Semester 2 Week 2 - Reading 2

Reading 2 - Reflective component 

(I dunno what to name this blog...)

This booklet thing is DEFINITELY quite overwhelming. The amount of research required and sources that needs to be sited, the amount of work that goes into using the Matrix...

Not going to lie, the matrix thing is rather confusing to use, or it's just me and my bad English...

However, I have a clear idea as to how I'm going to approach my chosen topics. That's a plus.

First, the purpose of a game world:

Game worlds are there to fully immerse you into its culture, mechanics, lore, people, and... well, the world itself. There wasn't any actual articles or research notes on game world on their own. However, since worldbuilding itself is not just a term applicable to games, I can look up how worldbuilding is done on other mediums; novels, movies, etc. This may or may not make my life easier but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Second, Realism VS Animation:

I know it's referring to the aesthetic choice of which the game world is presented; whether to depict it with realistic or cartoonish rendering and how it can affect the look of the game world. I have basic knowledge when it comes to this thing so I have a clear picture as to how this topic can be researched. Does the stylistic choice of the game affect how we experience world of the game? Does it immerse us into the world or not? These questions are also applicable to drawing and animation since the approach to the topic is similar in those regards.

Words: Too long
English requirement: ERROR

The sources are coming in nicely, even though they're all articles and blogs...

I am really slow and confused when it comes to the matrix and the whole ORGANISING part but I can handle it.

Zhen Li.

Semester 2 Week 2 - Unity Tutorial 02

Hey what's up guys! 

Welcome back to semester 2 Multimedia module and the hell that waits us in the coding department.

Talking about hell...

As soon as I started doing the tutorials, these persistent pieces of errors kept popping up and preventing me from progress. The error detected are related to 'missing syntax' which are error commonly associated with missing commas or other components in the script.
I followed the tutorial down to the last detail but the errors still remains. It may be Unity itself having issues.

The whole process is going to take ages to fix but the tutorials should take too long in the future.

Just look at this... All the errors on the script files.
I checked the visual studio and it says 'No error detected' or something.
Great start to a new semester...

OK, I can sum up all the details of the tutorials in a short, summarized manner from what I understood:

The tutorials outline how to setup a player object (in this case, a vehicle.) to move forward with a script and by implementing 'RigidBody', bump into the obstacles on the road.

Importing assets, setting up scripts, adding components, fixing cameras, etc. we've all done those in the last semester so it's very easy to follow. In fact I think that this 2 hour tutorial can be shorten down to less than half an hour because many of the steps is too easy.

I'll have to re-download everything and start over. 
Good luck on your tutorials, project, etc.!

Zhen Li

Time Strategies

Time Management

Since the Multimedia course's schedule is a lot more 'loose' compared to the other modules, this is a lot less taxing on students since we have modules like digital video techniques and visual design fundamentals that have less larger, time-consuming projects.

There's only technically 4 modules in this semester:
Website Design,
Digital Video Techniques,
Visual Design Fundamentals
and Multimedia Development

The Group Project is in its own category.

i put too much effort into this. enjoy  -_-'''

The 4 above are mainly based on lectures and practicals. The group project will probably take as long as some of the projects from modules later on the semester. The schedules of the Multimedia course being slightly loose helps with the other modules' time management. This way, the students can spread out the time allocation for assignments evenly into each week.

If we do other modules' work on the day it's given, with the time we have left we can finish the assignment, do other assignments from days before, catch up on lost progress, etc.  This is quite beneficial because it gives us a larger time-frame to manage our schedule.

Hopefully, the group project doesn't get out of hand and take up other modules' time because the issues with last semester was that the large projects are all compiled into the later half of the semester, resulting in missed assignments or decrease in quality. If we could continue this approach to the next semester I think the end-of-year assignment can be a lot more digestible.

Overall, time management will be a lot more forgiving for this semester and as long as nothing unexpected come up, we can do the assignments on time and that is a good thing.

Course Technology & Tools Opinion

Tools and Websites review

In just this week I have gotten used to majority of the tools that we will be using and I have to say that it feels like that it will become slightly difficult once we need to keep track of more tools and websites.

With how majority of these software are accessible through simple laptops and college computers, there shouldn't be that many issues when it comes to work and time management. As long as these laptops and computers are fully functional, student shouldn't have any problem doing their assignments.

I have a feeling that Unity will heat up my computer like a baked potato.
I mean I can't even run some old games, let alone a 3D software.

However, I think that the more tech-demanding software like Unity3D might require work from college computers or more powerful laptops. I myself have a decent laptop but it heats up when I access Unity3D and I might have to eventually rely on campus PCs.

Besides some trivial issues, I don't have much to say about the tools and websites we are going to use.
I think that as long as student have access and use these softwares, there shouldn't be any problems for the year.

Assignments & Class Tasks Opinion

Class Tasks


After reading the about the core and extra assignments my first impressions was that this systems is a lot more forgiving when it comes to credits and feel that overall, this is great for this academic year. However, I have a feeling that this system may have some issues.

First the positives.

The course seems very manageable because of how the bigger assignments like Unity3D and projects are clearly separated from the smaller blogs, comments, etc.

 I can expect that Unity and large projects will take longer than usual and if there were any issues during the year, the extra time can help them catch up easily.

The extra credits system is probably a really nice addition to the year. For those that missed some credits from the main assignments, these extra credits can make up for those missed work. This is like a lifeline for times when assignments just couldn't be completed with full credits.

this is probably gonna happen a lot

Overall, as long as the assignments and workload is well managed by the students, this method is pretty solid.

Growth Mindset

Growth Mindset - Carol Dweck

After watching Carol Dweck's Ted Talk, I agree with her approach to encourage children growing up with an ensuring message of 'Not Yet'. I'll explain my perspective of this issue.

Because of expectations that gets higher and higher, people are becoming more and more susceptible to failure and often defeated by the idea of failure. The prospect of 'Yet' is that people can realize that they can improve by learning from the mistakes, and learn to not make such mistakes again. 

There's a reason why people do better at the things they love than the ones they don't. People always have a genuine interest in the subjects they love and will show full dedication to it. When they fail, they will try again until they succeed and eventually they will improve. They are 'positively encouraged' when dealing with failure and defeat because they can see it as a challenge to improve.

Dweck said a statement that I felt was particularly true when it comes to people in general. "First of all, we can praise wisely, not praising intelligence or talent. That has failed.// But praising the process that kids engage in, their effort, their strategies, their focus, their perseverance, their improvement."

There are many times when people see individuals who are experts in their crafts and passion and tell them that they are 'very talented' or that they are 'born with a gift'. This almost completely disregards the fact that the individual might have spent huge amounts of time perfecting their craft because they simply are very passionate about it. They may not be good at it at all in the beginning but with practice and effort they improved over the years.
Discrediting their hard work and perseverance by saying that they are 'talented' or 'gifted', I think it's a bad way to tell children that they need to be talented to do something when they should be encouraged to do it regardless of talent.

I can demonstrate it with some memes.

"This is little Timmy, he's 1 month old. He can already
draw the most detailed and voluptuous pair of bosoms
mankind has ever seen.    What a talented boy!"

Words from a great mind: Arin Hanson

If you think about it, people like Einstein was probably never a genius to begin with. It was said that he failed his classes, which was untrue. He actually excelled at mathematics and as we all know now, it really shows. Einstein had a love for something and he put all his effort in it, improving himself and the world as well. 
Didn't Thomas Edison said "Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration"?

We should foster a child/student's passion and encourage them to put in their full effort in when dealing with problems so they may learn and improve instead of fearing failure and its consequences.

















And that's the end of my blog. I have to admit that Carol Dweck might not be the first person to speak about this topic so there isn't anything particularly new about her talk. But I can nonetheless agreed that her message is truly genuine and very informative.

Introduction

About Me

My name is Zhen Li. A 21 years old student currently attending TUD. 

My hobbies are video games and drawing.

Le Hobbies

I have played a lot of games and have a lot of favourites. Warframe, Red Alert 2, Touhou, etc. I have made a blog on just one of my favourite games; Contra Hard Corps. You can find the blog here. I want to have fun. Games are fun. Put the two together. I play games for fun. Easy. EZ.
I might even make my own games at some stage. Who knows?

I love to draw from time to time and I have to thank Anime and Manga for that. I even bought a tablet so I can start drawing semi-professionally. 

I currently have a personal project that I'm working on. I code-named it 'Project Helios' (temporary). It's a manga about an intergalactic expeditionary corps traveling through a warp portal and ending up on a planet that has many similarities to Earth. On this planet, there's a human civilization that has established an empire with its own history and has knowledge of the use of magic. The expeditionary corps has to set up a base on the ground and establish good relations with the locals. However...
Our crew not only has to fight off the empire's armies that constantly seek to conquer everything, they also have to deal with the empire's infighting that may result in a full-scale war.

I'm still on the early 1% beginning stage, creating characters, space suits, weapons etc. before starting on story and settings. The progress is crawling so don't expect too much during this college year.

FOOD!

Now, some good stuff. Wanna know what my favourite food is?
It's a special regional food from where I was born in China; Fried Pork in Scoop.

Bathe yourself in its magnificent golden glow.
Recipe: here
History: here

To put it simply, this is golden deep fried pork loin, sweet and sour in taste, crispy exterior and tender interior. I have loved this dish since I was a child and nothing has ever changed my mind. The sauce is so strong, on the first sniff it always sting your nose. Find out about this dish on your own time, it's definitely worth it.

Music

When talking about music I don't have any particular preferences. If the music tickles my eardrums in the right way, I just might like it. Although I can confidently tell you that many music I like came from video games and Anime. So don't be surprised when you find several remixes of the same song on my phone. I mean, those Japanese really know how to spice up a single song in so many ways.

Memes

I consume memes daily. Need I say more?

That's all I can say about myself. I hope this year goes well for everyone and good luck on whatever it is you want to do.