This is our final assignment of this semester and this studio, also, I learned a lot from this final assignment, about skills and creative thinking. For study 6, I spent lots of time to think about how to make a creative and new interactive art, when most of my classmates had think out an excellent idea and made them out, I’m still entangled with ‘What to do’. The most pivotal problem is, whenever I had a new thinking, and I think that will be a great interactive work, and I start to use Max to make it, I found that I couldn’t show my idea by using Max, which because the lack of technical skills of Max. I was so disappointed that I couldn’t make things in my mind be physical just because the technical skills are lacking. The final work I did was a simplified conception, that was some improve on last study, such as I made a mini game and set a key that when visitors press on one of the picture, there will be a sound come out. The shortcoming is, there is only one level for visitors to play, which may make them feel boring, actually I wanted to make more game levels for audiences, that will be more interesting and challenging, but I didn’t know how to make a multiple levels and set different sound in different area.

Study 7 is the most successful interactive work in all studies of mine. The idea came out easily when I eating apple at home, at the first I think of Newton, suddenly I realize that I can make a game that apples falling down naturally and I set a little character to avoid them! Of course, this time I also stopped making my idea to be physical because of my limited technical skill. But I got some time to search online to get more useful skills and codes. Also, I asked my teacher for help, when I watch some tutorial videos and the teacher helping me to do that, I had learned lots of new things, due to there are some repeat work, the teacher just did a demonstration for me, and I tried to do the rest, which really help me to consolidate the new knowledge. When I finish the study 7, I had showed to my friends and ask them to play and give me some advice. There were some problems in there, such as the apple falling down in order, which looks not that natural and smart, and they also mentioned that there are some place the apple will not touch the little character forever, I tried to fix this problem, but there is something wrong, when the position code be a certain number, it will not change, but when I find out this problem, I couldn’t ask the teacher for help, and I tried to search about this online but I couldn’t find out any solution. I’m appreciate I can make this interactive work even though it’s not that perfect.

In study 8, there is not much new things in my project, I combined the previous work and some other classmates’ idea. I finish this final project independently, so I had consolidated my knowledge and also there are many bugs and shortcomings in the project. For example, I couldn’t find a solution that how to make the little character in a right place without any manual adjustment, and also there are some problem with the bomb I set in the game, when the gamer press a right key, there will be a bomb come out, but I just want that bomb appear for 2 seconds then disappear, I tried some method and codes but can’t work. From study 8, I realized that what I learned just scratched the surface, there are more things I need to discover.

Through the whole semester of studying Max7, all of the knowledge for me is new, and I did learn thing there, to make a simple game or a project, that was a interesting thing that every code has their own meaning and may produce a new effect, sometimes when a line link to the wrong point, the final production may be different with what you assumed. Max 7 is a extremely precise software, we can use that to produce countless project, what I’ve learned just the beginning. I believe I will discover more about Max 7 even though the class is finish, because I found this software is challenging and addictive.

Study 8 is the only one project that I complete by myself without any other help, which is a hard work for me. Considering this is the final project in this semester, I decided to make a complicated interactive work, so I had watch lots of videos on YouTube to find some interesting art or inspiration, I did find some work that really interesting, but those projects are not relate to ‘Sound’, so I gave up to find inspiration from the internet, I had ask my friends but didn’t get good answer either. Finally, I decided to make a Maze that controlled by sound. I remember that some of my classmates had done maze before, so I asked them for help, I want to make some changes on my study 6, which was use arrow key to control the character, this time I will use sound to control the character. The final work I’ve done was not a totally new work, all of the codes and the idea was combined with my previous work. But to be frank, I’m proud that I can make a completed project independently.

Study 7 is a improvement based on my study 5, I made a mini game again, the teacher helped me a lot, to complete my idea, and some professional operation. There is a major character and many apples, and the apple will fall down, visitors can use the arrow key to control the major character to avoid those apples. After making this program, I can set a control key by myself, and also learned how to make the object decrease and increase automatically. Indeed, there are many shortcoming of this program, when I showing this to my friend and they playing that, they told me there are some place that the character can always avoid the apple and doesn’t need to move, and the apple always falling in the same line so that will be a little bit boring, also they mentioned that when the character touched the apple, the ‘fail’ sound is not sensitive enough, which is not a completed game. I’m satisfied with my study 7, the idea was better than study 6 and also I made my effort on it.

For study 6, I had spent almost my time on find inspirations, in fact, I couldn’t think out any good idea, when I see my classmates has some great thought, I feel more worrying, some of them try to make a maze game, or popkart. Actually, I am very interested on Jermmy’s puzzle program, and I want to make a new interactive work base on his puzzle program, but his work was so complicated and I don’t have any good idea with that. So, at the first, I decided to make a mini game, because that will be more easier for audience and also for me, so initially, I took some pictures and cut some pieces from the original picture, and let audiences to use their voice to control the small pieces and put them into the right place, actually that was a great idea and quite interesting game, but I fail to complete that because the lack of my professional skill, that also prove that idea and skill are both important in a work. Finally, I simplified that game based on my initial idea.