Platformer 2D Animations!

Today I completed the three 2D character animations for my 2D platformer that I am creating for the Synoptic Project. I decided before starting that I wanted a set of three smooth animations to give my character a bit more life. The three animations that I created are an Idle, a Walk/Run and Jump.

These animations are all basic animations but they give so much life to the character and look miles upon miles better than just a static image moving up and sideways. Below are two of the animations in GIF form (I do not have the idle animation because I only have it in the form of a sprite sheet).

Jump

Walk

On the left is the Jump Animation and on the left is the Walk Animation. The reason they look very similar is because they are, Bence gave me the idea to make the jump the same as the walk but instead of just straight copying it to make it the same I decided to change them a bit. To change them I lessened the height on walk and increased the height on the jump, the  reason for this is quite self explanatory. The jump needs to be higher because the character needs more height to get t certain places and the walk doesn’t need to be as high because the character is only walking forwards/backwards.

I will most likely have to do more 2D animation with the enemies etc which I will put on my blog when completed in the next few weeks.

With these the next step is to put them in Unity but first I want to finish the basic art for the game for reasons that I have explained in a past blog.

That’s all for now with the Synoptic Project,

Matty OUT!

Scrum 6 – Synoptic

Overall

Overall, progress is going quite well for both sides of the project with the main arcade scene and the animations coming along at a steady pace and both of the first games coming to a close. After this step of the project we can start animating in the Arcade Room and we can start on the next section of games.

Issues

At the current moment in time there are no major issues arising apart from there being a lack of class/activity diagrams which will be worked on in the upcoming week.

Currently Working On

Josh – Finalizing the models for the main arcade room ready for texturing.

 

Jacob – Finishing first game and doing class diagrams

 

Matty – Planning second game and doing class diagrams for previous game

 

Bence – Rendering out the initial storage room animation

 

That’s all for now with the Synoptic Project,

Matty OUT!

Scrum 5 – Synoptic

Overall

We have got a lot further into the swing of steadily progressing through the project. As noted last week we were taken off course due to the week off but now we can definitely say that we are 100% back on course. Over this week we have made good progress and we are now back to the work ethic that we were at before the week off.

Issues

One of the deadlines has yet to be met, this is a big issue because it’s one of the most important tasks in the project. The deadline was set for this week and he asked us to change it, which we declined because its a deadline that could have been easy to meet if the person tried but a few issues were in is way in which he needs to fix. This issue will definitely be fixed by the project check next week.

Currently Working On

Bence – Rendering out the scene

Jacob – Finishing off the additional programming for his first game and planning his second.

Josh – Modeling miscellaneous assets that will go in the arcade room and laying out the base of the arcade room.

Matty – Adding a few things into the first game and planning the second game.

Scrum Week 3 – Synoptic

Overall

It is the beginning of the week so we got together to scrum and discuss anything we were currently doing and anything we wanted to get done by the end of the week. At the minute we are all happy with the way that this project is going as we are pushing through the tasks at a quite steady pace getting closer and closer towards the minimum viable product due in early April.

Issues

At the current moment there are no issues arising with any member and all previous issues have been corrected and are no more.

Upcoming Tasks

Matty – Finish coding the mechanics for the Space Invaders style game

Jacob – Finish coding the mechanics for the Asteroids style game.

Josh – Finalizing Storage Room assets.

Bence – Rigging the robot character.

Scrum Week 2 – Synoptic

Overall

Me, Bence, Josh and Jacob got together to discuss the current standings of the project again today. Overall we all agreed that the project so far is going pretty swimmingly apart from one thing which I will mention later. Most of us are moving with the current and we are well on our way to meet our MVP goals by the start of April.

Issues

Currently one member of the team is not working enough to match the progress of the overall project. We have informed said member multiple times on several occasions that he needs to do something and be more productive but he never listens, continues to watch videos and look at memes for the entire day. We are aware that it is only the second week but usually people are motivated at the start of a new project which is why we are starting to worry so soon into it.

Upcoming Tasks

Josh – Starting to model assets for the starting Storage Room

Jacob – Core Mechanics for the Asteroids Style Game

Matty – Additional Mechanics for the Space Invaders Style game

Bence – Assorted assets for the Storage Room and the rigging of the robot character.

 

That’s all for now with the Synoptic Project,

Matty OUT!

Scrum Week 1 – Synoptic

Overall

This week was the first scrum of the project and me, Josh, Bence and Jacob got together to discuss what we have done, what we plan to do in the week ahead and what issues have been arising (if any). The scrum wasn’t as detailed as a normal scrum would be because at this stage of the project we haven’t started the actual production yet. The Pre-Production process is going well with members coming together to come up with new ideas to make the game better. The management process of the project is coming to an end with all of the necessities set up (Production Plan, Asset List, Shot List, Storyboard and Treatment).

Issues

At the time of scrumming all of the group agreed that there are no current issues arising and we are happy because that means the pre-production process is going smoothly which means we will most likely be into the production of the project sooner rather than later.

Upcoming Tasks

All of the members all have things to be doing for the rest of this week and they are all listed below:

Josh – Modelling and texturing the Robot.

Bence – Modelling parts of the Storage Room.

Matty – Finalizing the management process and planning the games.

Jacob – Planning game ideas and putting together an audio plan.

That’s all for now with the Synoptic Project,

Matty OUT!

BAFTA – Progress!

In the first few days of production of the BAFTA game we have managed to get a fully working Main and Options menu. Liam created all the visuals for it while I coded it all, It was a fairly simple start to the project since we both had done stuff like this in the past which is why we chose to do it first over things like the main artwork for the game and the code for the main game. Below you can see what the main menu looks like:

*NOTE: The title is subjected to change in the coming weeks*

MainMenu

OptionsMenu

QuitMenu

In the next couple of weeks and over the Christmas Holidays this project will be one of the only things I will be working on so me and Liam planned out what we wanted to do next. I am planning to do the code and level design of the sub level and Liam will be doing the art for the main level which will be the various animals and puzzle pieces.

Until next time,

Matty OUT!

The difference between Playboards and Storyboards!

Storyboards

Storyboards are different to playboards in many ways and I’m going to show some of those many ways in the following blog post.

Storyboards have:

• Completely different shot types to games because storyboards for films have more creativity in the shot type area.
• Arrows showing: Movement (action), camera movement (pans, zooms, etc.)
• Text: explanation of what is happening.
• Dialogue (Onomatopoeia)
• Pictures

Playboards have:

• Camera angles (first person and third person).
• Arrows showing the movement of the playable character and the outcomes of the movement (See photo below).
• Pictures of the level in the game

That’s all for now with Playboards and Storyboards,

Matty OUT!

 

Particle Effects – Fire Particle

The first particle I made for the Imagined Worlds project is a fire particle. This is to be used for various things around the island, for example, a campfire or a torch of sorts.

The style of game we are going for is a stylized one which is why I have used a cartoon fire as the material in the renderer tab. The main effects are given off through the renderer tab and the size over lifetime tab. The renderer tab makes the normal boring circle particle look like a fire because of the material you put on it. The size over lifetime tab is used to give the particle the effect and shape of a fire because it is set up to start wide and finish thin.

That’s all for now with Particle effects,

Matty OUT!

Imagined World Project!

Recently I have not posted to my blog enough over the past few weeks and I am going to fix that. I am, starting from today, going to make my blog up to date with all the work that I have done in the previous weeks just to catch up on not posted work.

First of all I will talk about the main project that will be worked on up until the Christmas Break. I was assigned the role of creating particle effects and some other things in Unity, with the secondary role of programming. My team is composed of 5 people: Me, Luke (Programming), Max (Animation/Programming), Bailey (Modelling) and Nath (Modelling).

Overall we are making great progress towards the Minimum Viable Product and we hope to get it done before half term. We have some good organisation as a team and through lists and overall management thanks to Max. Below are the Asset List, Production Plan and Trello.

We have been tasked with building a living, breathing game world where player interaction is a mere bonus. We have to plan, design and develop a digital world suitable for use as a region in a game like Zelda or Pokemon. We had to include scripted elements such as weather changes, timed events and AI which is exactly what we did with our game ‘Ye Olde Simulator’. The game is based in medieval times following a small village of people surviving off of each other and relying on each other. The miners rely on the farmers and hunters for food, the blacksmith relies on the miners for ores and the hunters rely on the blacksmith for tools to hunt animals and that is the chain of events that keep the village running but as soon as one link in the chain is broken the entire chain gets disrupted and people become angry and when people get too angry because they are getting no food because the hunters have no tools and the blacksmith has no ores they will leave the village and that is when the player will know that their village is failing.

I am very exited to continue working on this project and I look forward to sharing my work to my blog in the next week or so.

Until next time,

Matty OUT!