Homework 5 and 6

My side of the Mountain by Elizabeth Villanueva.

I chose her project because i thought the fire from her campfire was done extremely well. She custom made the effect and added it over the campfire to give it a more of a life like feeling. The fire breathes and gives the scene more of a real life feel than a fake kind of scene. She also has a moon that she costumed made herself. The moon in my opinion is the best part of her project. She added a directional light on it and made feel like the moon was actual shinning down onto the scene. Even though the moon is a simple circle, the way she used unities built in functions really brought he object to life. Just like the fire, the moon does a great job of setting the scene and doesn't overpower the other objects. The other assets used in the scene compliment the moon and fire. The tree and squirrel both go along together extremely well. The tree gives the squirrel a meaning to be in the scene and the squirrel makes it seems that the tree belongs there instead of being a random asset. The deer in the background is nice however is wish it also had something like the tree. If there was a small patch pf grass or even if the deer moved, I think that the asset would benefit greatly from it. I also liked how the bird was directed towards the button that spawned the person. When the person comes into the scene, it feels like the bird and person are connected and reminds me of the picture on the front cover. The voice for the person isn’t too loud and the button is not overly sensitive.

For the back cover she chooses to only do one button, but has the button change text every time you touch it. The text reviews she has with the book are easy to read and the stars she uses shows off the rating of the book without any issues. Just like the front page, the buttons react to touch without much effort. The video she uses works great however it’s a bit quite at times, but other than that I think it shows off her review fine. I like how her video displays when pressing the button instead of having a stagnate square on the back page the entire time. For our project we left the square on the back the entire time. For her project it feels like there is less clutter on the back and it’s easier to access the text and video reviews.

Overall, I think she did a really good job following the requirements for the project. She didn’t miss any of the important parts mentioned by the rule brick. I think that the moon and the fire were the best of her project by far. The only major issue I had was getting the models to run on my computer, however I really liked her presentation during class and wanted to do her AR project even though it didn’t load correctly on my machine. The one thing I would change is the deer, it just needs something to interact with in the scene instead of just being there.

The Great Gatsby by Mansur Shawabkeh and Michael Lederer

The reason I chose to do their project was because of how many assets there seemed to be on the front cover. Doing a quick glance through all the projects, this one seemed to jump out at me because of how they used the space of the cover. There feels like there is no wasted space at all and the front cover something going on the entire time. Going through their project, I read that the apartment was custom made by one of their members. The apartment looks really detailed for being their custom asset. I think that it is my favorite asset on the front cover. The car spinning is also a nice point on their project. I don’t know the context for the car spinning, but it did grab attention and was something that you couldn’t ignore from the front cover. I wish there was more context behind the car spinning, but the animation is smooth and flows well through the scene. Something I think they could have improved on was the lighting for the scene. I think the lighting takes away from the scene immensely. It gets rid of the colors from the assets and makes harder to distinguish from different objects. The colors for the objects look fine before running via AR camera and I think when you can see the colors, they do a good job of picking ones that work with the scene. The button works well too, I know for the project we made the button is very sensitive, but there’s usually works on the first if not he second attempt. I also really like the little Leo DiCaprio model that comes up and starts to explain their book. I think the little Leo is my favorite part of the front cover even better than the custom made building.

For the back cover, I like how they used two separate buttons for their text reviews and video reviews. This makes easier to access one or the other without having to go through every text review or video review to get what you wanted. I do like how when the video reviews play, they open one at a time and they both have their own square backgrounds. I do wish that the video player was larger and used more space. The text reviews do a great job of using the space that is given to them and makes it feel like the back cover is being used to its fullest potential. The sound from their video are good too. They aren’t too loud and don’t seem to be overpowering. I did notice that there were no assets showing off the reviews, I believe this may have helped the reviews and make the back page feel more filled.

Overall, I think the way they used the front page was fantastic. It felt like the entire cover was used and there was no empty space. I just wished the light wasn’t overpowering because it takes so much away from their scene. With their back cover, I think they did a really good job with the text reviews. The video was done well too, I just wish that they were a little larger to make the emptiness of the back cover more full. I think they did a very good job on the project overall.