Andrew Dang

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My DIY Standing Desk with IKEA parts

The Standing Desk:

I moved into a new apartment in August and found myself without a desk for the first time, so I decided to build one out of IKEA parts. I felt very lazy and too comfortable sitting, and the time spent at the computer was probably negatively effecting my health. Here is how I built my standing desk.

Unfortunately, this desk is at a fixed height; it is difficult to make minor adjustments. Adjustments in ~1 or 2 inch increments are possible by changing the thickness of the table, the height of the CAPITA legs, or adding dividers between the legs and the EXPEDIT bookshelves. Standing on a mat may also make work more comfortable.

List of Parts and provided height:

2x EXPEDIT 2x2 Shelves (36")
1x VIKA AMON Table (1 3/8")
1x CAPITA Legs (set of 4) (8")

Additional Parts:
1x CAPITA Legs (set of 4) (8")
2x EKBY HEMNES Shelves (desk extension)

The desk totals to 43 3/8", but probably sits a little shorter as it digs into the carpet. This isn't the cheapest way of creating a standing desk (my friend just places a chair on a table), but it comes with a bunch of shelves, and feels like a full table, which works great for me.

I've been using it for over a month now, and really enjoying it. My only complaint is that it gets tiring after 5 or so hours. I'm going to have to find a stool soon! >.<

Recycled Paper Sketchbook and Waiting for Guild Wars 2

A sketch of my human thief from Guild Wars 1/2.

Red/Blue martial artists

Emerging Technology at SIGGRAPH 2012

Combiform showcased at SIGGRAPH 2012 last week, in the Emerging Technologies exhibit! Ed set up my computer to work with the controllers! We had originally planned to launch a kickstarter in time with SIGGRAPH, but a lot of stuff didn't come together to meet the deadline. With a rewritten script, and newly shot footage (armed with amazing lenses!), we're ready to launch soon!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shuandang/sets/72157631012473100/

This exhibit next to us demonstrated a surrogate robot that could provide tactile and heat sensitivity. Only half a century away from manufacturing full working shells!

A handful of my favourite pictures. More on my flickr.

Space Cowboy, Space Cowgirl

Noriko Takaya paintsketch

i love this anime~

Elllaquiou

process gif and video!

June '12 works in progress

June has come and is going, oh wait I have eleven more days. The illustrations that I'm working on this month are focused on my exercising drawing lineart.

I will be livestreaming these paintings, so please stop by and say hello! livestream

working title: beesting

working title: chainknives

this is a HUD mockup i did for Pid Rescue, based on a friend's design

Chalkboard

SIGCHI 2012, Innovative Interface

This last week I traveled to Austin, Texas with the Combiform team, to attend SIGCHI. This was my first time with a demo booth at such a large convention. We had a ton of people stop by, and the space was crowded during the main event. I spent the time trying to photograph everyone that stopped by, occasionally taking breaks to work on an essay.

We placed first in the Student Games Competition for Innovative Interface!

More photos on Flickr.

The Grand Escalator, Austin Convention Center

Student games Competition

We've got a crowd

Heading out every morning

Demo'ing Combiform to the student volunteers

More photos on Flickr.

Dagger Class Spaceship

This is my final project for Intro to 3d Animation. I am definitely more interested in modeling at the moment. The whole 3d process is satisfying in that theres an incomprehensible amount of anticipation for the end product every step of the way.

I intended the dagger ship to be one part of a combinable set of spaceships for a top down schmup. These fighter ships are small in scale and serve as a personal manned vehicle, and can also house a handful of passengers.

Gunbuster was definitely an inspiration for this project. The idea was to create a dagger and sheath pair of spaceships, and the dagger design resulted in a similar silhouette as the space aliens from Gunbuster. It is cool how the Gunbuster 1 and 2 combine to become a mecha, but I have not decided on what the combination of my two spaceships will become, yet. Now that I think about it, a cool mecha would definitely change the pace.

I would watch Outlaw Star again for a bit of inspiration, but that's definitely going to end with grappling hooks.

Knights of the Unicorn... Table

Group project for Writing 340! I edited the first 2 sections together, with Kajiura for BGM.

For the final version, we ended up having to speed up the first section a bit, because of complaints about pacing.

Two More Weeks

Two more weeks of classes. We playtested the alien iPad game today. The real work begins now.

I streamed two sketches today. I tried Feng Zhu's multitask method. It worked wonders.

Skullgirls!

Today a little fighting game called Skullgirls launched on the PSN, and soon the XBLA. I interned at Reverge Labs for a bit last year, helping out on this game! This my first time being credited on such a big project. ^_^

I played it for a bit an hour after the launch, and I have to say the characters are great personalities! My favourites are Valentine and Ms. Fortune so far. ninja girl and cat girl. who'dve thunk'it?

The game's twice as large as Journey @_@.

Check out the game here: www.skullgirls.com
and the developers here: www.revergelabs.com

Cute Aliens?

sorta cleaned up this idle bounce animation, then spent a couple of hours sketching a skip!

Get Outta My Way!

Splash Screen for Get Out of My Way!, a colocative fighting game on the combiform platform. This is the splash screen that I put together for the game. I can draw poses now! Get Out of My Way, featuring Johann and Mariya!

High-Res Alien

I'm still working on a stylized splash screen for Get Out of My Way, and I've got a new high-res alien (a bit fat).

The Green/Red Pilot

I sketched out a pilot today, and thought I'd do a color test for her.

I Read The Eidos Montreal Tumblr

S Class Warships

A quickie tonight, to get my mind working around that space-schmup I'm going to develop. These spaceships are going to need some weapons, arent they... I can just hid laser lenses in that front edge xD

Games User Research Summit, GDC 2012

My GDC trip this year is shaping up to be a lot more exciting than I'd expected it to be. I'm enjoying the chilly San Francisco breeze (I miss it a little), and marveling at the city architecture.

Tuesday I attended the Games User Research Summit, and definitly learned a few things:

On Touch Interface
Visual assets for touchable buttons should be at least 7-9mm in width.

The visual asset should be at 60% of the touch target size.

Three ways to classify Interfaces are by their Freedom, Precision, and Direct Manipulation.

Intuitive is misleading, because everything is learned. Familiarity and Awesomeness is a more efficient targets.

On ABC model of attitude
Affect -> Emotion
Behavior -> Action
Cognition -> Thinking

Each of the three affect the other, and recursively affect themselves. They are immeasurable because this state is always changing and in the moment.

Behavior is observable while Affect and Thinking can only be intuited.

Media can affect one of these aspects to influence another.

Bartle's Player Types and Biometrics
A researcher presented a study that he did on players of a trivia game, as requested by the developers. He quickly realized that the data that was needed required observation of the four Bartle player types in relation to one another.

It is important to note that the decision to use Player Types: Killer, Explorer, Achiever, and Socializer, were a result of the data, and determined to be fitting after properly analyzing player behavior under their target behaviors.

The researchers watched for the interactions between two players and measured the frequency of:
Shared awareness
Requesting Info
Shared History
Shared Sucess
Shared Failure
Team Optimisation
Trash Talk
Self Indulgence

ABC in Games
During this talk I realized that this would allow me the vocabulary and surface understanding to put one aspect of Spectra into words. The purpose of Spectra was to place players in a situation where they would have to help the other player, their partner. My intended result would be that these repeated acts of kindness would influence the player's emotions and thoughts about each other.

The game never yielded an answer, as I haven't observed enough play sessions of it, or run lab tests with specific player-types, but I have had good reaction to the premise and players tell me that they enjoy the game.

Maya =X

OK, so I finally tested the murky waters of the 3D world. 6th semester out of 8 here at USC, it's a good time. I feel like I can comfortable learn the software, and that makes me happy. For the past three years, I've only ever worked on drawings and 2D animations.

Taking this course is like dipping my toes into the 3D environment, making sure that the temperatures aren't too cold. I'm so deep in my 2D work right now (it's only getting more and more exciting!) that my focus is still in that direction, but I'll be learning Maya steadily!

Modeling is pretty fun! For my next step, I want to model a character.

Mariya

I'm working on a fighting game now. The only ones I play myself are Street Fighter (Juri and Sakura), Super Smash Brothers, and a bit of Melty Blood. We're going to have a couple of characters, and I'm having a lot of fun repurposing a sketchbook drawing into a game character.

These are the two puppets, rigged in Flash's skeleton system.

Check out Mariya!

trying out different color schemes. I started with the one on the right and in the end we stuck with that one. The final puppet is missing that round face =/