470 Video Game production

Sprint 6

During the 6th sprint I had basically finished most of the textures for the 2nd level. The biggest problem that I came across however was that my boot drive failed with a "S.M.A.R.T" error meaning the drive may corrupt the data, and must be changed immediately. Because of this I was unable to use my computer to showcase my work through screenshots.

However, I was able to send a few screenshots of the work I asked my lead Ben about, among those were the tower textured, and the new rock island textured, alongside a variant of the textured rock island for the 2nd desert-themed level. The screenshot isn't up to date however since I don't currently have access to the texture.

Although I'm only showing only a few of the screenshots, I did manage to get some more work done. I had basically finished the cactus, the obelisk( textures not exported) , the tower, and the two platforms. In total,6 points.

Sprint 5

During this sprint I basically worked on a lot of modeling and texturing for the models in the first level. I had a bit of catching up to do so first I began to work on the cards that I was assigned the sprint before, yet haven't gotten around to completing them just yet. That being the texturing. Shown below is all the texturing work that I had done for the first level.

The two pictures shown above are a "rune rock" Texture I was working on, it took quite a bit to do only because I had some fun with it such as the other textures.

Shown below would be the models I began creating for the second level, I was basically tasked with creating a sarcophagus, along with an alien obelisk, old spire remnants and a few extra props such as variations of a cactus to fit the desert theme of the level. 

The rock was left in to verify in order to alter it's appearance just a bit. I had also created a rock island texture that was left in the to verify to rework the textures on. Because they look a bit more like it was themed for the swamp level rather than for the forest level. 

Overall I got a good amount done this sprint, in total I was assigned 15 points to complete, of those 15 I was able to complete 13. While the 2 points remaining were the rock and rock island. Those are now updated to be 3 points instead.

My next plan for this upcoming sprint is to begin working on finishing the last couple models needed for the second level as well as texturing them all. If I finish that in a timely matter, I will be able to start working on the models for the third and final level.

Sprint 4

During my fourth sprint I focused entirely on modeling again, unfortunately I was set aback a few times due to faulty exports that had some of my models literally exploding into many pieces as well as being distorted. However I was able to fix everything and get back on track. I mainly focused on modeling the different flora within the first level as well as texturing them for a better aesthetic, fitting the bright and colorful theme for the level that our game designer Ben had in mind. Shown below are the models untextured.

The second alien tree I created was meant to be used as a sort of barrier for certain areas of the level.

It was rather odd to try and UV some of these models by hand in Maya as they always seemed to end up distorted in some way. I eventually took them into zbrush and used the UV master unwrap tool to UV the objects while using the protect brush to prevent seams on the more visible parts of the model.

Shown below is one of the mushrooms that I had textured, I will still probably experiment more with the color schemes of the other mushrooms, however this one was more of a test. Though we will keep the texture.

I've been told that the textures should probably be redone for the flora I created below, as it unusually resembles a tongue. I plan on probably trying with a lighter blue color rather than the pink.

Though I haven't completed the rocks just yet I have at least one ready to texture, the rest should be fairly simple.

The Idea I have with this texture is to create emissive text in the areas indicated by red. Overall, I'm a bit behind though I did a fair amount of work for this sprint. My plan by the next sprint is to have all the models finished and textured for the first level and the second in order to catchup.

The trello during this sprint was relatively good, cards were being moved and we are getting close to being back on track, we are only a bit behind at the moment, so hopefully by the end of this next sprint we plan on catching up on everything again. Shown below is a brief picture of the trello complete section. I had one card that was left in to verify by the end of the sprint, since it is a card made up of three tasks, only one of them wasn't approved which was the "tongue" textured flora. this card was three points. Something else I forgot to add in the trello was cards to UV the objects, since that did take a bit of my time, accounting for all the objects I made and UV'd, which would be the mushrooms, the floating crystals, and both of the flora, I'd imagine they'd all should have had their own cards, making for an extra 3 undocumented points. On top of that I had forgotten to include the rock that I created above into the cards, which I would only give 1 undocumented point for.

In total for this sprint, adding on the additional undocumented points I had assigned myself, 13 points. out of the 13 points, I was only able to complete 10 points. I will have to work on my role as a producer, since I've been rather unorganized as of late, so I take full responsibilities of any of the discrepancies between the trello board and my blog posts.

Sprint 3

During my third sprint me and my teammates had set a much larger goal to complete around 39 points throughout the sprint in order to catchup with the missing progress over the previous sprint. This sprint I assigned myself around 14 points to complete. Fortunately I was able to complete 11 points however I wasn't able to complete the last three due to some bugs that prevented us from using any mesh colliders or spawners.  Shown below is the trello board's complete section along with my completed work for the sprint.

One of the first things that I worked on this sprint was the creation of the Alien Tree model shown below, I had created this model in order to act as one of the hard obstacles for the prototype and first level of the game. This model took me quite some time to experiment with however I felt in the end it was fitting with the theme of the game, which Ben the team lead also agreed with. I had the idea to create alien like curves and Tendrils that grew from the tree in order to fit with the theme, also shown below. 

Soon after I had created some textures for this model but not until I spent time UVing the model. My idea was to create something that has the colors of a swamp along with some unusual colors, in this case the purple and the emissive red paint.

After I had modeled and textured the tree my next task, which was assigned to me last week is to import it into unity and see what it looks like alongside the 2D player Sprite.

Fortunately it appeared to fit the theme and also didn't look odd alongside the 2D sprite which we were initially cautious about. After I finished these cards I began reworking the skull I had created as the second hard object in the first level from the last sprint. Shown below is the skull I had created in Zbrush.

 

Using the reference of the creatures that our artist Kevyn created for the game, I had created a model that better fit the theme. After this I was sick for a week, so unfortunately I was unable to go back to the zbrush software on the school desktop to UV the model I had created, therefore I guided my teammate Ben through the software in order to UV it and eventually send me the UVs while I was at home. When he sent them to me I brought them into substance painter and created a texture to fit the "withered" skull look Ben was looking for.

Finally for this sprint I created a grass model in Maya and brought that into Unity for the Soft obstacle in the level. 

Though I haven't UV'd or textured the grass, it appears just adding a simple green shader to the grass gave it the look we were looking for. Overall I didn't run into many problems this sprint. The only issue I noticed was that I wasn't able to add colliders to any of the obstacles, because the camera  would rotate itself the moment I ran into the obstacle, messing with the orientation for the game. So we decided the breakable objects wouldn't be apart of the first prototype.

Sprint 2

 During my second sprint as a producer I further consulted with my teammates about the accuracy of the backlog to which we decided was still pretty rough. Therefore, we had decided to scrap the entire backlog and recreate it for every task throughout the rest of the sprints, and with reference in each card. This was pretty time consuming so I turned it into a 3 point card to document the work done. 

Throughout the Sprint we assigned a total of 33 points, 17 of those points were completed and 16 were left in the sprint backlog. I only had 2 cards left in the in progress section. One being the creation of the alien skull. I first began this card with a very rough block out of a skull in order to see how it might look in the isometric perspective along with a 2D player sprite. Shown below is the skull.

After creating this skull I had put it in my scene blockout to see how it would look.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to move the card to the complete section because I was trying to get the updated project with the sprites from my teammate Connor, however since he was having technical issues with github that may overwrite my scene blockout data I had decided to instead get an idea through the player 3D capsule placeholder. Shown below is an aerial view of the entire scene blockout. I had used some grass models for the scene in order to populate it for the soft obstacle. Shown in the middle of the scene is a placeholder for the centerpiece I plan on trying to create, an alien tree.

Shown below is the model for the alien skull I had created after blocking it out. Unfortunately, although I finished the model, the team had told me that they weren't very sure that it would fit the theme of the level so I left it in progress.

     

                                                                    

I have turned the 1 point skull card into a 3 point since this is going to require me to create a new skull. The one thing I had learned however was that 3D modeling a skull in Maya was actually a pretty difficult task compared to modeling a skull in Zbrush. Therefore I will have to use my time to recreate the skull in Zbrush starting sprint 3 off. Shown below is the last bit of work I had spent my time on this sprint and that was creating annotated maps for all 3 levels we had planned. Shown first is the Alien hunting ground (forest level) I had blocked out and showcased earlier in the post. 

Second (Shown below) is an annotated map of the desert level.

Third (Shown below) is an annotated map if the swamp level.

These three annotated maps have all yet to be tested on their pacing and functionality, so until we get to each on individually they will most likely be continuously revised.

Sprint 1

During Sprint 1 as the producer I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out the backlog of the sprint, since the first backlog I initially created was fairly rough in order to at least have something assigned. Eventually me and my teammate, and the game designer for Frontier Smash, worked together in order to create a better backlog that fits the vision of the game along with the scope of the project.

Something else I assigned myself to work on was creating the paper prototype with Ben as well as playtest it. Initially we created a simple 8 x 8 grid layout of how the map would work in a paper, where an object of the players choosing would represent the player, and a nickle dime and quarter would represent the different types of enemies. As well as obstacles being represented by a rock or something along those lines. We then play-tested amongst ourselves and discovered several new issues that came up during the playtest, one was that the 8 x 8 might be a bit too small for the prototype, and the waves of enemies that spawn may overwhelm the player if they aren't strategically predetermined in the time they arrive as well as which enemies and in what quantity. Shown below is the grid that we initially began the playtest with. But in 8x8 form, eventually we realized 8 x 8 was too small so we increased it to 10x10.

Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of us playtesting the paper prototype in person however the rule sheet shows a bit of where we placed the various obstacles in the level. 

There were a few features we were unable to test because it would've made the prototype a bit messy, one was the tall grass mechanic, in which the player must swing a machete to clear, in order to move quickly throughout the level. The grass was supposed to be placed wherever there isn't an obstacle. What I plan on working on next would be the annotated map for the first level as well as a blocked-out scene of it within the unity project.