper, create almost a similiar scape

B.5 Dynamics Agent and emergent system behaviour work are shown in this part. We have populated our game world with semiautonomous agents that can influence the intensity fields we have created in grasshopper, and influence the score of the pickup items in our game.

PART B

B.6 Prototyping B In this part, we were remapping of spaces using new algorithmic techniques and algorithmic refinement in Grasshopper, and the real world. We also doing test oue mapping with the interaction of agents, and the Unity world. B8: image breakdown matrix.

Isolating Intensity Maps: Seeds :

-3 < Value < -0.1

Fertilizer : 3.1 > Value > 7 Buildings: Value =0 In this way Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve merged merged the datas into one intensity map, which I could easily define in unity.

PART B

Before adding the heightMultiplyer code our landscape appears to be flat no matter how we tried to edit the CSV map and Mesh manager.Now it starts showing some interesting effect and could be simply adjusted.

PART B

Hexagonal grids did not seem work well, as only parts of the terrain is rendered.

The terrain seems flat without height multiplyer added

Adjusting the track scripts allows the camera to track player while moving

PART B

At first, the csv map always appear errors, until we figure out is because of the missing row and sizez on the first row that made the differenec

Seed

Fertilizer Locate around the restaurants, prerequisite for planting a tree.

PART B

Add 1 score for every pick up, must collect certain amount to plant a tree.

PART B

Mr.Cactus Protect the seeds and helps to fertilize the vegetation. Adds on intensity value where walks pass by. Forklift Shovel the seeds and damage the vegetation. Deduct intensity value where drives pass by.

The â&#x20AC;&#x153;valleyâ&#x20AC;&#x153; is hinting where the seeds are, follow the route and you will find more of them

PART B

Elevated terrain are generated by forklift agents, where the vegetation is in danger

The agent seems always move beyond the border.

PART B

The inverted terrain is generated by agent Mr.Cactus, which is an ideal world with lush greenery.

PART B

B.7 Proposal, Testing & Assessing Our game â&#x20AC;&#x153;Green Guardâ&#x20AC;? is designed to let people participant in planting trees across three main public area near the university of Melbourne which are university square, Lincoln square and Arygle square. We have two main elements to plant a tree which are seeds and fertilizers. Seeds have different types and they all randomly distributed in this big area. The player have different level and each level have different pick up seeds and numbers of fertilize to plant a different types of tree. When players are level up, they take harder task in the game, I believe that reach the final level 10 is big challenge of all players and also when they complete the game, people would have much knowledge and experience of planting different trees and they have much concerns about our green forest environment surrounding them. As mentioned before, a lack of species diversity of trees is a significant problem, and that is why our game have different levels and the higher levels of player, the harder of game would be. High level players plant uncommon tree types require more scores to level up so that it would increase the numbers of these kind of uncommon tree types. For example, level 8 to level 9 need Therefore, the game help to increase the diversity of tree types that benefit to the forest environment.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

The fresh produce from these gardens are supplied back to participating restaurants, creating produce from waste and effectively closing the food cycle!

â&#x20AC;?

-City Harvest

PART B

Aims Of The Game

Our game has two main aims. One is to draw peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attentions to our surrounding environment, especially trees, which are important to humanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s living. We usually take their existence and contribution for granted, without noticing plenty of trees are declining and dying every year that require removal from the landscape. In fact, the trees in Melbourne are now under threat, we expect to lose 27 per cent of our current tree population in the next decade and 44 per cent in the next 20 years (City of Melbourne). City of Melbourne is seeking citizen volunteers to help create resilient, healthy and diverse urban landscapes for the future, and we hope that the Green Guard will be a trigger to arise public awareness of the advocacy.

In addition, we have also looked into the opportunities during growing process. We realized that waste food compost could be a great source of fertilizer to be used for growing vegetation. There are a number of restaurants near the campus, so that it is a great chance to utilize food compost in the restaurant, and use it to grow vegetation. During our survey, we found out that all the restaurants would dump their food watse to the large waste bins and wait for civic service to collect. Although some of them have done waste sorting, but composting is still a better option which could contribute to green fertilizing.

Above are the restaurants and cafes we have investigated within our target site, which are near the University Square, Lincoln Square and Alygle Square. In fact none of them does composting currently, we have chosen some of them who has expressed interest of doing so in the future.

PART B

PHOTO BY SIYU & YUCHENG

COMPOSTING? YES/NO?

Rules and Levels: Junior 5 seeds,

level 1 start score 45 1 fertilizer, plant a eucalyptus score 10

Senior 10 seeds,

level 2 start score 95 2 fertilizer, plant a platanus score 20

Bachelor 10 seeds,

level 3 start score 215 2 fertilizer, plant ulmus or corymbla score 20

Master level 4 start score 295 20 seeds, 5 fertilizer, plant Acacia or Quercus score 35 PHD level 5 start score 445 20 seeds, 5 fertilizer, plant Ficus or melaleuca score 50 Professor 30 seeds,

level 6 start score 745 6 fertilizer, plant Angophora score 65 score over 1340 game complete

Each player need to plant 60 trees including six different types to complete the game.

PART B

On Site Game Testing

PART B

OH MY GOD?!! What happened? Where are my points? I lost every thing! Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve reach the second level already!

Another problem is when we pick up two seeds the game often crash and we lose all the points we already get.

PART B

Here is a restaurant, I should buy fertilizer here. Wait, where is fertilizer? I can not see anything here.

There should be a fertilizer near this restaurant as allocated, however the fertilizer did not show up while the player is around.

PART B

Wow!! I picked up one seed here, first score added. Where the other seeds though? why they are so further away

WHY I CANâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;T PICK IT UP? I AM ON THE SPOT

Gps sometimes was not accurate, seeds othen did not appear near the trees where they should be found.

However, sometimes we are close the tree and also see the seeds in the game, but we could not catch the seed to gain score.

B.8 Image Breakdown Matrix

PART B

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Reference Stephen F, Glenn W, Russell B, and Peter M, “An Analysis of the Street Tree Population of Greater Melbourne at the Beginning of the 21st Century”, Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 32(4): (July 2006), 161. http://treelogic.com.au/facts/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/S.Frank.pdf “Why is diversity important?”, melbourneurbanforestvisual, 2015. [accessed 11 September 2016] “Urban forest”, City of Melbourne. http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/community/parks-open-spaces/urban-forest/ Pages/urban-forest.aspx [accessed 11 September 2016 “Restaurants turn food waste into compost”, Greenlifestyle 28 August 2015. http://www.greenlifestylemag.com.au/restaurants-turn-foodwaste-into-compost [accessed 11 September 2016]

PART B