This week has been nerve-racking! I am going on a pre-planned vacation for the next 3 or so weeks starting on the 18th and I'm making sure to get everything done that my Unreal Dev/Tech Artist needs in order for her to work on some gameplay dynamics while I'm gone. Of course, the vacation won't be without work for Stay Hydrated - I'm going to the desert! I'll be collecting images for photogrammetry processing and for material creation while I'm out there and hopefully I won't find myself in a survival situation with a broken down car searching for water in the desert - lol!
Anyways, here's some screenshots of the latest assets, the pocket knife, which will be used for cutting prickly pear fruits in the Mojave Map (and different plants in the other map locations), which can be eaten for a small hydration boost, and the spade/trowel, which will be used to dig up wet dirt patches to get at water underneath the ground!
Anyways, here's some screenshots of the latest assets, the pocket knife, which will be used for cutting prickly pear fruits in the Mojave Map (and different plants in the other map locations), which can be eaten for a small hydration boost, and the spade/trowel, which will be used to dig up wet dirt patches to get at water underneath the ground!
I spent most of this week working on the mid point check in document. Figuring out budgeting and everything was a bit anxious, but I’m glad to get the chance for feedback on it. I tried not to wordsmith anything too much and just described the project based on what feels important to describe from my perspective. After having people look at it with fresh eyes, I can really edit it and make sure my pitch is as polished as possible for the final submission. I don’t normally do a lot of concept art, but I worked on one for the check-in document to kind of capture the feel I’m going for. I think it actually was really helpful in thinking about my palette and lighting for the final piece. I seem to be heading for a lot of blues and pinks, which I like but might drift away too much from the boring aesthetic I was going for.
I also worked on getting a level footprint up and running. I decided to make use of some asset store models, particularly the HQ PBR Retro Office assets. Since my experience uses a lot of office models, I don’t want to spend a lot of time re-inventing the wheel while modelling chairs, desks, etc. I’d rather save my finite time for the really important assets that sell the space, and modify existing assets as needed. I’m currently working on building out some rough scenes using the assets, and incorporating the game systems. This week in particular, I messed around with lighting the new environments. If I can add more futuristic elements to the scene I think I have a workable aesthetic, but I will probably have to tweak some of the textures to be more cohesive.
6th week
081318 - This week’s Goals:
- [ ] !!Still working on the mechanics: navigation and testing on GO!!
- Working on environment and elements
- Working on the art!!! Trying to KEEP simple Also investigate Vector
- Complete setting up website/blog
- [ ] MoCap on hold for final project/ have to wait until funding comes thru
- Finalize work on midPt-submission
This week has been a FANTABULOUS week for conceptualizing. I am so excited about the premise behind the project which is all coming together to make a dynamic impact. Interesting that each morning I wake up w/inspirational ideas and solutions. A lot of stuff is still in my head though as I am working vigorously to keep up with the flow of ideas. I wish I could clone myself 2 times to keep up with the universe talking to me. My journal is full of great ideas.
Had a Unity-messed up week. The compiling errors are slowing me down. Since I am doing 90% of the work, getting stuff to cooperate in Unity is a whole other story. The plan was to include a run through or at least a video of the environment. Compiling issues prevented that from happening this week.
Continued work on the mechanics. Speakers went on the blink and can’t get mechanics working correctly. SOOOOO many compile errors and spending too much time sorting them out. Really need a Unity coder teammate. I could have so much more work done. But I am proud of what I did achieve.
Scaling back the project using sketches and words, placeholder images for backgrounds. For elements I’ll use basic spheres and cubes for layout, just as placeholders until I can model or buy assets.
Giving some thought about where I can do presentations. I actually connected with someone last week who showed interest in helping me out with finding venues.
Next week’s Goals:
pretty much same as last week since I lost time this week
- [ ] Make up for lost time: build build build
- [ ] Working on environment and layout elements: Need to make adjustment on the model in Maya
- [ ] Work: lighting, textures
- [ ] !!Still refining the mechanics: navigation and testing on GO!!
- [ ] Working on the art!!! KEEP simple Also investigate Vector
- [ ] Begin working w/Unity dev for FX w/shaders for character and objects
- [ ] Get ready for testing in 2 weeks
081318 - This week’s Goals:
- [ ] !!Still working on the mechanics: navigation and testing on GO!!
-
-
-
- [ ] MoCap on hold for final project/ have to wait until funding comes thru
-
- Complete setting up website/blog
This week I focused on the midPt-submission and administrative work. The Document for MidPoint Check is completed and submitted. The project’s website is up and posted. And completed working on the screenplay/ developer’s brief to layout the environment’s interactivity (waypoints and triggers), elements and flow dynamics.
Continued work on the mechanics. Speakers went on the blink and can’t get mechanics working correctly. SOOOOO many compile errors and spending too much time sorting them out. Really need a Unity coder teammate. I could have so much more work done. But I am proud of what I did achieve.
Finalized the character textures and movements. With MotionCapture on hold, I had decided to experiment with Fuse, Maya and Mixamo to create a placeholder character. Pretty happy with her. Experimenting with textures now. Will begin work with developer next week on FX and shaders.
Scaling back the project using sketches and words, placeholder images for backgrounds. For elements I’ll use basic spheres and cubes for layout, just as placeholders until I can model or buy assets.
Giving some thought about where I can do presentations. I actually connected with someone last week who showed interest in helping me out with finding venues.
Next week’s Goals:
pretty much same as last week since I lost time this week
- [ ] Make up for lost time: build build build
- [ ] Working on environment and layout elements: Need to make adjustment on the model in Maya
- [ ] Work: lighting, textures
- [ ] !!Still refining the mechanics: navigation and testing on GO!!
- [ ] Working on the art!!! KEEP simple Also investigate Vector
- [ ] Begin working w/Unity dev for FX w/shaders for character and objects
- [ ] Get ready for testing in 2 weeks
This week we worked on our logo for the game, and set up a twitter account for it, which we will use as our dev blog. I also was playing with the game mechanics in the cave level. I did a day of tweaking trying to make it fun, I let my brother try and he seems to get slaughtered but he was laughing a lot, so I'll have to bring in some more people to test. I worked on the cave level almost all week, I had to backup a harddrive so I did some more sketches for haunting trap ideas. We came up with a couple of ideas for secondary attacks for the cave enemies that I will try to implement. We also started working on the living realm, tonight I was working on the poltergeist mechanics for the player pawn. I got it working, but there are some bugs, and my outline material doesn't want to compile the shaders.
After the talk on Friday I also made some "ghost hands" and messed with some meshes to try and emulate liquid for the goo and life goo when you kill an enemy. I also made it so you can holster your gun. It takes about 3-5 minutes to collect enough goo to open the portals to the living realm. There's still a few things that need to be cleaned up bug wise in this level, but I thought I better start working on the living realm, as we want that to be a major part of our game. My brother has been busy modeling the environment for the house, and I just started coding it today. I had to reinstall my oculus software because it wouldn't open, but I got it repaired and I'm back in business.
I got to work on the game most of the week but there were a couple days I had to devote to other projects, but overall I'm happy with the progress we made this week. The game seems like a lot of fun to play in the cave level, so I just have to do the same with the house. We watched some more movies to get ideas for haunting traps (evil dead 2, the exorcist). I'll try to start posting daily on twitter though to document our progress on Ghosted.
Thoughts On Multiplayer Gameplay
Our lives persist beyond our presence. Honoring this, players of I’m Trying To Laugh At This make a lasting impact on the game. This simulation begins with nothing and ends with nothing, so they cannot leave behind an object. What they leave behind is their data.
Solving the multiplayer problem of concurrency and crystalizing each player’s lasting impression on the game as the choices they made, persistent player data enables players to respond to other players who may or may not be there at that time. These recordings could be curated, remixed, and dispatched to conduct insightful interactions.
As in a dream, players experience stretches of solitude with glimpses of communal action in the broader gameworld. Multiplayer informs but does not rule this gameworld. How much or far players perceive is a product of their choices; each experience is tailored by a slightly mysterious algorithm.
Audience
I want to attract gamers and high school students (who are playing on a school headset rather than a personal one). My students loved Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades, which is a Steam bestseller. I’m considering how I’m Trying To Laugh At This might appeal to gamers and enrich an educational context,
Aesthetic
To underscore mutability, I want all the forms in the game to feel somewhat fluid.
Art
I illustrated an early attempt at a walkthrough. I know visuals are important, but making them usually feels like a waste of time, like I’m just rendering in a static way what I already know I want to code. But this time, I tried to use photoshop as a way to prototype how graphics could function for the gameplay. And I thought the experience was more useful than usual.
Graphics
I tried to make a storm of particles and got a bit slowed down. I still need to learn to procedurally render shapes. Moving the shapes in a stormy fashion is a second task. A third task is guiding the movement with verts from an animated mesh. I am partially progressed on all three fronts, but with nothing to show.
Procedural vs Linear
I’ve done more work with Unity Timeline, and am considering how to balance procedural combat with linear narrative in Timeline.
WEEK 6 (8/6-8/13)
Production
Building models for Cubic Tunnel
Kelp models for Aqua Jungle
Loxa animation for SC03 SH02
Quama animation blocking for SC03 SH02
Model + texture for Mr. Gloomy
Turnaround for Rainylands buildings
This week, our team continued focusing on the artwork for our project. For concept art, Chana continued working on the environment design for SC04 Rainylands. Based on the previous environment art, she worked on the turnarounds for individual buildings so we can start modeling our last scene. For animation, Haley completed blocking out the base animations for SC03 SH02 for Quama and completed the animations for Loxa from last week. Our modeler, Laura, continued working on the building models for SC02 Cubic Tunnels and completed all the models for the Waterside, Garden, and Fish World. Megan also worked on kelp models that will be placed in SC03 Aqua Jungle. I modeled and textured Mr. Gloomy based on Chana’s concepts from a couple weeks ago.
For next week, I will be mainly focusing on the engineering and layout out the environments so we can start testing our game. We are still working on the interaction mechanics and will start on the puzzle mechanics as soon as we finish the interactions.
That is all for this week and these are some art from this week:
Over the course of this week we iterated a few times and as a result, I decided to not use locomotion as of now to make sure the experience is comfortable for everyone. In the future, it will have an option to select a locomotion type, but for now, to keep it simple, the focus will be on the main mechanics first. I as well worked on the proposal document, talked to people I’d like to work with to ensure I will have a team for everything I listed in the document. I made a roadmap and drafted different plans.
Here are the dogs I made. I made a few changes to make sure the seams are all smooth and the movements don’t cause bends in weird places. Only one dog is rigged and animated for now, as well as it only has few animations. For the LaunchPad prototype, we decided to use the dogs from the assets to save the time and money, as I mentioned in my previous blog but keeping in mind the style and future developments and enhancements such as new custom characters and environments. The overall style is still to be tested.
Here are the dogs I made. I made a few changes to make sure the seams are all smooth and the movements don’t cause bends in weird places. Only one dog is rigged and animated for now, as well as it only has few animations. For the LaunchPad prototype, we decided to use the dogs from the assets to save the time and money, as I mentioned in my previous blog but keeping in mind the style and future developments and enhancements such as new custom characters and environments. The overall style is still to be tested.
Devblog #6
Project Title: Kitten Justice: Legal Claws
Type: VR Game
Genre: Comedy/Sci-Fi
Working on the prototype.
Continued to work on concept design kittens.
Midpoint Check-In document preparation.
On this week I spent a lot of time working on the mid point check. One is difficult part was for me the budget, to decide how much money will be spent on certain development. I’m glad to get the chance for feedback on it. I’ve tried to describe the basic of the project, what’s important for now. Looking forward to get feedback about pitch dock, so I can edit and polish everything to the final submission.
Next week goals:
Buy a domen and start making a website
Make a logo
Start modeling environment
Delegate part of work
I'll try to start posting daily on Twitter and Instagram to tracking the progress of the project.
I’m starting to really feel the pressure of lack of time