Week 32: 27th April - 3rd May: Fun Programming Morning

Following my earlier list, I have completely so far two out of the three tasks.

• 10.43am - Finished first task- now the program resets the simulation with different rotated plane and the ball back at starting position.
• 10.56am - I have randomised the velocity of the ball to float values in between -5 and 5. the position was also randomised initially this way however, sometimes it was rendered below the plane and although this is easy enough to fix (i.e. place some restrictions) i decided that exactly (0, 10, 0) is the perfect coordinates for it as it will always hit the plane with a good couple of bounces at least. this may change once the translation comes into play. this is what is next on the to do list.
• 12.10pm - OK, the translation is set in the code however, I'm not sure whether to use it or not as the majority of times, the ball never hits the plane. I think I may have to speak to Dr Lucas about this at some point. I could place the initial position of the ball to be exactly 10 above the planes position or give the coordinates of the particle the same translation. Again, this could work, however, more adjustment is needed for the camera too. i shall try this now.
• 12.46pm - It is now mucking up the collision detection. Therefore, an email has been sent to Dr Lucas, updating him on my progress and the problem I have had today. He is not in today but hopefully I will get a reply tomorrow. It has been commented out in the code in the meantime. I have also added code to make sure that when the ball falls below -100 in the y axis, that it stops the simulation, puts the ball back to its original position and then starts the simulation again with new velocities.

Week 32: 27th April - 3rd May: Program

Yesterday (Wednesday), I spent all day trying to change the equation of the plane to a segment instead of an infinite plane. After many, many hours it was finally finished. It is a little better-sweet however, as all my work and trouble I had with the original equation was for (almost) nothing as it is now not needed at all.

I also changed the camera to the god camera I used for the terrain coursework last year, so that is was easy to view the scene no matter what angle the plane is at. Another thing to cross off the list is the user input to start the ball falling. The user can now start up the scene, manoeuvre the camera to the ideal position so that it can be seen and then press the space bar so that the ball begins to fall.

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To do list for today(Thursday):

• restart scent with the press of a key
• translation of the plane
• randomise the velocity/starting position

Week 32: 27th April - 3rd May: Progamming Time (again!!!)

Again, the dissertation has been started but as of yet not the greatest amount has been done. Fingers crossed inspiration will come soon. In terms of the program, nothing has been done until today.

Today, I have fixed the problem with the radius of the ball. It was done by subtracting the radius from the initial position and then adding it to the coordinates given to the draw function.

Week 31: 20th April - 26th April: Update

So far the dissertation is not going so great. the AI is done(finished that last Tuesday) however, since writing that report I have been completely stuck trying to start the dissertation. I think I need small break just to regather my thoughts.

On another note, my program is also needing work. nothing has been done to it over the last few weeks at all. the following is a list of what I think needs to be done at some point in the near future:

• Camera (maybe)
• Radius if sphere accounted for at collision detection stage
• User input to start/restart the ball falling
• Plane segment equation
• Translation of the plane (maybe)

Week 31: 20th April - 26th April: Dissertation So far.....

The update is that AI is finally finished and therefore today marks the beginning of the full dissertation write-up. I can now completely concentrate on the dissertation which will really help me as I find it better to concentrate on one thing at a time and i can get the write up done in a number of weeks. The plan is to have the dissertation draft ready to send to Dr Lucas in two weeks time. I will then focus on the presentation and the maths exam will fixing and tweaking the dissertation. Hopefully, if stuck to and without any big problems encountered along the way, the dissertation will be finished at least about half a week before the hand-in due date. Fingers crossed of course.

Week 30: 13th April - 19th April: Time is Ticking!!

Time is truly running away from me. I have so much work still to do especially for the dissertation however, not much is getting done at the moment due to the fact (mentioned below) that AI coursework hand-in is becoming ever closer. I am getting bits of the dissertation done but i am not happy with any of it yet. I really really need to get on with writing the dissertation properly instead of having lots of notes and plans about it everywhere. In respect to the programming absolutely nothing new has been done and nothing will be done until AI is finished as not much more is required so it has become lower in priority. Below are some of the notes and plans done for the dissertation so far.

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1. Introduction

1.1 What it is about

1.2 Why it is being done

1.3 briefly how it was done

1.4 Research Question

1.5 Goal

1.6 Dissertation overview/structure

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2. Related Work

2.1 Game Physics

2.2 Present Focus of Physics in Games

2.3 Importance of Realistic Physics

2.4 Collisions in the 3D Game World

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3. Background Theory

3.1 Equation of a 3D plane

3.2 Impact on the Plane

3.3 Euler Integration Method

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4. Methodology

4.1 Foreseeable Problems

4.2 Simulating the Surface

4.3 Collision and Rebound

4.4 Gravity and Friction

4.5 Final Scene

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5. Results

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6. Discussion

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7. Conclusion

7.1 Does it answer the research question

7.2 Initial Concept to Final Simulation

7.3 Applications of Simulation

7.4 Future Work

Week 29: 6th April - 12th April: Week in Review

Since the Easter holidays have started there has not been a lot of work done on the programming side of the honours project. Focus has had to divert to other coursework that is beginning to pile up. Therefore this week has not seen any new work or progress.

Plan (to do while completing the AI coursework):

• Rewrite plan for dissertation and the notes
• Look over the work involved in changing the plane equation to a plane segment

Week 28: 30th March - 5th April: Done it!!

Well thank god something actually worked for once! It is finally working with a proper bounce. I changed the method of how I calculated the plane equation and it worked straight away.

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Next Step: look at changing it into a plane segment instead of infinate plane.