Soft Opening Feedback

Soft Opening went really well. We received a lot of positive feedback, and in general faculty seemed pleased with our progress.

The three concerns faculty had were:

Concern One: Hermes (the name of our owl).

Solution: We chose the name Hermes because he means winged messenger in Greek. Some of the faculty were concerned because the name Hermes is also associated with being a trickster. After much discussion within the group and with concerned faculty, as well as after doing a lot of entomology research, we decided the name was o.k. to keep.

Concern Two: Our animations need to be smoother.

Solution: During the two weeks between soft opening and final presentations, we worked closely with our resident faculty flash guru John Dessler, and reworked a lot our animations and artwork. Since reworking the animations, we have received positive feedback about the changes.

Concern Three: Show seems too long.

Solution: Faculty thought our show was too long, so we cut out a lot of “waiting”, rewrote parts of script to be more concise, and during our play-testing, we found that we left the kids wanting more (a good thing!)

Soft Opening

The last two weeks have been really busy for the GKTW team. We’ve all been working very hard to get ready for Soft Opening, similar to a “preview” in the theater or a “beta release” in software. It basically means that we should have our project complete and ready to go, and the next two weeks should only be spent on testing. Tomorrow we'll be presenting all of the work we did this semester to the faculty.

Fortunately we got a lot done in the last two weeks, so we’re prepared to show off our work! We voice-recorded our show script with two actors – one in English and one in Spanish. We were also able to get our script translated into French, and plan to use it as subtitles. Additionally, we finished up all of our animations for the show, and synced up all of the music and voiceovers. We also spent some time documenting our project so that our clients, manufacturer, and future projects could understand the details and reasonings, as well as properply build the real Pillow Tree installation. While the document is still underway, it’s already 112 pages strong!

Our biggest accomplishment of the week was making the mockup of the tree. We created this prototype so that we could test our DMX as well as our interface. We’ll find out in the next few weeks what changes will need to be made – if any.

We’ll be posting pictures of our tree prototype soon, so be sure to come back and visit our blog soon!

Week Summary: Nov 12-16 and IAAPA!

This week most of the team (except for Anuja) went to IAAPA, the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions.


So what did we learn at IAAPA?

We learned that we really don't have that much left to do. Jack's own words were "We understand building things, you guys leave that to us. We need 'new ideas', that's what you guys do, and that Pillow Tree is a good, new idea".

We were hoping that this was what they would say; as it was very nice to hear them say this in person, seeing as we only have 2 work weeks left. We are right on target to get everything we
have to do done.

What else does Bob's need?

What Bob's wants from us is all the documentation we can throw at them. They want structural CAD for the tree, but they will "figure out the aesthetic part" on their own. They also want us to test, for placement of all the input devices on the tree.


There are 4 main things we have to do by the end of the semester for Bob's:
1- get all the animations done
2- get the tree in a working state to test
3- test the locations/placements of all sections
4- document like mad


So how are we going to do this? (with Thanksgiving, finals, and the BVW show...)

The following are hard deadlines; as we have to stick to this schedule to get it all done. For each week, we've listed what has to be completed, and then each person has their tasks broken down. We have tried to account for thanksgiving and BVW:

***November Nov 19 - 23***
Things that have to be done this week:
- Order all components for mock up
- Get software architecture robust

Evan: BVW stuff; order stuff; documentation
Rich: Fully determine what we need to buy to make the tree mockup, and order it (so we have it by next week)
Brendan: Animations
Rob: Work on show software remotely
Karin: Animations
Anuja: Clean up all audio, documentation; work with Staque; Record French Audio

Events this week - Thanksgiving


***November 26 - 30***
Things that have to be done this week:
- English Animations
- Spanish Animations
- French Animations
- Music
- SFX
- Soft Opening
- Tree Mockup Built

Evan: BVW stuff; documentation; final budget; prepare for soft opening
Rich: Build Tree
Brendan: CAD; Build Tree
Rob: Integration, Tech Documentation; Help build Tree
Karin: Animations; prepare for soft opening
Anuja: Audio, Animations, Documentation; SFX

- All Animations Done (all languages)

Events this week - Nov 30 - Soft Opening

***December 3 - 6***

Things that have to be done this week:
- BVW
- TESTING

Evan: BVW / Final Presentation / Documentation
Rich: BVW
Brendan: TESTING / CAD
Rob: BVW / TESTING / Teach everyone how to run all the software
Karin: TESTING
Anuja: TESTING

- make final presentation
- work on documentation
- make BVW happen
- Finish all CAD
- Test Tree Mockup

Events this week - Dec 5 - BVW Show

*** December 10 - 14 ***

Things that have to be done this week:
- Pack it up
- present

Evan: Document / Presentation
Rich: TEST
Brendan: Technical Documentation
Rob: Stress Testing / Tech Documentation
Karin: Tighten up the graphics
Anuja: Documentation

- ship it
- ship documentation for review

Events this week - Dec 12 or Dec 14
- Final Presentation

Week Summary: Nov 5-9

This week we:

- Finished the detail model of the tree in maya
- Got a first-pass of the music
- Recorded the Spanish Voice Over
- Determined animation timings and pace
- Finished the detailed OWL charechtor
- Started Animation
- finished the art for the owl's house
- got 7.1 sound working
- got video to play reasonably
- figured out a good codec
- made a sweet DMX application
- made a video of the 'Legend of the Pillow Tree"
- kept the blog up to date
- were awesome TAs

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Brendan will:
- Finish up all the lighting passes, and document a lighting scheme
- determine if it makes any sense to get the maya model into solidworks

Anuja will:
- Work with staque to make music
- Get the sound effects all sorted out
- Record the English V/O
- Organize GKTW letters sent to the ETC
- work on animation (cleanup)

Karin will:
- work on animation (key)

Rob will:
- work on animation
- integrate animations into show
- integrate audio into show
- document codebase, so it can be modified later (adding com, adding
language changes, etc)
- automate program start and computer boot

Rich will:
- make functional demo input devices
- mockup functional tree
- work on animation

Evan will:
- figure out the plan for the last few weeks, accounting for a
possible big BVW show commitment
- work on total project documentation (inclusive of what we can't do
this semester)
- encode animations as they are done

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Also... Here's the IAAPA Plan

Wed - Team drives to airport.
- Fly to orlando
- get in cab, go to hotel, check in
- go to conference
- TEA Party

Thurs - Go to conference
- go to disney world

Friday - go to conference
- go to GKTW

Saturday - go home to PGH

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Also... Here's the plan for Thanksgiving week (Nov 19 - 23)

Rob will be gone all week
Karin will be gone all week
Evan will leave monday night

By the end of the week:
- we need to have all the animations done and encoded
- we need all the audio to be done, with the music muxed in
- The system needs to be ready for play testing
- we need to have a plan to build the tree mockup at the ETC

Hermes the Owl

Here is our owl, Hermes! He will be the caretaker of the Pillow Tree. Karin created this final version of the owl that will greet the children.

Week Summary: Oct 29 - Nov 2

This week we:

- Finished the Tree Model, sent off photos
- worked on Spanish version of the Script
- Play tested the Owl
- Worked on the Maya Model
- started lighting planning
- fought with Panda (sound and video)...
- acquired Staque's services for music
- started the final owl art
- started the final on screen scene
- planned the IAAPA trip
- Determined that Linux and WinXP are bad
- Storyboarded and determined scenes
- kept the blog up to date

Next Week:

Brendan will:
- Finish detail model of tree in MAYA- Monday
- Determine "Best Case" Lighting for Tree (as we designed it) - Friday
- Spec lighting hardware - Friday

Anuja Will:
- Organize GKTW letters sent to the ETC - Friday
- Work with Staque to make music - Friday
- Find sound effects - Friday
- Work with Language Departments to get script translated/approve
Oscar's translation - By Wednesday
- Further Testing?
- Get audio ready to animate against (placeholder)

Karin Will:
- Finish Owl Char - By Monday
- Start animation - Friday

Rob Will:
- Get Videos playing in Windows - by Friday
- Get 7 channel sound in Windows - by Friday
- Get DMX working in Windows - by Friday

Rich Will:
- Finish Room Art - By Monday
- Animate Owl and room details (lighting) - By Friday
- Do V/O for "Ms. Merry story" - By Wed

Evan Will:
- Make animation templates
- English V/O
- Spanish V/O
- Find Language Voice actors - ASAP
- make "Mrs. Merry" Story Video
- Integration
- Video Compression