week 7 and 8

Better late than never.

Week 7 was a hard working week. Everything head to be done that was going to be in the game and we were going to have our beta testing. Much of the work I did was to create props for the indoor and outdoor environment. I started by making a duzin different kinds of bushes that was needed for the level. It was important that the bush was cost efficient and was able to cover the player ass the player would be able to hide in them. And of course they also needed to look good. I tried to different kinds of way to make a bush. I tried by using alpha plans and by creating several identical in a pile rotated in different angles I was able to create something that looked like a bush. This is a common way to do vegetation in 3d environments as it is cost friendly and still looks good. I had to tilt them up a bit in order to cover over the player. I also made bush meshes with the shape of a umbrella to really make sure that the player is covered up completely. I also tried to combine the two together in different ways and shapes. When I was done I showed what I had done to the lead artist to get some feedback. I liked the way I had position and tilted the alpha plans in to the shape of a umbrella. And by copying that group of plans 2 times I created a 3 layer pyramid like umbrella bush. I then prepare it for texturing.
On Wednesday it was beta test, people played our game and have a lots of interesting feedback. It was clear that the tutorial needed some more work and that more feedback was needed.

I then started working on some more decorations for inside and outside. This was all kinds of things from drawers and sword stands. But it was as important to keep the models low detailed as that would allow for more props on the map at the same time.

After I had done some models and they had been textured by Anna on of our teams artist who did most of our texture work. Me and Anna started working on the sound effects and music. This was complicated as free sounds and music that is of good quality is hard to come by. We mostly used freesound.org and music from independent composers on the internet that gave away their music for free. In order to edit the sounds we found we used the free program Audiocity.

In order to do as much as possible before week 8 when the GGC was going to be held we worked thru the weekend almost day and night.

Week 8
Monday and Tuesday was what we call crunch. We did not add anything new to the game but concentrated on making the existing content playable. Most of the work I did at this time was to decorate the levels and create screenshots for the level view.
when decorating the level it was important to create areas that had its story and was unic with the small number of props we had. It took some thinking there I had no better way to do it then try what I felt was good and ask the group how they felt about what I had done. Sometimes I had to rethink my decorating but work went forward and was finished on time.

On Wednesday we created the logo/sign for our game that would hang above our table at GGC. It was done with carton and photo paper. Our producer presented our game for the judges and then we proceed to bring your game to the GGC so that the jury could play it.
And so from Wednesday to Friday we showed our game at GGC to all kinds of people and received lots of great feedback. We received feedback about the tutorial that needed more work, the animations, the user interface and ideas on how to improve it and so on.

We then meet up later and talk about what to do for the future. We all agreed that we should create free version of the game with more polish that we could use in our portfolio. I we can we will put the game up on the android market. Otherwise we will make it a free web browser game.

Week 6

I started working on the different animations for the game. I had to do about 21 animations combined for the player and the guard in MotionBuilder, so I got to work. But the animations did not need a lot of detail as the size of the screen and the distance camera distance made it hard to notice the details. I started by making the idle animation as it is the animation that all other animations will originate from. I also made sure to check with my team that the animation idle was ok before I started working on everything else. As changing the idle after would mean a lot of extra work. But over all the work went well I made sure to check with my team when I had done an animation to se what they felt about it. There was tow animations that I had to rework, the shuriken animation and the player game over animation.
The shuriken throw animation needed rework because at first the player was throwing it in a down swing motion witch did not work with the effect in Unity. In unity the shuriken is flying horizontally. I changed the shuriken throw so that the character swings his arm from his hip to the side allowing for a horizontally flying shuriken. The reason I did the up to down throwing motion in the first place was because I found some reference videos showing that that’s how you would throw it.
The other animation I needed to improve was the game over animation. It ended to sudden and the body needs more bounce when hit the ground. I did this by creating a frame where the hip went up after hitting the ground and when it would come back down the rest of the body would as well. And when the arms, legs and head hit the ground they bounced up as well and then down. This created a more natural feeling to the fall down (game over animation) and the other in the group liked it the improvement.
Saturday we had a special guest come by to see our game and give advice about the graphics in unity. It was really helpful as he told us how to fix the shadowing, the effects in unity and the animations. He made a good point when he said that animations in this game should be played fast as it is turned based game and having to watch animations is a dole thing to do. I had not thought about this but remember how I usually play civilization without the fighting animations.

Now over the past few weeks that I have been blogging our progress I have posted any pitchers of our work. So, you know better late than never.

The workspace

Our papper prototyp

Week 5

I started to work on the player mesh for the game. I worked in 3ds max and I followed the concept art that one of the other graphic member in my group had made. I started modeling from a box that was to be the torso. From that I extended and created the legs and the head. I made the arms on the side as the character turn around that I was modelling from had its arms painted on the side of its body. It was done so because it would be easier to see the shape of the torso from the side.
After adding some volume to the model I switched with kristoffer in my group who was working on the model for the guard. We did this so that we could go through each other work and see if one of us missed something. I only had to make some small changes to the model but I have to finish the armor ass kristoffer started to skin the player character. I had to finish the helmet on the character, the leg plats and the quiver on his back.
I then skinned the guard model and created a UV map so that we could add color to the model. I then started to create the bow for the guard as it would be easier to animate with the bow from the beginning. I used the old bow model but added a string to it mad in 3d and a new skeleton that worked with the string. Over all this took some time but work fine.

I then tested the models in MotionBuilder to see if the skeleton work fin and if the skinning was done well. I had to make a few changes to the skin around the shoulders as they needed to be higher.
I then created the base animation files for the player and guard. And did some test with updating the mesh with a new texture on. We needed to know if we needed to create the final texture before we did all of the animations but we had a feeling that it would work.
I then created the idle poses for the player and the guard with the nest texture so that we could create some screenshots that was required to hand in. Then I started working on the walking animations for the player and guard and will continue with next week.

week 4

I started working on the grappling hook item for the game. The item was to be modeled in 3ds max following the concept skis of it that was made by one other artist. I started by creating the hook and from that I created the rope. The large bundle of rope that the player was going to hold was created separately and simple. After it was done we needed to figure out how much we needed to scale it. By importing the character model and the wall model we were able to scale the item down to its right size. Then I made a rig for the model and started testing it in motion builder. I then realized that I needed to remake the rig ass my rope needed at least 3 bones. Before there was only bones in the grappling hook and the robe bundle that the player held. The reason I needed to add the bones to the robe was so that the rope could follow the mesh of the wall and not stretch and cut true the wall. I then had to do some research about animating with props in Motion builder. I had done some before with the bow but the question I had to figure out was how you made the character hold on to something and the let go of it. I then imported a wall mesh in to Motion Builder and 2 squares. The squares were supposed to represent the grid in the game so I knew where the animation was supposed to stop. He would go from the middle of the first square to the wall and over it then to the middle of the second square. Animating this took some time but was fun to do. In the en the animation was about 500 frames long.
On the Friday that week we had an alpha test session and our grope had made good progress. When we displayed the alpha we showed it on the pc with the level I designed. Unfortunately the animation I did for the grappling hook item was not implemented in to the alpha.
But the alpha testing went well even thou we had a bug with the path finding. We received some interesting feedback that we will go true next week.

Week 3

On Monday I had a meeting with the producer where we discussed a lot about the game design. We felt that it needed change and what we changed was the function of the items and how the levels were going to be design. Before the items was consumables that the player buy online, but we felt that with this system you had to design a level so that a player could finish them without items. This took focus away from the items as they became rear and limited. We decided to let the items be unlimited and free for the player. And the items would play a larger role in completing the levels as you can’t win without using them. The player will have to think strategically when choosing his items as he brings them with him on a mission (level) and will have to use them at least once.
Then following day I had a meeting with the other graphic artists in my group to talk about the art style and high priority assets. This went well and was well needed so that we would be able to have a clear vision of our goal.
I then work most of the week creating a paper prototype level of the game and play testing it. When I designed it we had 5 items that was going to be in the game in the final version for GGC. So I made 3 path and they were all different and could be completed with at least 2 different items. It took some time to play test as I had to move every guard invaluably and try different items along different paths.
We then received some feedback from our teachers who felt that our group may have to speed up the production or choose to make a board game of the game. But I believe it won’t come to that. But they also say that as they understand the game and how it is going to play out they do not feel the urge to play it. Simply because they know what is going to happen and that they are not going to enjoy it because it’s not a game they as a person would like to play. I have been thinking about how to improve this even dough our teacher may not be representing the majority of the players that is going to try our game. I started to wonder what would make it interesting for people like him. And maybe if the game had a random element to it that was unknown to player before they started. Like secret areas, items to find on the map, random buff or de-buff. It would mean more content to the game and time needed ti implement, time that we don’t have in for GGC but for some other time.

The beginning

Introduction
Hi my Name is Viktor Bergman as of this week I am the lead designer of the big game project Sneaky Ninja. Over the time of a few weeks we will be creating a stealth puzzle game for the android market with a feudal japan ninja them.

week 1
We started by creating an asset list for programmers as well as grafiks so that everyone knew what to do. We also did a prototype for the basic movement mechanic in the game to see how the stealth part of the game would work out. Then I and the lead graphic artist sat down and started to create mockups so that we would have a sense of graphic style to the game.
I then started to create a basic mesh for the characters in the game as well as basic animations. Just so that the programmers could have something to work with as they got to know the program. I was working in 3ds max to create the basic model and Motionbuilder to create the animations. The program that we will be making our project in is Unity.
We then realized that the scale of the model was not right to the scale the programmers was using in Unity but this problem could be solved by either scaling down in 3ds max or Unity. I then created a bow for the guards in the game. I did it in order to learn how to animate a weapon in Motionbuilder with a character. So it was only a simple mesh and animation that we will not be using later. And it was also so that the programmers should learn how to implement a weapon or prop in to Unity.
Once that was done I started to work on concept for the bow that I had mad before. I started by creating a mockup so that the I had a general idea what it would look like.

week 2
I then started to do simple sketches of the bow that I started on last week. I showed it the other grafikal members to get some feedback on what was “cool” and what was a “no no”. The lead graficke artist made some notes on my work and I did a final sketch on what we were going for.
At this point I was given the task of being the lead game designer of the group as the previous Lead game designer who was also the producer felt that it was not appropriate. He felt that the designer and producer should be able to have a live discussion about the project between to people and not by one. So befitting my role I started to create the design document for the project. We definitely felt that the group needs a clear understanding of what was going to happen in the game. Understand what item would do what and how the player would be able to interact with this and that.
I decided to mail my teacher to see if I could have some time with one of the design teacher to talk about the document. Just to see what I could improve upon or if I had forgotten some detail.
As this week was Easter the majority of the group went to the main land to celebrate with family and friends so I also took the opportunity to go home and relax.