Masters complete

Thanks to all those who helped me throughout my Masters and who have been following this Blog.

To keep up with my PhD studies please find me at these other web locations:
IOCT - Zoe's Blog
IOCT page, with IOCT Duck
Personal Website PhD page

If you have any questions about my Masters Major Project please contact me, zallman@dmu.ac.uk

Testing, Thanks

Thank you to all those who came and took part in the testing event for Breakout: The Breakout on Monday, 18th of August. I hope that you all enjoyed playing the game and I really appreciate all of the feedback you gave.

Testing

Today I am testing the game. If anyone would like to play on Breakout: The Breakout please come along to Gateway House room 6.53.

One person has already completed the game today and gained a new high score, why not come along and have a go too?

Project management

It is nearly the end of July and with only one month remaining to work on the Major Project it is important to consider how the project is progressing and if the work is on schedule.











The code is complete and has been fully implemented. It is important to now focus on testing the prototype and completing the supporting documentation.

The Major Project is running to schedule.

Testing

The IOCT Masters Showcase Event at The Phoenix on Friday, 25th of July 2008 offered an opportunity to demonstrate the game and get feedback from players.

Feedback was extremely positive, with people staying to play the game for a while. Comments suggested that the game was interesting to play and once you had started playing you didn’t want to stop, and also suggested it would be better to play the game on a faster computer in order for the game to run slightly smoother. This is an issue I was already aware of and was just demonstrating the game on the laptop I have been using to code it on. Ideally, I would have demonstrated the game on a desktop computer, however, I did not have access to one during the event.

Other comments suggested that people liked the design of the bricks in the different levels, as I had created posters to show print screens of the different levels. People were keen to play the game and interested in how the object detection worked, asking about how the movement of the AIBO ball (used as I only had a limited space in which to demonstrate my work) controlled the paddle on the screen.

Startup screen

The startup screen is the first screen that the player sees. I wanted to create a bright, appealing image for the startup screen that also reflected the game. I tried some designs using Microsoft Paintbrush, as I wanted the graphics for this screen to be in keeping with the graphics in the rest of the game.

Designs from Microsoft Paintbrush:








































Having chosen a design I liked, I developed this and took the file into Adobe Photoshop to add a lighting effect and the titles. The effect and titles add to the creative effect of the image.




The final design for the startup screen:










To use the image I have created as the startup screen I have used the “cvLoadImage” code to copy the image pixel by pixel, one colour channel at a time and load it to the screen.

Congratulations screen

Something exciting/worthwhile needs to happen as part of the visuals for the congratulations screen in order for the player to want to complete the game. Following on from my idea to include the Cliff Richard tune “Congratulations” I have decided to create a dancing Cliff Richard for this screen.

In order to create the effect of a dancing Cliff Richard I began by trying to draw Cliff Richard using Microsoft Paintbrush. I was working on the idea of having two similar images and switching between the two, to create a dancing effect. To create an image of Cliff Richard I was referring to a video of his performance during the Eurovision Song Contest on YouTube.com. I then realised I would be able to take a few print screens of the video of Cliff Richard dancing and use these instead. From the print screens I found two similar images and cropped them to leave two images which when switched between gave the effect of Cliff Richard dancing.

I then began my research into how to load the two images to be displayed as part of the Congratulations screen and then switch between the two.

In the drawing file of my code I draw the Cliff Richard images to the screen, with an if statement relating to the toggle switch in the main Breakouy_v3.c file. The toggle allows the two images to be switched between, creating the effect of Cliff Richard dancing. In the drawing file I also had to flip the images of Cliff Richard vertically, as they were loading upside down before I added the cvFlip line of code.

Save the high scores

A similar method is used when saving the high scores, as the method for reading the high scores. Instead, to save the high scores the external file is written to, using “fileHandle = fopen(“highscores.txt”,”w”);”.

This line of code opens the relevant file for writing and I have then used “fprintf” to write a string (the player name), tab a space, an integer (the player score) and created a new line. To end this command, I have then used the code line “fclose(fileHandle);”.

Sort the high scores

As a player adds their name and score to the High Score Board the list of highest scores must be resorted into order. The highest score list should have the highest high score at the top and the lowest high score at the bottom.

In the code I have set three integer variables and three character strings, followed by a set of if and else statements to sort the order of the score board once a new high scorer’s name and score have been added to the list.

Enter High Score Board

I have decided to include the following items in this screen:

• Title of screen
• Three letters that can be changed
• An OK button to confirm the name and move on to the next screen

Here is the initial design for the screen, created on the computer.









The design of each button includes:

• Main colour fill
• Highlight colour along the top edge of the button
• Highlight colour down the right side of the button
• Lowlight colour along the bottom edge of the button
• Lowlight colour down the left side of the button

There are three types of button:

• Upper button

• Above the letters
• Go up one letter when the crosshair is held over the button for two consecutive frames

• Lower button
• Below the letters
• Go down one letter when the crosshair is held over the button for two consecutive frames
• OK button
• Larger than the other buttons so that it is visually obvious
• Has “OK” written on it
• When crosshair is held over the button for two consecutive frames, allows the name to be saved to the external text file, the order of the scores and names are reorganised in the external file and the View High Score Board screen is then displayed.

The final version of the Enter High Score Board.