FMP – Animation and Animatics: Plan

I am planning to start working on the animations and animatics early for this project. I am not planning to create any character animations within 3DS Max or any other 3D program for a while though. What I am planning to do is to learn the fundamentals of motion for animations by doing 2D based animations first.

First thing that I am going to do is create very simple animations, such as a rotating cube using the animation feature which is in Photoshop. I will also create a rotating cube within 3DS Max and render it out as a reference for the creation. What I am planning to do with these animations is to work out how the major points of an object move, such as an example with the cube, how each of the corners will move within a 3D space using 2D animation methods. The reason for doing this is so when I get to the more complicated animations and animatics, I will be able to work out how the object or character will move, by the major points of the object.

After I have created a few basic animations, I will start doing character based animations within 2D, which I will be starting of by recreating fight scenes from films and cartoons (using as a reference) to learn how to make the motion look more realistic. These will be done by creating stick-man animations which will be fast to produce and if done right, can have great motion which can teach me how to make more realistic motion within objects and characters.

next step is to start creating animatics for possible movements to be used within my game. The way that I am currently planning to do this is to record myself doing these movements to the best of my ability, or using an object to recreate the motion that I am after, placing the video in the background, and draw out points on each of the major movements within the video, and draw lines and circles to draw out a mannequin like character. This will be done for side and front views of the movement. The plan is that I will be able to use these animatics to create the motion within 3D animation using 3D animation software which will look professional and fun to watch. I do plan to edit the final movements slightly to make them look more powerful and fluid if need be.

I am planning to complete all of this within 4 weeks.

GrowGuu – Idea Generation: Visual and sound design

I have thought of a few directions that I can do with the creation of the visual look of the game and the sound and music that could be used with it.

I have thought of a design idea which is to make sound and design of the game work together. This means that with the simplistic visual design of the game, there will also be a simple music and sound library that will be used. This would be pretty simple to program into the game as all that needs to be created would be the music for the game, and basic code which allows the music to player and to be muted if the player wishes.

Another idea is due to the simplistic visual design of the game, I could use a powerful score (music) to make the game have more emotion and identity. This will require more programming as different events in the game could make the music more powerful or weaker. As an example, the music might be soft when the player is small, but the music could become more powerful as the player gets larger. The problem with this idea is that this would require a lot of sound programming to make this work well, and the creation of multiple parts of a song that gets played depending on player mass (player size).

Final idea is to make different music for different coloured backgrounds for the game. As an example, you could have a more powerful song play when the background is red, and have a calmer song play when the background is blue. This would require some more advance programming and the creation of multiple songs.

I may add to this list depending if I think of more ideas.

Before I create any of the music for this game, or decide on which direction I want to go with this idea, I want to do some research into sound design for games, so that I have a clear idea of what I need to do to make the music work well with the game, and make the user like the game with its music, or even make the music as a way of a user to remember the game.

GrowGuu – Design: Changes to design idea and current progress

Design idea changes

After looking further into what can be done with shaders within Game Maker. I have decided to step back from my original concept designs, and look at creating 3 different forms of concept art for the game.

I have learned that shaders within this game engine are very powerful, and can make a game look a lot better. Below I will show a video of what type of things can be done with the shaders:

As you can see, you can do a lot to the games visual design by using these shaders, but you will have to code them to get them to work. So what I will do once I am further with the prototypes of this game, I will add shaders as the fifth phase of the development along side improving the visual look of the game by creating animations and better looking objects to be put within the environment.

My plan for my game is to try to combine two shaders which are within the example that I showed above into a single shader, which is the water effect shader and the normal-mapping shader. If this is not possible, I will just create a water effect shader.

With the design of the players character, I will not change much, if I end up using the normal-mapping shader, I would like to use the 8th design from my previous player designs, which I will link here.

Current progress

I have currently create a player that is able to move around within a level in all directions, which is able to get bigger and smaller (re-scale) by pressing a one of two buttons on the keyboard. I have also make the character decrease in size when using the future shooting buttons, ready for the up coming mechanic. And finally, I have make it so the view of the player will zoom in and out as the character gets bigger and smaller. I will do a blog post in a week showcasing this prototype. My next step is to make the character able to grow by eating, and lose mass when damaged. I also would like to do something to the player visually to show that he has taken on damage. I am also going to do some further planning on the control layout for the game, as I am not fully sure on what will work best with this game movement wise; so during this week, I am doing to concept a view different possible control layouts for the game, and set the game up so that controller input can be used.

Rabbit Heart – Post 3: Research

I am planning on creating a few different items that could be put as part of the Rabbit heart project. First of all, I would like to create a control panel that would be used to control equipment within the set environment. Next is some form of tank that could be used for healing or to keep specimens alive; with my idea is to create a chamber which will hold a heart. Last asset is to create some form of scanning device which could be used to scan objects.

Below I will be collecting images to use for research and as a reference.

Reference for tank/chamber.

Link here.

Link here.

Link here.

Link here.

Link here.

GrowGuu – Prototype: Plan

I have not currently started the creation of this project within the game engine at this point, but I would like to take some time to plan out how I am going to produce this game.

I am going to create multiple prototypes for this project which will be broken up into phases to ease the pressure of me programming the game mechanics.

Below I will list the phases and what will be accomplished within each phase:

Phase 1

• Create basic player movement system
• Create growing mechanic when collecting an item
• Test background and check to see if it blurs (find fix if it does)

Phase 2

• Create shrinking mechanic
• Create shooting mechanic (shoots a blob and shrinks player)
• Create danger objects which damage the player (makes player shrink)

Phase 3

• Create spawners for objects
• Create prototype level for timed mode

Phase 4

• Create time mechanic
• Create basic menu

After phase 4, I will then create the pre-alpha version of the game using all of the mechanics I have produced in the prototypes.

This method of producing the game will be used for all the following game modes.

GrowGuu – Visual Look and Design: Concept – Post 2

Player Design

I have started to work on the visual look of the game. I first started of by doing a basic design of how the player will move within the game. As the character is very basic (being a circle) there are not many design choices I can make within a sketchbook, so I decided to concentrate on showcasing how the player will animate and change shape whilst moving. Below is a scan of the page where I did these designs (Part titled Player Design + basic animation).

I am planning on creating these as animatics within Photoshop over the next day to showcase how the animations will work.

After, I decided to go into Photoshop and try out a few different designs for the character using just one base colour (green), and showcasing all the designs on different colour backgrounds (Red, blue and yellow) to see how they look if I do decide to allow the backgrounds on the levels to change colour each time they are loaded.

Below I will show the designs I created, there will be 3 images, one for each background colour:

I decided to number each of the different designs to make it easier to explain each design, at this current point, I personally like the first 3 designs the most (1, 2, 3), but the final 3 designs (6, 7, 8) is a showcase of how the first design could look with a custom shader being used.

For the early prototype of the game, I will be using the seconds design as it is very simple and it will be easy and quick to produce the animations that will be needed.

Environment Design

After creating the designs of the character, I decided to create 3 possible environment designs, but I only used one background colour for all of the design to keep it simple. The first design is just a very basic design, no detail, just flat colours. The second and third designs is the basic design but showcasing how the same environment design could look with particle effects, first being with particles being showcases in the foreground, second showcasing particles in the background. Below I will showcase all of the designs in order.

Design one – Basic

Design two – Basic with particle foreground

With animatic

Design three – Basic with particle background

with animatic

The animatic is very mild, all it does is change the opacity of the particles making them more see through. If I do use particle effects, I want them to also move around randomly.

GrowGuu – Current progress: notes and ideas – Post 1

At this current point, I have started to plan out how to make my project. I started of by breaking up everything I can think of and listing them in my sketch book. My plan is to add to them when I think of other jobs that need to be done to create  a great final product. After I created a day plan which I only done two of the three task at this current point, which are creating the gameplay mechanics for the game, which I did by listening the different mechanics for the character and for environment objects, and how they will work and effect the player. After I created a blog post which is breaking apart the ideas for the visual look of the game. I want to try and break up all of the different possible ideas, and think of all of the possible problems for each of them. Link to the blog is here.

Below I will show scans of the notes and explain them:

Page one                                        Page two

 

Page three                                     Page four

Page one is just be breaking up what I need to do throughout the entire project, so that I am able to make this game one bit at a time and plan out how I am going to make it, which I think will help me produce a great final product.

Page two and three are mainly notes about how the mechanics for the game should work, from how the play should move, to some of the in game mechanics. At this point I am not considering any of the level mode mechanics, as I want to try and get the main game-play mechanics working for the first game mode that I am going to make which is time mode.

The forth page is just talking about what design direction that I should choose. I decided to continue this page as a blog post, so I am able to showcase research more easily. Link to the post is here.

My next step for this project is to start creating some of the concept pieces to showcase how the game could look, I will do multiple versions and designs of the visual look, showcasing how it looks zoomed in and out. Before I do that though, I want to try and think up a few more design directions that I can go.

GrowGuu Project – Visual look and design: Research – Post one

I am currently creating and designing a project called GrowGuu, which is going to be a game based around eating and growing in size.

Design Direction

At this point, I am looking at how the game could look, and what is the best direction for this project visually and mechanically. One of the problems that I have ran into whilst planning out this project is how the game will look when the player is very small. When the player grows and shrinks, the camera will also zoom in and out to that the user will always be able to see the character and the surrounding environment easily.

I have created one possible fix for this problem which is to make up the game level environment made up of only horizontal and vertical lines, no diagonal or curved lines, as when zoomed in, they can show up pixels which can make the game look strange and cheap.

Other option that I could use is to make the game look pixelly by nature, making it a fundamental design choice for the game, but the issue which I get with this direction, is how to make objects stay looking pixelly when the player grows to a massive size.

Below I will show an example of what the problem is:

The image to the left is the corner zoomed out (scale 512 x 512), and the image to the right is zoomed in (scale 32 x 32).

Colour Scheme Direction

The next step is to choose a colour scheme for the game that looks nice and pretty, but also is very simple in design.

Below I am going to show a colour wheel

Link to image is here.

With the creation of objects within the environment and the background, I need to make sure that environment objects do not blend into the background (making it hard for the user to see items within a level)

One of the directions I would like to go in is to make the background be able to change colour every time the level is open to make the game feel different each time a user plays it. I am not planning to make a pretty picture for the background, but just a solid colour, maybe with some basic particle effects to make it more interesting to look at.

With foreground objects such as the player and objects within the environment, I am planning to be just as colourful, but the problem with the idea of making the background change colour, is that like I said before, it could make some items within the game hard to see when certain background colours show up. So my first idea is to make the player and the walls to the level black, which should make the player and walls stand out without being too bright. and then designing objects within the environment to be certain colours which the background wont use, and also change the tone of the colours slightly compared to the background. The second idea is to only make the walls black, but also make the player colourful, but with all of the objects and the player to have a black line that goes around the edge to separate the background and foreground with a visual line.

Last point I like to add to this is, looking into the Game Maker Engine, I have found out that you are able to make custom shaders, which I could use to make the game have interesting lighting, giving objects more of a gradient. But at this point this is a very early idea, and I would personally like to make a working game before I plan on playing around with the shaders within the engine.

Rabbit Heart Project: Post 1 – Idea Generation

I have been set the task to design and come up for ideas towards the project called “Rabbit Heart”. Link for this project will be here.

Me and the rest of the group are allowed to design assets, envoronment, gameplay mechanics, level design, concept art and creating objects to be put within the project itself.

What ideas do I have?

• To design and create items within the environment and 3D model and texture them. The items could include, crates, boxes, weapons, ammo, rotten food and so on.
• I would like to try using morphing to create dynamic animating object. The ideas I have for this is to create a test based super weapon that would be within a large glass container that will change to different shapes. My other idea is to great a beating heart of a rabbit or human, I feel that this idea would fit the name of the project well.
• To have the helmet that the player collects later in the game to be on a dead soldier.
• Creating of a forklift to inhabit the environment (they would of used it to move objects around before the disater).
• Creating of a 3D printer, which using the morpher, make it print an object (or just have it as a static environmental object).
• I would also like to attempt to create the damaged dome that is built within the cave system. I would plan to make it modular so that it can be broken up into smaller pieces so it can be put within the games level easily.

Rocket Business Promotion Project: Post 1 – Design and Concept

I have been set a task to create a rocket ship in a friendly manner to showcase the idea of a “business taking off”, using the rocket or spaceship as a metaphor for this promotion. I have been given one week to design and concept and create this piece of work (starting the 25/09/2015).

Current progress

I have currently created multiple designs and concepts for the spaceship which I will show below. I have also came up with the idea of having a cartoony planet earth seen behind the rocket with a smoke trail.

The Design below is what I choose. The reason is that it isnt to complex, it looks like a classic rocket ship and looks the most friendly.

I have also started to create the choosen design within 3DS Max and have set up lighting ready for the final render. Below I will show the rocket rendered and un-rendered.

I also had a try at using the inbuilt particle system which 3DS Max uses, below I will show some final renders. I am planning to use this to create the smoke trail, but as you will see, I will need to make custom smoke textures so to be able to make it look correct (I used textures which were part of the 3DS Max pack).

What to be done next

I am planning to finish the rocket by the end of the say, I unwrap it for texturing. I will also need to design and concept the environment (earth). and create a better smoke trail for the rocket. and then finally do a final render at 4k with max render settings and edit the final renderers in photoshop.