In class writing on illusion of life

1. Explain (in a nut shell) your code structure, logic, important parts.

The lightbird works off of a complex series of conditional statements, based on the ambient light in the space it ‘lives in’. The reason for this is that the bird has seven varying emotional states – which allow it to express happy, unhappy, feeding, full, hunger, depression, and death. If the bird is in ideal light, the bird is happy, if it is too dark the bird is unhappy, and if the light is very bright, the bird will feed. This is where the complexity comes in, if the bird is unhappy for too long it will become hungry, and need food to eat. Conversely if you feed the bird too much, it will become full. If the bird remains full or hungry for too long, the bird becomes depressed. Once depressed, the bird has the chance to die, if you do not correct your mistakes.

All the code is written using Object oriented code, all the melodies are stored in multi-dimensional arrays, and are accessed through a class of emotions.

2. What did you do that you feel is new, non-obvious and useful.

In this assignment Alvaro and I attempted to create a consistent voice, in order to grow the character. In doing this we were able to personify this object to have a variety of feelings and needs, which a user must attend to. This in turn could provide a user with a friend which could be cared for over long periods of time, to teach lessons about how to care and treat real animals. In the emotions we picked, we attempted to create a non-linear approach to how the ‘bird’ experiences the world around it personifying not only the sounds, but the actual emotions that it experiences. By creating levels within the emotions we were able to create a complex being with a variety of needs, similar to a real creature or pet.

Read more about the project here »