Looking into Second Life

24th January, 2009

It seems a rather long time ago now, but before starting the final year I decided to look into the world of Second Life because I knew vaguely that I would be including it in my dissertation study and knew that I couldn’t possibly write about it without trying it first.

But as I say, that really does seem a long time ago so I had a small go again to familiarise myself with how it worked and how stupid my online avatar looked :)

Here I am exploring Lilly’s Irish Pub, one of the more refined and complete areas I discovered in my original visit.

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DirectX Coursework 1

22nd January, 2009

Since I thought the fish looked a bit odd without its limbs I’ve decided to post another screenshot, this time of it actually running in DirectX and with the animated parts:

(Only after I took this and put it online did I notice the comments in the background…)

Music Biofeedback Experiment (Part 5)

17th January, 2009

I’ve made an attempt at displaying the results I’ve started to collect as a large visual graph, which you can see here:

View the large version here. Basically, it’s a case of spot the correlations!

Vector Blocks for the Game

15th January, 2009

Here are some vector-y building blocks for the platform game, the requirement was shiny and glowing colour:

3D Fish is ready for DirectX

13th January, 2009

A quick screenshot of my fish as a microsoft .x mesh file ready to be used in DirectX. The tail and fins are deliberately missing as they are separate models to be animated.

Non-verbal Social Communication in Virtual Reality

9th January, 2009

While searching for writing on forms of communication and a perception of social liberation in virtual worlds, I came across the journals of Nick Yee, exactly the sort of stuff I’m looking for for my dissertation. Here are the relevant links:

http://www.bioedonline.org/news/news.cfm?art=2789

Nick Yee’s homepage

Music Biofeedback Experiment (Part 4)

6th January, 2009

More to come once I’ve sorted out how to display my initial results…

Image of the Experiment

In order to compare the biofeedback data with the sounds being heard I needed an image of the entire sound heard throughout the experiment:

Music Biofeedback Experiment (Part 3)

6th January, 2009

The continued list of tracks

10: The Passenger (Iggy Pop)

This provides a significant change in tempo and tone from the previous tracks. I also think there is a difference in style from the active language rather than the passive ambience.

11: Other Side of the World (K.T. Tunstall)

Nicely continues the theme, and also providing the first female vocal track. It also provides the last sad undertones before the next set of tracks. I wasn’t sure whether to swap this around with the previous track, but it stays here.

12: In Dulce Jubilo (Mike Oldfield)

A jubilant celebration of the winter solstice, this track is designed to feel uplifting during the cold and dark winter months, and does the job effectively.

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