Robbie Cahill Multimedia Development

For this week of reading (Week 8) the main focus was writing introductions and conclusions in an essay. I was grateful that this topic came up as it will be a necessity to learn about these for my chapter. I have learnt various valuable techniques for constructing an introduction and a conclusion to an essay. For example I could begin with a very strong statement on a particular stance. This would no doubt entice the reader and make them wish to read more. I could have my introduction be an attention grabbing statement. This could work wonders, the opening line of  'A Christmas Carol' was "The Marley's were dead to begin with" and it is very highly regarded so this may be the best option. For my conclusion I may briefly summarise my whole work. I have a great deal of experience with this from writing uncountable essays in secondary school. However a new method which I am very interested in trying is offering the reader a question or a challenge I believe this may ...

 And now we have arrived at the final Unity tutorial for this semester. I must admit I was rather nervous for the final Unity task. I couldn't shake the feeling that the final part would be the most difficult.  Like most others the final unity task consisted two sections. "Audio" and  "Build, Run, Distribute." Something that I noticed right away was that whilst the "Audio" segment was estimated to take sixty minutes. the "Build, Run, Distribute" part was only estimated to take thirty minutes. I found the title of the "Audio" segment to be very imposing as I hadn't added full blown audio to my documentary. I had added small sound effects to my game in the first semester. However these were small and were limited to triggered sounds. For example an explosion or a death or similar circumstance. However this exercise included background music. I hadn't done this before so it proved to be a unique experience. The final Unity tuto...

 For this tutorial I had to complete the following exercises. There were two segments to this exercise. The first segment was "Visual Styling - User Interface - Head-Up Display." The second segment was "World Interactions - Dialog Raycast." Both of these task estimated to take around sixty minutes. The first thing I did for "Visual Styling - User Interface - Head-Up Display." was adding a UI to my character. This was so that I could see the health of my character. The majority of this task was focused on working on the health and health bar of the player character. The second segment of the tasks for this week, "World Interactions - Dialog Raycast." began with creating a brand new character for my game. I created this character through a combination of sprites. This section of the Unity task was much shorter than the first one. Only composing of around 7 steps whilst the first section was over 13 steps. I am happy to say that whilst the tutorials...

 The topic of Reading Week 6 was focused on paragraphs, this will be very important for my chapter. This week's reading task taught me. some very useful techniques and tips. For example, ensuring that you include an introductory sentence in each of your paragraphs as well as a conclusionary sentence. The paragraph suggested that you either indent or skip a line. Another vital tip was that each paragraph should have one main idea being presented. Everything you mention in this paragraph should relate to and support this point, including random facts will make your entire paragraph suffer. You shouldn't try to argue more than one idea per paragraph. This will undoubtedly help me with my book chapter.

This Unity tutorial followed on from the previous week and covered 'Camera - Cinemachine' & 'Visual Styling - Particles.' Unlike some of the other tutorials I didn't really have any similar tutorials I had already completed to draw from.  This Unity tutorial introduced a brand new Unity package known as Cinemachine. This would enable me to control the camera without needing specific code. This foreign tactic was strange but I believe I got the hand of it eventually. The next part of the tutorial I did have some experience with as I had used a type of particle effect in a prior tutorial during semester 1. Although not entirely the same it was similar in principle and I believe this conceptual familiarity did help with this tutorial. Overall I feel like this tutorial went okay. Whilst the beginning was a bit difficult I feel as though the second part was slightly easier

 In this tutorial I covered 'Sprite Animation' and 'World Interactions- Projectile' I found the first segment of this tutorial to be more difficult than previously anticipated. Although it took far longer than expected through trial and error I was able to sort the issue. Fortunately the tasks involved with this section were vaguely similar to tutorials I had completed before in the first semester. This involved creating a projectile for the game which I had experience with. This tutorial felt like a mixed bag as I had difficulties but I also did well part of this tutorial  

 And so we continue onto reading week 4 (or 16 if you would prefer)

 Continuing on from last week's tutorial I had to complete a new set known as 'World Interactions - Collectibles' & 'World Interactions - Damage Zones and Enemies.' The First thing I did in the first section of the tutorial was add a health stat to the main character Ruby. After this I made a few changes to the health of Ruby. Following this I created a collectible health object for the tutorial. After this I did a task which was similar to a task which I did in the first semester. I added an enemy to the game and gave them the ability to damage the player I enjoyed this tutorial and although I found it to be a bit difficult I did enjoy it what I learned from this task

 For reading task Week 3 I had quite a task to complete. Although I have had some difficulty with getting into the swing of these reading tasks I believe that I am now getting better. For this week I researched Active and Passive reading. Although at first they seem to be one and the same and not that different. Active reading involves actively thinking about the content you are reading rather than merely absorbing the info. It also involves considering where said information comes from, who created it and is the creator biased in anyway However. Passive reading is wildly different as instead of seeking to gain more knowledge the reader merely absorbs the information without thinking twice. Instead of questioning anything in the text the reader accepts it at face-value and doesn't dig any deeper, looking for other sources to backup the claims presented. Active reading will be critical for the book I am contributing to. Please leave any advice that you feel would benefit me and my w...

 During this week I had to complete specific Unity tutorials. For this week I had to complete the two sections of the Unity Project, these two sections were known as 'Decorating the World' & 'World Interactions - Blocking Movement'  Working on these Unity tutorials was a new experience. I was a bit confused at first as to which line of tutorials I should follow. In the end I decided to follow the 2D tutorials as I believed the 3d tutorials would be slightly too complex for me to complete. Admittedly when I first began these tutorials  I experienced a few difficulties, fortunately I didn't have any issues with the setup of my files. I believe that I will get better as time goes on and I continue these tutorials. 

 From this blog onwards all blogs will be from semester 2

 Unfortunately I have had to once again scale back on my game, however I am confident it will be finished in time and will be functional.

 I found this weeks readings to be extremely interesting

This week I had to do my 9th Unity tutorial. The unity tutorial consisted of Unit 5,   lesson 5.1, lesson 5.2 and lesson 5.3. This was a completely new Unity tutorial which I was nervous but excited to try out. It seemed like a great deal of work to complete. However looking at the contents I saw how the content that would be covered in these tutorials could help me with creating my own game. The content covered in these tutorials were very intriguing to me. They covered various topics which were very interesting to me. It seemed as though these topics were more about refining a game rather than creating a base game. For the final part of this task I had to make changes to the game over function. I already did some work on a game over function in a previous tutorial. In tutorial 5.3 (Game Over) I improved the game over function. I had some difficulties with the three of these Unity Tutorials but fortunately I was able to get through it and am looking forward to completing more work...

For this week I have decided once again to change the template of my blog. I believe it's important to experiment with different layouts as I can't deny I have an interest in continuing blogging as an aside.

For this week I had to do reading on topics related to gaming. The first topic I looked at was in order to help games developer's. More specifically it was about stories in gaming. Whilst gaming mechanics are important and improving it is also crucial to include great stories for the player to enjoy along the way. I found these readings to be very interesting as they vaguely relate to the topic HORROR VIDEO GAMES AND LOW-RES The Best Story-Driven Video Games How to Write a Good Video Game Story Source:  Flickr

 A topic that captured my interest this week was positive feedback. I decided to research on these topics through wikipedia Source:  Flickr Feedback Positive Feedback Negative Feedback Varieties of Criticism

 This week I decided to do an extra task in order to get more credit. For this I decided to focus on growth mindset. Teaching Growth Mindset Poster Source:  Pinterest For this I decided to examine the "Make a Motto" segment.  I tried to make a graphic but unfortunately I couldn't download it so I took a screenshot instead.