Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2014 July 30

= July 30 =

Outlook Under Office365 on Windows 8 Laptop
I have a Dell laptop running Windows 8. I recently licensed Office365. It says that it includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook. How do I start Outlook? I know that I can start Word by launching a Word document and Excel by launching an Excel spreadsheet How do I launch Outlook? More generally, is there a way to bring up a Start menu under Windows 8? I know how to do it under Windows 7, but Microsoft seems to have made changes to the user interface only in order to make changes to the user interface. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:26, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Found the installed apps. Disregard question.  Robert McClenon (talk) 02:11, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
 * In case you're not aware on Windows 8, you can search the start screen the same way you can in Windows 7. Just start typing for "Outlook" (or whatever) and it will search. Also while the Windows key always works and you can scroll in to the right bottom to get the start screen (which is shown in the introduction to Windows 8 which is seen the first time you use your account), if this is a computer you have administrative control and rights over, you may want to consider the free update to Windows 8.1 found in the store which reintroduces the start button (but keeps the start screen). Nil Einne (talk) 14:02, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Can 3D scanning streamline game development and computer animation?
Now people can just 3D scan something instead of modelling it and use it, whatever it is, for their game or movie. Right?

If a 3D scan of a very large environment was available to the public could interested parties walk through it in real time? Say, Macchu Picchu? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:8051:4D60:918B:EBE3:685C:C84C (talk) 20:06, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * The term "real time" suggests you are looking at events while they are happening. So say a person you know happens to be at Macchu Picch, if you were to look at Macchu Picchu "in real time", you would see them there and what they are doing. As far as the rest of the idea goes, check out Three-dimensional virtual tourism. Vespine (talk) 23:33, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I think they meant something else. If you turn your head but the image doesn't immediately shift to match, that lag causes nausea. Even a fraction of a second can be a problem. StuRat (talk) 14:26, 31 July 2014 (UTC)


 * As far as using it for a game or movie, the time (and money) consuming part will be in cleaning it up. If it's an outside scene, for example, you will have planes flying overhead, which don't really belong in your medieval-themed game or movie. StuRat (talk) 14:29, 31 July 2014 (UTC)


 * (NOTE: I do computer graphics for video games as a living.)


 * Yeah - I don't see it being used much in games - although perhaps more in movies. In games, particularly, the amount of memory consumed by a brute-force model of a building (for example) would be unacceptable.  Game art uses the same underlying "texture map"s for a large number of similar-looking places in a scene.  One brick wall looks much like another - so why store different information for each one.  Real-world scanning doesn't achieve that - so they are either low-fidelty, or the amount of space you can move around with in a large building is very limited.


 * Another problem (even for movies) is that the images you get from these 3D scanners includes all of the illumination and shadowing that were in the real world object.  So if there is a light shining through a window, (the sun, for example), the wall opposite the window will be brighter than the rest of the walls.  That's OK until you want to see the same room at night - and now, when you close the blinds and turn on the light in the ceiling, all four walls are probably illiuminated roughly equally.   But it's extremely challenging to remove the lighting that was produced by the sun on the day the 3D scan was taken.  The brighter wall might be brighter because of the sunlight - or it might just be painted in a lighter color.   It's very tough to figure out which is which.


 * For 'virtual tourism' (your walking through Machu Picchu example) - it's not a problem because your users are likely to be more than happy with the fixed illumination that was there on the day it was scanned and have lower expectations for things like their own shadows being cast nicely. But in a video game, the lighting in the room changes constantly.  Removing shadows cast by light sources that might be obstructed in-game is another problem - when the shadow of your in-game character lands on the ground, it shouldn't make a part of the shadow cast by the window frame any darker...but if the shadow of the window was 'built in' to the 3D scanner's results, it's tough to un-shadow it.   This is just scratching the surface of the problem.  Think about what happens when you scan a shiney object - or a mirror.   What happens if the door into a room is opened in the scan but needs to be closed in the game.


 * There is perhaps more scope in capturing just the geometry of objects and places - but that's not really the problem that needs to be solved here.  Game artists will generally want to change "real world" art anyway - for example to reduce long "sight lines" that are hard to draw efficiently - or to minimize the number of polygonal surfaces in the scene.   3D Scanned art generally has bad problems that need cleaning up too.  If you scan a room - but forget to put the scanner in places where it can see into some small corner - or behind the sofa - then there will be parts of the room that are totally missing.   Fixing those up can be a nightmare too.


 * SteveBaker (talk) 20:34, 1 August 2014 (UTC)