Today I am going to be blogging about the city Atsugi and Kanagawa Institute of Technology

Atsugi city is a medium sized semi-rural city in Kanagawa ken, Kanto region Japan.  It is a city surrounded by mountains and you will be seeing chains of mountain pretty much wherever you go.  The city center is called Hon-Atsugi Station and there one can take the train to Tokyo, Yokohama, Kamakura..etc.  It is also in the train station where one can buy cards which one can use to pay transportation fees.

I live in the Sanda region of Atsugi, which is about 25 minutes north of Hon-Atsugi by bus (takes a bit more than an hour to walk there from my place).  Roughly 1.9 kilometer North of my place is the Kanagawa Institute of Technology (KAIT).  This school was founded in 1963 first as a vocational school and in 1975 became a university.  I am currently working in Shirai-lab, which is located on the fifth floor of K1, the tallest building on campus.

Below are a series of photos around my place and KAIT.  The tallest white building is K1.

On March 22, 2014 Saturday, college seniors and last year master/Ph.d students of KAIT officially graduated.  We at Shirai-lab had a small celebration where students were handed graduation documents by Shirai-sensei and afterwards everyone had a small party/chat telling everyone their plans afterwards.  Shirai-sensei also drew each of the graduates a small portrait.  Yannick, the French master student doing an intern at Shirai-lab also brought two presents from France for everyone to enjoy.

At night 15 students of Shirai lab, including the sensei went to a Karaoke bar near Tsumada and partied/sang for the entire night.  Me, Yannick, Kosaku, and sensei as well as two other student stayed until around 10:30 before we went home.

Things I have done this week revolve mainly around the haystack/oil barrel corner in the world.  I built and textured the haystack, tractor, tank, and oil barrels.  I believe the two players’ cars are also done this week on Monday.

Aside from the things done, I have also learned how to import 3d models and textures into the game, how to create material, as well as the various folders and files in unity, who spent time to teach me how to do things and watch me as I try to update any changes.

Things we are still missing include possibly audio for the game, although it is rather hard if we want to watch the movie and play games with audio on at the same time, which will create confusion to the movie watcher who hears game sounds that come out of nowhere.  Our team has also not calculated the amount of time need to be spent in the game or a timer to encourage people to move faster, and the game lacks a solid ending overall.

Some of the challenges we face include how to use the limited amount of time we have, which is only one week, to get as much stuff done as possible and I also need to calculate how much 3d models and decorations I can do.  Although Laval Virtual is still three weeks away, Yannick is actually already done with his contract in KAIT and is spending his free time coming to KAIT to work voluntarily.

Next week with Yannick being gone our team will change into a Rex only team for the most part, and although I do want to make the world richer by myself, me and Yannick are hesitant to make major changes because of the lack of a programmer.

Last Sunday on Feburary 23, 2014, me and Yannick, a good friend and fellow lab-mate of mine went to Tokyo by Odakyu-line and subway.  It takes about 80 minutes of train ride to get there.   First we visited the Sensoji temple in Tokyo.  The temple has one main gate and after we walk past the main gate, we entered a small shop district full of many different kinds of shops that sells the following but not limited to:  Japanese doll, umbrella, kimono, Traditional Japanese men dress, masks, and sandals.   At the end of the shops is the main temple.  The temple is also surrounded by other kinds of decorations like the towers, waterfall, and miniature Japanese gardens.

On Saturday, March 01, 2014, many labs of K1 building (information technology building) in KAIT exhibited their projects in an exhibition center near Hon-Atsugi train station to the various gaming professional.

The projects range from animation, rhythm based reaction games, virtual reality, and multi-imaging games.  In one of the projects the player plays as a sumo wrestler who slept late and has to bash his way through waves of obstacles to reach the stadium.  In another game the player need to tap on their different body parts in a rhythm game (similar to the round 3B BVW project me, Xiao, and Ari did in Spring 2013), thus does exercises while finishing the game.  In both of these games a software similar to Makey Makey is used and players need to push their opponents like a sumo wrestler in the sumo game, enriching the experience.  A 3D animation about various desert creatures teaming together to fight a giant cobra is also shown, and as of now it has won several entrance awards.  Shirai-lab also exhibited our multi-imaging technique where we hide one content under another one.

Afterwards all of the participants and guests went to a Karaoke bar and had fun.  Although expensive, we were able to chat with various gaming personals and exchange name cards.  I also met different professors who worked in the same building as Shirai-lab.