DMDN385 - Jason Frost

Music, Spacing, and Final Touches

2008-06-17T16:20:00.000-07:00

Have been working on level and bug glitches, and have moved blocks around to make the flow of the levels more fluid and bug free.

I have also created some music to go in the background when you change from white to black modes. The music is a light tune for the white mode, and a muffled bass like tune for black.

Compass Final

2008-06-16T21:16:00.000-07:00

A compass was required to let the character know its orientation. The compass is set out like a gyroscope, and points up, left and right. There are roman numerals to show the player which level is in which direction, so in theory its a signpost. Because of the geography of our levels, we have to make sure the character realizes that it is progressing.

Here is a short clip of it in-game.

Walk Cycles - Finalised

2008-06-16T19:28:00.000-07:00

Walk cycle has finally been finalised after a heap of testing with armature of the arms etc. With the decision to go with an ' over the shoulder ' cam we have found that having arms that are fluid detracts from the feel of the game. We came to the decision to keep the blocky style while also keeping the fluid legs. Because the arms are primarily seen in the over the shoulder view, it was imperitive that they look how we liked them, through all the tests, this was the most successful in the groups view.

Textures

2008-05-25T18:04:00.000-07:00

I have completed the texturing for the main character. I have tried to keep the art as true to the level as possible so the character will blend in seamlessly.

Here is it as the white version:
And the Black Version:

Character Development

2008-05-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

I have kept myself busy building the character and scenery elements of the game. While I have tried various versions of our character, We have come to a consensus that the character should be in the style shown below.

All armature is a accounted for and I am currently working on the idle, walk, and jump actions. While it is relatively simple, it fits in very well with our aesthetic, and the urge to add more to the design has had to be suppressed. I think the real selling point is going to be the animation for this design.

This was the original design, but it lacked any armature, but shows how it will look.

Finished Environment

2008-04-29T16:59:00.000-07:00

Project 2 - Environment - Final

I am pretty happy with the final design overall, physics and camera aren't perfect but it is playable and conveys my idea correctly of a military experiment in a virtual setting. To recap, my idea is of a new military weapon, aka X-KMBW or Kinetic Magnetic Ball Weapon, and its experimentation in a virtual environment.

Quick Update

2008-04-28T21:28:00.001-07:00

I have enlarged and retextured my whole environment, was a bit of a mission but I wanted it to look good. Have also tested a ball in environment and created a few scripts to handle the way that it rolls around the environment.

Enemy

2008-04-26T23:39:00.000-07:00

Whipped up this enemy for my environment, they are essentially road blocks that you have to smash over as you travel along. Tried to make them look as though they had been virtually generated.

Environment progress

2008-04-24T18:28:00.001-07:00

I have textured and mapped out my environment from my sketches, I am pleased with the look, it looks like a virtual reality testing ground, which is what I was going for :) After trying out multiple textures I was happy with the blue/navy and red look. I added a corkscrew because I like the dynamic of using one, and it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be to create.

So now its onto coding the gravity, which shall be interesting to say the least...

Half Textured

2008-04-22T23:01:00.000-07:00

I have applied the texture to the ring around the main character of the environment. Overall I'm pretty pleased with how the texture looks, definatly the type of aesthetic I was going for. Sure it is'nt the environment but it has allowed me to see how I want the rest of the level to look in an aesthetic sense. The levels is also coming along nicely and I am going to try importing it into Unity to see if all is well.

updates Updates UPDATES

2008-04-22T15:04:00.000-07:00

Well I have been pretty busy over the break, namely what I want to address is that I changed my Project 2 Concept. I feel my initial idea was too ambitious and not close enough to my original precedent for my environment, and most of all I wasn't really into what I was designing, so I decided to go with a modified version of my Project 3 Proposal instead. Below is an example of the art I want to go with. Kind of a sterile feel, much like Valves Portal. This texture is of the main character.

I want my environment to be unhindered by gravity, and want to use the ball idea as well for this, I have many sketches of my ideas that I'll upload asap.

The environment is going to all be indoors, and be very curvy and confusing.

Below is a sketch of the potential characters, enemies and level design.

X-MKBW

2008-04-03T03:00:00.000-07:00

Background:

In an advanced military training base in some far off Island, scientists are testing a new type of remotely controlled weaponry designed to be both an infiltration and offensive device.

Description:

I want to design a game that allows players to use the walls to their advantage. My concept is to create a cube like environment with obstacles, and randomly spawning enemies on each plane of the cube area. If you do not kill enough enemies they will start to overwhelm you so you can either dodge to another plane, or try and fight the enemies that are attacking you to clear the amount of enemies. The emphasis of the game is freedom. I want the player to not feel as though they are enclosed by a flat plane.

Key Features:

The ability to travel up walls, so in theory each level is 6 smaller levels. You use the walls to dodge out of enemy fire. The game would be first person and meant to be in a simulation type scenario, so I'd want the game to have a Metal Gear Solid VR:Missions kind of aesthetic. Another feature is stealth. I want the player to be able to climb walls, and maneuver around enemies and be able to eliminate them from behind.

The game will be a first person shooter, but that is debatable, the level of envolvement may allow a 3rd person element.

Ideas..

2008-04-01T21:03:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about how to execute this enviroment. I had the idea of a game where the whole enviroment is the 'boss' character that you have to kill. So you are in theory running along this character, which is the enviroment, and having to stop it.

I am having trouble finding games that include such functions.

Game Environment - Tribes 1

2008-04-01T00:09:00.000-07:00

Thinking back to the games I have played in the past, none have given me more pleasure than the Tribes series. The game revolved around simple principals. It was first person, you had a jetpack, and you could slide along the terrain to gain speed.

Firstly into a little history of the game. Tribes 1, was a game produced by Dynamix. The idea of 'skiiing' along the terrain was not a feature they intended in the game. It was a bug in the engine that, if you tapped jump, you could slide along the terrain. This in combination with the jetpacks, opened up an unparalleled amount of freedom, not yet seen in any game to date. Other games of the era, such as Quake2, were linear indoor games and had next to none of the sense of freedom. Third party scripts were produced allowing the player to always 'ski' along the terrain, gaining momentum.

This game principal, combined with fast paced and skilled fighting in such game modes as, Capture the Flag, and Deathmatch, created the most unique gaming experience I have encountered.

So in short, the level design was huge open terrains, that allowed the player to fly around and get into conflict with the opposing team as they battled for objectives or to capture the flag. I feel this would create an interesting dynamic for terrain. Terrain which is built for an object to move around on freely.

Quick Update, Unity Problems

2008-03-24T22:50:00.001-07:00

Walk Cycle and Textures finished, now onto the rendering and final touches! I have tried to export into Unity but am having permission issues with the program and can't even open it. :(

Woo!

2008-03-23T23:14:00.000-07:00

After doing a huge amount of tweaking with the bone structure and change length, as well as some visual improvements, I am finally able to apply my texture and get an actual working walk cycle going. I have found adding inverse kinematic bones to the knees creates a much greater method of posing and creating the creatures walk cycle. It is much easier to pose in a more fluid way. I am finally happy with the overall look. I want the pincer to be working as well but that may be setting myself up too many fish to fry.

With the addition of more meshwork around the 'knees', I have created a more organic looking creature. Several tweaks here and there have also improved the overall look of the creature.

More tweaking and weight painting.

2008-03-22T22:29:00.000-07:00

I have sort of finished the weight painting, however im having issues with the mesh staying in certain positions when you pull different areas of the inverse kinematic bone. Hopefully I can sort this out. Here are a few pictures of my creature:

Tutorials & Update

2008-03-18T17:00:00.000-07:00

After just completing the tutorials, I am very excited about Unity. It has an intuitive easy to use interface which seems to blend coding in without the headaches. I now understand why we are using this engine because of the power it has while not being specifically designed for coders or designers.

Although I will have to brush up on my javascript, I am interested to see how a final game shall look using this engine!

I have also done a considerable amount of work to my model, which has been modelled 90% and rigged up. Weight painting is causing a few issues with me but nothing a good solid work session should be able to plow through. Here are some examples of my un-posed creature on the left:

My creature isn't as refined as I would like it to be at the moment but with a bit of work it should look a bit more fluid. In this state it does'nt show off the true potential of the character in my opnion.

Ideas and Sketches

2008-03-01T20:49:00.000-08:00

Ok, my initial ideas were some kind of flying creature with a different twist. After trying to think of some kind of twist on the whole idea of flying I ended up giving up on that idea and decided to look at other 3D games for inspiration. I found myself looking at the interesting creatures known as 'Striders' in the game Half Life 2. They are basically organic war machines created by an alien race.

So I have set to work creating various sketches of a large long legged creature and use the idea for a monstrous 'crab'. My initial ideas were to have the creature just walking around on flat terrain. But after thinking about various phenotypes, I decided why not create a crab like creature that is adapted to living in large narrow canyons? Using the canyon walls on either side as support it walks along the walls.

After doing these initial sketches, I found that the creature seemed quite scary, and would be perfect as some kind of frightening creature in an FPS game of some sort. Im thinking of playing on this idea and making it as creepy as possible.