Unreal Engine 4 Goes Free

       On March 2, 2015 one of the most advanced game engines, the Unreal 4 has gone completely free for any users. The Unreal Engine 4 which can be used to create anything from games, films, animation, and ever virtual reality technology is one of the few major game engines that are used by major studios for blockbuster games titles was not like this before. The Unreal Engine 4 was at first subscription based with a $19 dollar a month subscription with a 5 percent royalty fee on sales. However the creators of the Unreal Engine, Epic, wanted the Unreal Engine 4 to be able to compete with it’s competitors Unity and CryEngine as well as to be able to cater to a broader market of indie content creators, which lead to the idea of a monthly subscription of $19 dollars as well as the 5 percent royalty fee. Once again, Epic’s answer to the competition and to have a broader market in the indie community was to release the Unreal Engine 4 as well as all of the future major and minor updates for free. If you think there’s a catch, you’re right. You pay a 5 percent royalty on gross revenue after the first $3,000 per product, per quarter, other then that it is a simple deal in which they will only make money off you if you make money allowing anybody, new user or professional the freedom to create what they want with no worries of how they would have to pay for the engine. AS for the people who have already paid the subscription fee before the free release, they shall be given there last months payment a refund as well as a $30 dollar credit to be used in the Unreal Engine Marketplace. Unreal Engine 4 currently is a fan favorite to many content creators and has fulfilled it’s goal of extending to a broader market.

http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/2/8134425/unreal-engine-4-free-epic-games

http://www.pcgamer.com/unreal-engine-4-is-now-free/

http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/02/unreal-engine-4-goes-free-but-epic-games-still-gets-its-5-cut-of-your-royalties/

         With the upcoming times and new steps in technology we have gained, now is truly the age of information. Have you seen back to the future? In the past people have dreamed, seen in movies, read in books about how we could show you something real from anywhere in the world or something artificially created to be right in front of you. The answer is VR and AR technology. Starting with VR, virtual reality, placing you into a virtually created world. In that world you would be able to interact with and explore the created environment. The technology of VR is mostly being integrated for the gaming industry mainly because the original creators of them intended to create their product for gaming, that product being the oculus rift. The oculus rift has been in production for a long time, and larger company’s has decided to also join in on the VR craze by creating their own versions of the product. Companies like Sony creating their own headset, Microsoft, even Google with their version called the Google cardboard. The oculus rift comes with two controllers for your hands to interact with tools and the environment. It has become so assessable that there is even a version for phones and laptops called 36o videos, allowing you to turn in any direction and watch the content in quite literally 360 degrees. It has become so popular that even movie sets and music videos are shooting 360 videos of the behind the scenes for anyone who wants to be more involved in the process. Currently the prices of these technology range from the oculus rift being $800 to the Google cardboard being $5. That being said there are still problems that have not been sorted out, one being how to handle motion sickness when playing. No information I have found has resolved these issues however now that it has been released for the public we are sure to find a solution.

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/gaming/star-wars-battlefront-review-a-second-opinion-1311294

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/world-of-tech/future-tech/the-vr-race-who-s-closest-to-making-vr-a-reality--1266538

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/03/28/472176250/oculus-rift-launch-makes-a-splash-will-it-lead-a-wave-of-vr-tech

Interview Assignment

Stephen Jones

Full Sail University

My interview topic is about Lisa Square who is a current realtor investor in the housing market. She has been in the real-estate market for a couple years and has found success in her job. Lucky to a connection of mine I was able to contact her and ask for a short interview which she accepted. During our interview I asked her what exactly she does to which she responded that she goes on the market to buy houses against other realtors and flips them, meaning she fixes them up and then resells them for a higher price. Within the job a lot of game theory is necessary for her because her competition in the field is high and she needs to negotiate with lots of people, making pretty much everything a variable to her. A good example she used was how she uses groups like on Facebook of realtors to help her if she ask questions and to get the inside scoop on properties. Another question I asked I asked Mrs. Square was if there are any dirty tricks in which she encountered, she responded yes and said that there are but is very difficult to spot. However she did give me an example of one she came across during her time, her example was while she does her job and finds a house she likes and wants to buy she would make a bid and sometimes others would make a higher bid which is a regular thing. However sometimes the seller would make a deal with someone to bid higher on the property so that he would get more from the first bidder. Lastly I asked her what was her back up plan if it didn’t work, her BATNA. She responded “Then I would search for another house and move on. Even if I liked the house a lot if it’s a bad investment then I just have to move on to the next, there is always another opportunity somewhere”.

Reference Page

Square, L. (2016, January 27). Interview Assignment [Telephone interview].

Ted Talks: Future of ocean cleaning

I have a love of the worlds oceans and the wild life that inhabits its. One of my biggest hobbies itself is maintaning multiple aquariums in florida as well as Maryland so my love of aquatic creatures is very well known to the people who know me. Another hobby I happen to like is fishing, going out on the ocean with the sun high and shining and the deep blue sea rushing under our boat, however always seeing murky brown water and trash in our sea's really disturbs me and makes me worry for the wild life living within them. With our current way of life we are destroying the ecosystems with no way to fix it, there is currently an island of trash as large as Texas in the pacific ocean and recently there has been an oil spill in the gulf of Mexico killing many wildlife, I believe a we are in dire need of a solution. Cesar Harada has come up with an innovative idea for boats that could dramatically help clean our oceans as well as become a new was we use/create the structures of ship in the future. Cesar Harada has done numerous research and studies about the situation with the trash and ocean spills in the water as well as what are the current methods to fix and clean up the solutions. From his research he developed different types of prototype boats that would be the most efficient for cleaning up the trash, as well as coming up with a very interesting open term contract that allows everyone to be able to use the data and share it. I am heavily interested in helping clean the ecosystems and the fact that not only is there someone already devising ways to do this but also open sourced his finding with the world so that now there are hundreds, thousand, maybe millions of people able to support this and help is something that really inspires me.

During the month of december during the VEF2 class, the first project assigned was this fluid fire in Maya. My objective was to replicate a match, using the newly learned Maya tools which I will explain. The first and for most is to create a 3D fluid box which contains and houses all fluid effects. adding a emitter and making ludicrous amounts of adjustments in the attribute editor. mostly messing with things like velocity, value axis, buoyancy and others.

For this project I was assigned to research and create a new effect that we have not learned in class, for this I chose a fluid tornado. This was completely new to me, using numerous online sources I a simple process. First creating a fluid container and making 3 emitters in a triangle formation. Emitter type to value, Valume shape cube, Density rate 20. Create a volume axis change the magnitude to 30 and the shape to cylinder. Mess with the transparency, change the color to desired, lower the opacity. add self shade to the tornado, up the resolution for great quality and have fun.

My final project, a flooded street view. This project required me to create an ocean and modify the settings in maya to make it seam more life like. Creating a wake for the fire hydrant and the bus stop to add collision, making the water semi transparent in order to vaguely see the street texture under the water. I wanted to add costeax because it looks beautiful but time would not allow that.

This man goes by the name Damion Cruz. Living on the rough streets in a not so good neighborhood, damion had to really on his street smarts and instincts at the age of 12. Being around not so kind people, his trust in others is very low.  He started working in mafia to make ends meat. Now 30 years later, he has moved up in the world into the cutthroat business of finance. He meets with other business leader and finical backers for the mafia’s legitimate company. Today he had a scheduled meeting to meet up with Finical inverters from a rather shady company.

Name: Damion Cruz

Sex: Male

Age: 42

Sexuality: Heterosexual

Power Center: Forehead

Energy Level: He is highly energized and ready to work.

Status: Suspicious, Cautious

Use of space: Open space needed for wide gestures and movement.

Temperament: Honest

Fears: being powerless

Passions: Acting, Earning money, Working out.

Physiological traits:  Christen, Slow opening to people, Very stubborn.

Personality traits: Cautious, Out spoken, Confident, Honest, Straight foreword.

Beliefs systems: Believes one should always keep their word, believes your as good as the company you keep around.

Strengths: Company backing, Confidence, Mentally strong because of rough upbringing

Habits: Takes stairs instead of elevators, Makes gestures when he’s mad, Sings randomly when thinking goes off course.

Maturity: Very mature, Serious when it comes to work, lets loose when with friends.

Culture: Christian, White male, subtle Irish heritage.

Self-Esteem: Very high, no lack of confidence, believes can do what ever he puts his mind to.

Intellect: Community college, associate in financial investment.

Financial status: Upper middle class, live in a urban area. $60K a year.

Health: Very fit because of continues work outs, Has dandruff that won’t go away.

Likes: His family, money, singing, The dreamcast system, older music.

Dislikes: Broken promises, money struggles, Karen from community college, spiders.

Traits:

Gestures: Uses his hands to advance body language.

Motivators: His past, His family, Obama, His dream of his wife singing with him.

Objective: Gather and find potential invertors for the company.

Obstacles: Verifying if invertor is a good match for the company.

Additional Information:

-Married for 6 years to Cathrine Cruz.

-Two kids, boy named Eric, girl named Mira.

-Lives in a a house in a urban area, with a Great Dane.

-Dislikes Karen from community college for stealing his spotlight.

This month for the class CAN2, I was needed to create a lip-sync of a character and a complete backstory for him ass well, with much susses if i say so myself. The man named Damion Cruz is the creation I decided fit the situation. To begin with, I had to make a storyboard and pre pro on how I wanted the general things to play out. Following that I made a quick scene and placed the shot camera to an standby location. For the first part I made all the key poses on the right word's, then followed by doing the in-betweens while all on stepped. moving on to auto-tangent and speeding up or slowing down the paces where necessary to complete the movement. Then I would do the facial movement in the correct places to make it seem believable that the character would be talking. With lots of critiques in between this has come to be pretty impressive.