Continuing on from the previous Game Jam (Plant Trap) our tutor decided to organise another game jam to once again give people the opportunity to gain extra credit. With this Game Jam my team was Me, Phil, Mark and Shane. The topic for this game jam was an application (mobile game) and we have to have 1 main character, 1 main mechanic and 1 environment. We could do this however we liked to build any game we wanted along as it tailored to these categories. To begin the design process as always we planned our what makes a good game. We went down the route of mobile games being addictive, fun to play and easy to pick up. Due to this we collectively thought of examples of games on our phones:
Flappy Bird
Bloons: Tower Defense
Paper Toss
Angry Birds
These are just a couple of examples, from this we determined that animals in games birds and monkeys etc. So from that we tried to list as many animals as we could that potentially had or hadn’t been done. From this we narrowed it down to a Mole, obviously games like Whack-a-mole are in existence but we could do our own game with a mole character. From this somehow we decided it would be fun to make him a funky disco mole with huge sunglasses and an Afro who has friendly disco moles and rival gang moles trying to sabotage his funky life. Alongside other moles trying to sabotage his mole hill we looked into common predators for moles, this came back with snakes so another enemy designed was a snake. Then to gain a life we had what moles like to eat which is worms once you collected enough worms you gained a life. My personal involvement in this project was in 3D and HUD, I designed the main character also known as “Molevin” it was a really simple design but could be edited and re-textured to create other characters. Which is what I turned Molevin into the enemy character who had different attire wearing a vest and a top hat with a flower in, then for a boss I scaled it up added a bandanna, match in his mouth and a bomb in hand with gloves on. Simply by reusing and editing the initial main character I created 3 characters for in game use good, bad and boss. I also created a tree stump that i projection painted using a mudbox preset to be used for the environment which wasn’t implemented in the end due to it being a unnecessary obstacle on a small environment game but it was used in the Game Over screen to add a visual. The environment is a field and the mole sits in the middle in what was supposed to be a mole hill but its more of a ditch at the moment. It has randomly place assets of grass and stones in the level just to add to the visuals.
This is my work for the HUD designs, using Photoshop to create simple circle icons, i took images of the characters to link it directly to the game, good guy is people saved, worms are lives, and the enemies are how many you have killed throughout the game. Very simple icons but still useful for covering the HUD elements in the game and also with it being a mobile game we didn’t want too much going on to get in the way of the game so small simple icons were effective in avoiding too much distraction from the game.
Here is the in game screenshots of the working HUD and game with my characters in. The menu system, game over and leaderboard design was made by Mark using the custom typeface we created by using a paint brush to go the font on paper then scan them in to be textured on the signposts. Mark used assets from all team members to piece together the menus, start featured everything, game over features the bad guys to symbolise they won and you lost, then the leaderboard was just visual models like grass, rocks and tree stumps. This game I had quite a prominent role in the modelling due to my increased skills over the year and primarily being the more advanced modeler in my group. As for HUD designs I was pleased with my products as they was simplistic but worked well with the theme of the product. As for the game to evaluate it we was very pleased with the end product it was fun and addictive players had to click (or tap for mobile which didn’t work) the enemies to kill them (1 for standard enemy and 2 for the snake). This racked up your score for kills and the aim was to last as long as possible as move and move waves of good and bad characters came into the level at varied speeds and difficulty as it progressed. Only disappointment I had was that my boss character never got time to be implemented but like the other game jams if we had time to progress we would implement a boss level for example. This was my personal favourite of all the game jams as i liked the style of game we had created. I’m looking forward to next next game jam which is in Cambridge Jun 2015.
Here is the video footage of game play from Mark Shaw’s YouTube channel:
This was a in house game jam in the studio, due to the success and benefits from entering the Cambridge Game Jam I kept pressuring the tutors to either find and enter us into a new one through the course or host an in house one potentially over the holidays, which would be optional but beneficial to students if they attended.
This game jam split us into 2 teams of 5 mixed with 3rd, 2nd and 1st years so experience would be shared across the team to try help the 1st years improve. The theme was “Life” we could interpret this how we liked but the game would be assessed on features:
Interactivity
Replay-ability
HUD/UI
Research
Mechanics
With this like the previous game jam we got into our group and put down everything we could think of life related, this included:
Plants
survival
evolution
life cycles
achievements/goals
life system (3 lives etc.)
Humans/animals/aliens/robots
We decided on Plants, and the idea behind the game was that you are a plant in a farmers field/maze and you have to collect water and sunlight to stay alive. By going around the maze to collect randomly spawning water you would gain speed, without water you would eventually slow down and die. Also in the maze was enemies of plants which patrolled areas of the maze in the form of an ant and a spider if they caught you it was game over, but you had a limited ability to fire a razor leaf at them which stunned them for 5 seconds so you could get away. Also the maze changed as you played so suddenly you could be caught in a dead end without prior notice of change.
My role in this game was design of the main character the plant, razor leaf model and blueprints (projectile), navigation mesh of the maze for the AI, AI tracking of the player in blueprints and the logo design. I also worked alongside Mark in trying to figure out animation for my character and his enemy characters.
Here are some in game footage images from Plant Trap:
Then here is my work (without blueprints):
The main focus was on the design and texturing of the character as this was only a 24 hour game jam, then animation also took some time. Once they was out of the way getting the AI to work was my priority with building the nav mesh so that one enemy had one half of the maze and the other patrolled the rest, the varied difficulty of the maze depended on which section you was in due to the upped speed of the ant so you needed alot of water and quick reactions to collect water in that area. As a final extra touch due to time left over I added a projectile system to our main character which allowed the player on pressing space bar to use a razor leaf ability to disable the enemy for a temporary time on a delay node of 5 seconds.
Here are the blueprints I did:
This is for the razor leaf projectile which disables the enemy characters for a set delay, and then the movement of the AI characters around the area tracking the player character to try end the game.
Unfortunately we completely overlooked the HUD/UI features for the game and this cost us in the marking, we did have a sort of display of points by using blueprints print strings but this isn’t a proper working HUD/UI. The menu system was implemented using my logo design as the background and a simple “Start Game” so the game did have a navigation system.
I used a contrast of green for plants to simulate life in the plant then black for trap and the spider to symbolise death. The simplicity of the logo in colour scheme gives it a nice professional flat look to it, I didn’t try to over do anything it was simple silhouettes of the characters then a type that I felt suited the game bold but also edgy. I used the L to balance the plant on due to it looking like a solid unit you would place a plant on, then the spider suspended down from the loop in the A seemed to suit nicely for layout. If you choose to read further into it the semiotics behind the plant in higher position is to show authority over the spider as you are the main character, but also the spider despite being lower and therefore inferior being black in a poised position to pounce its not to be under estimated as it can bring death upon you.
Overall I am pleased with the final product from the Plant Trap game, some features that we designed such as models for power-ups and bad pick-ups such as seed fertilizer for growth, and then toxic pollution to damage the plant didn’t get implemented but they are there if the game was to be progressed upon. My disappointment would be that we forgot to implement a HUD system which evidently cost us in the end.
My own personal contributions to the project I felt that I was a key member of the team that had involvement in all aspects of the project, including leadership which was sort of collaborative dependent on the situation but an overall id say I called a few decisions in the project and tasked people with work once they had completed a previous task.
Here is a video of captured game play footage from me playing the game on Mark Shaw’s YouTube channel:
In July last year I entered my first official Game jam, this was run by JAGEX at their studios in Cambridge. We entered as a course and took 6 members and our tutor with us to form a team (Paul observed and graded). With this being right after the end of first year it was great practice to keep the ball rolling with work and improving all the time, the most valuable part of it was being part of a mixed team with 2nd years this allowed us to work with people who was further along in the course to try bring us up to speed for this 48 hour straight game jam.
The theme was “cycles” due to the Tour de France taking part at the same time. We could interpret this theme how we wished so it didn’t specifically have to do with bicycles, to try and expand our area of “cycles” and find a idea to build a game we sat in a group and threw down anything we could think of to do with cycles this included ideas such as:
cycling
recycling
life
day/night
water
These were the main features we could come up with and eventually we settled on a slight incorporation of a few of them. We pinned down a cyclist who is in a dream and he has the power to change the day night cycle to solve puzzles and piece together his bicycle. So it was a puzzle 2.5D side scrolling game we decided to go with to support this and it was fairly basic to do in a shorter space of time, showing we didn’t punch above our weight implying we would do a fully immersive 3D environment with multiplayer online time trials.
My role in the project initially was alongside Phil to sketch up some level designs, so plan out issues that the player would come across forcing them to go back or use the power to change the day/night cycle. We decided that a journey from city to countryside so sort of a race in his dreams to the start line of the race, settings would go from city to park to village to countryside (hills) to start line. This was obviously ambitious to have 5 environments in the final project but at least we had considered how the game could have gone forward with extra time.
Then after level design I worked on hand painted texturing of the level, my limited skill in texturing at the time Paul suggested I used Mudbox’s projection painting. This proved very quick and useful granted it wasn’t all perfect when it came to bricks but with the time length of the project the visuals was still impressive. I then used this to projection paint graffiti onto a bus for the city level, I did this using many iconic game characters and general graffiti (even had Banksy art on the bus). Then I modeled a taxi (this first ever car I had done) which I was very pleased with at the time for the quality of my 3D and it actually made me pursue automotive modelling throughout the summer. Alongside general texturing of other peoples models and doing little assets myself I then took it upon myself to think or a name and design the logo.
Here are all the contributions to the game jam I could recover:
This shows my work in level design, hand painted texturing and models.
Here is my logo designs I tried to tie all the theme in of cycles to the logo as well and with it being Tour de France “Le Cyc” seemed relevant, here it is:
Admittedly a quick logo at best but you can see the idea behind it with the “cyc” making a bicycle, with more time alot of this would have been alot further along, some models didn’t make it in but nothing is wasted as if we was to progress this idea at any point we have put in the work through a design process to easily expand on what we have.
To evaluate the game jam overall it was a very worthwhile experience for myself, it allowed me chance to work in a team to push along together with a 48 hour deadline, which testing teamwork, communication and overall commitment to stay awake and work. I have taken alot away from this game jam in relation to how my 2nd year has gone, I view it as the starting point of my 2nd year to push on, after I began work on my personal classic mini project due to enjoying the modeling of the taxi. One thing I have reigned in is the graffiti, granted projection painting was very enjoyable and produced decent results but graffiti took over my game jam i remember doing it on a coke can just because I could, should the opportunity ever arise in a project requiring graffiti you can be sure I have it covered though.
Despite not winning on this case the JAGEX judges was impressed with our work and the visuals of the project. Most of the other teams was programmers which we didnt have any we are all artists so naturally our game would look better but maybe not play as well, but personally I think what we produced with the issues James had with Kizmit on his own was a great achievement. Maybe a programmer would be advisable next time but now our knowledge in blueprints is more that enough for a Game Jam so we should in future have a visually and interactive game, to hopefully win with.
For this year I chose my project of “CarBeat” to be my self initiated game which was a drag racing game, this was to focus on up skilling my 3D modelling skills especially in the automotive/ vehicle area. To evaluate that in achieving my goal I definitely did, the Maserati Gran Turismo I did at the end of the project was by far my best piece to date and will be a sure feature of my portfolio. The game as it is with a little more time will have alot more very soon, I modeled 5 vehicles (3 done, 2 unfinished) and only 1 currently sits in the game. I designed a garage level so that the player could select their cars and make modifications etc which is yet to go in and needs the blueprints side to be made. As well as many assets and other features I plan to implement, the current game in engine is basically a fragment of the game I am creating.
To reflect personally on this side of the year I didnt allocate enough time to it, with the client project I dedicated alot of my time towards that which neglected my self initiated work. The demand for work to push the client project along caught me and therefore my game suffered. Next year to reflect upon this I will devise a time management weekly schedule, this will for example be Monday-Tuesday for client, Wednesday-Thursday for final major project and Friday-Saturday for CATS with Sunday as a relax day. By doing this and working on average 6+ hours a day I will effectively produce work for all areas adding efficiency to my workflow.
I am pleased with the progress I have made in my technical abilities for the software in 3D and UE4, I am no blueprint genius but I do understand it to a certain extent allowing me to make game mechanics. The work I have done for my self initiated project I no doubt believe could have been much more, I enjoyed working on my own project but didnt allow myself enough time aside of the other course work to really hit all my targets for the project. My primary goal was to focus on 3D and produce realistic vehicle models was a success in my opinion but as for my secondary goal of building an environment and having a fully working race (start, race, end, repeat) I did not achieve, they are well underway but not completed. Then my tertiary goal to texture my work was missed, which disappoints me as I need to focus on gaining knowledge in texturing due to my 3D work being more advanced I feel texturing and unwrapping is a side I currently need to apply more time to learn it.
In conclusion I am satisfied with my project but fell short on my secondary and tertiary goals for the project. Going forward into next year and the summer I will plan up a time management sheet to try stick by for next year, I will continue to model vehicles as this is where I feel my best features are in 3D, and to take time to up skill in unwrapping and texturing so I can have the realistic visuals to the models. I intend to use this project to take into my 3rd year so that I have a more complete portfolio piece at the end of my 3rd year, this will be my aim but is yet to be approved.
In the last few sessions I have mentioned that i had been in contact with St Stephens shopping centre in Hull with intentions of securing the group with a opportunity to showcase our client project’s current stage before our hand ins. After several days of contact and acquiring the necessary documentation (public liability insurance) from Hull College I had us booked in for Friday 15th May from 10am-4pm. With this secured the client session before the showcase as team leaders we sat down and emphasised focus on promotional materials, this had been tasked a few weeks before hand but little progress had been made to our understanding. When it came to Thursday the day before the showcase and no evidence of a leaflet or any other promotional materials had been presented we took to informing the tutors on our current issue, to resolve this Gareth stepped in to help us design and piece together some promotional materials.
To assist Gareth I went through any files i had that i thought could show the public our design process over the year of work. This included Concept art, renders, screenshots of 3ds max progress, sketches, research wall photos, designs, ideas, group meeting photography, and other helpful images. After collecting work of my own I had asked other students in the studio if there was anything of use they feel they could put into these folders allowing Gareth to have a pick of the bunch. James put in some concepts/research and Viktor put in some step to step and final production of sculpts and his bank. Phil also gave Gareth some seperate renders which was used for the leaflet designs including the 3D version of my signpost logo sketch.
The logo sketches I did on Tuesday, Viktor had already done a logo but there was some debate on the design of it due to the inclusion of Hull and crowns which may spark some currently unknown debate from any public members. Due to this some sketches of logo ideas using reference from crests, shields, 60s logos and items in the street I did just to give us a wider range of choice in the logo field. Here are my results:
Many people liked the signpost logo with the Old Town Memories font in the style of the street signs currently in the street which was there in the 60’s so it had accuracy and relevance to the project. To try get different perspectives and cleaner visuals of the logo Phil decided to take the basic street signpost logo into 3DSMax and I took the street signpost with the lantern into 3dsmax.
Here are my renders of the 3D logo:
With this i felt that it was decent but the logo design in realistic 3D didnt work for me it just didn’t feel right. The next step for this would be to take it into Photoshop and overlay correct type of the street font then add colour, or texture it to create the same effect. With limited time I left this to Phil to progress on his logo whilst I contacted St Stephens about transport of the television to our display area and sign in requirements for the group. Due to St Stephens fantastic customer service the reply was very swift and we cleared any possible issues for the showcase.
Now with the showcase closing in its important that we consider a few things to do with professionalism whilst displaying to the public:
Information- give informative replies to any questions in a polite and controlled manner. Do not over explain any technical terms to the project but also dont be condescending towards the public treating them like they know nothing. for example instead of talking in depth about the process of 3D modelling and using modifiers to shape a certain complex shape which will be later unwrapped using the uvw unwrap to take into Photoshop, ndo2 or other programs, simply say to create the models of the buildings and assets you see we use 3d software which allows us to place them in the game world (engine) as you see them now. Its not over informative but its also not too complex just to the point and well explained. Let them know that this is a working progress and to keep an eye out by taking a leaflet as we will be doing the final product display in September.
Presentation- This can fall under a few categories:
Clothing- Dress smart or smart casual, you want to be approachable and presentable. We are representing our course and college so it is important to give ourselves and them a good image. My personal attire was a suit blazer with polo and jeans.
Layout- The project is in the middle of a shopping centre with many people walking by to draw them in we need to have a well laid out station with regards to promotional materials and availability for them to be seen and picked up easily. The layout I placed 3 leaflets overlapping each other to add a personal touch to the space and then we had plastic holders for the leaflets placed on the stand in front of the TV but not obstructing the view of the video.
Video- The main piece we want the public to see is the video which is a fly through of the project. With help from Gareth he pieced together using our content and previous video a professional informative video for the public to view.
Presence- Using our shifts each person had to man the project with another colleague, our time around the project was there to draw people in. But in the times where little interest was given we must ensure that we do not obstruct either the view of the project stall or the public’s path. The general position of one man at each side of the TV was assumed by most groups. Another thing with this is posture, to be standing upright and approachable, this means no slouching or leaning or hands in pockets as it just doesn’t portray the right image. We need to look as enthusiastic and professional as possible around the project so that the public might be interesting in taking a look.
Teamwork- Due to our idea to have shifts for teams of 2 at each interval we need to communicate between each other on overlaps. This means when handing over to another group to inform them of any interests in your shift, what to do with the documentations and forms if somebody wants them, handing out of leaflets, and any issues that have been raised throughout the day. If any problems arise the scheduled rota’s for each team was on the sheet along with contact details so people could come help.
There are other things but them 3 I believe are key for us to be successful at our first public showcase of the project.
On the day of the showcase Myself and Phil was first on the list, due to my contact with St Stephens I was in charge of signing us in, finding out our location and then setting up (Phil set up too). Also I made sure that as its a public place and St Stephens usually prohibit photography in the centre that we was alright to take photos of us and our stall to add visuals to our evaluations of the day, this was confirmed fine by the staff. Once set up it was around 9pm but the requirement was to be set up by 10pm so earlier we set up the better and we could get started. Barrie also brought us down some freshly cut doorstops as we had a wheeled TV stand and St Stephens is on a slope, so just for safety precautions we felt this was a necessary to have done.
Immediately we could notice that earlier on we might not have much interest, people was on the way to work, getting breakfast and so on. There was time for a quick glance but not many stopped to talk to us, this we felt was natural with it being earlier on and expectations for more viewers would come later on in the day dinner time onwards. Our people skills generally improved over the time as first we didn’t want to bother anyone as we personally know how frustrating it is when your going somewhere and people try stop you in the street, but we realised this is for the project so anyone slightly tempted is a bonus as then the public can give us their thoughts. Yet despite rejection and disinterest from people walking on past we needed to show our professionalism by keeping a calm level head about it all to try get others in.
I had an idea to employ Skinner’s operant conditioning into our showcase, i went to Tesco and purchased some sweets to place behind the promotional material, if the public came and talked to us or viewed the project they would be offered a sweet as positive reinforcement for supporting our work. Just a little touch but employing game theory into our client showcase was an interesting method to test.
In my first shift with Phil we had 9 people come see us 6 being people from the course but still wanting to know how its all going and what we have done. One of the other 3 was a lady from Historic England and she was extremely interested in the project as it was quite convenient she had just come from a meeting about heritage projects and just so happened to run into us which was great. After explaining our work we exchanged details for contact for further information and a potential future client, she mentioned about our impressive 3D work and how they could use it for 3D visuals of building design planning before the real builds. This was really great for us as we sold the project so well to her Stephen was also with us as it was the beginning of his shift and helped explain everything to her. She walked away impressed and enthusiastic which gave us a great confidence boost and vibe about the work and the benefits of the public showcase.
After our shift the only issue that was raised was from Abbiella, upon coming to check up on the group see how things were going and give a bit of advice she had been told by the previous group not to take any photographs at all. After visiting the staff as i said before this was cleared up and use of photos was perfectly alright for our own personal use. With me previously posting an image to Facebook to let my friends and family know of our presence in the shopping centre I decided to try take it to the next level. Not many of the leaflets had been taken which suggested at nearly 3pm loads of people hadn’t come and spoke to the other groups. With that in mind we have them as hand outs, so I decided to go into GAME to ask if I could leave a couple on the counter to get people to maybe notice we are games designers and not a charity like most of the other stalls. GAME kindly accepted to leave them there and actually offered to tweet that we was there as well, which was brilliant and also a shame as I had only thought of doing it 1 hour before we packed up. But we know for next time that potential nearby stores might be worth placing a few temporary promotional materials in just to try attract anyone who may have missed it. With 1 hour left James decided to stay behind after his shift into mine and Phil’s second shift to help out, with the extra man we sent James to the front of St Stephens with the majority of the remainder of the promotional material to hand out to passing people informing them of who we are. This attracted a few in but with saying the final showcase was in September maybe people wasn’t as interested until the final product. Nevertheless personally as the day went on confidence grew and more ways for developed to try bring people in which we can take into any future showcases of the project.
It was time to pack everything up so Paul came down prior to 4pm to check up on us, then Me, Phil and Paul packed all the equipment away and put the TV back in Paul’s car to be taken back to the studio. With the day coming to an end I decided to go thank the St Stephens staff for all there help with our showcase in the day and i also sent them an email when i got home to once again thank them and notify them on how this has benefited us as students. I will also type up an email to John Netherwood sometime next week to thank him for allowing us the use of the TV and stand for the project.
To evaluate the day I have to say that as a team I believe we did a great job in all professional aspects especially presentation. The best thing we can do from St Stephens is to treat it as a stepping stone, for the next showcases we will have further progress in the project, better promotional material, better people skills through the experience and understanding of our surroundings. The day itself is just the first in a run in to the final showcase on September, but the more we can do and practice then the more effective and professional we will be when it comes to that stage. Allowing the public to see the project at its current stage which we was hoping to be alot further and still see the amazement of how we do what we do and praise for our work is a real boost for us to push this as much as possible into September to really impress people, hopefully anyone who obtained a leaflet or information from us will see us again on our next showcases to see the progression and keep an interest in our work. We also need to set up at least a blog or a official website as people did ask for this as none of the online presence was on the leaflets which was a mistake on our behalf only contact information, so we could only direct them to Facebook, Twitter or YouTube which honestly haven’t been used to the full potential so for future we need a working website.
What we hope to have for next time or prospect centre when that is confirmed is the interactivity side of the project fully underway, we have 3 TV’s at our disposal so the set up with one of the professional video fly through we had in St Stephens, then another similar style to where we are now and then the interactive version would be a great way to display our work. On the day we felt that from our experience with “Rush n Crush” that me and Phil noticed people were more inclined to pick up and play rather than watch, yet that might not be everyone’s preference so different set ups one being more visual and informative and the other playable would attract a wider audience.
Here are all the images from the day that I took including images of other groups if they requested it and the leaflet designs on close up:
Stand backing
Leaflet
As for the sweet and employing operant conditioning, not everyone wanted one but they seemed pleased to have the offer there. Overall a very good day and I would like to congratulate the team for all their efforts for people who attended hopefully we can take this into future showcases.
Here is the video fly through that we displayed to the public in St Stephens:
With time now before the next one we can edit this version that Gareth pieced together watch it make notes of what works and what doesn’t to improve on what we already have.
On the return of Easter as group leaders we was hoping to see our teams work over the holidays towards the project. Unfortunately when asked the majority of the group had focused on their self initiated projects instead of the client, this was quite disappointing as everyone was set targets and agreed to them before Easter. Nevertheless we proceeded with the group meeting after I stated to the group that we all agreed on a target and seen as myself and Phil was pulled from the project due to doing too much work on it and not enough on the rest of our work it was down to the rest to produce work.
With that all being said we had estimated we have around 6 weeks left due to no pinned down hand in dates, due to this we all agreed that to have a 2 week clean up period before the final hand in was a sensible action to take. This would mean we have 4 weeks to finish everything outstanding for every individual in the group, then those 2 weeks would be spent checking all the work for errors, bug testing the engine, and then correcting any errors that existed. This would be a similar procedure than what would be taken in industry, before a game would be shipped everything would be checked, checked again and checked again really. The final product is the key and will be on view to the public for example we don’t want to be explaining why that car is floating above a building its unprofessional and with this 2 week clean up period this should eradicate any issues.
Before Easter in the last session we had been trying to come up with a name for the project (see link for design process of name), with many being generated and one not particularly pinned down we decided to leave it until after Easter to decide on a name, this allowed anyone to have a think and possibly come up with a name for the project. With that being said we finally decided on my idea of “Old Town Memories”. I particularly liked the name because it had a soft ring to it, also it directly linked to our project with us designing a section of Old Town and with it being the 1960’s and most people will still be around from that time period remembering what it was like it would spark memories.
With the named being decided on the design documents for the public eye needed to be done. This would include things such as leaflets/flyers, concept booklet, logo/banner, and a bio of the project. This would be a general input from the entire group as the more input the better. My personal input was that we need a theme to it, a general style for each document which replicates over the other documents gives a professional look to it all. As for style i suggested as I did to David with the UI/HUD elements to research into fashion colour trends on the time period to try link it all in.
Closing the group meeting I emphasised the importance of communication, we need to talk people cannot be at any point in the dark now, if there are any struggles from any individual they need to be open about it so somebody can help to progress them further or take the work from them so its completed. Its crunch time and teamwork needs to be a priority.
Moving on, in-between session 20 and 21 we had a surprise meeting with our actual client John Netherwood the chairman of the Hull Civic Society. The required myself and Phil to take the meeting and introduce ourselves, our work and what we have done with the project. To have a quick and efficient way of showing the project instead of having them playing it, Phil made a matinee sequence which made a fly around of the project disabling all player controller input. Mr Netherwood arrived with his wife to see the project, myself and Phil proceeded to shake hands and take the meeting in a professional manner. We discussed current progress, features and our passion towards showing this to the public. Which we was confirmed with a venue of the History centre alongside the fashion students 1960’s project. Also a near certain of Hull’s transport museum in September when the Hull Heritage week is on. Then any other possible venues we would need to seek out ourselves which we had planned to do in the next session. We are also going to try contact the Hull Daily Mail to do a article on our work at its current stage and then a follow up of where it will be by the time the Heritage week comes around.
Overall myself and Phil was very pleased with how the meeting went, we stayed professional and happily had a back and forward conversations from questions posed from the client. Discussed what they would like to see from the project and so on, it was a really beneficial meeting for myself it allowed myself to gain confidence in talking to potential clients as we was naturally nervous about what they would think. They also liked the name of the project which was pleasing as we had trouble pinning one down initially so all positives came out of the meeting which was great for us.
Moving onto session 21 which will continue into Thursday as we presented all of our work since Easter on Thursday including the client work. Initially in the session we had a brief catch up on what work has been done since last week, this week we had a full group which we didn’t the previous week so everyone was caught up. After that Myself, Phil and our tutor Paul went to go try secure some potential venues for showcasing our work. This would test once again myself and Phil on our professionalism and communication skills. We initially talked to the Transport Museum in which we had to fill out a form to send to the governing board to approve. Moving on it was now open to us to try secure venues, we managed to get Fanthorpes on silver street and prospect centre as definates, then kapow, princes quay, st stephens, ferens art gallery as possibilities. Unfortunately a few no’s came with asking from shops like granger games and thats entertainment but we still tried, rejection is all part of it you dont get if you dont ask.
Then on Thursday we showcased our work for the client. My work involved completion of buildings on Trinity House Lane which were Wetherspoons, trinity market entrance, bob carvers, and Davids handed over building which is currently a coffee shop called Coco’s. I will now go through my building to their current stage from what I did in my presentation in a briefer form with a self evaluation for each.
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These photos were taken by James Branson (his blog) when we all went out taking photographs in the early stages of the project.
This is my model of the current Wetherspoons (we are unsure on the original building so may take artistic license to leave it as a pub until we find more). This building has taken me around 3 weeks with working on other things at the same time, as its a highly detailed building I think this is an acceptable time. I have put this down as finished ready to be handed over to the texture team and then to go in engine, the model itself could do with some time taken on optimisation but due to the upcoming deadline my time is better placed elsewhere as the optimisation wont effect us hardly at all and if needs be the texture team can go in to the model and delete loops or polygons to support the unwrapping. The building itself is 21,888 poly’s which with the fine details and complexity of certain features in the building I feel it is a realistic poly count. Issues I came across whilst modelling this was correctly scaling the sections of the building as it seems to be sectioned by ledges, putting the ledge in the right place so that all the window frames, pillars and so on was also to scale was key to the building looking correct. This took tweaking but im pleased with the end product and proportions of the build. The development in my modularity has aided me well in this particular building as extruding pieces like the window-frames, pillars, chimneys, lights etc was the same and only minor edits to the curvature on some parts was needed allowing quick development when adding a feature such as a window-frame. Overall being a later building in the year I feel my 3D skillset had progressed massively in comparison to initial buildings in terms of quality and speed, if any problems arise im confident enough now to quickly amend any issues.
These photos were taken by James Branson (his blog) when we all went out taking photographs in the early stages of the project.
This building is the entrance to trinity market, a fairly simple building that didn’t take me very long, as soon as Wetherspoons was complete the building speed increased rapidly. This building I have had to make sure it matches correctly with wetherspoons, i found the modelling of a section of a street so building sections together was far more effective as scale and alignment was much easier to achieve than when your working alongside another person and having to make changes once you realise in engine its slightly out. The building itself I found fairly easy as once again its a later building in my year and I feel more advanced in my 3D work. the only issues was to how to make the extruding shape around the first window in the lowest possible form, which i realise would be as a separate pushed in object to the shape rather than modeled in around the window. Generally the building was simple just swift loops for the windows of the building and door, then everything else modeled separately and snapped to the building facure. Another building im pleased with, finished and ready to hand over to texture and then go into engine. Only addition would be needed if texture team agreed would be the slight fence style look above the door which I thought could be done with a plane that they can make a alpha map to create the fence then a normal to make it pop. Thats only addition needed to this building I believe.
These photos were taken by James Branson (his blog) when we all went out taking photographs in the early stages of the project.
This building is currently Bob Carvers on Trinity House Lane. With this model once again the 3D capabilities are there too do buildings like this with good speed and quality at a good optimised level of poly’s. Not many problems came up, due to this i decided on certain windows when we walk past are sometimes open, all i had to do was select the window poly’s detach them from the building then rotated them slightly to give the impression that the windows are open. The group gave me great feedback on this saying they loved the idea and it makes the building looked alot more used and lived in even just with the simple open window rather than a plain shop facure. Again it was just getting the proportions of the building right in relation to my other models and using gathered photography this was made alot easier. I think of all my buildings I like this the most purely because of the windows, it just makes everything look more real and alive. Obviously I will need to make a simple box to simulate a interior as the windows are open and if a player angles it right they will currently be able to see the sky so a simple box interior will solve that problem.
These photos were taken by James Branson (his blog) when we all went out taking photographs in the early stages of the project.
This building is currently a coffee shop called Coco’s, this was originally another students building (David) but he handed it over to me for optimisation and the addition of an interior. I had decreased the poly count from just over 1000 to 238 and that was with adding an interior with shop window showcase area. Being a very simple building I dont really have much to give feedback on, its a basic building which took no more than 30 minutes to optimise then add the interior section using simple edge modelling workflow to then bridge the gaps. I did notice one issue, nothing major but pointed out in the presentation id overlooked the way it had been done at the front with the windows, and this results in N-gons in the gaps either side and between the windows. Simple fix with connect or cut tool. All of these buildings are now ready to be handed over to the texture team.
Here is a few pictures of the complete street section on Trinity House Lane:
I found that modelling a street section was far more productive and beneficial for myself as a 3D modeler. This was because mainly the dimensions, scale and proportions of buildings, I could use the other buildings i had completed and finished to adjust the new ones to make sure the street looked correct. This worked both ways as any misjudged dimensions could be effectively grabbed and moved into place.
Then for Silver Street I have finished RBS and started the silver street entrance to trinity market.
This is currently RBS bank building on Silver Street. Once again a very basic building wasn’t much to it just a few insets for windows after I had added loops to extrude some ledges. Because of the simplicity of the building I added a small shop window interior so that there is potential to turn it into a shop if we find out the original status of the building and if we don’t then an artistic decision will be made to adapt the building to possible a bakery for example.
And finally from the buildings i presented was the beginning of the silver street entrance to trinity market. This is a fairly complex but also modular building for frames and decorations, then a symmetry modifier applied will allow me to easily check the finished building as its only sensible for speed to model half the building if its complex when symmetry can do the work for you on the other side. This building is currently stalled, this is due to the final hand ins coming to a close we have decided for hand in and the public we have to focus on the texturing of Whitefriargate and Parliament Street, all other buildings will be put in with the basic grey block in the background to suggest that the area is under construction and will be completed for main showcase in September.
After we had presented I took the role off Abbiella to create a professional email so that we could email the clients that we had and hadn’t discussed potential showcasing for the project with. This required me to type 2 emails, both similar but adjusted for seen and unseen clients. Once typed it up I asked my tutor Gareth to have a proof check to see if anything could be improved or any key information had been missed. The final email also had a link to our latest video fly through of the project so that the clients could have a quick taster to what we had been working on and will be showcasing.
This is also the grey block video fly through we showed our client John Netherwood when he came in. I disclosed that this is not the final product but an in progress project we gain alot of benefits from public showcasing for our marks and the projects quality. This final email was sent to Fanthorpes, St Stephens, Prospect Centre and Princes Quay.
After waiting a few days I had successful replies from St Stephens and Fanthorpes confirming interest in allowing us showcasing our work. Fanthorpes was already secured from speaking to the shop manager originally but St Stephens was a fresh attempt of securing a client by myself. Since then myself and St Stephens have been in contact discussing the project and when we would like to showcase it. Coinciding with there times and available for displaying space, I managed to get us a showcasing date before our hand in (19th May) which is Friday 15th May. This required us to have a Public liability insurance cover which initially i didn’t know if we have but with contacting my tutors we do have a copy to send to St Stephens and prepare for Friday. Our location is just outside the elevator near the bagel food vendor stall, next week I will discuss with the group on shifts for the showcase as I personally would like people to man the project in-case any of the public wish to stop and talk to us about what we are doing.
A slight issue with St Stephens arose with my tutor Gareth with that it is the shopping centre/ area that has crushed the Whitefriargate area for business and popularity. So when we showcase there as long as we are displaying it as a student project following on from the previous years of the heritage project and our area is a section of Old Town including Whitefriargate, it can be clearly seen as a project rebuilding an area of Hull in the 1960’s and not a display to support Whitefriargate. This turned a few of the group off as they don’t really want any hassle from the public but at the end of the day its an opportunity to showcase our work that i have secured before hand in so participating in it will add to our professionalism and “getting our work out there” for feedback/review.
Will this just around the corner next weeks focus as that is also the session all the texture team should have the Whitefriargate and Parliament Street area textured, so the focus will be on promotional materials for our project. Any promotional materials we have can be a extra visual for the project for the public to have, which will aid them in understanding the project and what we do to make it what it is.
Through illness I missed one client session but have been informed by fellow students on the goings on of the project. In session 16 (my absent session) the group held a group critique so that we could evaluate if the new formed pipeline and sub-teams are working more effectively than the process we was following previously. From what ive been told much higher quality work and amount has been produced since the formation of this pipeline. This pleases me greatly as the method of industry practice that we have implemented has worked and collaboratively we are now showing that we can work as a team effeciently. For the rest of that session everybody continued with the work already tasked to them after Phil had introduced to the group the research on PBR (Physical Based Rendering), with a little bit of research we realised that UE4 our engine is a PBR engine, therefore all the texturing we have currently done is not going to be the standard it could be if we did PBR methods.
PBR basically deals with light naturally like it is in real life, the most common maps to use are diffuse/albedo and gloss then you can apply normals and so on. Basically with PBR there is no need to adjust brightness/darkness on your textures for different lighting in engine it is one texture that works for all the albedo map has no lighting information on it so its all calculated in engine. It the latest exciting thing in games that is currently being used in next gen games such as RYSE and Dragon Age Inquisiton.
PBR is briefly explained here:
Then an example of how amazing PBR can be is demonstarted in Quixel’s Demo Reel here:
A brief glimpse there of the types of maps all used just to make a incredibly realistic leaf. If we want our project to look and feel real we have to really look into this and learn the tips and tricks behind pulling it off for the project. I found this demo reel after a bit of PBR research one night and then showed it to the group, it just proves how amazing the detail can be all in texturing we just need to knuckle down and work it out to maximise the potential of our work. This project using PBR could we a fantastic porfolio piece, so this is now the art teams main focus.
Moving on to session 17, I return still not 100% but I dont like being off. The begin the session Phil had been showing me his progress on a portion of the street he was remodelling from semester 1 which he had now included shop interiors, this had been discussed earlier on in the year but never materialised. Now to show what it would look like and how it would be done Phil showed his work to the group and we delivered a group meeting based on interior design for the buildings. We stated this would not be applicable for all the buildings as we may be trying to run before we can walk but certainly for certain shops that we can show off 60s fashion, music and culture this oppurtunity shouldnt be passed up. This means more work for me and my 3D team but it will be beneifical for the project, one of the feedback notes we was given for the project at Hand in is that the shops dont look realistic when looked at because of the shop fronts/ windows by modelling a simple interior (possibly inaccessable) it creates a more naturalistic feel to the project that will further immerse the public in our work.
We then proposed to the group to do a section of the project each for my 3d team. By doing this models should all meet up correctly, be to scale, and having multiple buildings produced side by side by yourself will be great for a porfolio piece. The street i chose to take was Silver Street (Right side) this was because i currently have wetherspoons on trinity house land which goes round the corner onto that side of Silver Street so its only logicial to continue with that area. The street section chosen by each person will require them to model interiors (where applicable and approved by myself) and all assets related to that area of the street. For example if my street has a flower shop, that would require me to model flower shop related assets such as a flowers in a vase to go in the shop window.
After this i had a little talk with Paul my tutor, he expressed he is pleased with the groups advancement and focus since the return but as team leaders myself, Phil and James need to keep a close eye on who isnt working enough. To tackle this Paul proposed we set weekly tasks to the individuals in our team to complete by the next client session, this will make sure people have a sense of deadlines and produce the work. Now as a leader i have to dicuss with my individuals what they think for them is achievable in that period of time. I explained to each one of them this will be a trial and error thing what do they think they can do in a week and what they actually can do, so one week i may realise that as Viktor has sculpted a statue by friday instead of tuesday is that he has been under tasked so in coming weeks a balance can be formed to how much they can do. Its a test to show that those that might not always be in fifth gear if they complete an amount of work then underachieve in the following weeks they should be working harder as i know they can.
Alongside this obviously i have to task myself some work to do. Currently im working on wetherspoons on trinity house lane and my new tasked street is Silver Street’s right hand side.
This will be very helpful for the speed of the project, the sooner we get the streets done the more time we have to fine tune and improve every aspect of our work. With 9 weeks left times running out for us but we can do it.
Recently we have been tasked to make our own design process so that we can check which each piece of work we create that we are following our own design process or skipping steps, it also allows us to evaluate how we are working at the moment to make some tweaks and adapt it to the most effective workflow for our own work.
First I did some research on design processes to give me an idea on roughly the general pattern of a creatives process.
The easiest place to start was with my tutors, as professionals there design process has been tried and tested many times to be fine tuned to what worked best for them.
Paul here has has subdivided his process into 4 sections based on percentage to outline where the majority of work should go which is the early stages of brief, research and concept. It has a modern sharp look to it, i particularity like the circle getting bigger as the process gets further on to indicate progress, almost like a loading bar.
This is my tutor Gareth Sleightholme’s design process. This is a very visual style design process using arrows and using colour to highlight key areas. As you can see this is a scan of his paper pad which would now be ready to enter the next step of Photoshop if he wanted to but there is no need as your personal design process should be something you understand and as long as you can follow it each time you have a working design process.
Then from Gareth’s blog i followed this link to Domanic Li’s design process another tutor here, so clearly it is widely regarded as a thing each creative should have and follow to increase quality of work. This process is extremely helpful as it outlines each area in a detailed ranged way so that it can apply to many areas of art and design.
Other examples i collected are just different examples and ways of design to explain a design process.
This design process is from Dezigngeek. I like this design as its quite visual and with the rocket its as if you must take all these steps as you would checking a rocket before blast off. Simple but the visual aid from the pictures make it more attracting.
This design process briefly shows the steps to take but rather focuses on your certainty on your project, the scribbles indicate you are up in the air with ideas and have nothing pinned down but if you complete the steps you gain more clarity in your work. I really like how this has been portrayed as this indicates if you go straight to the final product your missing something and may run into issues due to lack of a followed design process.
Then finally this is a design process gamified which ties into our gamification work, but nice visuals and a cartoon style to it could teach younger people to implement a design process into their work at a earlier stage or at least consider what theirs might be. Regardless of that it is still relatable to adults as they annotate certain things with teacher/client so its applicable to all people. This has much more steps than most design processes i have seen but some are generally slotted into one overall category like “design” for sketches, concepts, iterations etc.
Now i have to create my own which will apply to my work no matter 5 minutes or 5 weeks, client or personal. A design process should be adaptable to the time deadline set to produce the best outcome of work.
Following on from last weeks session we asked the group inidvidually what area of work they would like to be in for the rest of the cleint project. As explained last session this is purely to try maximise workflow getting people to work in the area they want to go into industry with for the majority with other areas on the side. This group session really felt like we had all clicked and finally collaborated to try maximise the potential of the project.
Here is what we came up with:
3d team is myself, Viktor, Brad and Rinalds with myself as leader.
Art team is James (wolfy), Barrie and Abbie with James as leader.
Engine team is Phil, David and Steve with Phil as leader.
Steve, Viktor and Brad was absent for this session so as leaders we placed them into the teams that we felt they are most effective in and want to do in future.
group planning
collaboration
communication
We then sat down and discussed the plan of action (POA abbreviated) for each of the teams and how we would collaborate between teams. For my 3D team we set a target of a street a week, this maybe rather high expectations but until we test if we can meet this deadline we wont know also placing this deadline will push us as a team to focus and improved speed of work. I personally think a week is a good target dependent on the skill and difficulty of the buildings but 2 weeks should be the limit if we are to push on.
The art team we all sat down including myself and Phil as we are overall team leaders to have final decisions on work. We discussed the art team and their collaboration with the engine team, there priority is to upskill in texturing and uv mapping to work with the 3d buildings handed over. Then to produce basic, slightly visual and then some high quality (public viewed) concepts. The engine team just need the basic concepts where its simple boxes labelled car or building etc with some annotations of angles and maybe movement mechanics. This will assist them with the engine block out and add to our design work rather than first decision of put that there it will do. James is inevitably leader of the art team and will have to pass on some skills to his co workers to produce quality for this process. Im sure more has been added to this plan of action i believe the production of atlas mapping has been worked on over the day.
Then the engine team currently has HUD to work on, additional blueprints that could be implemented for interactivity (e.g. ladder climb) and then the rest is working on the block out with relies on the 3d and art team to collaborate with them. I think we have formulated a effective team workflow with a good balance to it for everyone to have equal input. Hopefully this goes as well as we plan it to as this goes towards credit for our professionalism and industry practice marks.
For today we borrowed Phil and David from the engine team as currently they have little to do and 3D is a priority so loaning them to 3D was a way of showing we are all team players if needs we interchangable team positions to accelerate the process will occur.
As 3D team leader i tasked my group to Trinity House Lane, myself and rinalds picked 3 buildings and Phil and David picked 1. Leaving a few for Viktor and Brad when they return, the lists are up on Basecamp and they are yet to claim buildings and i havent seen them so hopefully they are in tuesday to catch up. Currently i am working on weatherspoons up to Bob carvers they are my 3 buildings all connected so should be no issues.
Throughout the day teams sat with their teams worked together and it just felt like we had missed a trick not doing this from the start, lots of peer to peer learning and group/team critique will come from this our communication has definately improved and has been underlined as key for this to succeed. On a final note we have decided to implement the Oculus Rift into our project which will hopefully attract alot of attention when we finally display to the public.
Last week i was absent from the session in which Paul delivered a brief for gamification. The brief is the gamificate something that hasn’t been gamified before, we have to research ideas on gamification in everyday life to see if it has been done before then try come up with an individual idea to make a game from. If it has been done before or the overarching theme (example working) has been over done then it will be denied by Paul and we will have to find another idea.
With missing the session I have also missed any videos or examples that was shown in session. Therefore im going to research into gamification myself to get up to speed.
What is gamification:
The application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service: ‘gamification is exciting because it promises to make the hard stuff in life fun’ – Oxford dictionary definition
That being the definition the key in that would be the example quote
“Gamification is exciting because it promises to make the hard stuff in life fun”
This should immediately spring loads of ideas to mind as surely everything can be gamified in some way or other. One example of this I found was a game called HabitRPG this game basically makes your life a game in order to create habits, it rewards you for meeting targets and punishes you for missing them. The idea is to form working habits so that could be do the ironing at 8pm every Tuesday, you can set this in a to-do which if you meet it a reward can be redeemed using in game coin to have say 1hour of video games.
Layout of HabitRPG on laptop and phone
This is a fairly simple idea but with rewards and graphs showing you your productivity progress it gives purpose to those boring household chores. Something similar to this targeted at children is the app ChoreMonster its a childs version and when they meet the chores they get a ticket to the monster carnival to earn random monsters to help them on their journey. Simple things like this really help people engage in what they are doing as it gives purpose, especially for children it adds fun to the dreaded clear your toys away as they get rewarded for it.
This was what i intended to do on first thought before research was a chore game so that when you ticked off chores done in a day you gained points to earn relax time, but as it has been clearly done for adults and children this can be ruled out as my tutor will most likely deny it.
My other idea I had was a waste/recycling game where if I made sure i partitioned recycling and rubbish waste i would be rewarded and shown a healthier planet. This could be a good app where you swipe the food on the screen into either the blue recycle bin or the green waste bin. It would make people more aware of what goes in which bin and reward them for it by maybe showing a field if you do wrong trees are lost as less recycling is done but if recycle more trees are saved.
With a bit of research I found out this is also done, not in the same style at what i was thinking but on a more global scale and has been running for a while called Recycle Bank and here is a article on it at mashable. Here is a video on it showing some really inspiring stuff to bring a wider community together to benefit the planet and reward them for it:
This may have been done in a professional manner but as a little mini game/app im sure i should be able to proceed with this idea. I was thinking due to the tutors and cleaners constantly mentioning about tidying up in the studio a cartoon style game where you need to clear the studio of litter as fast as possible but swiping the litter into the bin. This would be good on the app store as currently i haven’t found anything of the sort.
The best idea i felt I had though was a walking to work or shopping or anything you need to be at, the idea you set your track using a map of your area and then you are time trialed to get there as fast as you can walking. This then would be saved into a leaderboard of times to compete with yourself and colleagues, when loading up you could choose previous tracks done named appropriately by yourself so try beat your last time or friends time. This would then give you points dependent on speed, beating others, beating your own time, arriving early to work and so on. The funny side of it I would like implemented but its unrealistic due to technical restraints would be walking down a road your phone connects to another if headphones are connected to ask another person to race on a set track, this would then show the other persons statistics, win ratio, average speed etc. It would look rather odd seeing two people busting a gut to out walk another from McDonald’s to city hall but it gamifies your standard journey. I know that walking races are an actual sport and profession for trained professionals but applied in a daily life journey I don’t believe has been done. How I would go about this i have no idea as of yet but if accepted i would have to research into custom tracks on a map that are timed and tracked by your phones location sort of like a sat nav in a car.
So these are my ideas I can propose there are many other things i have considered but dont feel them to be as strong as ones mentioned, but if none are accepted i can possibly fall back on other ideas. I think the key is to apply gamification to something that is boring, something you dont like to do so that it gives it a goal at the end of it. There are plenty of day to day life tasks that this can be applied to such as brushing your teeth for 2 minutes twice a day or more.
Once doing some research and actually thinking about it alot of things are now gamified in some shape or form, WordPress tracks your statistics and has little achievements for amount of blog posts, Snapchat has a points system dependent on your use, Tesco’s has club card points for purchasing products as do most shops on and offline now. The list goes on some seem dull but in many ways life is a game and everything is permitted to be made a game. Finding that unique idea though is the harder task in this.
PHASEgaming 
