Looking to add a game design and/or development program to your College or University? We have the webinar for you: “Introducing Game Design for your College/University”. This webinar will be presented on Friday, April 20th from 3:00PM – 4:00PM Eastern [This webinar is now available on demand - view now]
This webinar will discuss:
the growing game industry
career opportunities within the game industry
game development tools
demonstration of a popular tool [Unity]
How to use assets created 3D content creation pages with games (such as Autodesk Maya, 3ds Max and softimage)
Game design teaching and training resources
Q & A
Want to learn more about bringing game design to your school? Contact Studica
This is the second article in a series about recording music with a computer. If you missed the first article [click here]
Ok, now you are at the point where you made the commitment, you are going to record music with your computer and have bitten the bullet and bought your software and hardware. Now you have to plug all this stuff in and make sure it all talks to each other.
More Hard Stuff
Ok, this is the easy part. You need to connect your outboard soundcard/interface to your computer. From here on, I will call the soundcard, “the interface”. You either bought a Firewire (ieee1394) or USB (hopefully USB2) interface. Plug it into an available port on your computer. Load the driver software from the cd/dvd or download supplied with your brand spanking new interface. Now, plug in your headphones into the appropriate jack on the interface. If you purchased monitors too, then plug those in as well. Set the volume to 25% on the interface. Once we get to testing the inputs and outputs, we want to hear something, but we do not want to blow our ears out or damage our equipment.
On to the softer side
Now, we have to get the software to understand how to route sounds in and out of itself. Open your recording software, which I will refer to from now on as your DAW (digital audio workstation). In your DAW you will need to select the correct audio driver. Remember we loaded the dvd for the new interface? Well, now we have to select it in the DAW, otherwise Windows defaults to the Windows audio driver, which is cool for listening to Youtube, but not for recording your Magnus Opus!! You will find this in either the “Audio Preferences” menu or in the “VST Connections” in your DAW. Now double check to make sure all your inputs and outputs are correctly configured in the “VST Connections” tab. Check out my video, sometimes seeing is believing.
The Test begins!
Ok, now we will test to see if you have done this all correctly. We will need two things. A pre-recorded audio clip, and an instrument/microphone plugged into the input of your interface. Test 1- we want to see if you can play back audio at all. Create an audio track in your main work area in your DAW (right click/new audio track). Drag and drop the pre-recorded audio clip onto the track, or use file import and select and import it. Hit play. You should hear some sound coming out of your headphones/monitors. (Now, if you do not have an audio clip, Google “free audio loop”. You can choose anything, and the selection will make your head spin.) Ok, now, the hard part. Test 2- Add another audio track. In the track parameters, you can choose the input and output. The output is automatically routed to the main output, so no worries there. The input needs to match where you have you test guitar or mic plugged in. Let’s say you guitar is plugged into input 1 in your interface, you have to select “input 1” from the drop down list of available inputs. Next you have to “arm” the track. “Arming” means telling the software that you will be recording with this track. It now has a “recording red light”. Ok. Everything is ready. Hit “play-record” on the main status bar. Strum a chord or play a few notes. You will see a waveform being produced along the timeline of your new audio track. You have done it! You have recorded audio. If you used a microphone, the results will be the same. That is it. It never gets more complicated than that.
What’s Next?
So, we have made the decision to record music with a computer, chosen a DAW and interface, and now we have everything plugged in and talking to each other. The boring part is over. Now…..we get to create! The next blogs will ramp up the skill level. We will talk about audio and midi editing, audio processing (with effects), virtual instruments, mixing and song construction.
If anyone has any questions regarding things we have covered so far, audio interfaces, DAW’s, or setting up your audio preferences, drop me an email at marketing@studica.com
The latest in Autodesk’s Entertainment Webcast Series. “Learn how to create your own virtual 3D Army”
Weds. 4/25/12 11 2pm – 3pm Eastern
Registration is free but you do need register to attend.
Overview:
Take a tour of Autodesk Softimage 2013 Crowd FX technology with Mark Schoennal, Autodesk Technical Specialist. Learn what Crowd FX is and how to use it to create large numbers of interacting 3D characters to create crowd simulations that will impress. You can render these simulations within Softimage or simply exported to 3dMax or Maya. For more information and to register [Click here]
If you are a student looking to purchase Autodesk 2013 non-watermarked Student Suites [click here] Teachers and schools [click here]
Adobe announced last week that they are working with Unity Technologies to develop the best tool for creating content for the Flash platform. Adobe wants to bring high-quality 3D games to Flash. Unity is working hard to develop the next open beta for the Flash add-on. This talented team is putting together the most requested features, WWW support, support for streaming Asset Bundles and optimizing runtime like you can’t imagine. Adobe is creating a new licensing structure for Flash games. You can read more about this exciting development on Adobe‘s and Unity‘s blog posts.
Students who aspire to be designers, architects, digital artists and engineers who want professional grade software that they can afford should be excited for the new 2013 Autodesk design and creation suites. These suites offer students the ability to work on the software professionals use and utilize fully functional commercial industry applications. Graduates will be able to hit the ground running because they will be prepared and knowledgeable of the software. Students can purchase at great academic pricing that offers them huge savings. The best part is that this software is non-watermarked. This means that students are using the same as commercial software with no restrictions in terms of the file type and no watermark appears when printing. The Autodesk Student Suites are the same as those used in industries and because they can be purchased as a perpetual license they don’t expire giving students the power they need to design their future.
The new Autodesk Student Suites for 2013 are:
Entertainment Creation Suite Ultimate 2013 [Check it out]
Product Design Suite Ultimate (for Education) 2013 [Check it out]
These products are currently available for pre-order at Studica.com. Free shipping is available on most items in the US and UK. Celebrating over 25 years in business, Studica is one of the largest Authorized Autodesk Education Resellers in the world with Gold Partner status.
Who: Secondary school teachers, instructional primes, career & technology directors and curriculum directors in the United States and Canada interested in bringing game design programs into their classrooms or who currently have graphics and/or animation programs.
What: “Introducing Game Design in Your High School” Webinar
When: This webinar is now available on demand. View Now
Why:
Learn methods to bring game design programs to students in grades 6 – 12
Perfect addition to existing animation and/or design programs
Review the gaming industry and the career path opportunities for students
Get an understanding of how easily 3D content from Autodesk 3ds Max can be transformed into interactive simulations or video games (or anything other 3D content creation packages and animation systems such as Autodesk Maya, Softimage, etc.)
Explore teaching and training resources for game design
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article about bringing CAD and Unity together to create interactive walkthroughs. This week, I decided to write an article on how to do this. I created a video that shows how to bring a Revit model into Unity to create an interactive walkthrough. Take a look.
Now, there are some technical details to be aware of. Importing a Revit model straight into Unity is not really the proper workflow if you are using Revit 2011 or beyond. Apparently Autodesk updated the material libraries to the “Protein 2 Material Libraries”, which are not quite the same as the material libraries in versions past. Unfortunately, these libraries are not able to be imported properly into Unity because Unity is not able to recognize them. As such, this creates an extra step in the workflow, which is to bring the model into 3DS Max first, render it out, and re-export it as an FBX file. If you use Revit 2010 or prior, then you should be able to export as FBX and bring that FBX file right into Unity with no issues. However, if you use 2011 or later and you were to do this, then you would notice your model as a gigantic gray mesh with no textures. So, having said that, check out the video and learn how to make use of this powerful functionality!
Again, I want to stress the importance of this functionality in the education sector. Game Design is now a major industry, which reels in billions of dollars a year. It is no longer a niche industry. It has become comparable to Hollywood and the film industry in terms of size and revenue. Because of this, more and more schools are developing classes for teaching game design.
Unity is at the forefront of this curriculum because it is affordable and easy to use right out of the box. The ability for Unity to be able to import and utilize CAD models is tremendous in the education sector. Most schools have architecture classes and curriculum as well as 3D Modeling classes.
With this functionality, you can effectively create a workflow between architecture students, 3D modeling students, and game design students to create realistic environments that players are able to walk around and interact with. The game design students can work on the functionality of their game, while the architecture students can design structurally appropriate buildings using software such as Revit and AutoCAD, and the 3D Modeling students can take these models and apply high-end textures and UV Maps to them in Maya or 3DS Max. Once the buildings are done, they can be brought into Unity to be used as locations within the game. Or maybe you aren’t able to coordinate all three departments for a joint project; this is still amazing functionality. Architecture students will be able to bring their model into Unity and create detailed interactive walkthroughs that they can embed via Unity Web Player onto a personal website to show off to a potential employer as part of their portfolio. More and more Architecture firms are utilizing Unity for this extra functionality. If your students know the workflow, then it gives them that much more of an edge when they hit the job market.
These are just some of the benefits of using Unity with CAD. Again, check out the video that I made and see how it works. And don’t forget, if you’re a student or educator and want to grab Unity for cheap, head over to Studica’s website and check it out. Likewise, if you want to purchase Revit for cheap, you can do so at Studica.
Matt tweeted about his experience at the Game Development Conference and was selected as Studica’s GDC Twitter contest winner. He will receive a gift card for $100. This year’s GDC conference brought in over 22K game professionals and industry experts from across the globe. To hear what Matt had to say about GDC [click here]
Studica was happy to exhibit for its first year and was excited to see some of our great manufacturers there such as 3Dconnexion, Autodesk, Unity Technologies, Wacom Technology and many more. For a full list of exhibitors [click here]
Greetings one and all! Recently, as I was compiling little bits of fischertechnik related news to share both with readers of this blog, and also with our fans on the “fischertechnik User Group” Facebook page (join up, if you already haven’t), I came across an interesting article on a website called RepRap.org, dedicated to the RepRap community. So what is a RepRap? Per the website:
“RepRap is a freedesktop 3D printer capable of printing plastic objects. Since many parts of RepRap are made from plastic and RepRap can print those parts, RepRap is a self-replicating machine – one that anyone can build given time and materials.”
A variation on this is the ‘RepStrap’, which is also defined here as:
“…a 3D printer cobbled together from whatever parts you can find, which will eventually allow you to print the parts for a RepRap machine, or to simply use as a standalone machine”.
Photo of FTI Strap courtesy of RepRap.org
So that said..RepRap..RepStrap…what does any of this have to do with fischertechnik? As it turns out, quite a bit. To take the concept a bit further, the site also lists what they call an ‘FTIStrap’, which is a RepStrap built almost entirely of fischertechnik parts, with only some additional items which are readily available in many local stores, and the whole thing can usually be constructed within a single working day.
The site includes complete assembly instructions, parts list, and even a software download for your controller unit. In all, the directions print out at a whopping 87 pages, and seem to cover all the bases including lot’s of diagrams outlining the various steps. Whether you decide to build an FTIStrap on your own or with a group, or you’d just like to see how the creators of this machine made it work, feel free to click on this link and check out this very fine work.
Image of fischertechnik designer diagram of FTI Strap. Courtesy of RepRap.org
(Please note—the instruction on the page linked above do include a warning regarding the risk involved in using the required hot-melt gun which operates at 220V and a temperature of 230 degrees Celsius. As such, please read all directions on the RepRap page very carefully, and likewise note that neither the authors of the RepRap page, nor Studica/fischertechnik will in any way be held liable for any damages or injuries if you decide to build your own FTIStrap.)
And to give you a quick idea what a machine like this looks like in action, we found a video which shows another variation on an FTIStrap going through the motions:
Let us know what you think of this creation, and if you’ve come up with any interesting and unique fischertechnik models of your own or at your school, please feel free to email us and tell us about them. If you provide clear pictures and video clips, we may even be able to share them in a future blog entry, or feature them on our Facebook page. As always, please direct any questions or correspondence to lancez@studica.com. And so until we meet again, happy building!
Enjoy BIG SAVINGS on great items like colorful Pantone mugs, fischertechnik da Vinci kits, Movie Magic & Final Draft software, Leapster Explorer, Avid Pro Tools and much more! Shop and Save at Studica’s March Madness Sale! Please keep in mind some software does require education verification for Student and Teacher versions.
*Please note this sale is for our USA, Canada and UK stores only. Items in the UK sale may vary from those noted here.
Looking to add a game design and/or development program to your College or University? We have the webinar for you: “Introducing Game Design for your College/University”. This webinar will be presented on Friday, April 20th from 3:00PM – 4:00PM Eastern [This webinar is now available on demand - view now]
