Cart CGD

Meeting minutes, 14th Jul 2009
1.
Since Jason is still on sabbatical, he is unable to attend and supervise an independent study, especially not of this magnitude. So, to prevent us from working all summer for nothing, we get a class in the fall. This is good for 2 things: first, it gives us a more realistic deadline of December to complete the project, and second, now other students can get credit for their work, like Jos, Sean, Cass, Peter who are also participating in this in a significant way. Keep eyes open for CART 498 class Tuesdays 6:30-10:30.*Side note. Fun class DART 451 on After Effects and compositing available in Fall semester.

2.
Everybody add everybody on msn or whatever chat program please. This will make it easier to ask quick questions since I, for example, have no life and am always online . This information should be added and retrieved from the google doc: “CART CGD CONTACT LIST”. Make sure everyone has access. Here’s the list cuz i’m so nice:

Scott Philip
email/ google talk: montrealmusic/gmail.com
MSN: scottyp_404/hotmail.com

Nancy Elizabeth Townsend:
email: townsend.e.nancy/gmail.com
MSN: nancy_e_townsend/hotmail.com

Xavier Lapointe:
email: lapointe.xavier/gmail.com

Alexis Morin
email/google Talk : carignan.boy/gmail.com
msn : carignan_boy/hotmail.com

Charlotte Fisher
email: charlotte.a.fisher/gmail.com

Jos
email: zeal.bearer/gmail.com

Mohannad Al-Khatib [Mo]
email: Psycho.Designs/gmail.com

Cassandra Lacombe
email: eternal01/gmail.com
msn: eternal_01/hotmail.com

[redacted]
[redacted]
[redacted]

Sahar Homami
email: s.h1364/gmail.com

Ramy Daghstani
email/gtalk: ramy.daghstani/gmail.com
msn: reality_is_shit/hotmail.com

Sean Braithwaite:
email: brapse/gmail.com

Samir Mesbah
email: sm.shado21/gmail.com

3.
SVN notes, here are the links we talked about:
download tortoiseSVN for win32:
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/tortoisesvn/TortoiseSVN-1.6.3.16613-win32-svn-1.6.3.msi?download
download tortoiseSVN for win64:
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/tortoisesvn/TortoiseSVN-1.6.3.16613-x64-svn-1.6.3.msi?download
download Scplugin for osX (it’s the mac equivalent of tortoiseSVN) :
http://scplugin.tigris.org/files/documents/1368/45964/SCPlugin-0.7.3q-SVN.1.4.6.dmg
instructions on how to install Scplugin:
http://scplugin.tigris.org/servlets/ProjectProcess?pageID=rgnEkt
video on how to use tortoiseSVN (the same applies to SCplugin, they are fairly the same) :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sUYnEylvU0

Pro tips:

• do not merge binaries (executables)

• do not merge maya scene files (even .ma files)

• do not merge .mesh files

• update before committing

• don’t work on someone else’s stuff unless you are both clear that you are working on it

• commit small, incremental, changes to the server (in case something goes wrong, we don’t have to undo ALL the work previously done)

• comment your commits

the user name and password for the SVN server is: user: cartstudents pass: mongoose
the URL of the SVN server is: http://cartcgd.org/svn2009
we will begin making individual accounts for SVN access, that way you can lock a file (prevent others from working on it)
questions? Ramy.daghstani/gmail.com

4.
Artists should be able to start working on the young girl character with small changes to come (the collar). Everyone has work to do, there’s a prop list to get to and a clock tower to make, attachments to enable on the forum, and new technologies to build:
bumpmapping express: Moh+Ramy,
maya super exporter: Charlotte+Xavier,
water: the populace+Ramy.

5.
Jos is up to date vis a vis to the forums. There is a discrepancy of information on what Adam’s world is. So far nothing has been written down with respect to Adam’s perspective on things. This has to change. There has to be a discussion with some laid down concepts with respect to that. Concept art will then be churned and then the models can be changed. Any action before a common source is written down should not be taken. If you want to get started on what Adam’s world looks like (in more specific terms than “endlessly tall buildings”, it needs to start either in the forum or in an artists meeting.

6.
Since water will be a big deal in the game, we have discussed what can help us build good water effects for the game. Glowing rain is possible, so is snow with very low impact on the game. Uncharted’s water effect wasn’t all that good, that’s why you died when you fell in the water (apparently, I never played it, but JOS DID!). In any case, the effect described sounds like this:
texture bend: cheap and totally realizable with a very simple texture bend for “ripples”. Has no transparency, so when an object moves in the water, the fake reflection will get rippled, but you won’t see the object through the water, because it is not transparent.
Texture transparency: your typical low poly water effect. Flat texture with semi transparent blue “wavy texture applied to it. It’s the typical stuff you see in games like WoW.

The water fountain has different approaches which depend on the level of interaction we intend to have with it, solutions include:
maya fluids / particle solution: may or may not be able to export to Ogre even though there is a particle exporter for OGRE.
baked mesh solution: includes baking a water render and exporting to Ogre and simply keying the vertex animation for it, we can also use RealFlow to create really good water effects, but these have setbacks as they can generate very high poly counts.
Video texture: just a simple texture that has a clip of water sprouting out. Very meh, but very easy on the processor.
A height map solution: this is good for water falls. (note: height maps are also good for mountainous terrain)

7.

Nancy needs help with some Zbrush stuff, maybe  Moh can help, Sahar still needs a working OgreExporter for mac and maya2008, Charlotte needs to get acquainted with a new breed of operating felines, and I need to murder SteveJobs.

All is well. Weee