All in all it turned out to be a pretty successful week for me. That’s a little self-centered given all that happened last week with the hurricane and the fact that there are yet more out there. It’s just I was stunned to reach Sunday night with progress on both the Holiday card and the Maze project for my VR class.
So yes, Hurricane Irma has left a mark. Just a few weeks after Hurricane Harvey left a mark. We look to be dodging the bullet with Hurricane Jose because even though it reached category 4 while Irma was heading towards Florida, he weakened again pretty quickly and doesn’t look like he’s going to leave as much of a mark. And now there is Hurricane Maria. Monday night’s 8:00pm advisory had her at a category 5 and likely to hit a bunch of the islands that Irma destroyed as well as making a more direct hit on Puerto Rico. I feel really bad for all those people facing that again. We thought 2004, with Charlie, Frances, and Jean and Ivan, and then 2005 with Katrina and Wilma were crazy hurricane seasons. Even with the devastation they caused, I’m not sure they can compare to the crazy of this year. And it’s not over yet. In case you didn’t know, the Atlantic Hurricane Season officially runs from June 1 to November 30. This year, we had our first tropical system form in April.
And now back to some fun stuff.
So because I was paying attention to the hurricane on the Sunday for last week, I didn’t get much done and was a little worried I would have trouble getting to things this last week. I did start a little slow. But finally got some momentum and started getting things done.
The biggest thing I worked on this week was the Maze project for my VR class. There are several things that I have to make happen with it. The first thing though, is I have to design a maze for you to navigate through. I wasn’t so sure about this at first but I gotta tell you, by the time I got it done, I was having a good time with it. My goal for it, for the week was to get it all mapped out and built and setup so you could navigate through it. Oh, and I wanted to do a test build to my phone just to make sure it was going to run ok.
I was really concerned that it would run really slow because of all the objects in the scene. I figured it should work ok because it shouldn’t have to render everything at the start, it should just render it as I approach it. But still I was worried. There are a lot of wall and pillar pieces.
I am happy to say that it runs just fine. I finished laying out the maze and got all the teleports in place and deployed it to my phone and it works. Yay! I did have a lot of fun trying to make a challenging maze and adding in all the fakes. (The paths that really just lead to dead ends.) So here’s an in progress, top down, screenshot of what I was working on.
I also spent a little time working on the Holiday card for this year. I gave Sticks a scarf to go with his Santa’s Hat. He’s got a really skinny neck so it looks quite funny. I shrank Walter the Worm back down some and he looks better. I thought about having Sticks hold Walter but, no. Then I moved everyone to the other side of the tree and posed Sticks. I’m liking this look a bit better. It’s getting close to being right. I think I need to make some adjustments with the presents, either move them around or add more or something. Then I should be able to get Walter in the right spot. So close. Just almost there.
For this week? Well, I’ve still got work to do on that maze. There are several requirements in addition to creating a maze that you can navigate through. So I’ll be working on that. I really need to get it completed and turned in as soon as I can. Preferably before the end of the month so I don’t have to worry about it while I’m at the ZBrush Summit. There’s also a good chance I’ll get some more work done on the Holiday card. It could get close to finished.