Dan-
1 more day left....

After a very long term this year working on this project we are happy to say that the project is pretty much complete.All the final touches have been ironed out today and the application is fully functional.

- Links to different sections have been tried and tested and proof read.
- Testing has been done to make sure specific buttons take the user to specific areas and that all functionality works within every given page.
- We made sure that the offical soundtrack to the application was correct and fully functional, give it that the music track repeats its self when it finishes.Also that the on off buttons work,aswell as the volume bar.

The final application is going to be submitted in two forms : a DVD and on turnip(local uni network) The application should be up and running on the web by the weekend as we are still waiting for clearance for the domain name.

As Siemens Porsche have requested an additional DVD for them to look at we will be implementing this over night and send it to them as soon as possible to get any relevant feedback that they may have.

Maria - The DVD case and covers have been completed today and ready for submission tommorrow by 12pm.

Final touches...

We now have only a couple more days until the project has to be submitted and the site is nearing its conclusion. All the content has been implemented into the site and all functions have been completed

Post by Maria Seymour

We are now in the final week of our project, and are finishing off loose ends and adding the final bits and pieces to our final piece.

I have spent the last few days putting together the sound buttons (on/off and volume scroll bar), of which I built in Flash using tutorials I found on the internet. The coding for this was farely complicated and this took me longer than I thought it would. I also contacted Sony BMG to gain the rights to be able to use a song by the award winning artist Lemar as our sound track on the site, I then added this track to the code in Flash and the music part of the project was complete.

I have also been researching and writing out the content of which we will have present on the site, and designing more pages in Adobe Photoshop to add this onto. The aim is to keep a general style to the entire site, of which I have had to consider greatly in all my designs. Finally we have all the pages together and the site is starting to work as it should which gives us a scope into the small bits we have still to do.

In my spare time out the labs I have also started putting together the report, as this will need to be completed soon after the project.

Post by Maria Seymour (As my blogger doesn’t seem to let me add myself)

2 Weeks to go!

After weeks of each working at the main sections of the project, all that’s left to do is bring the site together in flash. After much debate on the style of the interface, we have both agreed and confirmed with the project supervisor a final style and can now see what our finished product will look like.

The flash section of the project is in no way the easy part, we have both spent time reading tutorials finding the best solution to code our site so that it delivers in the way we anticipate. We have broken up the site into sections for each of us to work on, and all that is left to do now is add music and arrange the site so that it will play as a movie file and work as a web site.

For the past few weeks it has been my job to design and build the design of the interface, created the content, and gave some of the models some last minute touch ups before going into the site. I have also worked on the flash code for various parts of the site such as the loading bar, and am now working on the sound track, and code to implement the sound track.

We are both confident with the amount of work still left to do and the time scale we have left, that we will achieve the desired finished piece and then begin work on the final report and poster.

Post by Maria Seymour:

The project is really starting to take form now, and both Dan and I are putting together our individual sections to make our final piece. I started by modeling a ‘Siemens Porsche’ kitchen using photographs and magazines I had collected. The modeling wasn’t difficult; however was time consuming as our goal is to make the finished rendered piece photo realistic. I then passed Dan the finished piece photo realistic. I then passed Dan the finished piece so that he could texture it with the other models.

I then started work on the website, after much thought over which software to use. I finally decided to use flash, as this was by far the better option. I searched the web for good websites which also use flash, and looked at there overall interfaces for good design tips. As a prototype before I started the final piece I produced a simple website with examples of features that we will implement using one of the interfaces I designed in Photoshop. As a team we discussed the pro and cons of prototype and what changes we would like to see. I am about to begin the final site.

Mid Project Critique

We now feel that we are around half way in the project.With the up and coming mid project critique this friday, we have been putting together a project prototype to show how far we actually are. The prototype will show all of the final modelling that we have completed and highquality renders to show what we can expect from the final ones at a later stage. The models will be included in a simple but interactive interface to show the navigation of the website. The tasks were evenly split up so that we could concentrate on specifics individually. My self was in charge of modeling all the siemens products and texturing them accurately. The kitchen model was completed by Maria and was handed over to me to clean it up and add highquality textures to it ,ready to render. Rendering is a big part of this project and getting the quality just right is vital. This is why i'm going to concentrate on talking alot about how i came abeout using different rendering techniques in the images i will show in the presentaton.Bearing in mind that the images will not be the final renders, i have employed the techniques , but havent turned them up to maximum quality, this will be saved for the final renders.

Using maya for our modelling

Modelling is a huge factor in our project and different aspects need to be considered.

We looked at different ways in which initial stages of modeling should go ahead and how each of us will split up the work.

Texturing,UV mapping,lighting and rendering have been researched to find the best
way to make our models photorealistic.

A few of the methods include , global illumination and final gather.
HDRI.

Project update - Maria Seymour

Over the past few weeks of initial research and concept design we are starting to get a better idea of how our project will go ahead. We have had meetings with our supervisor to discuss they way in which we will present our project over this week.

- A site map was created , to plan for content.

- Story board layouts were discussed and drawn out , so that we can get an idea how the interactivity will look. This includes rough concept design ; theme colour, layout,font ,size. ect.

- Time was taken to research other interactive designs and screen captures taken.

The design of the whole project has to be in fashion from the beginning. We have to roughly set a style and design everything in the same fashion.


Maria Seymour

Project partners - Daniel Ammounah (DLA2) and Maria Seymour (MS237)
Project supervisor's - Mr Bret Lu and A.Bobrowicz.

Our project is still in the very early stages and extensive research is being taken to find the best way in which to carry out parts of the project. Design concepts of the models are being looked at and how they will interact with the website at a later stage + what functions will be included in these concepts. Looking at the appliances first hand give a better idea of how much modeling we have to do and the complexity of it.

Previous projects have been looked at on the internet that contain the same concept we are trying to achive.

We need to come to and agreement on which path we will take on whether to make this an online website or an interactive DVD, which one will have the better affect?......


More updates in the the next couple of weeks. I need to contact our supervisor and get ideas on where to get started properly.

Daniel Ammounah