Virtual Dream Journal 005 - Design Inspiration

Relocating? || Pro-Log

4 Years Away | Virtual Dream Journal - Entry #1

Make Some Noise! || PRO-LOG #27

VR Rig Principle Demonstration Pt.2 || PRO-LOG

PRO-LOG #26 - VR Rig Principle Demonstration Pt2

PRO-LOG #26

October 20, 2018 - October 26, 2018
Quest:  VR Rig Principle Demonstration
Pt: 2

This past week was a mix of high productivity along with several bits of worry and relief. The main task for this week was to create the basic set up that would  be used for my Virtual Reality Rig to demonstrate its principle. In this case, it was to create a circuit using the Arduino and MYOware, then to follow this up by manipulating an object in Unreal Engine 4. What were the results of this quest? I will document them down below after recording the parameter changes for this week.

Status

Weight

We saw a small change in my average weight this week. I think things have gotten a bit out of hand so I may take a faster approach in the coming weeks to try and reach a more reasonable value to end the year off at. It'd be great if I could find a reliable method to measure by body fat to see if we're doing any better than we were when we began training, but this isn't as vital a point right now as when I first positioned the Grand Quest. Regardless, efforts must be made to improve my physical status for the long term.

Game Development

It was a fairly productive week overall in terms of game development. I managed to sneak in a few sessions even during the busy Monday through Thursday time period and got quite a bit done on Friday. I'm trying to properly complete the basic enemy AI for the game over the course of the coming week since it'll be the last real things I need done before I can start finishing off level design and working on art assets purely up to release.

Engineering

Another fairly fruitful week in this regard. I managed to get the Arduino set up properly for the tests that needed to be done and all in all, figured out what I needed to in order to get the quest done. Classes this week were also somewhat helpful since we went over the current divider rule with more practice problems that game me a much greater understanding of what was going on. I confused the scope of the rule to apply to the whole circuit when it it should only apply to the voltage at a particular region of the circuit. With the exam coming up soon that'll be good to know. Even C++ wasn't as bad as usual since this week's lab involved creating a Rock, Paper, Scissors game using the knowledge the course has taught us so far. That still only amounts to while loops, which I can't help but lament considering I learned about them and was able to use them within a day of following a C++ tutorial back in 2010 on my brother's old computer while we've taken 2 months to reach this point on computers running Core i7 7700k processors for their CPU. Still, I'll take what I can get and I can't help but lament that I didn't do exercises like these back when I first started since they probably would have gotten me much further along the path to game development than I am today.

Training

I kind of missed one of my sessions this week to catch up on some homework for C++, which is unfortunate, but what's done is done. I'm seeing some progress on the usual curls and push ups routine. I'm up to about 50 push ups a day on these days, combined with the peak reps of curls at 35 pounds an arm being at 10 this time. Hopefully we'll reach about 15 in early November so I can increase the weight to 38 pounds. I think we may be nearing 50 pounds by the end of the year, which would be a good place to end the year at. Going from 20 pounds to 50 in 8 months of training is an interesting progression. Then again, I'm still lacking in understanding of the standards of this field so that could be good or bad and I wouldn't know. Regardless, my personal goal is to be at 65 pound curls at a minimum by the end of this. It'll feel great to know that I can curl with a single arm a weight that I used to do with both arms at some difficulty when I first started my day job.

Japanese

413	転	11	revolve	ten	koro-bu
414	軽	12	light (not heavy)	kei	karu-i
415	農	13	agriculture	nō
416	返	7	repay	hen	kae-su
417	追	9	follow	tsui	o-u
418	送	9	send	sō	oku-ru
419	速	10	fast	soku	haya-i
420	進	11	progress	shin	susu-mu
421	遊	12	play	yū	aso-bu
422	運	12	carry	un	hako-bu
423	部	11	part	bu
424	都	11	metropolis	to, tsu	miyako
425	配	10	distribute	hai	kuba-ru
426	酒	10	liquor	shu	sake, saka

The Kanji for this week were 413-414 on the Kyoiku Kanji list. I spent the majority of the time going over the "nara" conditional again since I wanted to get a good understanding. Nara can basically be interpreted as the phrasing, "if <insert condition> is the case." The (ba) is just a way to make it more polite and it's fairly context based. As is compared to "to", which is much more direct in applying causality, this is a bit more general, though it relies on the context to limit it's scope.

Final Status (Change in Value)

AVG Weight: 178.8 ibs (-0.5ibs)

AVG Calories: 1782 (-386)

Game Development: 103 (+7)

Engineering: 71 (+5)

Training: 70 (+2)

Japanese: 153 (+7)

Quest Results

VR Rig Principle Demonstration

STATUS: CLEARED

Report:

I simplified the amount of work required for this step by just straight up skipping the soldering for this week to save on time and then using a prototype board and cable extensions to make the circuit longer. This saved me some time and wound up working just fine either way.

As for UE4duino, I encountered some trouble getting a good connection between the Arduino board and Unreal Engine, but managed to get it to work by using an older version of Unreal Engine and studying the example code they provide. There were still some problems with the actual communication that took some time to evaluate, but it turns out it wasn't much of problem at all. The Arduino it seems is too fast for Unreal Engine to handle. By the time Unreal checks the value of the Arduino, it's generating thousands more and UE4 has to flush the port to be able to read the most recent value again. This is the opposite of a problem really, it's a straight up blessing. 

I could have set up a protocol to smooth out communications between the two, but there is literally no point in doing that since the UE4 won't be communicating the the MYOware data directly once things are done anyway. This test was mainly to see how quickly we could communicate with Unreal Engine to see if lag between the engine and Arduino would be a problem. I now see that it's not going to be problem in any way whatsoever and that I'm safe to proceed.

In order to be sure the data was sensitive enough and responded quickly though, I tried having a look at the responsiveness of the MYOware by examining the light, but also by having a look at the values the Serial Plotter returned. The results were very promising. I couldn't consciously pick up on any lag between the onset of muscle activity and the response of the Serial Plotter, which basically confirms that we are good to go and begin construction of the VR Rig in full.

To everyone who may read this: this is it. I have finished all testing for the VR Rig and will begin construction of the VR Rig in full. The journey that began in 2013 when this design was first envisioned is finally ready to exit the tutorial level and enter the game as a whole. We've left the Town of Beginnings everyone.

Next Quest

Quest Title: Make Some Noise

Period: October 27,2018 - November 2, 2018

Task: Review the Fruity Loops Getting Started Guide and use my new AKAI MPK mini II in order to create a short little tune.

You may have noticed in the background of some of the last Pro-Log, but I ordered an AKAI Professional MPK Mini II recently. I've been meaning to pick one up a MIDI controller for a long time now in order to create music for the channel, my game projects, and just for the times where I want another creative outlet that isn't drawing or development to let loose on. In that regard, I've been INCREDIBLY satisfied with it and have lost count of the amount of times that I just open up Fruity Loops studio and leave it on in the background so I can just play a few notes here and there to just kind of calm my spirits. Music really does have a different feeling to it than drawing and painting do.

Community Quest Results

Quest Title: Hey, I got that Reference Too!
Clearer: Genetically Modified Cocoa.
Report: Genetically Modified Cocoa was the first clearer to correctly identify the song for the quest (MELT - Hatsune Miku - Supercell) and the anime where it was referenced (Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii).

The character selected for me to sketch was:
Higuchi from Tatami Galaxy

The Sketch is here:

It was definitely very interesting to try and draw a character like Higuchi who features such a prominent design feature. I found that asking myself: "How would I draw a character with that kind of chin and styling," helped me figure out. The style of the Tatami Galaxy anime just is very distinct so I didn't want to completely lose all of its charm when I made my drawing, but I also decided to work it into the more normal proportions I'm used to. The facets I wanted to keep emphasized, the hairstyle, the closed eye look, and the chin, were still kept in the shot, but I felt that by having us look at him from behind more, it allowed me to more reasonably reduce the chin, while putting some good emphasis still on his hair and eyes. I hope you liked how it turned out. Thank you very much for clearing the quest Genetically Modified Cocoa. I hope you like the drawing Cocoa, it's good to have you in the clearing group again.

Next Community Quest

Quest Title: The Band's System?

Period: October 27,2018 - November 2, 2018

Task: What was the name old and new name of the company and the product that electromyograms that I was planning on buying for the initial iteration of the Virtual Reality rig. Also, what was the name of their first electrogram product and the name of their new smart glasses. Hint (It's not Advancer technologies )

Reward: Face Sketch (base level) of desired Character.

This is going into the history of the channel a bit before we move ahead to the future of having completing a fully fledged VR Rig. You should be able to find the answer to this by looking into the original VR Rig videos from 2014 or going through the 2014 design document to get an idea.

Conclusion

With that, the topics to address and data to track for this week's Pro-Log have been concluded, till next time, my fellow adventurers and dreamers. This has been Gregory, logging out.

VR Rig Principle Demonstration Pt1 || Pro-Log