RESEARCH

We all did some research for this project and some of them are the following:

Problem: One of the problems we faced in our Jane’s Do maze Project was to convert different types of variables. We really needed to do this in order to perform some calculations and get different functionality to work without creating extra variables.

Research: Initially I tried looking in the book we had but it didn’t mention anything about it. So I           went online and looked for the various conversions and finally found a discussion page where everyone else like me who was new to C# had the same questions and that’s how I got my answers.

Resolve: Finally after we were done with our conversions we didn’t have declare lots of local variables or extra functionality and our calculations became much simpler. 

Problem: During this project, we faced some problems. One of them is to integrate every class to work together in 1 project. It is so because initially, we split up the task so that everyone work on something different which means that each of us works in different classes.
Research: We started by searching it online through search engine. We then found different related tutorials online that helps us to solve our problem. Furthermore, we also went to the tutorial given in the Visual Studio 2003 Package as we developed it using that.
Resolve: With the helps from these tutorials, we can finally fix it by changing the name of the namespace to the identical name for everything. We also have to make sure that none of the class’s names are identical.

Problem: The graphics were first done in pixel form, thus all of the objects were specified by what pixels they occupied on the screen.  This made it difficult to make it appear that Jane was moving because all of the objects were different sizes and required different “shift” amounts (i.e. – different pixel sizes meant orienting the objects a different number of pixels).

Research: Because we didn’t have the original graphics files that were originally used in the creation of the game, some of the pictures needed to be recreated from scratch.  In addition to this, we thought that it would be a good idea if we standardized all of the pictures so that making the images move would be easier and could be done with functions that could be reused.  I had not previously worked with graphics in this detail before, so I made a few ‘test’ images and talked to members of the group who were more familiar with Microsoft paint and who worked on the original graphics.

Resolve: We implemented a grid system in which all images were encapsulated in a box of size 35 by 40 pixels with a common background.  This made it much easier to move images around the screen by simple arithmetic. In order to make the creation of the new images we added to the game easier, Marcella told me about a program in UNIX that allows you to manipulate images by their pixels.  By using this software, I was able to make the images much more lifelike and appear to fit in the grid better. 

Problem: One problem that was encountered while coding the first level for Jane’s Domaze was using two forms together in the same namespace.  We were already using the playing grid as a form and didn’t know how to get one form to disappear and make the other form to appear.  We faced this problem after the Question Box form appeared.  After an answer was clicked by the player we wanted the Question Box to disappear and the playing field to reappear on the screen so the player could continue playing the game.  However, we did not know how to do this. 

Research: To figure out how to get the two forms to work together in the same namespace we had to do some research.  We had some C# reference books in the lab, but we still couldn’t find anything that talked about how to use the two forms together.  It only talked about using one form, which we already knew how to do.  We then googled using forms in C# and tried to read as much about using forms as well could.

Resolve: Over a course of a couple of weeks, we finally figured out how to get the two forms to work together. In the end we just kept trying different things.  After each way we tired that didn’t work we got a little bit closer to the correct solution.  After trying a lot of different ways for the one form to disappear and the other form we finally got it to work.  Now when we work on higher levels we will know how to use multiple forms in the same namespace and will be able to progress a lot faster.

Contact Information:

The T.W.I.C.E Lab at the Ohio State University

Supervisor: Bettina Bair bbair@cse.ohio-state.edu

Members:   Betsy Beraduce beraduce.1@osu.edu

                   Rebekah Billing billing.11@osu.edu

                   Chetna Sharma sharma.117@osu.edu

                   Marcella Tanzil tanzil.10@osu.edu

Group Website: http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~bbair/TWiCE/JanesD.htm