Fixing Audio With Audacity

     Audacity is a free program I use to edit music for my games. I'm slowly beginning to master it but I really only use a few of it's features to edit the open source music and sound effects I find. I like the Effect menu's Amplify, Change Pitch, Reverse, Change Speed, and Change Tempo features the most. I also tried recording my voice for videos here once but the quality was awful so I decided to use text instead.

     As far as lessons go I learned how much amplitude and dB effect the final sound and I've made a habit of maximizing the volume before exporting the files and using them in Unity. I still haven't mastered making songs loop nicely. It's always a noticeable skip and me messing with it usually ends up with the song sounding worse. I'm planning on teaming up with a friend for music in my next game so hopefully this won't be a problem anymore.

     Another lesson in efficiency was making audio playing game objects load when they're needed. Loading every sound effect and song could make the initial load time take forever and some scenes should have their own files for things they need. All this knowledge will make my future games all the better.

Last Minute Errors

     Of course it had to come back. Like a vengeful ghost in the form of computer code, the dreaded Internal Compiler Error of Unity has com back to torment me. I turned on my Firewall for just a moment after having issues with a file converter I downloaded and removed. Being silly me I forgot to turn it off before opening Unity. Now even though it's off Unity won't run any projects. I tried to recreate how to fix the problem yesterday, but I may just try uninstalling Unity and downloading it again. This annoyance delayed DragCore another day.

     So once I figure this mess out, I'll only have to implement Game Center and test everything one last time and finally submit. I'm really sick of pushing the deadline back, but it's all part of the learning process I suppose.

Status Report #24

     DragCore is approaching completion and Mach-Arena is looking like a real game. I also figured out why comments weren't appearing on the site and made it so posts show up immediately. Check out this week's status report!

Statistics Survey: Are Students Passionate About Their Career Choices?

     For my statistics class I needed to make up a survey to ask a random sample of 100+ students at my college. I decided to survey students on a topic I'm genuinely curious about, I want to know just how many people are looking forward to a bright future. Not just a successful or stable one, but a happy one in terms of a career. I've talked to so very few people who know what they want in life and started chasing their dream.

     From what I've heard from an overwhelming majority, most people don't know what they want to do or who they want to be. Most of my friends just want to find the easiest high paying job possible or just get by doing something loosely related to what they like. People from other majors that I've been grouped with in classes have a general attitude of not knowing what they want or they feel pressure from their parents and society to reach some kind of rank and "be somebody".

     I believe that this problem stems from what kids are told to think while growing up. The whole idea of "You can be anything you when you grow up!" as long as you choose to be a doctor, lawyer, astronaut, fireman, athlete, or the president. But what happens when you fall short of those expectations? Why are people trained in school to become great employees while just barely even considering becoming their own bosses? School takes an entire generation and makes us compete, despite individual strengths and weaknesses up until college where the curriculum is suddenly more individualized. How are the kids supposed to make up their minds so suddenly? Why do parents think that once someone is 18 or 21 they suddenly have their life planned out in detail and have 30 plus years of life experience?

     It's a big mess that I could write a fifteen page paper about but this probably isn't the place for that. I'm going to conduct a survey as my class project and find out what the overall opinion is on feelings toward school and find out how students fell about themselves and their futures. It will give me better understanding of my peers and probably change the way I see them. Below are the things I'm trying to answer for my report.

Research Questions:
1. How passionate are students about their current career choice?
2. Do students believe that a formal education is absolutely necessary for their careers?
3. What is the primary motivation for attending school: talent development, parental guidance, social pressure, or job requirements?
4. What motivates students most about their careers: money, fun, purpose, or social standing?