BAFTA – Coding Sub Level!

Over the week I started the code for the sub level in my BAFTA game. I started off following a few tutorials to get myself familiar with how to go around coding the block moving aspect of the game and in the end I got working exactly what I wanted, but not entirely because still at the point in time of this blog post coming out the game isn’t working exactly how I want it to because the code isn’t doing what I coded it to do, however it should be fixed soon because the Imagined Worlds Project is over soon so I can fully focus on this and fix any bugs. Bearing in mind this is only the sub level so I am not planning on spending too much longer on it because I need to focus on the development of the main level.

Pushing the problems aside for a moment, here is the level in its current state at the time of this blog post going live.

Like I said I will be focusing on finalising this level as a top priority then I will be moving on to the development of the main level(s)

Until next time,

Matty OUT!

Creative + Technical Review

Assessor Name: Jacob

Feedback:

Your model has low amount of tri’s, however I feel you are using them in the wrong places the teeth for example have a high amount of tri’s even though you could of really used a lot less and used those instead to expand on the skull itself for example the front and the eye sockets are done very well but you haven’t done anything at the back of the model where there should be bone if you look at real skulls of dogs. The way you have textured I feel is great you have added stains around the teeth but I feel you could of used that staining else where on the model as well.

This is my Creative + Technical model before I received the feedback:

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In the next week heading towards the deadline on the 10th I will look to improve the model using the feedback received today.

That’s all for now with the Creative + Technical,

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!

Imagined Worlds So Far

The imagined worlds project is coming to an end and we are all working on the final touches to make the project as finished as we possibly can make it. The finishing touches include: Putting in the UI assets made by Bailey, texturing a few miscellaneous assets and touching up particle effects, lights and other things to make it look as good as possible. I’ve been tasked with finishing off the UI for the main menu which I have been working on mostly lately.

As you can see from the various renders below we have come very far and we are all very happy with all the progress we have made in quite a short space of time.#

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Soon I will be posting individual blog posts on all of the things that I have contributed to the project along with my overall feelings about the project and what’s next in the future.

Until next time,

Matty OUT!

BAFTA Game!

Recently, due to the Imagined Worlds Project coming to an end soon, me and Liam have come together to take a shot at the Young Game Designer BAFTA award. From the very start of our planning we wanted to do some sort of a puzzle game, and with that idea we decided to do a puzzle game surrounding the topic of endangered animals. At the time of coming up with the idea we knew how fast animals are becoming endangered and even extinct and we wanted to share that with others in the form of a game.

Straight after coming up with ideas we were straight on the internet looking at different styles of puzzle games. The following images are things we found that could potentially help us create, design and code our game.

In the end we narrowed it down to the two above puzzles, one will be the main level (First Photo) and the other the sub level (Second Photo). The main level will be slightly different to the sourced image because we thought the game would be more appealing from a top down angle.

The next blog post should hopefully show progress in the area of making the game work.

Until next time,

Matty OUT!

Imagined Worlds – Particle Effects!

Recently I realised that I hadn’t blogged about much regarding the Imagined Worlds Project so I have decided to dedicate the next few days to posting about the work that me and the rest of my group have done on the project.

For the first blog post I am going to cover the vast amount of particle effects that I created for the project. I will go into more detail on the main particle effects and

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Fire Particle – I have already blogged about this particle effect so I will just add a hyper link to the recent blog post here.

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Rain Particle – This particle was the most challenging of all of the particle effects because I had not worked with the different scaling of separate particles before because, up to that point, I had only worked with solid particles like the fire one but I got it done in the end and I am really proud with how it turned out.

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Lightning Particle – This effect turned out really well considering that I have never used the trails function in particle effects before. It was a fairly simple process that in the end gave out a very nice and clean particle effect and I’m pretty happy with it.

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Smoke Particle – This effect was the first particle that I worked with. I didn’t originally make it for the Imagined Worlds, I made it for a different project but when I heard the Imagined Worlds Project needed particles I put this one in and it worked and after that I wanted to do more.

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Miscellaneous Effects – Other effects I worked on. (Also made it into IW project)

Fog Particle

Player Highlight Particle

Spark Particle

Overall I am very happy with how all of these particle effects have turned out and I am also happy with all of the new things that I have learnt by using and creating particle systems during this Imagined Worlds Project, I hope to create more in the future for other projects.

That’s all for now on the Imagined Worlds Project,

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!

 

Diegetic and Non-Diegetic Sound

What is Diegetic Sound?

Diegetic sound is sound which has a visible source on the screen, for example: music playing with a radio present in the scene.

What is Non-Diegetic Sound?

Sound which its source is neither visible on the screen nor has been implied to be present in the action: 

-Narrator’s commentary

-Sound effects which is added for the dramatic effect

-Mood music

That’s all for now on Sound,

Matty OUT!

Texel Density

What is Texel Density?

Textures are represented by texels in the same way that pictures are represented by pixels. They are the smallest “puzzle piece” of a texture. Texels are not the same thing as pixels because a texel is a container for the pixels. So naturally, texel density is the amount of texture resolution on a mesh.

Some of the benefits of having good Texel Density are:

• To make all UVs applied to a mesh use approximately the same texel density for the texture size of their applied material.

• To apply a uniform level of texture detail across many assets which might share the same scene, allowing them to better visually fit together.

That’s all for modelling and Texel Density,

Matty OUT!

Creative and Technical!

Recently we have been tasked with creating a model in which we have to bake before we put it into Substance to texture it. We have 13 weeks to think, plan and create and texture the model but we can finish it before the deadline and work on the Imagined Worlds project if we wanted to. As I am not looking to specialize in 3D modelling I don’t want to model something too detailed or above my skill level. Just because I don’t want something too hard doesn’t mean I don’t want to push myself which is what I am doing with the thing I chose to model. After a while of thinking what I can model that will fit with the Imagined Worlds project I decided that I was going to model a Wolf Skull which will go on the hut for the hunters in our Imagined Worlds Project. Below is the concept art that I created for the planning of the Wolf Skull model.

Here is a PowerPoint presentation of my thought process going through ideas of what to model. Model Inspiration. Also, I have what I plan to bake onto the model in the PowerPoint too.

That’s all for now with Creative and Techincal,

Matty OUT!