After experimenting with voice commands using the Kinect, the next thing I wanted to experiment with was tracking the users movement. Using Rumen’s examples I was quickly able to start recognizing all the joints of the body that Kinect is able to track. Kinect can capture positional and rotational data of a user’s center of hips, spine, […]
Tech to Teach the Teacher: Part Three
My character’s head is sufficiently working inside Unity. All the animation keyframes I set up in Studio Max have been translated into Unity’s animation system and I have both an Animation Controller and code setup to control and blend the animations dynamically. The next thing I chose to do was give this character a body. To create […]
Tech to Teach the Teacher: Part Two
Now that I have a full textured, rigged and animated head model in 3D Studio Max, I want to export it and bring it into Unity to start exploring ways of controlling it inside the game engine. To do so I select everything, mesh and bones, and export the selection as an FBX file. The FBX […]
Tech to Teach the Teacher: Part One
In late March, six faculty members gave a short 5 minute presentation on an innovative idea that could enhance teaching and learning in higher education. The presentations were watched and then voted on by a large audience with the expectation that my department would help the winning idea become a reality . The winning idea was to create a […]
In the Spirit of a Field Trip
Last Living Dead Week, a week dedicated to any project of our choosing, I gave a presentation on how universities are like theme parks and how classrooms should be the attractions. You can find a link to that blog post here. Part of that presentation described how class time could be divided into three separate […]
First Person Fracking
Given the task of creating a 3D visualization of fracking, this blog post is intended to document and track the progress of said project. The tools I intend to use include 3D Studio Max and Unity with an ultimate deliverable using the Oculus Rift. If nothing else, we have been looking for an opportunity to […]