Aliah Darke Week 9 - 12 - Kid in a Candy Store - Meta Community Forums

prettydarke · ‎08-09-2016

Sorry in advance for any typos, this entry is coming from my phone

prettydarke · ‎08-09-2016

...looks like this cut off the entire entry

prettydarke · ‎08-10-2016

Part I : Recap

Aaaaaand back at my computer. Pro tip: Don't try to post anything to the Oculus forums from your phone, in my case, it will cut off anything beyond the first line break.

So, we've got 17 days and I'm loathe to write yet another incredibly long update since the last one just vanished into the aether, but I'm also verbose so we'll see how this plays out :blush:

I just got done teaching game design for 2 weeks, and despite by aspirations, I wasn't able to work on Oculus stuff at all. Each work day was basically 12 hours minimum and I would come home and collapse. I actually just got my teacher evaluations and I think something one of the students said really applies "Spent too much time on theory and all the work felt like it was rushed at the end." What they don't know is my program screwed up and didn't order my supplies so I didn't have any fabrication tools until halfway through - but still an astute criticism.

I do spend a lot of time on theory. It's part of why I like teaching, and teaching a studio course in particular; I'm a much better director than creator. I'm insightful, critical, can generate many ideas and problem solve quickly, and I have a good eye. I really only make stuff because I have to. That I can draw or paint is really more about the fact that I have vision than skill. I know what looks bad, I know what feels bad, and I will keep working until my stuff meets my standards.

Similar to the situation in my class, where I've got to rely on theory because I don't have what I need to make stuff, I have had to take meetings and jobs and things in order to be able to work on this Oculus project. I was homeless before the bootcamp, my mom and siblings became homeless shortly after, so it's been a real struggle trying to get into a stable space, physically and mentally in order to be productive. I've found myself in this constant catch-22, I need money so i can work on Oculus, but in order to get money I can't work on Oculus. It's fairly ridiculous considering I only got a room so I'd be able to focus on this project. Oh well, no use harping on it. I only have 17 days left but they're all mine; I can shut off my phone and not answer email 'cause my only obligation is to myself.

Speaking of which, I'm off Facebook. My whole feed was just black people dying day after day and the numerous discussions about that and I just couldn't deal. Sorry to miss all the great stuff in the Launch Pad group but sanity is important.

Part II : Here and Now

Rather than spinning my wheels in an anxious fury, as I am wont to do, I'm just going through each day slowly and methodically. I have a concept, and if it were just about execution I wouldn't be stressed. Manual labor takes time, but it's easy to calculate and make adjustments. Mental labor, learning, thinking that stuff is what really slows the process down and I still have much to learn.

So now what I'm doing is dedicating a full day to each lesson, I spend the first half watching tutorials and learning a process, and the second half executing what I learned.

Monday was level design and setting up a scene. I looked at some techniques for building the kind of atmosphere I wanted, collected some reference images, did some sketches, then collected 3D models that would serve as good visual placeholders.

I played around with PixelSquid in Photoshop which is a neat little bit of software that allows you to work with flat 3D images. Which is to say, it's a flat image, but it can be rotated to every angle. I'm guessing they're using some kind of photogrammetry but maybe not. It's cool, I think it's particularly useful for concept art and I'm thinking it will be a way for me to basically set up a digital still life that I can trace over or reference when I'm making my own assets.

Oh, and I also got my video in the scene and built to the Gear - last time I was having trouble getting video to work on Android - problem solved.

Tuesday was texturing 3D models. I had tried this before but didn't really understand the concept, or why the pig I painted in Maya turned out all weird and streaky. Now I have a better understanding of all my options, but I'm a little behind (as in, I don't have a completely textured model) so I'll be painting a model as soon as I'm done with this post.

I also learned more about shaders and what my options are going to be. Not totally sure how I'm going to handle this limitation, but it's super important to at be aware of as I start making my own textures.

Wednesday (that's today!) I've got to learn to rig a model.

and Thursday I'm scheduled to learn to animate that rig. That's about as far ahead of myself as I'm willing to get. And of course while I'm occupied learning, my mind is continuing to work on the concept and figure out how to scale it based on time constraints.

I'll keep posting here regularly to let folks know how it goes. I'll add photo and video as it makes sense. I don't want to take too much time from actually making the project to document the process -- but I know walls of text are no fun.

Aquma4Livez · ‎08-12-2016

Nice to read this update. Sorry to hear about your family becoming homeless.

I think it's admirable how you're focusing on the process!

Keep going, Aliah, you can do it!

I feel you on the whole exhausting 12 hour teaching days though! And needing that money to afford to work on this project but then not having time or energy. I taught kids and watched all of July fly by without being able to touch the Launch Pad project. But here we are, so let's go!

prettydarke · ‎08-16-2016

Wha, what day is it? Welp I went in a hole for a week and this is what I came out with.

https://vimeo.com/179149289

I have to say, I wanted every day of the launchpad sesh to be like this week, but I'm still super grateful to get this kind of time to myself. It's so nice to dive in, focus and learn, and it really is a luxury that few people have.

Since we only had a couple of weeks and change left to apply, I decided to devote one week to learning a lot of the technical skills I didn't have and using the second week to build a decent demo based on what I'd learned. No idea what's happening this week, but last week I felt pretty kickass.*

*save for the crippling anxiety about how behind I am and yada yada

I pretty much followed a schedule, every day working on a new aspect of 3D asset creation. I hit a snag on Thursday when my rig broke and i had no idea why. Then I built a new one that had even worse problems. It was very suck - but I did learn about weight painting, what to do when rando vertices are giving you trouble, aaaand how to rig a quadraped with inverse kinematics. Stressful at times, but super fun.

Oh, and UV mapping which I only learned enough about to realize it's a real pain. Painting textures was neat, even though I ended up liking the aesthetic of using photo textures. It's something I picked up for a game I made called "I'm So Glad You Came" - I like to use super enlarged photos of relevant imagery to paint my drawings. In this case, the pig is textured with a distorted image of pig intestines. It's gross and I love it. I also like the aesthetic with a low poly model, as it kind of feels like origami.

So this week I'll be focusing less on learning and more on building out an experience. I've got some asset creation to do and some coding, plus I've got to take a break to apply to an art residency...so it's not gonna be pretty, but, eh, I'll sleep in September.

Y'know, for all the stress, doubt and hardship I dealt with, I've already gained so much from this experience. I didn't know anything about VR a few months ago, had never made a 3D game, had no clue about modeling, using Maya, Blender, had no concept of the workflow much less thought I'd be able to do it all myself. It's really...exciting 🙂

Alright, I'm still here, I'm still going. But right now I'm going to collapse in an heap on the bed.....ZZzzzzz

prettydarke · ‎08-23-2016

Wow, I don't even know where to start. This week has been a crazy whirlwind of excitement. I don't really know how to capture the madness but here goes.

Since last week...

I went from artist/coder/modeler/etc to Producer
I managed to put together my dream team of artists and indie developers.
My lead programmer is an award winning game dev flying in from Canada - aaaand he missed his flight so I've had to deal with that most of the day. Whatever, solving problems is my job.
My lead artist has already been working on another VR project for over a year - it's kinda poorly managed though - and in all honesty its been a useful model for me as far as what *not* to do as producer. Anyway, they've also worked with Richard Hoffmeier (of Cart Life, indie game that totally swept the IGF awards a few years back). I guess I actually introduced them and facilitated that pairing so, yeah, being loud and friendly is finally seeming like a useful skill.
My modeler and sound designer is also a programmer who worked for NASA - and currently has a standing offer to work for them whenever - more on how I'm actually competing with NASA for an employee holy crap - He just got admitted to Carnegie Mellon and is actually an ace game developer and artist. I'm just having him do models because he can and it'll be a nice change up for him.

Honestly, this is me right now y'all

Oh, and then there's me

Has dabbled in everything but not an expert
Won a couple of awards for games
Excellent problem solver and people wrangler
Persuasive as all hell
And most importantly? Persistent, full of integrity, sees the potential in people and treats relationships as the most valuable resource.
sorry, it's been a big week for me I'm kinda prideful. Oh yeah, and I'm the animator.

What am I gonna do with all this?
We're gonna make a game in two days. Maybe two and a half.

I've done so many game jams.
I've worked with all of these people.
I was prepping them and priming them and persuading them for months, setting them up with my visions for the future if I got Oculus funding. I didn't have a team sooner because the time wasn't right, there were conflicting commitments. But one person opened up, I saw an opportunity and I took it. Then I made it happen 2 more times. And now I have the very team I wanted for if I got funding in the first place, and a stellar opportunity to test out my production skills and preview how the work will go 😄

I have been sooo down on myself during the launch pad. I know that I've had real difficulties due to external forces, but I always feel like I should be able to pull magic out of thin air. I was embarrassed week after week feeling like I let myself down. But I kept showing up, and kept talking about my process. Honestly I'm sorta self-conscious about it, how open I am about my thoughts and process. It feels like it's not the "right" or "expected" way to do things.

But then I thought about it...part of the point of this Launch Pad is to give voice and opportunity to folks who otherwise wouldn't have it. Maybe those folks who don't fit a mold or don't do things the expected way. And that's me 100%. So I'm going to take advantage of this opportunity and keep going and someone pull a magical demo out of thin air. Or out of Canada, Pittsburg and Westwood, as it were.

Oh yeah, I haven't even talked about the project. Screenshots and deets to come. But first let me sort out my programmer's new plane ticket 🙂

By the way, I've already come to a valuable conclusion: As a producer my job is to solve problems, but the most important problem to solve, constantly, is how to keep your team happy as fuck. That's how I look at every issue that's come up so far. And it's why I'm able to grab top people from their rad lives and spin them up into the rad vortex that is my life. I'm so stoked, this is my wheelhouse.

prettydarke · ‎08-26-2016

Yesterday my lead programmer said it sounded to him like I had a strong case of Imposter Syndrome. To which I said "I don't have Imposter Syndrome because I'm an imposter!"

Acknowledging the absurdity of what I'd just said didn't make it feel any less true. I was reminded of this painfully accurate image.

I feel bad for how over-confident I was in the last post. I feel weird acknowledging that I did this thing, pulled these people together, made something happen. I feel weird being proud of that. I'm the producer and the director and I pretty much describe that as a job that's mostly naps and telling people what to do. But I went to bed at 5 this morning and I'm up at 8 writing this post. After the rest of the team went to sleep I did some 3D models and rescoped their jobs so they'd work more efficiently this AM.

I did do a thing. I made magic happen. I am useful and competent and I know what I'm doing. This is what I've wanted for so long but I've never had the opportunity, never had the path laid out for me. Even if I fail massively, I took actions to create this opportunity for myself, and that's something.

Ugh, soft skills are the worst. So much harder to objectively measure your competence or communicate it to others. So much harder not to shrug off achievements as a series of fortunate events; time and time again...I just got lucky.

Dang. Well that's about as much crippling self-doubt as I've got time for. I got shit to do.

prettydarke · ‎08-26-2016

Long term plan is to create a VR, Games and iNteractivity studio (VRGN) that focuses on creating delightful, creative, nuanced experiences. There's no good way to talk about this without sounding vague or like an ass (or at least not on 3 hours of sleep). I basically want to create the Pixar of VR Games. That's the long game. That's the lofty goal.

Medium term - over the next couple of years. If I have funding (not Oculus funding but like, hey release this Launch Pad game and it generates some funds) the plan is to use the team I have put together to create a series of VR Games based on idioms, e.g. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," etc. Each game in the idiom series is a formal exploration of what it means to interact in a VR environment, to find its natural language.

I'm particularly committed to the Gear because I like my work to be accessible. The fact that the Gear is only a hundred bucks and you can use it with a smart phone means it'll have a far economic reach. Even broke folks can get smartphones since they are subsidized with calling plans etc. That makes me happy. I also just think it's smart from an economic standpoint.

I have also spent a lot of time thinking about how I want to run this studio, how to attract Unicorns and how to maximize their productivity and happiness. This is what I identified as important.

The Team. It must be small and consist entirely of unicorns. Everyone has to be able to do everything or be the kind of person who could figure out how to do every other aspect of the project should the other's fall into the sea. A team of unicorns is both rich in creativity while being economically efficient. That's helpful with the next bit.
Be Inflexible with Deadlines. Personally, for the Idiom series no project will take longer than 6 months of development. That is a hard limit. Part of my job is to constantly re-scope the experience to meet that deadline. Short deadlines are great and perhaps necessary with super talented people, who can easily spend far too much time nitpicking and refining to meet their often unreasonably high personal standards. Those same compulsive standards make it so they *can't* make things that are bad, so if you tell them they have a month, a week, two days (heh), they can't help but figure out how to make something good in the time they've got. Extending deadlines is pointless and maybe even a detriment.
Be Flexible with Everything Else. You've got unicorns and a deadline, that's what matters. Make them happy. You've got someone who can do twice as much work in half the time just based on raw talent? Pay them double and give them the rest of the day/week off. They're efficient so it's still a bargain for you and you've managed to give them something priceless; Free Time. One of your unicorns is across the country just starting grad school? Honor that experience, fly your whole team out to meet them when you have to work in the same room. Understand people's value and never try to pretend they are less than irreplaceable. Just the effort goes a long way in building morale and long term rapport. You have a damn unicorn, treat them like one. It's not even difficult, it just requires investment in the whole person rather than a skillset.

So the Idiom Series - We had one meeting and came up with four pretty solid game experiences right off the bat, and they are...

Kid in a Candy Store - this is what we're building for Launch Pad and it is basically inspired by every episode of Rugrats. You play as a kid going grocery shopping with your oblivious folks. To keep you entertained on this mundane excursion, they've loaded you up with some toys which you will use for mayhem, as you are wont to do. Their goal is to shop, your goal is to grab things off the shopping list while also sneaking better stuff into the cart, maximizing the trip by getting as much candy and goodies as possible before you leave the store. Explores narrative justification for non-self-guided movement.
Bull in a China Shop / Elephant in the Room - I super love this one because it will create this awesome tension for the player pivoting around a fixed point. You are a massive mammal with horns and tail (or ears and trunk!) trying so desperately to listen to your handler and slowly, slooooowly now, turn around and get outta dodge without destroying absolutely everything. Oh that poor shopkeeper! And yes, it is a two-pack. Because it's the same darn game and I love taking the idioms literally and just having a button that swaps between being the bull in the china shop or the elephant in the room. It's such a simple concept and gonna be so fun to balance just right.
Backseat Driver - our lead programmer is crazy stoked on this one. I mean he's lead programmer but he's also is all about designing mechanics - Unicorns, I'm telling ya, get you some - so of course. This one explores collaborative and communicative play using just one Gear. Same approach as Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. We'd also like to explore options for commuicating with the Gear using your mobile device. Again, the programmer is excited, which is good 'cause I don't know the first thing about how we'd do that 😄 However I'm super good at social games and IRL communication mechanics 🙂
Okay, this is like the "We've released some great experiences and we've got a following and a sense of humor and what can we get away with?" project - A Fool and His Money are Soon Parted. I want to tell you about this SO BAD, but it's SO GOOD, and no, not just a money-making, ego-stroking bit of Ironic Humor...it's actually got a great...arggh can I has funding yet because honestly we got this.

Short Term - oh god super short term the deadline is tomorrow oh god. Working on KiaCS and I'm just gonna dump a bunch of images and things periodically into this post. We've already got a demo running that we've shared with folks and even in its bare bones state it's like....oh it's so fun! But....I've been writing for a bit and my team is starting to wake up so I'm just gonna show a little teaser vid of your main implement for grabbing stuff into your shopping cart - Behold the Sticky Hand! 😄

https://vimeo.com/180262883

prettydarke · ‎08-27-2016

prettydarke · ‎08-27-2016

A layout sketch I did and rough concept for storefront with a nod to the next game in this series, Bull in a China Shop.