Kathryn Hicks
Project Title: Tall Tales of the Aerona Temple
Type: 360° 3D Animated Film
Logline: A member of the royal Sasquatch family stumbles upon an ancient evil that threatens the prosperity of his homeland.
Characters: Zannis (Sasquatch) & Kaga (shadow demon)
Oculus Launch Pad Blog Post Week 10
As our production deadline approaches, my team is working fervently to complete our animation. We anticipate that production will conclude toward the end of this week. At times, this process feels as if it were a wild race to the finish line! To reach that goal, my texture artist has performed additional environment tests while completing statues for us as well.
Loch Ness statue first round textures by Kane Liu, Model by Soroor Golrang
Chupacabra statue by Jonathan Gilboa
Edge Texture Test by Kane Liu - This test explores the effects of rough brush strokes on the edge of the object - for quality purposes in 3D. This technique will be applied to more elements in the environment. In Unreal, we will make the edges follow the camera, so the view will stay the same.
Once the first layer of textures is applied, we will add more painterly elements to them.
Next Week
I plan to have animation completed, all assets finished, and textures finalized.
NOODLES - Kim Nguyen - Week 10 (and some update from week 9)
It's scary that the idea of me not being able to get the demo done on time keep popping up in my head every 5 seconds...
I was sick for the last 2 weeks and missed Week 09 update post. Whenever I feel conscious enough I'd put on the headset and draw.
I'm still working in the computer lad at school since there was a mistake on the new PC I ordered so I had to return it. They said I won't get it back for another month...
None of the developper/programmer I contacted get back to me so it's still a one-'woman'-band right now...
Anyway, enough complaining. I'm very close to finishing the second scene and I think it looks good enough for the demo. Here's a quick look:
I know I'm super behind schedule but I have to keep fighting!!!
Next week tasks:
- Recording temp tracks
- Putting everything I have so far into Unreal and hope for the best!
It's scary that the idea of me not being able to get the demo done on time keep popping up in my head every 5 seconds...
I was sick for the last 2 weeks and missed Week 09 update post. Whenever I feel conscious enough I'd put on the headset and draw.
I'm still working in the computer lad at school since there was a mistake on the new PC I ordered so I had to return it. They said I won't get it back for another month...
None of the developper/programmer I contacted get back to me so it's still a one-'woman'-band right now...
Anyway, enough complaining. I'm very close to finishing the second scene and I think it looks good enough for the demo. Here's a quick look:
I know I'm super behind schedule but I have to keep fighting!!!
Next week tasks:
- Recording temp tracks
- Putting everything I have so far into Unreal and hope for the best!
Entering The Multiverse
Let me start by saying there is still much work to do on Museum Multiverse, but it is coming along. This week the team has been working on post processing effects in order to create a cinematic warping effect when entering paintings in the museum. Unity has an awesome new system for post processing effects but they are not compatible with Android. Our solution is to work with legacy image effects in order to make the scene look great on the Gear VR.
I have also been working on the notion of incorporating 2D gameplay into VR. I have created a pretty good proof of concept and have now added that portion into the game. I want Museum Multiverse to be a departure from the normal VR experience on the Gear VR store and I think this section will be a refreshingly fun experience for players.
We also added a new member to our ranks of Museum Multiverse, Mikei Huang, a talented VR and Visual Designer. His work portfolio includes cool VR projects like Kuru Kuru Sushi VR and Back Seat Baby. He has been working with me on the cover art and creating visual consistency in Museum Multiverse. I am very happy to have such a talented member of the New York City gaming community on my team.
We also completed the models of the main character(s) for the game. Up to this point we have been using a simple cubed character as placeholder for most of development but it will be good to finally switch him for the main character. We will miss Mr. Cubes but we are happy to have our character so close to being finalized. The Character Modeler and Animator, Ethan, is a talented artist with works in many visually stunning titles. Checkout his twitch channel where he works on projects live and his amazing GDC talk on low ploy development. We're excited to have his work in Museum Multiverse.
Our next steps on the roadmap are to connect all scenes scene together and playtest playtest, playtest – and then more playtesting. The more we learn about how players organically behave in our game the better Museum Multiverse will be. One of our goals in playtesting is discovering what players enjoy as well as what they don't understand. We hope to incorporate these findings before the September 9th due date.
Until Next time...
Maria Mishurenko — Awere
This week was amazing, we had major breakthrough with the visuals. Also, logo and part of the brand style ready (had to remember my design past and draw a "fontface" for Awere from scratch).
Did some optimizations on graphics, but it happened that our graphics are pretty cheap, so we still have room for some particles.
We had 2 playtestings and were devastated with feedback at first. But actually, if you put away your artist ego and listen to the testers, it will improve the app tremendously! We created a list of changes in interaction and for now very happy with it. But it's not for long, as we are having 2 more playtestings, one of them in the VR company, so we could get a good peer critic.
We bought oculus rift this week to speed up the dev process and it's really handy! Will think about redesigning Awere for Oculus later.
We also managed to record the voice over in amazing recording studio (called Submarine), The guy who owns the studio, is a big fan of breathing exercises, so we got a good discount!
I was amazed how our producer and breathing coach Hannes was able to record his voice like a pro. We ditched voice actors this time, because breathing guidance has to be performed by the trained professional.
We already done with minimal plan and the app is optimized and ready, so we'll spend last 2 weeks reiterating after the playtestings, polishing music and graphic design and adding small graphic improvements. And putting together a good proposal, of course!
I have another crazy idea for the app: try ARkit to capture mixed reality footage and show the user what happens withe the body while playing. But not sure if we can do it before the deadline. will see.
This week was amazing, we had major breakthrough with the visuals. Also, logo and part of the brand style ready (had to remember my design past and draw a "fontface" for Awere from scratch).
Did some optimizations on graphics, but it happened that our graphics are pretty cheap, so we still have room for some particles.
We had 2 playtestings and were devastated with feedback at first. But actually, if you put away your artist ego and listen to the testers, it will improve the app tremendously! We created a list of changes in interaction and for now very happy with it. But it's not for long, as we are having 2 more playtestings, one of them in the VR company, so we could get a good peer critic.
We bought oculus rift this week to speed up the dev process and it's really handy! Will think about redesigning Awere for Oculus later.
We also managed to record the voice over in amazing recording studio (called Submarine), The guy who owns the studio, is a big fan of breathing exercises, so we got a good discount!
I was amazed how our producer and breathing coach Hannes was able to record his voice like a pro. We ditched voice actors this time, because breathing guidance has to be performed by the trained professional.
We already done with minimal plan and the app is optimized and ready, so we'll spend last 2 weeks reiterating after the playtestings, polishing music and graphic design and adding small graphic improvements. And putting together a good proposal, of course!
I have another crazy idea for the app: try ARkit to capture mixed reality footage and show the user what happens withe the body while playing. But not sure if we can do it before the deadline. will see.