New Concept Ship

So today I uploaded a new ship to the assest repository that was set up for our game. And I had a break of about 2 hours, so I made a new ship in that time. It's not that fancy, but we are suppose to be coming up with different variations of the ships.

Here is a few renders of my new ship:

Also, I've been assigned the ships and the texture that go along with those ships on scrumworks. I haven't make any textures yet, but I will try to at least do one by next time.

I'm still having trouble coming up with ideas for ships. I'm not really good at coming up with art, but if someone gives me a picture of something I can model it without a problem.

All of us in the art side have decided that for our art style, we should try to make modular ships. Or even if they aren't truly modular, we should make them look like they are. So we can model parts of ships instead of complete ships. 

Thats all for now, thanks for reading.

Shaded Model

So, I'm too lazy to actually layout the UVs for the model that I made so I just added some shaders to the model and gave it a metallic feel to it. The thing is that I have to work on the shader a bit, because some of the paint on the model looks more like a sticker. I think that part of the problem is that its also a little too bright.

Here are some renders of the model.

Other than that, I haven't done much. I will try to find more reference images to make more ships in the next day or so. In the meantime, thanks for reading.

Presentation to the Class

Today, all the groups had to do a small presentation about what stage we are in our games. We had to present any code and art that we have.

The only thing is that our groups hasn't done anything. 

We had Fall Break last week and Bob and Roger were gone last time so we haven't really had a chance to decide what we are going to do. The good thing is that we weren't the only ones. The Gravity Shift team didn't have anything to present, they mainly talked about what they were doing and what they wanted to do in the future.

The Twin Stick group presented a 3D version of their game. They showed that you can move and have a very rough 3D world in place. They showed that they were able to attack and interact with the enemy.

We had a few things to present. We presented the sky box that Brandon has been working on and some of the models that Charlie made.

After class, I decided to finish a ship of my own. I found this picture on the internet and I used to make a model.

This is a few pictures of the model that I made.

Thats what I have so far. Since we are still in the concept stage for the art and the models, I'm debating on whether I should lay out the UVs for the ship or not. Anyways, thanks for reading.

Back From Fall Break

So today is the first day back from Fall Break.

Bob and Roger (the teachers) weren't here today, but we had a couple of student from last year talk to the class. I don't remember their names, but they were part of the team that created Urban Space Squirrels.

They talked about the level editor that they created for their game and how important it was to not take it lightly. They said that they actually spend a great deal of time developing the editor, constantly making changes or adding features that they needed in order for it to work the way they wanted it to.

Basically, they created a game that is based around tiles. Their game is a bunch of little pictures put together to create a level. But they also created tiles for different things that happened in the game. They had tiles for lasers, buttons, platforms, etc.

It was really cool what they managed to do with their level editor because it looks really easy to use but very good at what it's suppose to do.

They also talked about what they struggled with. Overall, they were there to tells us what not to do, but how to do it in a way that will save time.

We are also going to start our sprints by next class, so pretty soon I probably won't have a social life (their words not mine). :(

Anyways, thanks for reading.

Fall Break

So even if we are in fall break and we aren't working on our sprints yet, we decided that we should probably start working on some of the modeling so that we don't fall behind. The thing is that it's easier said than done. :P

I have to admit that I got really lazy over Fall break and I didn't do what I originally wanted to do, which is have some sort of model done by tomorrow (10-19). But I did manage to go online and look at some pictures of space ships from other games and I think I know what I want to do now, but I first want to run it by the group to make sure that it matches our "art style" that we are suppose to stick to.

So here are some of the picture that I found that might be of some help.

So those are the pictures, thanks for reading.

Trimming Down the Backlog

So yesterday, we got together again to talk about the Backlog that we worked on Tuesday during class. But this time, instead of adding more ideas to the backlog we started to talk about what were the essential parts inorder to have some sort of working model by the end of the semester. This means that a lot of the stuff in the backlog are not going to be worked on immediately and might not even make it to the final game.

In the mean time we've decided that some of the most essential things for the game are:

• Menu screen
• Control scheme
• User interface (first person/third person) HUD
• Player's ships
• Enemy's ships
• Load out screen
• Save/Load game system
• Pause system
• Pods functionality
• Space box
• Planets/space content
• Radar system
• Combat system
• Mission screen
• Buy/Sell system or Ship upgrade system
• AI system (enemies and allies)

We will try to focus on these things and try to have a Beta out by the end of the semester.

That's all. Thanks for reading.

Brainstorming Ideas

So I forgo to update my blog for Tuesday October 5th. So this will post will cover what happened on that day.

So on Tuesday we got into our groups and started to brainstorm ideas for our Backlong of all the features that we could possible have. We also included all the things that we would need to actually make the game work. This includes: 3D models, art, programing, etc.

This is our complete list of ideas:

Game Modes

• Versus - split screen/networking
• Campaign - split screen co-op/races/challenges, possibly salvage lost player's ship and lost player could operate in an auxiliary mode (gunner)

Environments

• Environments with gravity due to planets, black holes, stars
• Nebula
• Space stations
• Trash/Junk sectors

Enemies

• Fighters of different sizes and classes (bomber, interceptor, swarm, etc.)
• Capital ships (larger "boss" ships)
• Space stations
• Fixed weapon placements
• Medium cruisers
• Freighters
• Aliens

Targeting

• Target different parts of ships (hull, engines, weapons, shields, etc.)
• Switch targets
• Lock on

Missions

• Escort civilians
• Disable instead of kill
• Attack convoy
• Start with missions that are critical to the story and add more as time permits

Ship Customization

• Money
• Locations to purchase upgrades (stations, home base)
• Find loot/salvage

Gameplay

• Dog fighting
• Keep it "busy" - fast paced, lots of action
• Arcade fell instead of exploration
• Customization - find loot, buy parts
• Objectives - Could affect future missions? Dynamic objectives?
• Missions follow a story
• Pick your missions
• Soft abort/escape?
• Squadron of teammates? - Possibly command them
• Fast travel - select coordinates and jump to mission location
• Switch between fight/defense/travel mode
• Multiple ships
• Lose ships if you die
• Lose money if you die
• Different classes of pods - offensive, defensive, tactical
• Tutorial on ship functions, fighting, navigating, etc.
• Different corporations have different tech/upgrades available - need to earn renown with each corp. to purchase

Features

This is a list of all the things Roger went through with us to help us figure out what we need to develop.

• Menu screen
• Tutorial mission - combat, flight controls, mission structure, etc.
• Control scheme
• User interface (first person/third person) HUD
• Player's ships
• Enemy's ships
• Load out screen
• Save/Load game system
• Pause system
• Pods functionality
• Warp animation
• Jump to active mission
• Space box
• Planets/space content
• Radar system
• Combat system
• Space loot/recover pods
• Mission screen
• Buy/Sell system
• Ship upgrade system
• Hangar/Home base
• Ship to ship communication
• AI system (enemies and allies)
• End game scenarios

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So as you can see, this is a really long list. But that's the whole point of a Backlog, to writedown all possible ideas and then eventually trim it down to the "essentials" for the game to work and to give the player a good gaming experience.

That's all, thanks for reading.

New Team

So I forgot to update my blog last Thursday (9-30-10), so this blog post will be for that day.

Thursday was the day that we found out which games out of the 9 that we presented on the 28th of last month were picked to move on to be fully developed into a game. So the team that I was on for the Gravity Shift game got picked to be one of the 3 games that we will be making. The people of the other groups were then assigned to one of the other three teams.

So the games that we will be making these next 2 semesters are: Gravity Shift, Creep Commando (originally Twinstick DotA) and the Space Fighter game. 

So I got moved from my team and got placed in the Space Fighter game, which is good because I think that I'll be able to do more in this game than in the Gravity Shift game. Mainly because this game is going to be a 3D space arcade game which will need a lot of 3D models done and I can definitely do that. The other game was going to be a 2D game, so I don't know what I would've done there except maybe get in the way. :(

Anyways, we got to meet the rest of the people in the group and we were introduced to a software development work flow called Scrum.

We also had a brief discusion to see where we wanted this game to go. Anyways, that is all that happened on Thursday. I'll post the video that we were show in class that better explains what Scrum is.

Thanks for reading.