Post 17 - Week Eight meetings

I attempted a arrange for the group to meet up on the Wednesday of week eight and discuss the project's progression. Neither one of the other party members were available, so had to be postponed until Thursday.

On Thursday, after the Research Practice module, me and Jon had a meeting in order to discuss what tasks needed to be done and to delegate them. Unfortunately, Chris was again unavailable to participate. However, we were in communication with Chris and filled him on any decisions and tasks decided on. After a brief discussion with Nick Cope, who kindly showed me and Jon an example of what can be achieved in the game engine 'Blender', we decided on a realistic pipeline of tasks. These are as follows:

-Attain building models which were already made by all three of the group members (as seen in task one), as well as create additional ones. This would be done using Autodesk's 3Ds Max as it was an application which the whole group have some experience of. 

-Export these items in their individual state and import them into the game / 3d rendering software, Blender. How items are imported into Blender can effect where the central gravitational position is located. It was discovered it would therefore be best to process the items individually.  

-Apply code to each component and construct the building. As the process of creating the building would use the ability to clone items, it makes sense to create the code for an item and then duplicate it, thus duplicating the code and not requiring to apply physics to each and every piece. Also, careful consideration would need to be made for building as when the game engine is started, the physics and logic would kick in.

-Create Portland stone / building textures. A very important part of the process and one which would allow the project to fall within the boundaries of the client brief. 

-Apply additional items. This would include looking into the potential for a free moving camera (so the building could be knocked down from other angles), and slight tweaking of any environment items such as lighting. Also, creating the option to restart the game is an important consideration. 

-Quality Assurance and Evaluation. Although this would take place throughout the build, it is important to establish that the product is in working order and to debug it.

After this breakdown was established, it was decided that I would create the building (modelled after the Leeds Town Hall) and also apply the logic and physics to the individual assets that would need to be imported (as discussed previously, it makes sense form me to import and code the assets as it saves time on creating the psychics code).

This would then be past onto Chris, who would texture the product.

Once texturing was in place, Jon would be in charge of applying a free moving camera, a reset button and assume the 'final testing' role so that any minor issues with any stage of the build could be noted. Chris was informed of the outcome of this meeting and was assigned the role of texturing.