CAGD Blog

Abbey of Our Lady of New Clairvaux - AR Self-Guided Tour - Sprint 4 My name is Kyle Ramser, and I am currently working as a 3D Artist on an AR self-guided tour for the Abbey of Our Lady of New Clairvaux. Our team just finished our fourth sprint, and this one went a lot smoother than the previous ones. I was able to get a good amount of work completed, and I’m very happy with how all of it turned out. Once again this sprint, the texturing gave me more trouble than any other part of the process, but it was just because it was more time-consuming than the modeling process. The experience that I had from the last sprint helped a bit, but with how different each asset was, each texture was essentially a completely different texture using entirely different layers. This was much different from the process when making assets for a video game, as a lot of the time, the textures are all themed similarly and have a lot of layers in common. These models also have a lot more small, exact details ...

 Chico of the Future - IoT The Internet of Things has become more and more prominent as time goes on, and it seems as though now, you can find a version of almost anything you can think of that has internet access. In a lot of ways, I think this can be helpful, but it can also feel a bit useless at times. As far as Chico becoming a smart city, I don't think it is an amazing idea due to the smaller scale of the city, but there are a lot of aspects that could be helpful, especially while college is in session.  One of the biggest examples of a positive impact for the Chico area would be the idea of smart parking. Parking is a constant issue almost anywhere near the CSU - Chico campus, and having smart parking in garages as well as on the street would make the daily lives of many Chico residents much easier. The amount of time and headaches saved would be a huge positive, and after learning about this being a possibility, it seems almost assuredly worth the time and money it woul...

The Abbey of Our Lady of New Claivaux - AR Self-Guided Tour - Sprint 3 My name is Kyle Ramser, and I am currently working as a 3D artist on an AR self-guided tour for the Abbey of Our Lady of New Clairvaux. Our team just finished up our third sprint, which went a bit better than our last one for sure. With the spring break out of the way, we ended up having a full-length sprint, which means we got a lot more work done as a full team. For my work this sprint, I was able to finish six cards in total, which was slightly under my goal, but a few of the cards were a bit heavier than the others. The work I completed was the model and UV of the music book, the model and UV of the smokey stone, and the textures for the smokey stone and restored stone. The music book model was a bit more difficult than I had anticipated, but most of the cards were not too difficult and were more trial and error than anything. This was especially true when I started texturing, because getting the color of the st...

 AR Self-Guided Tour - Sprint 2      My name is Kyle Ramser, and I am currently working as a 3D Artist on an AR self-guided tour being developed for The Abbey of Our Lady of New Clairvaux. We just finished our second sprint, and as a 3D Artist, the process has not been very different from my usual experiences in game development, apart from a few key differences. However, the few differences that there are have made the experience a bit more difficult than making video game assets.      As for the work that I completed during sprint two, I was able to complete the models and UVs for the sacred stone and the refurbished, or “restored” stones. This included high-poly models and normal stamps, mostly to be used on the sacred stone to show damage and stone mason marks. I feel as though I could have for sure done more this sprint, but with the spring break being dead in the center of the sprint, and with some unfortunate personal events occurring during the...

 Inclusivity in the Gaming Space and How It Has Advanced in Recent Years     As a game design major myself, this is a topic I am extremely familiar with and all around completely fascinated by. For some people, using a controller or a mouse and keyboard with the controls the game designers intended is near or completely impossible. Whether it be issues with the use of fingers for trigger, button, or stick inputs, sometimes disabilities can completely stop a player from being able to play the game as intended. That is why I am amazed and proud of the wide variety of control changes that more modern games can make to adapt to different players' needs, allowing essentially anyone to play games, no matter what issues they have with using common controls.     I actually have a great personal example of this through the experiences of one of my close friends. One of my friends has a deformity in both of his hands, which makes it difficult to use the triggers, sticks, ...

 The Digital Divide      In this day and age, the digital divide can be detrimental to those without access to high-speed internet or any devices. With how necessary the internet is in the modern age for things as important as jobs and school, not having a computer, phone, or access to the internet can make it extremely difficult to maintain a job or do well in school. Putting public WiFi in places like libraries and giving students access to laptops and tablets is helpful, but the problem of not having access to these at home still remains.            I think one of the only ways to close the digital divide, or to at least make it better, is for WiFi and digital devices to become cheaper, which they have been over the years as technologies improve. Now, even the slower speeds of the internet that are on the relatively cheaper side are much faster than the top-of-the-line Wi-Fi in previous years. The only issue with this is that it ...