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XB3001: Reflective Weekly Diary for Rewinders

Week 1 – 5/10/15

Weekly Focus: Modular workflow research

Following a group discussion on the game we settled on making a game with the rewind mechanic. This would take the form of a 4 player arena battle game where players scored points for being the last one standing. They would use a grenade launcher, melee weapon, and a rewind mechanic to trigger traps in order to remove other players from the game. As my role is to first build a modular set for the level I detailed to the group how I would use Maya and practice a new PBR texturing technique through Substance Painter. This week my task was to do some research on modular workflow, the use of atlas texture maps, and RGB texturing in Unreal.

Week 2 – 12/10/15

Weekly Focus: Research and Team Communication

This week I continued with my modular and texturing research. Our team also set up a Skype group and Trello account each so we could communicate our progress on the game to each other.

Week 3 – 19/10/15

Weekly Focus: Test Modular Workflow

This week I built a modular set for testing, for the sake of practicing my workflow and to get the scale of the pieces right when compared to the level block out created by Matt. This consisted of a simple wall and floor configuration. For this I used a hard surface modelling technique and applied textures to them with Substance Painter.

Week 4 – 2/11/15

Weekly Focus: Modular Testing and Atlas Maps

I passed the modular set over to Matt for importing into the Unreal Engine. The scale should have matched the block map exactly as Maya and Unreal were both measuring distances in centimetres. This wasn’t the case however as they were around 4mm off. I reopened the modular file in Maya and made the pieces slightly bigger, but after reimporting them they were still the same size. After doing some research online and speaking to Paul Bannon, a tutor from Futureworks, I informed Matt that to make the pieces snap together he would have to hold the ‘V’ key to get the pieces to snap to the vertices. This meant the modular set would be slightly off the grid but it was the only way to make the pieces snap together.

I also continued looking into how I could implement Atlas Texture Maps into my workflow.

Week 5 – 9/11/15

Weekly Focus: Modular Set Group Meeting and Substance Painter

With testing complete and a scale to work off for the modular set I can now begin making the first full modular set for our game. To begin with in today’s group meeting I discussed with the team what I would need to build for the level. Afterwards I wrote down the list, it included;

·         Inner and outer walls

·         Floor pieces

·         Traps that were built into the floor (trap door, molten metal spillage)

·         Cosmetic pieces (spikes)

I also informed the team that I would not be using a texture atlas. These work great if you know exactly what pieces are needed for a complete modular set. But as this modular set will change and evolve to the needs of the team I would need to remake the texture atlas every time something changed, this wouldn’t be very efficient. This being the case I’ll be texturing each piece individually. The game isn’t too big and they’ll be exported at 2k resolution so there shouldn’t be a dip in game performance. Speaking of textures I also spoke with Niall about the visual feel for the game. We agreed on an industrial style with worn metal, rust, like that found in the Mad Max serious of films.

We also address the issue with the Substance Painter texture files. When exporting the maps I was leaving the settings at ‘document channels’, this exported the ambient occlusion, height, normal, basically every channel that was used. This made the setting up for the textures in Unreal a little arduous for Matt as there were around 8 maps for one modular piece. After doing some research into exporting maps for Unreal I found that the export settings could be set up to only export what was needed for the materials to work. This reduced the number of exported maps to 4 and made the process much more efficient.

Week 6 – 7 – 23/11/15

Weekly Focus: Modular set and Texturing

This time was spent on building and texturing the modular set. I built the pieces discussed in the team meeting and textured them in the style that was agreed upon. I’m quite happy with the results as these are the first assets I have completed using Substance Painter. Previously the quality of my texturing has been as I used to use hand painted techniques via PhotoShop. My skills with that software were never great as it seems to favour 2D artists, in my opinion. Substance Painter lets you apply materials to 3D models in real time so it’s possible to see how they look instantly and make any required adjustments.

I think I’ve only just scratched the surface of what this software is capable of, but I can see already that I’m going to enjoy learning how to use it.

Week 8 – 9 – 7/12/15

Weekly Focus: Modular Building

After completing the modular set I’ve been asked to make a few additional pieces, as well as some alterations to the existing ones, including the height of the inner walls and rebuilding the corner stair pieces. As the stairs are they only allow players to climb them from the front, having stairs along the sides will give players more freedom and stop them from getting caught on them. Additional pieces will include a few variants of the floor tiles.

Week 10 – 14/12/15

Weekly Focus: Christmas Presentation and Modular Decision

This week was spent compiling all of the work from previous weeks in order to show our games progress to the class. I’ve also decided to do a second art pass on the entire modular set over Christmas. I believe I’ve learnt enough from making to first modular set, as far as Substance Painter goes, to make a new set look even better. I was sceptical about making pieces that consisted of more than one shape as I thought it would be difficult to UV map and texture. After experimenting with SP in other modules I’ve found that it wouldn’t be the case. With this new knowledge I’ll be able to make more elaborate designs that are more visually appealing.

Week 11 – 14 – 11/1/16

Weekly Focus: New Modular Set

Well the Christmas break didn’t go to plan, I ended up dislocating my knee and couldn’t get to a work station. I’ve managed to set everything back up but I’ll now be playing catch up.

I’ll begin by continuing on the new modular set that was started before the Christmas break. Fortunately the old set can still be used in the game whilst the new one is being made so me being behind isn’t effecting anyone else’s schedule.

Weeks 15 – 17 – 18/1/16

Weekly Focus: Modular Set

Fortunately I included a lot of contingency time for the modular set, in case something went wrong. For now I’ll just continue working on it and passing over the files to Matt as I complete them.

Week 18 – 8/2/16

Weekly Focus: Modular Set

The second art pass of the modular set is almost complete. I’ve been asked to make some additional pieces for a walkway too. These include;

·         A straight piece

·         A piece that connects to the outer wall

·         450 and 900 angle corner pieces

·         A straight piece that breaks off in several directions

·         A set of stairs that give the players access to the walkway

Week 19 – 20– 22/2/16

Weekly Focus: Finishing the Modular Set

I’ve now completed the modular set and all of the pieces have been imported into the game file. The new set looks much better than the old one. The models have more detail which allowed me to make more interesting textures for them. I’ve learnt a lot about PBR texturing along the way and will continue developing these techniques on future projects.

Week 21 – 23 – 14/3/16

Weekly Focus: Game Characters

This week I began working on texturing the games characters. What I wasn’t expecting to have to do was to animate them however. This isn’t something I’ve done before but I’ll have to learn quickly as there isn’t much time left.

Matt recommended that I use Mixamo to do the character animations. After watching a few tutorials it doesn’t look too difficult, all that needs to be done is to import a rigged character model and the animations are done automatically. Both I and Jack, our other 3D artist, haven’t made a humanoid game character before. Considering the limited time that’s left we’ve decided to use a free character model available from the Mixamo website. The character designs made by Niall are robots, which works out very well as the character model we’ve selected from Mixamo is a robot. I’ll have to texture the model to look like Niall’s designs. After what I’ve learned from making the modular set, and work from other modules, this shouldn’t prove to be too difficult.

Week 24 – 26 – 21/3/16

Weekly Focus: Game Characters

Due to my injury earlier this year, work from other modules is slowing my progress with the characters. I’ve managed to get one character finished, but to get the other three done, and get them animated, is looking a little unlikely on my own. Because of this we’ve had a team meeting and Jack is going to help me texture the remaining characters. I’ll finish the second one, and Jack will do the other two.

Week 27 – 11/4/16

Weekly Focus: Importing Game Characters and Animations

The textures for the game characters are now finished and have been imported into the game. There’s a few issues with the ambient occlusion and metallic maps between the characters legs. When baking the maps the high poly model shrinks a little causing a sort of bloom effect on the shadows and exposed metal. I compensated for this by erasing the channels effect from those areas, but considering the game is played from an isometric angle it can’t be seen anyway. After discussing the art style with Niall we concluded that they worked well with the industrial style environment.

Now to begin working on the animations. Since the characters from Mixamo are pre-rigged I won’t have to learn how to do that, which is fortunate considering that there’s not much time left. Implementing the animations into Unreal will be the bigger challenge here.

Week 28 – 18/4/16

Weekly Focus: Character Animations

As I stated last week, animating the characters would be easy, getting them to work in Unreal would be the challenge. I wasn’t wrong. There were a few problems with Mixamo, such as the website being down, and the animations not exporting as skeletons (even though they were set up to). After looking around on the support forums it turned out that exporting them as a series in a zip folder was what was causing the animations to reset to default. This is a bug that they are aware of and the workaround is to export the animations individually. This worked and I eventually had all of the files I needed to get the animations to work. I’ll be importing these into the master game file that Matt has next lesson.

Week 29 – 25/4/16

Weekly Focus: Importing Character Animations

It’s definitely a last minute kind of thing but I’ve managed to get the animations into Unreal and they’re all working. With this my work on Rewinders is complete.

 Project Summary

Overall I’m pleased with the work I have produced for this module. I fell behind on my schedule due to my accident but I was able to finish everything that was required of me to a good standard. I still have a lot to learn about 3D modelling and texturing efficiently but this project has helped me along with that quite a lot. The crunch towards the end was a good experience for me as it applied a lot of pressure to get things completed for the deadline, and everything was. I’ve enjoyed working together with the other members of my team. Surprisingly there was no grief between us, despite us being warned that it likely happen. The whole project ran rather smoothly and was an enriching experience overall.

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XB3002: Reef Explorer Game Development

Development

Once I had settled on Reef Explorer as the artefact for my research in DD3000 I began visualising how the game would work with underwater exploration, and thinking of a way to make the player care about the environment they were swimming around in. Prior to this I had spent some time playing Subnautica, the game referenced in my market research (Unknown Worlds, 2016). This influenced my design a great deal as far as the exploration and the nature of the environment goes. The difference being that this game would take place on earth, and as well as exploration the games objective would be to remove pollution from the water surrounding an island.

To encourage the player to care about the environment I used some narrative that would have the player save a fish from a six-pack can holder. This event would drive the player onwards to clear the starting area of pollution. Once done they can look back on their handiwork and view an area that’s transformed from a dead zone to one that’s now flourishing with life. This small victory would then start off a desire to rid the whole game world of pollution. For some this feeling may subliminally trigger a want to help clean the world’s oceans, whether by becoming an activist or simply making a donation to a marine organisation.

For the sounds in the game I used royalty free files from freesound.org (Freesound, 2016), specifically;

‘Underwater ambience’ by akemov (akemov, 2014)

‘Underwater breathing’ by univ_lyon3  (univ_lyon3, 2015)

‘Jungle Meets Ocean’ by RTB45  (RTB45, 2014)

The two underwater sounds were combined together using Audacity to create the underwater ambience in the game.

To reduce the time spent on making the environment, I used free assets from the ‘Open World Demo Collection’, and a water material from the ‘Water Plane’ sample packs. These can be found on the Learn section of the Unreal Engine Launcher.

Alterations

Initially the game was just about swimming around a tropical reef and removing the pollution from four areas around the island. I received feedback in class that the gameplay of the concept would be rather boring, which I agreed with. After undertaking a little more market research I concluded that the game needed the following three additions.

1.     The environment had to be bigger. So instead of four separate locations I designed the game world to be one big open world that could be explored at any time.

2.     The player needed to feel a sense of danger. This being a natural environment has an abundance of predators in the real world, so these would be implemented into the game. The level of violence in the game would need to be toned down in order for the game to be accessible to as many age groups as possible however. So no visible blood, just a red vignette would be sufficient to warn the player that they’re taking damage.

3.     A sense of progression and their character becoming stronger over time. This will be implemented with the levelling system and unlocking/purchasing of new equipment.

Successes and Failures

I encountered a few technical issues whilst making the demo for Reef Explorer, these included issues with blueprint not recognising when all of the pollution had been cleared, and the ambient sounds cutting off when a piece of trash had been removed. These were both rectified eventually after seeking help on the Unreal Support forums, the discussion about the ambient sounds can be found here.

https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/439909/ambient-music-stopping-after-item-is-picked-up.html

Even after fixing these issues my skills with the Unreal Engine are still rather limited, because of this the content in my demo suffered. I managed to set up a basic environment with a mission objective, but I couldn’t make other additions such as a HUD, AI for fish, or the xp and gold system. My time management’s for this module wasn’t great. This was due to an injury over Christmas which disrupted work across all modules for the second semester. Time management aside however, this concept has inspired me to want to improve my skills with Unreal. I may continue working on it until the game is completed.

Bibliography  

akemov (2014). Underwater Ambience. Unknown,  Unknown, Unknown.                 Retrieved from http://www.freesound.org/people/akemov/

Freesound. (2016, 6 29). Freesound Homepage.  Retrieved from                           freesound.org: http://www.freesound.org/people/univ_lyon3/

RTB45. (2014, 12 14). Jungle Meets Ocean.  Retrieved from freesound.org:           http://www.freesound.org/people/RTB45/

univ_lyon3. (2015, 10 11). Underwater Breathing.  Retrieved from                           freesound.org: http://www.freesound.org/people/univ_lyon3/

Unknown Worlds. (2016, 6 29). Subnautica Home  Page. Retrieved from               unknownworlds.com:  http://unknownworlds.com/subnautica/

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XB3002: Game Concept and Market Research

Three Initial Concepts

At the beginning of XB3002 I was to formulate three initial game concepts to tackle the issue raised in DD3000. In my case the topic was on Marine Pollution. I concluded in this module that people aren’t fully aware of the consequences of marine pollution as many haven’t seen the problem first hand. By showing people the issue in the medium of a game they get to experience it and thus raise awareness. By playing through the game they experience a “feel good factor” from removing the pollution and watching the environment transform, this in turn may also influence the player’s behaviour and life choices, such as what they do with their rubbish. The micro transactions in the game will also be charity donations to further support the issue by funding the charities and organisations that are cleaning the world’s oceans. The three game ideas I had based around this are as follows.

A City Sim (No name)

This concept was for a city sim app game that was aimed at casual gamers. Players start on a randomly generated island with a small town. Their forms of income are from fishing, a local oil rig, and tourism, each of these have different impacts on the surrounding environment. The islands population also has an agricultural and industrial footprint. These all have to be managed to reduce the level of pollution surrounding the island. For instance overfishing will increase the income from fishing, but once the fish are all gone that source of income will be removed. By only fishing on a lower scale the player gets a lower amount of income but it will be at a constant amount. As the players town grows they must build new structures, these take time to build and upgrade. Build times can be reduced by making a donation to a charity via a micro transaction or by friends who also play the game helping them.

Reef Explorer

This is an underwater first person coral reef explorer game. The player assumes the role of a Marine Biologist whose task is to document marine life around a tropical island. Upon arrival they discover that the water surrounding the island has been heavily polluted by the islands poor waste management, fishing, oil, and tourism industry. The player’s objective is to remove all of the pollution from the surrounding area and its sources. Players gain experience and gold from taking photographs, exploring the reef, and removing the pollution. They use this to unlock and purchase new equipment, and gain the ability to remove more forms of pollution. Experience, gold, and unique items can be bought from the games website, the money from which is all donated to marine charities and organisations. Photos that are taken can also be shared on social media and used as computer desktop images.

Post World Environment (no name)

I haven’t put much thought into this concept as I can’t see how it could have a positive impact on the player. This game portrays a doomed world outlook set in the future. The oceans have become so polluted that they no longer support life and are no longer capable of producing oxygen. The purpose of this game was to show how difficult life would be for humans if life in the oceans had been completely destroyed, to scare them into acting in a sense. I decided that although it has noble goals of raising awareness for marine pollution, its setting is rather gloomy and will likely make a depressing game.

The idea I chose

Chosen Idea

I’ve settled on the Reef Explorer game idea. The third idea of a post-apocalyptic game was a definite no go, given that it’s rather depressing, and the city sim idea was dropped for two reasons. Although it does meet my aims of raising awareness of marine pollution and providing aid for it via donations, it does run the danger of being lost amongst the vast number of city sims that are already available on mobile devices. If the game isn’t noticed and played there’s no reason in making it at all. The second reason is that the perspective that the player plays the game is from high up and away from the environment that the game is based in. it is for this reason that I’ve chosen the Reef Explorer concept as it give the player a first person perspective of the issue at hand. It also puts the player in a large open environment that they have no knowledge of. The only way to learn the environment is to get out there and experience it for themselves. With the rising popularity of VR this game also has the potential to utilise this new technology and truly immerse the player.

Market Research:

Subnautica (Unknown Worlds Entertainment, 2016) Gameplay ~23 hours

Subnautica is a first person survival game set on an alien world covered in water. The player assumes the role of a crew member from a spaceship that has crash landed onto the planet, fortunately he managed to reach an escape pod in time though it appears he’s the only one that did. Now alone drifting in the escape pod he must salvage materials from the crashed ship and the surrounding environment to craft the tools needed to survive. Harder difficulties also require the player to hunt for food and find a means to produce drinkable water.

The game was released on Steam on the 16th December 2014 at a price of £14.99. The game also has an overwhelmingly positive review with 92% of players recommending this game (at time of writing) (Steam, 2016). Numerous players continue to support the game with reviews and playthrough’s on Twitch and Youtube.

World of Diving (Vertigo Games, 2016)

World of Diving is a diving adventure simulation where the objectives are based around taking photographs of wildlife for rewards such as monetary gains. With these players can buy equipment for their character, such as a sea scooter, and cosmetics such as new swimwear and decals for their oxygen tanks. Promoted via Steam Greenlight, the game was released on the 26 August 2014 for £14.99. Admittedly the game has a low percentage of recommendation votes at 43% on Steam, at time of reviewing (Steam, 2016). These bad reviews are mostly down to there being little to do and that, considering that it’s a simulation game, the player is never in any danger even though they are swimming around sharks. The game does support multiplayer so it is possible to explore reefs, shipwrecks, and other locations with friends. A recent update now let’s players use the Oculus Rift and Vive headsets which has greatly improved the quality of reviews, this promises to bring more immersion to gameplay and will likely improve the games standing in future updates.

Depth Hunter 2 (Biart, 2016) Gameplay ~ 1 hour

Depth Hunter 2 is a first person nautical exploration game played from a first person perspective. The games objectives are based around hunting fish via spear fishing, taking photographs, and discovering treasure hidden among reefs and shipwrecks. For all of these the player is rewards with gold and experience. By accumulating experience the player levels up, when they do so they receive rewards such as new gear and gold, the rewards become greater the higher the level they achieve. Gold can be used to upgrade their gear, including their fins for greater movement speed, their spear for greater accuracy, and their rebreather for greater lung capacity when under water.

The game was released on the 20th August 2014 and is available for £10.99. It has received mostly positive reviews at 75% (Steam, 2016). The positive comments compliment the visual beauty of the game and how the gameplay provides an environment to relax whilst they explore. The negative comments in the reviews are based mostly around the environment being too safe with sharks not attacking the player, the objectives being too easy, and the environments being too small.

IP opportunity

From reviewing these games I have found that there is a market for underwater exploration games. Collectively the negative comments are based around there being no danger, little to do, and the environments being small. Reef Explorer contains none of these downfalls as the player is always at risk, whether from attacks from wildlife such as sharks and jellyfish, or from environmental hazards like explosive fishing and discarded fishing equipment. With ongoing objectives such as removing marine pollution, finding collectables, and the need to level up to progress through the game, there’s always something for the player to do. With the map being 4km2 and up to 1km deep in some areas, the map isn’t what could be defined as small too. If this game were to be made I believe it would have to be crowd funded as the project wouldn’t be financially viable to a publisher, considering that all monetary gains are given to charity. With the rise of indie games getting support from Steam Grenlight, for example, I believe the prospects of this game would be good.

Bibliography  

Biart. (2016, 6 29). Biart Developer Website. Retrieved from www.biart7.com: http://www.biart7.com/node/50

Steam. (2016, 6 29). Depth Hunter Steam Store  Page. Retrieved from store.steampowered.com:  http://store.steampowered.com/app/248530/

Steam. (2016, 6 29). Subnautica Steam Store Page.  Retrieved from store.steampowered.com:  http://store.steampowered.com/app/264710

Steam. (2016, 6 29). World of Diving Steam Store  Page. Retrieved from store.steampowered.com:  http://store.steampowered.com/app/251890

Unknown Worlds Entertainment. (2016, 6 29). Subnautica  Home. Retrieved from unknownworlds.com:  http://unknownworlds.com/subnautica/

Vertigo Games. (2016, 6 29). World of Diving Home  Page. Retrieved from divegame.net: http://divegame.net/