Health & Safety

To work efficiently I must be aware of several laws and guidelines to work legally and efficiently. This can range from diet and exercise to child safety laws. 

When working as a freelance I will need to take into consideration that I might become ill and thus not be able to work. You can also become ill from work related issues for example stress which can lead to more serious illnesses. Many of the stress related can be avoided by watching and monitoring your lifestyle. A contract employee gets around 3-5 weeks minimum of holiday and obviously working in freelance will mean you can manage your time more accordingly. It is also worth mentioning that flights and holidays are normally cheaper during school term times relating back to stress related illnesses it is recommended that you take time off before becoming overloaded with work and becoming ill from it, so yes, you should plan some holiday to keep yourself sane.

When working from home you should also have the appropriate equipment to work with, for example a suitable chair and a decent desk of the correct height and such. If you have health insurance of some kind they can easily become void if you decide to spend all night working or you feel like working upside-down for a while, or anything that would be considered to lack a better word, stupid.

Because you are working as freelance, although you are working for a client you are still your employer and the employee, so you do need to fill certain needs such as not being able to work for long periods of time with no break. Although you are protected yourself, as you have to paid within 90 days of finishing a job, while you and the client might agree to receive payment within 30, they do not legally have to do it within that time so long as it is within 90 days.

This website provided useful information on what problems to expect and some ways to prevent or help. To find more information I could simply Google the problem and look at popular/common results or look around on forums related to my problem.

This website provides information about various workers' health and safety.

There are several health and safety laws which are meant to prevent injury, both mental and physical. There are legal requirements of companies to have certain working conditions for employees, for example a building firm should provide personal protection equitment for their workers and visitors, (Hard hats, hiigh-vis jackets etc). The same goes for offices and such work areas. There must be correctly lit rooms and adjustable chairs for workers to be able to sit correctly. Within industries such as I.T most companies show employees a health and safety presentation/lecture to show the workers how to position themselves. 

There are also laws to have a minimum amount of space per employee, this is to prevent unfit working conditions and over crowding of workers in an area. After 4 hours of work an employee is entitled to a 15 minute break. However after working for 45 minutes on a computer an employee is allowd up to 15 minutes break. 

As a freelance worker it is important to stay healthy and well to continue working. It is also important to stay physically fit by doing annual exercise. 


This website lists possible risks in the work area and provides advice on more topics which were not mentioned in this post. 

BIT.TRIP Runner analysis

The game begins with a ‘Press any button’ splash screen with the game’s main theme playing, the title being displayed with a pixel themed font thus introducing the game’s art style early on. The music changes upon accessing the main menu to a much quicker and more upbeat tune, continuation of the pixel theme across all menus. The main menu features a stage select (3 stages in total), credits, leader boards and options. The options menu includes a difficultly option which you can change as well as pretty standard graphic options and resolution options. The music does not change when changing menus thus making the navigation seamless. Whilst on the topic of sound, when you do navigate the menu a little chirp noise is made. Small details hooray!

The first stage is opened with a tiny cut scene showing a meteor (?) crashing into the world, then emerges the main character hinting he is from a different planet, or some sort of alien. The first level starts and you run, it tells you how to jump and gives you plenty of time to learn how to jump before any obstacles emerge. To tell you how to jump it displays the instructions/keys on an old NES styled controller and also has a little bit of text to tell you what button you actually have to press, I missed this the first time round and it wasn’t until I watched someone else play it, I noticed it. Still, I was distracted by the pretty NES controller thing!

The first level is relatively straight forward; you jump up and or over things. If you run into something you start over. Eventually you run into your first power up, thing it makes the music change aside from that I have no idea if it does anything. It makes it sound pretty though! The power up is gained by jumping into it, whether it’s first nature to jump into floating orb things for everyone else is another thing, although I’m fairly confident virtually everyone will be able to identify that as a good thing seeing as the game has not introduced any threats yet.

After each level assuming you collect all the gold throughout the level you get to play a bonus level! This is meant to be a retro mode whereas you just collect more coins and jump over stuff. The only sound on the level is when you collect gold which can become entrancing at times and thus causing you to screw up trying to keep a rhythm going. From previous playing of this game I usually end up killing myself on purpose on these levels just to advance in the real game quicker. The lack of music in the level is also odd consider the game is well known for its soundtrack, it feels odd to play a level with no music.

The second level is similar to the first, obviously trying to get the player used to jumping over things. Although in this level more floor hazards are introduced! Holes in the floor surprisingly mean you have to start over should you happen to fall into one! However this level is still very forgiving at a stage if you miss a jump and fall down you can continue running, you just don’t get any pretty gold or a power up. Still no idea what it really does or what it’s called.  The music on the screen which tells you how much gold you gained/missed is also nice. Very relaxing! Also if you don’t manage to collect all the gold in a level and not attain the bonus level the character looks down briefly as if he is sad. Not sure why, I still find the bonus levels odd.

Third level! This time round you’re introduced to the slide ability allowing you to apparently slide on the floor forever. (Yes, you can complete the entire level whilst holding the slide button, I tried.) The game also introduces more hazards! Giant worm things which you must slide under to avoid! Also upon collecting all the power up orb things you get a rainbow trail! The same one you saw the character had on the main menu, cool! Although I do fell the music builds up and once you acquire the rainbow trail it dies down quickly and goes into a chill mode. I was hoping for more awesome upbeat music to get me through the level!  If you slide with the rainbow trail it affects the trail as well, thus jumping and sliding makes a rainbow wave!

I was assuming the fourth level would just be the third level but with a more things to slide under. It was, there are now random little UFO’s flying about at points which you slide under. How… random although it dos tie together with the earlier suggestion that you’re an alien.

Onto the visuals of the game, they’re pretty great to be blunt. I do love how the character you play as is a flat 2D sprite whereas the rest of the world is in 3D, the path you run on, the things you jump over and avoid are all 3D thus making the character seem more out of place. Throughout the game the text is always the same style, pretty pixels! Which is lovely but I can’t read or make sense of some of the numbers at times. Although this isn’t that important, It’d be nice to be able to read what I’m looking at without having to stop and read it a few times. That might just be me though!

Continuation of paperwork. More dicussion on how the game will play, regarding lives and how much damage enemies will do. 

Presentation

We presented our game with this presentation, we didn’t need or have to include super serious information like budgets and schedules, just to pitch the game and explain our idea.

We presented the idea and our teacher suggested we make a “demo” version of the idea we had instead to make it fit within the project’s timescale which we agreed with. He also suggested we make a physical copy of the game (on a disk or something) and designing a magazine cover for it to be shipped with. 

LINK TO THE PRESENTATION HERE.

Lathe and splines. Also X's.

In today's lesson we were introduced to the 'Lathe' tool and 'Splines' within 3DS Max, from doing so we drew the outlines of half a fruit then using the lathe tool by moving the axis horizontally. 

Using the same technique you can easily make vases or similar items. This shall prove useful in the next assignment which is to make a full house (furnished).

To make the above images I first started with a rectangle then used the 'Bend' tool to change the angle, then I cloned/copied it several times and rotated them into the X formation. Then grouping them I applied textures and experimented. I also used planes for walls/flooring, two of the walls are mirrors, two are glossy black and the floor is birch planks. I then positioned a light within the X. Making for an interesting lamp.

If I could I'd like to change the X so it's one shape because currently you can see a square in the middle where the different shapes are. It would look much better if it was all one, flowing piece.