Friday 10 September 2010
Thursday 29 April 2010
Monday 26 April 2010
Mudbox: Attempt II:
Well today certainly has been a good day. I've been attempting to get the hang of Mudbox for the past couple of weeks. I was getting a little frustrated with it as nothing that I did looked like I wanted to - it looked like an attempt at something that could be what I wanted it to be -if that makes sense. However, today I had a sit down at attempting to create the head of the earlier black and white painted character. I'd already started, and what I was working with was this:
And after the past 5 hours I have miraculously turned it into what I basically head in my mind:
I am particularly pleased with the face, the hair however, needs work. I was unsure of how to sculpt it so just did some basics, and will finish it once I've had a look at some videos. The mesh is awful, but apparently I can import it into Z-brush and create a mesh? I shall see if this is true. Otherwise this was a bit of practice with mudbox.
***EDIT***
I removed the hair because it was distracting from the point of sculpt, which is the face.
And after the past 5 hours I have miraculously turned it into what I basically head in my mind:
I am particularly pleased with the face, the hair however, needs work. I was unsure of how to sculpt it so just did some basics, and will finish it once I've had a look at some videos. The mesh is awful, but apparently I can import it into Z-brush and create a mesh? I shall see if this is true. Otherwise this was a bit of practice with mudbox.
***EDIT***
I removed the hair because it was distracting from the point of sculpt, which is the face.
Friday 23 April 2010
Sunday 18 April 2010
Dare to be Digital:
(Post taken from team member Ceri Rogers.)
We got our application results back from Dare today, and sadly we didn't get in. They did have record numbers of applicants this year however, so the competition was really tight. The following is what I could find of the proposal that we sent as we don't have a copy of the original form that was filled out on the web site...
Game Name: No Time For Nuts
Team Name: BigBox Games
Game Genre: Action/Platformer
Target Platform: PC and Xbox LIVE
Game Description (100wds)
Reduced to a mere handful and facing extinction at the hands of the Greys, the last of the Red squirrels resorted to something neither man nor beast should ever do. They built a time machine. The resulting chaos tore the universe asunder, and the only way to fix it is for Reds and Greys to work together...
A unique experiment in single player gaming see’s one player controlling two characters at once as they scamper and blast their way across two parallel dimensions in a race to repair the damage before it’s too late. There’s no time for nuts! Uh-oh!
Demographic
No Time For Nuts is a game that is meant to appeal to a wide demographic, aged between 18-35 of no specific gender. It caters to the kind of player that loves to 'discover' and download independent games from services such as Xbox Live Arcade and Steam. They enjoy simple yet innovative gameplay and would play titles such as Castle Crashers, Worms,The Maw, Kuri Kuri Mix, Pikmin, Overlord and World Of Goo, attracted to the fun/cool characters and colourful environments.
Our key demographic would have a good sense of humor, reflected in their choice of viewing, loving T.V. shows such as Samurai Jack, Ren and Stimpy and Spongebob.
We are aiming to attract the type of consumer who would rather download on demand as opposed to purchasing from a shop. They are very Internet savvy and invest in both their PC and home console. They love videogame culture choosing to purchase magazines like Edge and Retro gamer and rarely go to the cinema, enjoying the convenience of downloading from home entertainment services. When they do, it would be for the experience of viewing a film in 3D such as Avatar or Alice in Wonderland. With a equal love of the retro and new entertainment technologies our demographic is trendy, fun and has a strong sense of what is a good about a game.
Market Potential (200wds)
With a combination of stylized graphics, humour and unique gameplay it would be possible to market the game on a variety of services to reach the target audience, many similar games have seen success on Xbox LIVE marketplace, and Steam, as well as to a lesser extent the PSN marketplace. WiiWare would be another fantastic location to release a game like this as a large portion of the target demographic occupies the Wii userbase.
Focusing on the unique game mechanics will help to establish the game as part of the indie resurgence and provide a good base from which to form a marketing campaign.
Innovation and Creativity (200wds)
The game concept we have outlined have the appeal that they use a mechanic that hasn’t really been exploited in games development, namely having the player control two distinct characters in the game world simultaneously. This provides a different problem-solving environment than that which the player is usually experienced in dealing with. Other games have included aspects of our collective game mechanics but none have really tied them all together like we are attempting to do.
The style of the game world will also tie into the system, by presenting a twisted cartoon style to the art, which will tie into the back-story of the game as well as the current situation, with the two worlds being represented as opposites. The twisted nature of the style will also represent the inherent difference in our game mechanics.
Use of Technical (200wds)
Keeping the game mechanics very simple, the two characters having only one action each (attacking, and jumping, as well as context-sensitive actions for both such as pulling a lever) will allow us to focus our efforts on producing those mechanics to a very high level of polish.
The game will feature randomly generated levels constructed from a range of obstacles for both of the characters to navigate so that each level will never play the same way twice, this also allows us to add in more challenging obstacles/enemies based on the difficulty level very easily.
The majority of the artwork involved in the game will be rendered using a toon shading to reflect the stylized nature of the game world. This will be coded into ShaderLab which is the native shader language used in Unity.
Other effects such as particles can take advantage of the systems built into the engine, and due to its flexibility we can utilize 3ds Max and Photoshop for asset creation. Any audio work we do for the game can easily be converted to the native ogg file format used in the engine as well.
Milestones
Week 1 – Prototype
Build a rough prototype for the core gameplay using no artwork (boxes, planes, etc) with; both cameras set up and displaying the two sides of gameplay, both characters moving around appropriately with gamepad controls, character 1 shooting at temporary enemies and character 2 jumping and properly landing on temporary obstacles.
Completed designs for the two player characters complete with information and a full list of required animations. Concepts for enemy designs, enemy AI/mechanics design.
Week 2 – Char1 gameplay
Expand on prototype gameplay by refining the character 1 gameplay, full collision with enemies, random enemy spawning/speeds, player attack animation working and destroying enemies, player health, death and respawning.
Full implementation of character 1 model and animations. Environment concepts/designs.
Week 3 – Char2 gameplay
Expand on prototype gameplay by refining character 2 gameplay, set up a number of randomly spawning platformer obstacles (blocks, hills, debris, avoidable melee enemies perhaps? all temporary art) and refine the player’s controls by adjusting jump height/etc based on playtesting.
Environment design has begun, concept art and obstacle design. Full implementation of character 2 model and additional animations (jumping/climbing)
Week 4 – Initial Environment Production
Environment implementation, basic version of random environment spawner and spawning algorithm using the assets produced by the art team.
Model, texture and implement 3 sections of environment, including physics models and required animation (swaying of trees, etc), import them into the game and make any necessary adjustments for the characters to walk around them.
Week 5 – Environment Continued
Implement a more advanced version of the environment spawning algorithm which takes into account which pieces of environment have been spawned recently, to avoid duplicates, and difficulty mode when deciding which pieces to spawn. Expand on any previous tasks not currently completed (such as the character 2 wall-climb animation)
Complete the production of more environment assets to be used by the environment spawning algorithm. Design and plan a tutorial level and make plans to produce all the required assets.
Week 6 – GUI implementation and Enemy Design
Fully design and implement a GUI, including splash screen, menu screen and in-game GUI (Health bar, remaining lives etc)
Completed design for two/three types of enemy including visual design as well as gameplay/mechanics design and work has begun on enemy character models.
Week 7 – Enemy implementation
Basic implementation of the enemy designs, including enemy AI patterns, spawning patterns/attacks, collision, models and animations.
Audio design, full list of all required audio.
Week 8 – opening cut scene, refine existing gameplay
Opening cut scene implementation, gameplay refinements. Add any planned voice-work/sound effects to the audio design list.
Additional environment/obstacle sections designed and produced.
Audio recording, fully record all required voice work and as much other audio as possible.
Week 9 – Gameplay and functionality polish
Finish implementation of, or refine existing gameplay components to a highly polished level. Get feedback based on playtesting and group discussion.
Week 10 – bug blitz + audio/cut scene finish
Bug fixing, game testing. Finish all audio and cut scene stuff.
The Result
Over 100 teams entered to get one of 17 spaces on offer at the university, so competition was tight. On the plus side we now understand why we didn't make the cut due to the feedback they kindly sent us, which was as follows...
"Thank you for your application to Dare to be Digital 2010. I'm really
sorry to inform you that your team have not been selected to attend the
interview day.
This is by no means a reflection of your application but that we had so
many excellent entries to consider. It was a tough job and took our
judging panel many days to decide.
Please note that the judges decision is final and no correspondence will
be entered into.
We would like to thank you for your entry to Dare and wish you all every
success with your courses, careers and futures.
Kind regards on behalf of the Dare team,
Elaine
Feedback from the judges:
Only one coder rings alarm bells for me. If they manage to recruit another as the 5th team member then perhaps not so bad.
The plan seems sound, especially the idea of proofing the gameplay with placeholder art. However, the use of procedurally generated levels worries me a little, since that\'s a difficult thing to do well at the best of times, much less in just a few weeks. Not enough detail in the game description to really know whether it\'s ultimately achievable or not.
The team have a clear idea of their target audience, which is always a good thing. The biggest problem (yet again) is a lack of explanation of the game idea to really allow us to judge the level of complexity of the project.
The application could really have used some solid examples of the types of puzzle and gameplay that players will experience, as well as a more concrete explanation of how the dual character control would work. I\'m also worried about the amount of work involved in creating good quality procedurally generated levels - that\'s not an easy task.
A bit light on programmers
Think about the randomly generated levels and whether it\'s achievable, and how much it contributes to the fun factor. It may be better to focus on the 2 parallel dimensions.
Relatively complex with no clear hook.
Feature proposal is to control multiple characters simultaneously - but without clearly explaining why this would be fun or what is the benefit to the player."
So with that in mind, we intend to take fully on board the kind feedback they sent us and enter again next year!
We got our application results back from Dare today, and sadly we didn't get in. They did have record numbers of applicants this year however, so the competition was really tight. The following is what I could find of the proposal that we sent as we don't have a copy of the original form that was filled out on the web site...
Game Name: No Time For Nuts
Team Name: BigBox Games
Game Genre: Action/Platformer
Target Platform: PC and Xbox LIVE
Game Description (100wds)
Reduced to a mere handful and facing extinction at the hands of the Greys, the last of the Red squirrels resorted to something neither man nor beast should ever do. They built a time machine. The resulting chaos tore the universe asunder, and the only way to fix it is for Reds and Greys to work together...
A unique experiment in single player gaming see’s one player controlling two characters at once as they scamper and blast their way across two parallel dimensions in a race to repair the damage before it’s too late. There’s no time for nuts! Uh-oh!
Demographic
No Time For Nuts is a game that is meant to appeal to a wide demographic, aged between 18-35 of no specific gender. It caters to the kind of player that loves to 'discover' and download independent games from services such as Xbox Live Arcade and Steam. They enjoy simple yet innovative gameplay and would play titles such as Castle Crashers, Worms,The Maw, Kuri Kuri Mix, Pikmin, Overlord and World Of Goo, attracted to the fun/cool characters and colourful environments.
Our key demographic would have a good sense of humor, reflected in their choice of viewing, loving T.V. shows such as Samurai Jack, Ren and Stimpy and Spongebob.
We are aiming to attract the type of consumer who would rather download on demand as opposed to purchasing from a shop. They are very Internet savvy and invest in both their PC and home console. They love videogame culture choosing to purchase magazines like Edge and Retro gamer and rarely go to the cinema, enjoying the convenience of downloading from home entertainment services. When they do, it would be for the experience of viewing a film in 3D such as Avatar or Alice in Wonderland. With a equal love of the retro and new entertainment technologies our demographic is trendy, fun and has a strong sense of what is a good about a game.
Market Potential (200wds)
With a combination of stylized graphics, humour and unique gameplay it would be possible to market the game on a variety of services to reach the target audience, many similar games have seen success on Xbox LIVE marketplace, and Steam, as well as to a lesser extent the PSN marketplace. WiiWare would be another fantastic location to release a game like this as a large portion of the target demographic occupies the Wii userbase.
Focusing on the unique game mechanics will help to establish the game as part of the indie resurgence and provide a good base from which to form a marketing campaign.
Innovation and Creativity (200wds)
The game concept we have outlined have the appeal that they use a mechanic that hasn’t really been exploited in games development, namely having the player control two distinct characters in the game world simultaneously. This provides a different problem-solving environment than that which the player is usually experienced in dealing with. Other games have included aspects of our collective game mechanics but none have really tied them all together like we are attempting to do.
The style of the game world will also tie into the system, by presenting a twisted cartoon style to the art, which will tie into the back-story of the game as well as the current situation, with the two worlds being represented as opposites. The twisted nature of the style will also represent the inherent difference in our game mechanics.
Use of Technical (200wds)
Keeping the game mechanics very simple, the two characters having only one action each (attacking, and jumping, as well as context-sensitive actions for both such as pulling a lever) will allow us to focus our efforts on producing those mechanics to a very high level of polish.
The game will feature randomly generated levels constructed from a range of obstacles for both of the characters to navigate so that each level will never play the same way twice, this also allows us to add in more challenging obstacles/enemies based on the difficulty level very easily.
The majority of the artwork involved in the game will be rendered using a toon shading to reflect the stylized nature of the game world. This will be coded into ShaderLab which is the native shader language used in Unity.
Other effects such as particles can take advantage of the systems built into the engine, and due to its flexibility we can utilize 3ds Max and Photoshop for asset creation. Any audio work we do for the game can easily be converted to the native ogg file format used in the engine as well.
Milestones
Week 1 – Prototype
Build a rough prototype for the core gameplay using no artwork (boxes, planes, etc) with; both cameras set up and displaying the two sides of gameplay, both characters moving around appropriately with gamepad controls, character 1 shooting at temporary enemies and character 2 jumping and properly landing on temporary obstacles.
Completed designs for the two player characters complete with information and a full list of required animations. Concepts for enemy designs, enemy AI/mechanics design.
Week 2 – Char1 gameplay
Expand on prototype gameplay by refining the character 1 gameplay, full collision with enemies, random enemy spawning/speeds, player attack animation working and destroying enemies, player health, death and respawning.
Full implementation of character 1 model and animations. Environment concepts/designs.
Week 3 – Char2 gameplay
Expand on prototype gameplay by refining character 2 gameplay, set up a number of randomly spawning platformer obstacles (blocks, hills, debris, avoidable melee enemies perhaps? all temporary art) and refine the player’s controls by adjusting jump height/etc based on playtesting.
Environment design has begun, concept art and obstacle design. Full implementation of character 2 model and additional animations (jumping/climbing)
Week 4 – Initial Environment Production
Environment implementation, basic version of random environment spawner and spawning algorithm using the assets produced by the art team.
Model, texture and implement 3 sections of environment, including physics models and required animation (swaying of trees, etc), import them into the game and make any necessary adjustments for the characters to walk around them.
Week 5 – Environment Continued
Implement a more advanced version of the environment spawning algorithm which takes into account which pieces of environment have been spawned recently, to avoid duplicates, and difficulty mode when deciding which pieces to spawn. Expand on any previous tasks not currently completed (such as the character 2 wall-climb animation)
Complete the production of more environment assets to be used by the environment spawning algorithm. Design and plan a tutorial level and make plans to produce all the required assets.
Week 6 – GUI implementation and Enemy Design
Fully design and implement a GUI, including splash screen, menu screen and in-game GUI (Health bar, remaining lives etc)
Completed design for two/three types of enemy including visual design as well as gameplay/mechanics design and work has begun on enemy character models.
Week 7 – Enemy implementation
Basic implementation of the enemy designs, including enemy AI patterns, spawning patterns/attacks, collision, models and animations.
Audio design, full list of all required audio.
Week 8 – opening cut scene, refine existing gameplay
Opening cut scene implementation, gameplay refinements. Add any planned voice-work/sound effects to the audio design list.
Additional environment/obstacle sections designed and produced.
Audio recording, fully record all required voice work and as much other audio as possible.
Week 9 – Gameplay and functionality polish
Finish implementation of, or refine existing gameplay components to a highly polished level. Get feedback based on playtesting and group discussion.
Week 10 – bug blitz + audio/cut scene finish
Bug fixing, game testing. Finish all audio and cut scene stuff.
The Result
Over 100 teams entered to get one of 17 spaces on offer at the university, so competition was tight. On the plus side we now understand why we didn't make the cut due to the feedback they kindly sent us, which was as follows...
"Thank you for your application to Dare to be Digital 2010. I'm really
sorry to inform you that your team have not been selected to attend the
interview day.
This is by no means a reflection of your application but that we had so
many excellent entries to consider. It was a tough job and took our
judging panel many days to decide.
Please note that the judges decision is final and no correspondence will
be entered into.
We would like to thank you for your entry to Dare and wish you all every
success with your courses, careers and futures.
Kind regards on behalf of the Dare team,
Elaine
Feedback from the judges:
Only one coder rings alarm bells for me. If they manage to recruit another as the 5th team member then perhaps not so bad.
The plan seems sound, especially the idea of proofing the gameplay with placeholder art. However, the use of procedurally generated levels worries me a little, since that\'s a difficult thing to do well at the best of times, much less in just a few weeks. Not enough detail in the game description to really know whether it\'s ultimately achievable or not.
The team have a clear idea of their target audience, which is always a good thing. The biggest problem (yet again) is a lack of explanation of the game idea to really allow us to judge the level of complexity of the project.
The application could really have used some solid examples of the types of puzzle and gameplay that players will experience, as well as a more concrete explanation of how the dual character control would work. I\'m also worried about the amount of work involved in creating good quality procedurally generated levels - that\'s not an easy task.
A bit light on programmers
Think about the randomly generated levels and whether it\'s achievable, and how much it contributes to the fun factor. It may be better to focus on the 2 parallel dimensions.
Relatively complex with no clear hook.
Feature proposal is to control multiple characters simultaneously - but without clearly explaining why this would be fun or what is the benefit to the player."
So with that in mind, we intend to take fully on board the kind feedback they sent us and enter again next year!
Thursday 1 April 2010
Good Grief:
Okay, so I haven't been on here for a while.
I've had a couple of other things to deal with recently so I've gotten a little behind with my work, which sucks balls. Couple that with other work and I start to have a mini panic attack. (I've also spent the last couple of days just playing pokemon, which was not the best idea. I've given my DS to my sister so I can't play it until I do some work.)
But I'll just do as my mother says and take each step at a time. I'm working on dissertation this week, I'm pretty sure I know where I'm going with it. Would be good if I could ind my bloody post-it's though...
Good news though! A few of friends and I have sent of our application form for dare to be digital. I'm not going to write our idea down here, purely hush hush, but I think we've got a good chance of getting through if we come up with a solid presentation. I am very excited. Although I'm not sure if I can include work that I'd do for that in the hand in for uni in May. I'll have to check that.
Bleurrgghhhh. I 'll come with something to sort out my portfolio in the next month. I'm just not sure how much we're meant to have. While I know I've learnt so much in the last couple of months I don't think I have enough to show for it, and that worries me.
Anyway, I'll stop being depressing now.
I've had a couple of other things to deal with recently so I've gotten a little behind with my work, which sucks balls. Couple that with other work and I start to have a mini panic attack. (I've also spent the last couple of days just playing pokemon, which was not the best idea. I've given my DS to my sister so I can't play it until I do some work.)
But I'll just do as my mother says and take each step at a time. I'm working on dissertation this week, I'm pretty sure I know where I'm going with it. Would be good if I could ind my bloody post-it's though...
Good news though! A few of friends and I have sent of our application form for dare to be digital. I'm not going to write our idea down here, purely hush hush, but I think we've got a good chance of getting through if we come up with a solid presentation. I am very excited. Although I'm not sure if I can include work that I'd do for that in the hand in for uni in May. I'll have to check that.
Bleurrgghhhh. I 'll come with something to sort out my portfolio in the next month. I'm just not sure how much we're meant to have. While I know I've learnt so much in the last couple of months I don't think I have enough to show for it, and that worries me.
Anyway, I'll stop being depressing now.
Sunday 21 March 2010
The Bane of My Life:
For the past 24 hours this has been the bane of my life. I don't know if I should put the stages up for this as well... hmmm.... might as well.Yeah so I would seriously appreciate any kind of crit on this, because i need to do 3 more. It was such a ridiculous learning process that I'd love it if anyone could recommend any different process. I'm not sure.
Practice Makes Perfect:
I really, really need to get on it with photoshop. Really need the practice. And also to ACTUALLY FINISH THINGS. I just went through loads of my folders and have about 10 things that would be so good for a portfolio IF THEY WERE FINISHED. Man. So that's added onto the plan.
Because of this, I am posting up these sequence images of a painting a started doing a couple of months ago and (surprise, surprise) never finished. But if it's up where people can see it, it might give me more of an incentive to finish it. Hopefully.
So since I started this I have learnt that starting with the lines was not really the best idea, but I'm trying to work them out, and in a few newer pieces I've started with the shading. I'm pretty sure that if I spent a good day or two on this I could make it look alright, I just get dragged into the details.
Because of this, I am posting up these sequence images of a painting a started doing a couple of months ago and (surprise, surprise) never finished. But if it's up where people can see it, it might give me more of an incentive to finish it. Hopefully.
So since I started this I have learnt that starting with the lines was not really the best idea, but I'm trying to work them out, and in a few newer pieces I've started with the shading. I'm pretty sure that if I spent a good day or two on this I could make it look alright, I just get dragged into the details.
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