Proposal of Final Year Project 1

Title No. 28
Wau (Flying Kite) as a Virtual Space Shuttle

Name : Yoong Siew Lee
ID : 1051106975
Subject : Design Project 1 (Virtual Reality)

1 Introduction
1.1 Aim
This proposal aims to allow people to learn about the heritage and culture of Malaysia through playing game. This game consists of two levels to allow the player to compare the differences between the olden days and modern flying kite.

1.2 Background
During the past few years, Malaysia puts in much effort on promote the tourist industry. Naturally, Malaysia’s plentiful culture background becomes the focal point to promote the tourist industry. As one of the most famous and ancient traditional game, of course wau (flying kite) can not be leaved out.
Apart from the tourist, we could like to draw the attention from the local youth as well. The youth nowadays spending too much times on high technology products and forgo heritage and culture passed down by our ancients. We targeted to re-build their interest in knowing and keeping our very own unique culture.

1.3 Methodology
The information is obtained through research on internet and from reference books.

1.4 Software use
I have to make use of quite number of different in order to complete this game, such as Macromedia Photoshop, AutoDesk 3D Studio Max and Virtools.

2 Description
2.1 Content
This game consists of two levels; the background of first level is at a farm, whereby the second level is at the beach. Both of the levels are designed based on the particular and unique culture of olden days and modern eras. The background design of first level is a farm as in the past, flying kite is played by the farmers during the post-harvesting season. Flying wau is not just a game for past time, it is also a way to celebrate harvest season and hoping a great harvest for the coming year. Therefore flying wau has a significant value in the olden days. As for second level the background is set on a beach, since wau is nothing else but just a leisure game to most people. Well, to be more specify, what we playing nowadays is not a “wau” anymore but a “layang”. “Layang” which means “kite” in malay language; layang is evolved from wau. In other words, layang is the modern version of wau.
What is the difference between wau and layang? The features of wau is consists of traditional handcraft pattern, similar to those pattern we can find on “batik” cloth. Wau comes in many shapes such as fish, swallows, cats and even frogs but the most well-known is Wau Bulan (Moon Kite). Wau also has varies sizes, some even has multiple sections and only able to fly into sky with the strength of group of people. Whereby layang is lighter and smaller compare to wau. Layang normally with fancy colours and carton characters like digimons and barney printed on thin plastics. Enough of features and textures, let’s take a look at the game itself. Kite-fighting is unavoidable when it comes to flying kite. Kite fighting used to be a popular sport involves opponents try to bring down their rival’s kite by cutting the strings. In order to achieve the results, glass powder is used to provide cutting-edge. Nowadays we can hardly find people flying kite using glass powdered string due to safety concern. Still, I will reconstruct the scenario and broadcast it in my game to let the players have a taste of flying wau and layang.

2.2 Interaction
Since this game is created with an objective to promote Malaysia’s heritage and culture, so to ensure it achieves the target, the rules that set up by ancestor will apply in the game. For example, player will need to bring down certain amount kites in order to pass the level. In the game, the player can control the directions of the kite to suit the wind direction and the high of the kite to achieve the perfect cutting edge as well as to avoid the attack from their rivals. In addition, to match the real scenario and increase the difficulty, on the string of each kite has a mark indicates the cutting edge. When a kite touches another kite’s perfect cutting edge, the string will give way and the kite will fall down.

3 Challenges
The greatest concern is to control the amount of polygon within the specification of the software to ensure the game able to run smoothly without occurrence of errors. If not, the game may lag, hang or worst unable to operate. As, I only learn about Virtools software for one semester and my knowledge about this software is limited, hence to handle the software well is extremely difficult.

4 References
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wau
*http://www.tourism.terengganu.gov.my/cultural/wau.htm
*http://www.kiteman.co.uk/MalaysianCollection%20.html
*http://www.virtualmalaysia.com/editors_pick/3267C541-C600-4137-B9F9DAAF8A5E9A34.html