VART Assignment

I thought i would begin documentation of my work here,
for the first Visual Art Assignment. Basically the task was to model a robot. I choose the warhammer 40 000 series, dreadnaught. I revised it three times, till now, well actually alot more times, some undocumented. SO far i have put in more than 8hours on this project.

Dreadnaught Proto
This is the most earliest primitive design of the dreadnaught. There is no detailings yet, it's main design was to recreate the based off design in it's early stages. Basically it lacks any sort of functional weapon and can only be used in melee combat.

Dreadnaught Model T
The following is the first version of my dreadnaught.
Well, from the first design, the most difficult to model is the legs, at this time, the legs are very stubby and the design is basically flawed. the shape on the far right that was left out is supposed to be part of the robot which eventually is scrapped. There is extensive detailings yet in this version.











Dreadnaught HV-MKI
The next version is the hellfire variant. Which i call the Dreadnaught HV-MKI. This version is similar to the legacy version, but it has an added rocket pod which houses the Hellfire Tridant Missile. It can carry up to 6 in each pod, which altogether houses 8 missiles. The missiles are all tipped with an advanced Uranium-Helium combination which makes it even more deadly. The missile beside the variant is a blown up version. Notice the tilted angle of the fletches, it's designed to spin the missile while airborne.

Nope, i have yet to remodel the legs.


Dreadnaught HV-MKII
The most recent version is the Dreadnaught Hellfire Varient MKII. Finally i remodelled the legs. It now has more stronger stabability thanks to the new neuron fluids injected directly to the appendages. During battle tests, the previous versions worked well under urban conditions, but on planets that has a high volume of vegetation the dreadnaught would tip over and the space marines would have to pick it up and set it right again. The latest variant would make it almost unstoppable, with the latest advanced pure Itanium shielding and cybertronic neuron stabability systems



The following are top secret blueprint direct from the Emporer's Research techpriest labs.

Power of Simplicity

Technology has come a long way since the years of monochrome computers and computers the size of zapplins. Languages used in programming have also changed. Fromt he years of Fortran and other low level programming to C, C++, C#. Basically if you take both the codes side by side and compare, things have taken a new turn. Simplicity has become the keyword.



Now look at google. Yep, when you think of simplicity, what other company can you think off that has a functional site, that is so simple. Much of google's success comes from this simplicity. Its a good example to show how the internet has changed. One does not need to go far to figure it out.

Then we look at microsoft. Alot of people will argue that microsoft isn't exactly simplicity. Truth be told, they arn't. But the point i'm trying to drive at is that, microsoft built their OSes with the end user in mind, people who are not programmers or "geeky" enough to figure out the dos commands. So that's when the GUI was king. people didn't need to remember bucket loads of commands to get something easily done. Non computer literate users didn't need to remember the series of commands to be keyed in for the OS to do something simple like, moving a file.



Then perhaps another company would be in mind when the word simplicity is mentioned. The almighty apple. nope i'm not talking about the one that fell on newton's head, I'm talking about steve jobs's Macintosh. Yes, you die hard apple lovers would purr at the thought of an apple, but it all comes down to the end user. Since most people are now more computer literate, their requirements of their computers have also expanded. People do not want to only see a movie, they want to see it in high definition, thinking about music? Dolby surround is the way to go. Email? Secure outlook express. (lol)

But seriously, simplicity has it's way to some time fowl up. The more advanced users want more functionality. Microsoft has a way to make the most simplest of tasks difficult. Think about the shut down function. You can either press the power off button on the pc and the system will initiate the shut down procedure, or, click on start, shut down, Turn off. Now, does anyone see a problem here? To shut down, you need to click a menu which says shut down, then click on turn off. That's like, menu in menu. What's so streamlined about that? Even the most simplest of tasks is so time consuming.


What has the computer age done? Have you adapt to your computer? OR your computer adapt to you? Simple questions which requires simple answers. If you're a long time windows user, think about it. have you been so used to clicking on start then programs then that office application, that when you see a mac and actually tried it, you feel awkward? The simplicity bestowed upon us is now a curse. Simplicity for the sake of the programmers in the company, while the poor shmucks relentlessly flip through manuals and forums trying to figure out what is wrong.

Then there's Linux, oh yes how can we not talk about that. Linux, is also not well known for it's simplicity....oh boy is it not. But recent developments have made linux dare i say it? More simple then pressing a remote. Take ubuntu for example. It has come a long way. Based of debian's unstable branch, it has become something more than just another distro. Nope this not a "OMGawd Linux Pwns 1337 @ss" discussion. Linux does have it's faults. Want to update your system? go to synaptic or whatever updaters that distro uses and search for the update. What about configuring an application? For some reason I can't because of administrator settings, what's that? Not everyone knows that some of those things are for their own good and they tend to realise that linux just isn't for them. It's too complex, even with all it's coolness, like compiz and it's lack of viruses & spyware.

So where do we draw the line between functionality and simplicity?

-----------
Credits to images:
Google Homepage: http://www.techcrunch.com/wp-content/google-video-homepage.png
Windows 3.0: http://www.edwardsamuels.com/illustratedstory/chapter%204/windows.jpg
XP Shutdown image: http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/5/5e/Windows_XP_Shutdown.png
Ubuntu Desktop: http://www.productwiki.com/upload/images/ubuntu_7_10_screenshot_1-510-375.jpg

Start Up Blog

Hi, yeah, i opened up this blog to document my studies in computer game programming and design, since i was told my seniors did this and got extra credits .... so yeh i'm doing it too. Stay tuned for writeups i'll be making on this line.