Reading

My reading for week 5

Hi folks so for this week I finally got feedback on how my progression has been going and overall I feel like I am getting back on course for doing it the correct way. I decided in the future for getting my sources to stick to using google scholar instead of using my colleges libraries sources. I may change my mind on this in the future but until then im gonna stick with this program. 

So from the feedback session I had with my lecturer I wrote down  what I am required to use in the future and a research method to help me have a process to work upon (and possibly improve in the future). this includes the following things

1. Collecting material on the topic
2. take notes/ read material
3. look for things in common between them , such as topics themes etc
4. making each theme into its own heading/paragraph
5. Writing content on the paragraph of readings

Now that I have gone over my research plan. I am going to place below some of the references I have chosen and discuss why I think they are relevant or not.

As you probably know from my previous blog unlike many others researching two different subjects for the book I am focusing on on being "Serious Games". In doing so I have found these below which I feel are helpful in me understanding more about serious games and why.

Source 1

The first source I looked at this week was Serious Games: Games That Educate, Train, and Inform as i found it interesting as it was written by David R Michael who has been a successful independent software developer for over 10 years. The book was published back in 2005, meanwhile the other author Sande  Chen has been active in the gaming industry for over five years and was even a speaker at the 2005 game developers conference. Having this book from the perspective of two people working within the topic of serious games offers much potential insight as it allows us to look at many things to do with it. overall I didnt find too much to read on this but figured I would give it a try as I found having it come from two perspectives in the industry it may be more informative.

Source 2

The second source I found was titled Serious Games: An Overview by Susi, Tajra and Johannesson, Mikaek and Backlund, per  )and discussed that not only what serious games are and how it may benefit a player in ways such as allowing players to experience certain situations in a more safe and risk free way as well as saving the player/ training any other ways in both timing and cost effectiveness.  I also liked that this source labelled the types of fields/markets in which these games may be explored. from things such as education and health care to things such as military training and corporate games. The report also allows some insight into serious games in both the European and North American Market. allowing me to branch out from my previous source from last week targeting one countries perspective and instead focus the perspective from a more global standpoint.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages

Skövde: Institutionen för kommunikation och information , 2007. , p. 28


Source 3

For my third source I found this reading titled "Why So Serious, on the relation of serious games and learning"https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00692052/ as well as a PDF  describing many issues such as  addressing how although serious games are becoming more popular , as well as discuss possibilities for serious games in terms of an educational usage and the inclusion of more potential COTS (commercial off the shelf games) for the purpose learning. I found this interesting to read as it focused on things such as comparing other similar educational concepts such as elearning and education from an entertainment standpoint(ex TV) to serious games to show more relations than at first glance.

Overall I feel I am getting a better perspective of what I need in order to progress in the coming weeks as well as feel I need to start getting the sources placed back into the matrix to make putting my contribution to book easier overall and to learn how to do Harvard referencing more in the future so that I can work with it n future assignments.

Unity Tutorial 05

My week 5 in Unity

Link to image: here

For this weeks Unity tutorial (week 5) . I was tasked with doing four exercises in total from the official Unity site https://learn.unity.com/ and involved the following things.

1. lesson 2.4 collision/ decision
2. Challenge 2& Quiz Play Fetch
3. Unit 3- using Unity to develop VR Experiences
4. Locomotion & Ergonomics

Unfortunately when doing the first lesson of these the Collision and Decision I ran into an issue which was at first when I was trying to spawn my animals they did not seem to appear. But when I closed the unity program and then opened it again it seemed to somehow fix whatever bug I was having with it at the time so I must have just gotten lucky as it was nothing to do with the code being miss typed . Besides that from following the tutorial that was presented  on the unity site it went fairly smooth as I am finding it a lot easier to follow these tutorials from the official unity site than the outdated youtube videos from jimmy Vegas that I recently had to attempt to get through.

The guide I followed for lesson 2.4 collision/decision

• Watching the introduction video
• Making a new method to spawn the animals in spawnmanager.cs
• spawning the animals at different timed intervals
• Adding a colider then triggering the components
• destroying an object using  a DetectCollisions.cs script then pacing destroy game object before testing
• Triggering a game over message to activate in the coding
• recapping to make sure I followed all the steps

"Screenshot I took of trying to get the fetch exercise working"

For the Challenge 2- play fetch exercise there was only 1 main issue which was getting the  ball to destroy when getting near the dog. Thankfully the hint indicating to check out the box colider on the prefab helped me figure it out which I screen shotted below. I did also have an issue with getting the ball to fall from the top of the screen but it was easily resolved when I reread the tutorial part.

For unit 3 which was creating VR experiences I had no problems in creating . as there was only 5 basic steps to follow before submitting the piece .Although it did take me over the one hour and thirty minutes to complete as it was a bit of a nightmare getting use to the layout of the settings on the unity .Particularly in finding the XR Settings. I also forgot to disable the Dash Support which resulted in me having t reread each of the steps step by step to figure it out taking me over the time it should have taken me.

For the final exercise Locomotion and Ergonomics  I unfortunately could not complete it as I got stuck on the section about teleportation. I did follow the guide step by step and watched the tutorial but as still finding it hard to understand. I also feel with the final prep towards my other assignments I fell a bit behind in this section for this week , even though I still managed to watch all the videos and went through all the sections I did not complete this tutorial past the section with the teleportation as the four parts after that consisted of  finding ways to implement them.

Overall I feel I got a lot done this week besides not being able to finish  the Unit 4 Locomotion and Ergonomics here. I do think however as I go on I need to simplify these write ups more and try to condense it down so I dont ramble on about certain parts and to make it easier when rereading them myself.

Unity tutorial 04

Week 04 Unity

For this weeks Unity Tutorial it consisted of the following things  ,which were mainly script based and used a lot of what we learned from previous tutorials .

Tutorial 2.1 Player Positioning

For this tutorial I was tasked with played positioning which consisted of the following things

• create a project for prototype 2 using unity hub and creating new project, importing prototype 2 starter files into unity and making sure my layout was set to default.
• Adding the player, animal and food by dragging one human, three animals and one food into the hierarchy, renaming the character player and adjusting the XYZ scale of the food to be able to see above it.
• Getting the user horizontal input  by creating a scripts folder and adding a player controller script inside it, Attach script to player before opening it , declare a new player flat horizontal input and then test that it works in the inspector tool.
• Test moving player left to right and declare a new public float speed of 10.0f
• Keeping the player inbound by writing an if statement indicating the players left x position,but fixed X
• Cleaned up my code and variables by repeating this process to the right side of my screen

From following the method from the official unity learning site I found this one quite easy to follow overall

Tutorial 2.2 food flight

For this part of the assignment I was tasked with creating prefabs that would get destroyed when the player went out of bounds . I personally found this one to be quite difficult ,as I was having issues understanding the code ,particularly in launching the projectile  as I was having problems finding where to put the the initiate code, until I found the code on Unity.com

A photo of the code I was looking for take on my phone camera

But in the end by following the 9 steps from learn Unity.com  I figured out the issue quite quick and corrected my code issue with the right code.

Tutorial 2.3 Random Animal Stampede

For this final piece of work I had issues with the random spawn code , as I had to redo the code 3 times for it to finally work .what was strange about this issue was that the code was not identifying any issues even though it clearly was not working visually for me but in the end I feel I may have just gotten lucky or I somehow managed to fix it without realizing how.

Image Taken from my desktop

Reading 4

My Reading and research

Link to image here

Hi folks so for the past few weeks due to other assignments being piled on I have been having problems not only catching up on the workload for this but also understanding what it is I am suppose to be reading up on and where to look for these.

Through discussing this with my lecturer in person I have figured out a plan for what I need to do in order to progress on this topic.

Researching my choices 

In order for me to progress I needed to start researching my topic. for this I had to research my chosen topic (Serious games) in order to do this  and then to add the sources to the matrix set up by my lecturer with the following information. 

• Sources
• Study Parameters
• Thesis
• Primary Sources
• Research Question/topic
• Conclusions
• Limitations ,gaps, and weaknesses
• Strengths
• Significance

Unfortunately I still find many of these questions confusing even after it being explained as I am confused on what to place on particular ones which resulted in me getting only 2 done , as I am not sure If I have even done these correctly. However I do plan on working on them both tomorrow and during the weekend in order to fill out the excel sheet requirements requirements for my research.  I do also plan tonight to simplify the following bits of information's titles by looking up the meanings for each to help simplify them. as seen below.

Main List Overview

•  Name of the Authors
•  year published
• Title
• City Published
• Publisher
• Pages used

(Note: Citations are listed alphabetically order to the authors last name)

I found this information from a site I found on google describing how to do Harvard referencing titled " Ultimate Guide to Harvard Referencing". Link can be found here

Meanings for my Excel Requirements

Sources: These can take many forms such as from Publications, to books to popular sources such as news and magazines. When googled the following description for a source is as follows." A place , person, or thing from which something originates or  Can be obtained ".

Study Parameters: Study parameters when associated with Harvard referencing refers to the date/ year in which the article/publication was published.

Thesis: A thesis is a statement/ theory that is put forward as a premise to be proved or maintained

Primary Sources: A Primary Source consists of items such as archives/manuscripts, audio recordings, video recordings, films, journals, letters and even diaries.

Research Question/Topic:  A research question is basically what guides your research paper, project or thesis and essentially gives your work a clear focus by pinpointing exactly what you need to find.

Conclusions: Conclusions are the end or finish of a event , text or process.

Limitations, gaps weaknesses: Allows the the person doing the referencing to discuss the pros an cons of the item being referenced.

Strengths: What makes the piece stand out from other pieces( Its Pros)(Things that are described well)

Significance: What makes the piece significant/(worthy of attention/importance)

Programs Used to Find Sources

The Main two sources I am using when looking for Sources is Google Scholar, as well as using the sources provided by the library on the Tu Dublin Blachardstown Campus.

I ended up using the library sources as my research ,as it provided me with the following titles to research on in the coming week.

1. Why and How Serious Games can Become Far More Effective
2. Serious Games and Innovative Technologies in Medical Education In Bulgaria
3. Role Model Features in Educational Serious Games
4. Looking In, Performing Worlds: Outer Space as a Me
5. Scenario-based Serious Game to Teach about Healthcare
6. Serious Game Design for Terengganu Brass ware Craft
7. Serious Game, Gamified Applications, Educational System
8. Serious Games for Children: A Systematic Literature
9. Serious Games for Training Social Skills in Job In
10. The adoption of a serious game to foster interacting
11. Use of a Serious Game for Teaching Operations Progress
12. We Make Games. Using Serious Game Design Concepts 
13. What could the baseline measurements predict about
14. Game Learning Analytics, Facilitating the Use of S
15. A Gamification Approach for Serious Games
16. Designing an Io T-focused, Multiplayer Serious Game
17. Enter the Serious E-scape Room: A Cost-Effective S
18. Evaluating Level Ed AR: An Indoor Modelling Application
19. GIMME: Group Interactions Manager for Multiplayer 
20. Learning through improvisational play: design strategy

I did however run into an issue in doing this as I saved them on my google doc to be able to read through them easier and unfortunately only 2 of 20 are readable so i must attempt to find each of the titles in the coming days in order to complete them on the matrix which can be seen in the image below.

A screenshot of my progression of the excel on the mac 

From this piece of research I managed to write up on two of the 20 required

1. "Serious Games and Innovative Technologies in Medical Education in Bulgaria": I found this Piece quite informative as it shows the problems faced by teachers in the process of training the students within today's technological society which resulted in a conclusion of 94.9%  showing Significant interest in the introduction of serious games in training. It also highlighted the preferred tool for these learning games being the phone, followed by the educational boar and then other tools.This survey was done within a group of over 156 students from its first to fourth year course which may have proved biased as the opinions between years could have differed greatly due to the workload differences. Another con is that it is from only the country of Bulgaria which can make it subjective/ biased or it could make it a piece of significance as there is possibly not as many items available on this topic.
2. "Why and How Serious Games can Become Far More Effective: Accommodating  Productive learning Experiences, Learner Motivation and the monitoring of learning Gains":The aim of this paper was to improve the design methods for serious games by in identifying and highlighting common misconceptions and providing a timeline in order to avoid them. These included 

• The presumed conflict between learning and play 
• Learning from experience as the basis of game based learning
• Issues with experience based learning
• Neglecting the ineffectiveness of minimal guidance approaches
• Issues with motivation (Determinants of motivation, Style elements, Gameplay Scenarios, Reward Systems, Extrinsive causes for intrinsic motivation
• Issues with progress monitoring (Assessment as by product,  complexity of covert, dynamic assessment, Performance over learning process.

What I found most interesting about this piece was its conclusion as it highlighted how the learning and aspects in a serious game seem to be neglected in favor of the gaming part in ways such as the quality of acoustics and narrative. I agreed with this part alot as I do feel these parts get neglected a lot more which is surprising to me as with the way gaming has become in genres and diversity. you would think there would be more on this themes spectrum.

Conclusion

From my reading of these two pieces i feel more informed on my theme topic of "serious games" both from the aspect of what is lacing from the serious game industry to the interest in implementing serious games into a type of training from the percentage taken from the page on the study made in Bulgaria.

 

Dillon "reading 2" planning

         
                                                           B00121743: Planning my Approach

Hey folks I am back again and have layed out the 5 topics in which I worked on for this weeks reading blog. These included:

Choosing my topics for the proposed book outline. The two topics I chose to use were from the chapter one section and were under the chapter names and subtopics of "games for entertainment"and "Serious Games". For this I am tasked with researching for two subtopics headings from the same chapter (Chapter 1) and to also provide feedback for peers in my class on their quality of work as they will for me also in the coming weeks.

Image of my choices I chose for the proposed book

For me to progress in this topic to help discuss certain topics as I go along in the coming weeks. I am hoping that with the help of the artist review matrix that I got from  the title of "planning my approach" in my semesters calendar. With this I will hopefully be able to plan out each of my topics in a certain order so that I do not have to worry about repeating myself as much as i progress in coming weeks.

The Artist Review Matrix consist of the following things

• Study Parameters
• Thesis
• Primary Sources
• Research Questions
• Conclusions
• Limitations/ Gaps and weaknesses
• Strengths
• Significance
• CEI Context
• References

I feel this will also help me to not talk about parts/topics that other colleagues that are also working on this will be covering.My main goal is to cover articles and opinions/ blogs that people have written on these topics to give me more of n understanding of my chosen topics and to not just start writing blog pots on things that I have not understood for the sake of filling a page , as I feel in the long run this approach would be disastrous overall.

                             Me trying to get back into the swing of things        

Link to image :Here

Thats abut all I have for this reading blog. Hopefully I can add more content in the coming weeks to be a bit more informative.I hope you guys enjoyed reading and Ill see you in the next blog.

Unity week 3

B00121743 Dillon's Unity Blog :week 3

Image of my Unity tutorial :week 3

 For week threes unity it is a continuation of the unity tutorial  this included the following things.

The first of which was finding a way to allow the vehicle to move left and right instead of just forward like it previously did in the last blog. This involved adding more code to the c script, implementing the camera and objects in the world and making sure there is no faults in the code or assets.

By the end of that tutorial I managed to have the car in the unity moving both left and right . for the second part of this week's tutorial which put my skills from the previous tutorial to the test for a provided challenge/quiz. I was given assets of a plane flying backwards at a fast speed like in reverse. We had no control over it . What we had to do was slow down the plane, make it fly forward instead of backward and gaining control of its flight overall. It also included fixing the camera.

I found it quite difficult getting use to unity again, but also feel optimistic as I am finding the unity tutorials from the unity site itself more helpful from the  previous johnny Vegas tutorials I tried working through in semester one.

Back at unity

B00121743: Back at Unity Again!!

image of my unity tutorial week 2

Well hi folks here we are again back at Unity after a well needed Christmas break, However instead of making our own game we are instead making a game using a tester that involves us driving ,which will hopefully lead to creating a kart racer overall.

So in this first Unity Tutorial I used a different tutorial to the Jimmy Vegas ones I was finding difficult last semester these tutorials are from the  Unity,s on site that hopefully overall I will find more helpful in making simple designs. for my first Unity tutorial I was tasked with 

• Creating a simple car 
• Adding a bit of road for texture 
• Creating an obstacle to hopefully affect the car overall

I found this quite difficult getting back into it probably because of doing none during the break and also because I was trying to find a way to position the camera in a way that  it doesn't affect the road car or obstacle.

section 1: was implementing the car to the road and the obstacles on the road and implementing the camera to be behind the car



Section 2:Using a code called called c script to help make the car move forward on the road I created and to also make the car react to an obstacle when collided.



Section 3: was implementing camera work in a script to position the camera behind the car as it moves forward.