Week Six: Creating a Hypertext World

This week we will be setting up a hypertext game environment in Twine2 and learning how to manage some of the possibilities of choice in the program.

I am asking you to prepare for this week's session in two ways.  First to make a map of the location on your planet that you intend to represent in your Twine game.  You should pick a location on your planet that has landscape features that enables a community to sustain itself at that place.  The community you will be visiting will be human or human-like.  On your map include natural features and geographic elements that show why the community you will be visiting is located where it is.  Include on your map important natural features and any structures that are significant to the community you will be visiting.  

Second I would like you to undertake at least one of the tutorials below to learn the basics of Twine2. We will be working in this environment during class so please bring your laptops or tablets to class on Tuesday. Twine 2 is programmed in your browser.

Here is links to useful tutorials:

This is the most basic work through tutorial for the program to learn its basic function.  We will step through some of these basic functions in-class, this tutorial will help you understand those steps.

https://twinery.org/wiki/twine2:guide

This is a good tutorial in Twine2 about Twine2

http://selfloud.net/HarloweWorkshop.html

Basic RPG Tutorial 

Part One:
http://lambdamaphone.blogspot.com/2015/02/using-twine-for-games-research-part-ii.html?q=twine

Part Two:
http://lambdamaphone.blogspot.com/2015/03/using-twine-for-games-research-part-iii.html?q=Twine

How to Create a Space Exploration Game in Twine 2 (This is a good relevant Tutorial to what we are going to do)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvOPqJzXWgo

How to Have a Character ask they Player their name

http://twinery.org/questions/1453/how-could-i-have-a-character-ask-the-player-their-name

Tutorial for Macros

https://twinery.org/forum/discussion/2620/a-tutorial-to-twine-macros-if-set-and-click-for-twine-2-0-harlowe

How to link passages in If statements

https://twinery.org/forum/discussion/5166/how-to-link-passages-in-if-statements

How to make a combination lock in Twine2

https://www.instructables.com/id/Building-a-Combination-Lock-in-Twine-2-Harlowe-2/

Building an Inventory System in Twine 2

https://gersande.com/blog/designing-inventories-in-twine-2-with-the-built-in-harlowe-macros/

Twine Cheat Sheet

https://blogs.stockton.edu/textscape/files/2015/04/A-Twine-Cheat-Sheet.pdf

And is a list of Youtube tutorials by Dan Cox that seem useful

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTWJzxNdsIDHiYzGh-2Fd1w

And here is a longer list of Youtube tutorials for the most recent version of Twine 2.3 (Most of us will probably use Harlowe as the story format, it is the default)

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=twine+2.3


 Please watch and work through the program as much as you can before you come to class.

Week Five: Field Trip to the Bishop Planetarium

This week we are on a field trip to the Bishop Planetarium at the Bishop Museum of Science and Nature. This is an excellent facility with a first rate dome theater on which we will be able to see our planet visualizations.  Please meet at the planetarium at 8:50 so we can be ready to start as close to 9 a.m. as we can.  If you can't make it please make sure your visualizations will be there by submitting them via your google docs to Howard at the planetarium.  If you have not done so, submit them now.

The Museum is located at: 201 10th Street West, Bradenton, right across from the Police Department. 

Next Week Assignment:  Next week we will be developing cultures and societies on our worlds through the vehicle of a hypertext game. 

For next week the assignment will be to make a map of the location on your planet that we will be visiting in the game your develop.  On the course blog for next week I will put several links to introduce the Twine 2 environment.  Before coming to class next Tuesday, follow this Twine 2 tutorial on YouTube

https://youtu.be/5yCZaQLb_Kw

it runs about 14 minutes. Follow the steps of the tutorial, next week we will assume you have tried the tutorial.  There may have been some changes to the interface since this tutorial was published, you should be able to figure out any problems.

Week Four: Fantastic Beasts and How to Make Them

This week's guest presenter is environmental scientist Tim Rumage.  Last week we talked about the physical systems involved in worldbuilding. This week Tim will introduce the life systems that are involved in planetary habitation. Fantastic creature are not built on pure imagination, they are created out of understanding of natural systems. This week we will study some of those systems and their possibilities.

Assignment: You should have constructed your planet skin for today using the pixel dimensions from last week's assignment (see below). Also, create a title slide with your name and the name of your planet.

This week we will be constructing the second image, a panoramic landscape on your planet that will contain some of the life forms you create. In constructing your landscape you should include planetary life that is the product of the various patterns and circumstances of ecological systems that you have set into motion on your planet when you created it. 

Once you have completed your images, record a wav file in which you tell us your planet's name and a description of its defining characterisics.  When you have your four elements ready

1. A title slide 2048 X 4096 pixels with your name and planet name. Make sure you name this file in the following naming convention (in which "studentname" will be replaced with your name): studentname_title.png  Make sure you save your file to .png format.
2. A planet skin 4096 X 8192 pixels. Make sure you name this file in the following naming convention (in which "studentname" will be replaced with your name):  studentname_planettexture.png  
3. A panorama in the image ratio of 8:1, width to height. A resolution of 32,768 X 4,096 is a suggestion.  Adapt as you need remember to use a transparent canvas and to make the image seamless. Small differences will be really blown up at this size so match the ends of your image as exactly as you can.  You should name this file:  studentname_panorama.png
4. And finally your sound file in .wav format should be named: studentname_audio.wav

Notice the file names are all lower case and include an "underscore" character.

Put all these files in a Google Docs folder folder and send an invitation to access your folder to: Howard Hochhalter the manager of the planetarium at the following email, HHochhalter@bishopscience.org  

The submission deadline is Friday Sept 20th please submit them to Howard by then.

Field Trip:  Next week our class meeting will be a field trip to the Bishop Planetarium located in the South Florida Museum in Bradenton.  You need to find your own transportation to the museum and a number of students in the class have room in their cars for riders. Please make sure you have a ride and clear arrangements as to where you will meet your ride to get to the planetarium.  We will start projecting images at 9:00 a.m. please try to arrive before that time at the planetarium door which faces the street in front of the museum. Free parking is available around the museum but watch the time limits which are usually 2 hours.  We will be finished before 11:00 in order for you to have time to get back to school for afternoon classes.

You can find a map and directions to the museum on the museum's home page, Bishop Museum of Science and Nature.

Week Two/Three: Planet Building

Because of the hurricane class cancellation, we have moved the presentation from last week to this week.  Unfortunately, this will mean we will only have one class on Fantastic Beasts and the preparation time for the first project will be shortened. This week we will have our first guest presenter, Howard Hochhalter, Manager of the Bishop Planetarium in Bradenton. Howard will attempt to present a crash course in basics of planet formation and astrophysics. This week and next week we will be preparing an assignment in vizualizing an exoplanet (a planet outside of our solar system).

I redone the reading for the second week and have added several new ones under week two.  Your assignment before coming to class on Sept. 10 is to read one of the books on planet building I have under Week Two resources.  Read this book as a resource before coming to class.

During the next class we will explain in more detail the Planet Visualization Project. Here are some of the details in advance, but the assignment for next week is to read the background book.

This Planet Vizualization project will extend over the next three weeks. This coming week we will prepare specifications for the planet we intend to build. Next week we will look at the basics of how to build an ecosystem on the planet you have designed. These designs will be output in two images: one to form a skin to wrap on the wire frame model of an existing exoplanet; the second, a panorama representing the 360 degree view from the site of our "landing." All outputs will be as png images. 

When you have finished the two images you are to write a description of your planet, its name and something about life on the planet. Post this description on your blog.  Record the description into a .wav file of one minute or less. 

Here are some of the basic instructions:

Planet textures wrap around a 3D wireframe sphere. The sphere/planet can be placed in orbit around one of the stars with known exoplanets that we have mapped into our system. We’ll just replace the texture of an exoplanet. This will allow students some control over the characteristics of their planet/solar system (type of star, planet’s distance from star, etc.)

The panorama (the “long skinny” format) will be displayed when we “land” on the planet. If the graphic is transparent above the land features (in other words, if the sky is left transparent) then stars, the planet’s sun, and other features will be visible exactly as they would appear from the surface of the planet. For example, if this is a planet around a star other than our sun, our sun would be visible in that planet’s nighttime sky as a star. Use a transparent canvas when you set up your image.

The first image should be at a resolution (image size) of 8192 x 4096. This image we are calling the planetary texture. Then, you should make a "long skinny" panorama, in an 8:1 (width to height) ratio. The center of the panorama will be at the front of the dome and what we are directly looking at, the rest of the image will wrap to either side. I recommend the "long and skinny" 8:1 image as probably producing the best result. A possible pixel set up might be 4096 pixels in height and 32,768 pixels in width. This file size might be out of hand is you go with a color depth over 8bit, but you may a deeper color depth might be ok. All images png file although that is recommended for all the files. The examples are jpgs. If you make a png, leave the sky of the panorama transparent so that the night sky or daytime of the location of the planet can be visible over the panorama.


After you have completed your images, put them in google docs box and email an invitation to Howard at the planetarium so they can pull the files from the box and mount them in the system. Don't try to email them. FYI the planetarium projects in 4k resolution, so file sizes will be big for best results.

Read about Five Earthlike planets nearby.

Writing Assignment:  If you haven't done so yet, post the map of your part of Oz on your blog. Add a brief travelogue description of your area of Oz including some of the important sites and some of the characters that live there.  One character should be imported from one of the canonical books by L. Frank Baum but the other characters should be of your own invention.  Where do your characters live and what do the live in.  Mention any other significant structures or natural points of interest.