08-08-2017 05:03 PM
08-13-2017 05:58 PM
08-13-2017 06:07 PM
Crab King VR - Week 8
This week was pretty hectic, as I just got back to the US on Monday. I decided that this week I was going to learn to make cutscenes, and that’s exactly what I did.
I made a new scene called Intro, and started work on the cutscene. I had updated my Unity build to 2017.1, which enabled me to use the Timeline functionality (after watching a few tutorials). I started off by copying the Main scene so that I had an environment and a crab model. Then I used Timeline to make a movement animation of the crab approaching the user/camera. It’s a simple 2 keyframe animation that just moves the crab in a line while also animating the “forward walk” in a loop.
After that I downloaded the Speech Bubble Manager asset from the Asset Store, and set it up in my project. After a few minutes of setup, I added anchor points for the dialogue, and set up the manager to display the cutscene dialogue. Writing the dialogue was one of the hardest things I did this week. I got so used to coding that when it came time to use my “softer” skills, it took me a minute.
Finishing my first cutscene (even though it was very simple) really increased my confidence in my Unity skills, which is always good. Next week I hope to add the ability to skip the cutscene that I worked so hard to finish, and an Epilogue scene for when the user wins the game.
08-13-2017 06:27 PM
08-13-2017 06:30 PM
This week I worked on building additional assets for the
Start Screen. I created a tree and three different mountain meshes in Blender.
I also added color to the train and placed it with train tracks in the
StartScreen. The StartScreen is going to be the main hub for our game and I
want it to look like a train depot and set the mood for the game. We still need
to wire up the gameplay for the StartScreen, so hopefully we can finish that
next week.
In the meantime, we’ve been polishing our art assets. We
increased the variety in our passengers, and provided more accessories for them
to give a lively feel. We also spent the week retargeting our animations and
improving their general feel. Each animation feels livelier and varied. Our
passengers have different behaviors and ticks that give them a feeling of
distinctiveness that we didn’t feel was quite as polished before.
Overall, I still feel like there is a lot left to do before
submitting the demo and I’m feeling overwhelmed. The ‘Office Hours’ meeting on
Friday was helpful but also made me stress out about what’s left to do. I’m
looking forward to the next video call that discusses submission. Knowing what
is necessary for demo submission will be a big stress relief so I know what to
focus on in these final weeks.
08-13-2017 06:49 PM
08-13-2017 06:53 PM
Our concept artist, Tony, whipped up some really cool concept art and 2D animations for our game this week. We hope you like it 🙂 (viewable on the original blogpost on the webpage http://conjurestrike.com/2017/08/14/feature-complete/)
This week I worked on the final networking pieces to have a complete game. We created a menu interface that allows users to select their team as well as their class. In addition we added a debug mode so that it's easier to test the prototype. Finally we made the disconnect and crash logic a lot more robust. Before, if a player logged off or disconnected mid game, the game would break. Now our game gracefully handles disconnection.
The end of the week brings the completion of our core feature list. We now have a fully functioning team based multiplayer game with different classes and abilities. However, the final month of the program is definitely going to be the most challenging so far, as there is definitely a ton of polish we want to get in, including a First Time User Experience, audio, bug fixing, VFX, and a cohesive feel for the level. Below you can see the current work in progress of the blue team's main base.
This week I also had a great time meeting up with 10 or so Launchpadders in the bay area. We got to try out each other's apps, catch up, as well as just have a great time in general. We are definitely looking forward to the next one!
That's it. See you all next week 🙂
08-13-2017 06:57 PM
08-13-2017 06:57 PM
08-13-2017 07:26 PM
Everything is in!
Environment, character, animation, sound. All of it. Now for some solid
testing.
The biggest
obstacle/ challenge I keep coming across with this project is "how do I
make this feel real?" Honestly, in my completely biased opinion, this is a
first good pass. Not perfect, but certainly good.
I'm starting to run
this in front of some folks that I trust. This is great for three things:
Another big thing
that we've noticed is that the voice-to-text service that we're currently using
isn't the best. Lots of bad translations there. We're on Unity 5.6 now, and
there are some limitations because of the .NET version. Unity 2017 opens this
up a lot more, so we're going to explore that next week and hopefully improve
our success ratio there.
Other than that,
it's more and more testing!!
08-13-2017 07:44 PM