Imagine RIT, and New Media Team Project 2014

I went to Imagine RIT to display Fractionauts with the team, as well as helping out with FOSSbox display, as well as checking out the AWESOME COOL SUPER AWESOME New Media Team Projects, as well as luring people to our exhibits with ukulele music.

Some highlights:

 - Some 2nd-grade kid played through Fractionauts with the guidance of her mom. Learning fractions at 2nd grade sounds pretty neato.
 - BOSSfox I mean FOSSbox was displaying a device that displays brain waves, and analyses the user's "Meditation Level" and "Focus Level".
 - ALL the New Media Team Projects

I will pick some especially memorable Team Projects, or the ones I can find developer blog -


EEGJ - Generate music with your brain wave. More at http://patrickisfabulo.us/dev/nancy6/
RIPPLE - Swim around a virtual coral reef with hand gesture and get educated. http://galacticod.tumblr.com/
CASCADE - Create music on a vibrant touch screen that has water flowing on it. http://tooltime.cias.rit.edu/blog/index.php
Wanderlust - Camping Simulator 2014. With free scented candle DLC. http://sugarpeas.cias.rit.edu/

Barcamp 2014 Spring: RIT FOSS Minor

By Mr. Remy Decausemaker, Professor, Event organizer, Google Summer of Code mentor

An Academic Minor on Free & Open-source Software Development

First of its kind in the nation. It's an inter-discipline minor open to all fields. Non-technical fields can take Technical Writing as advanced course instead of adv. development course. The great part is that as long as the project student's interested in contains open-source elements, it can be taken into the minor and drive its direction.

Course Mechanics

Attendance taken via IRC. Has supybot taking it.

Students are required to make development blogs and write homeworks on that. Blogging tracked via WebScrapers. For me, this eventually turned into my general development blog that also tracks my project plannings, thought and resource organizers, etc. A huge load of karma for that!

Assignments "Turned-in" via Pulls to the repo of course.

Requests & patches, bugfixes as homeworks and credits.

("If students wrote an automation to take attendance for them... they deserve that credits")

OLPC

Students make / contribute to projects for XOPC that is distributed to developing countries for education uses. Some projects are vastly successful (Sky Time), they went to Whitehouse.

Barcamp 2014 Spring: Synthesizer 101

By Dan Fuhry. @danfuhry

What's synthesizer?

It's a machine that uses artificial means to generate music. We synthesize chemicals by putting unnatural chemicals together. We synthesize sounds by putting unnatural sounds together.

Additive / subtractive

Additive: Adding multiple signals together. Some electric organs?

Subtractive: Subtract parts from a rich signal

History of Synthesizer, in one sentence

They kept getting smaller.

MIDI

Uses a clock signal that goes through all components to trigger stuff. Hmm. This might be helpful for recreating a synthesizer web app.

Waves

Filter

Cuts out certain frequency in the sound.

Modulation

Take a signal and use it to modify some other signal. e.g. LFO uses another wave form to control a low cut filter...? There are many different modulators.

Because everything in synthesizer can be described as a set of numbered attributes, these numbers can all be controlled.

ADSR Envelopes

Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release

Analysis for Intro to Want You Gone, and Party Rock Anthem

Our presenter did a recreation of the intro to these two songs', live.

Want You Gone Intro

*Starts with a square wave

*Use a "sync" that offsets the width of a square wave

*LFO to synchronize the phaser

*A second LFO to put on the sync level of the square

*Something something phaser

*He did it! I don't know how but he did.

Party Rock Anthem Intro

*Two saw waves

*Slight detune, making it a little fatter

*Unison

*Done!

GDC Quick Update

I'm attending the Game Developer Conference this year. It's been very busy and fulfilling.

I encourage anyone interested in this field to attend. It brings inspirations to the workforce, showcases good tools for the craft, makes connections between all kinds of people working on games, and can be quite relaxing sometimes.

Quick glance:

 - Expo: Many new techs. Much virtual reality / augmented reality / alternative interface. Also much services for developers / animators / artists.
 - Career center: Many big companies. Much advice. Much business card. Such internships / job opportunities. More business environments, it seems.
 - Play booth: Many smaller studios. Some cool projects. Easy to talk to, though opportunities not guaranteed. Surprising amount of "alternative" studios. Some makes more artsy games that work with music. Some makes educational games, or at least entertaining game with a splash of reality. (cough cough @decause @StephenJacobs)
 - Alt. Ctrl. GDC: My favorite place at GDC. It showcases different control methods for games, which might not sound like too much, but actually brings many more interesting games to the table. It's not just a new way of input. It's a new way of playing. People there are also very easy to talk to. I met Droqen who created Starseed Pilgrim, and he has two games with unique interfaces showcased there. I asked if he's doing well financially and what he does for a living now, he told me he just makes whatever game he wants to make now, and hopefully get another game out and be successful before the money from Starseed Pilgrim runs out. Gotta dig that rockstar life.
 - Career Theater: They host talks there and they are good, but be sure be sure be sure to arrive early for big talks.
 - Indie Megabooth: This is where indie developers hang out and show their games before they get mainstream and lose that indie hat. Can try out many games, many of them weird(ly wonderful), and all of them looking for press.

The biggest I got out of GDC, is broadening my sights for what I can do in this industry, and where I should go afterwards to reach my goal of pushing the boundaries between media, and improving Chinese Game Industry.




(Sorry about the doge type. Much sorry.)