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Before20 project - Issue two - weeks 3&4

  • It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog on what I’ve been up to. Mostly because I’ve been quite busy with all sorts of work. Thankfully the outcome of which is that I now have quite a deal of things to write about.

    First to talk about…

  • Hi everyone.

    I want to make a call out to find out who’s out there in the local scene. I’m on the lookout to see who’s available for a project I’d like to get started midyear.

    Project codename: Play-bit Heroes!

    The proposal:…

  • Hi everyone!

    Chris here from Roo Games.

    After the release of Mole - Quest for the Terracore gem! We've been hard at work on our next project for the iPhone.

    It's Called Power Surge!

    Power Surge has the player linking…

  • Hi everyone. After much hard work from the project mole team i'm proud to announce our game is now in the app store! Mole! You play as Mark the mole as you quest to find the fabled Terracore gem! Gameplay features: · An easy to play touch based…

  • Hi everyone.

    With Mole just about close to a month until it's iPhone release I wanted to show my thought process in how I went about designing Mole.

    One of the best ways to show you guys is to showcase the design document.

    So…

  • First off I’ll disclaim that as far as my experience at GCAP is concerned I was only a exhibitor. I didn’t attend any of the keynotes or talks. I sat in at the Mole table 90% of the time. The rest was spent talking to people and playing the…

  • [Note: This post is quite long. Just wanted to establish that so no one tells me to shorten it. :D ]

    Designerwatts' 7 rules of making your first team-based indie game.

    Hi everyone,

    I wanted to take the time to write out my…

  • Our submission for GCAPs indie awards.

    To be honest I didn't submit Mole in the hopes of winning awards. I'm more so interested in getting the opportunity to showcase the game to developers and publishers in December. At which point Mole…

  • Another busy month in the world of freeware game development.

    Due to the efforts of some very dedicated and skilled volunteer developers. There have been some noticeable changes to Tower City this month.

    Our talented enviornment…

  • Team name:
    Team Tower City

    Project name:
    Prototype Project Tower City

    Brief description & Target aim:
    Tower City is a freeware project created for promoting the volunteers who help to create the demo and to claim…

Submitted by designerwatts on

[img]http://www.furry.org.au/caroo/game/logo%20before%2020.jpg[/img]

BEFORE20 - ISSUE TWO - PART ONE

Please refur back to issue one to get a sum up of why I'm doing this project.

Production: Week three.

This week while being productive in some ways was also quite short. I only really had 3 days to work on the project. My Wednesday was taken up by a driving lesson and a quick call up from work denied me the chance to effort on it later in the day. Thursday was only half productive due to me going out to get some necessities. And Saturday was spent making some new friends and meeting some faces at the Melbourne Chapter IGDA gathering, then the rest of that day was spent at work.

I did however get a few small things done. A few concept arts and two static meshes with full texturing. While it doesn?t sound like a lot these two meshes where so far the most complex I?ve had to make so far. Each one being around 350 polygons and having 512x512 textures. Plus a few animated textures for the consoles.

Hopefully I can get more done next week.

[img]http://www.furry.org.au/caroo/game/level_design_dev_010.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.furry.org.au/caroo/game/level_design_dev_011.jpg[/img]

Production: Week four:

What a week! To say the least I?ve gotten a lot of work done. But I better start on somewhere.

The total focus of this week was the same as last week. Room no 2. Or known as the ?life support? room. I don?t know the hours I?ve pulled this week. But it's somewhere between 45-50 focused on this project. I?m a little annoyed that even though I?ve pulled so much time into doing this one area it's STILL not finished. But this has given me an appreciation to single-player level builders. Everything needs a sound effect. Everything needs thought put into it. While you get faster with experience. Level building seems to be something you just can?t rush?

One thing I have to draw attention to this week is the main visual asset of the room. The ?Life Support Control Hub? This mesh I believe is a great benchmark of an understanding of the art of asset creation in basics. I?m not referring to the quality of this asset. In comparison to the efforts of a real game artist it's poor. But take a second to analyze the different texturing and modeling techniques used to give this asset its overall appeal to the player:

[img]http://www.furry.org.au/caroo/game/level_design_dev_015.jpg[/img]

As you can see a good deal goes into just one asset, and this has excluded sounds as well. A few other meshes where made. The floor under the life support hub is a mesh with an alpha texture. I also made the wall and ceiling textures, which I am quite happy with. Here's an example:

[img]http://www.furry.org.au/caroo/game/wall_tech.jpg[/img]

The second part of this week was spent scripting the large sequence that was to be the feature of this room. Following the outline I make on my ?game play overview document.? For this room I drew up a basic plan of what was going to be needed and included into making this segment a reality.

The game play over view:

Point two: Restoring Life Support.

Location: Life Support room.

As Lu enters the dark and damaged room he?d look to the main console, one of only a few still lit up. It showed alarming statistics. The ship only had a few minutes of air left unless the leakages could be centralised and sealed up. The player now has to do a series of tasks in order to preserve enough life support for the survivors. These include pressing a few buttons on consoles. Once the sequences are done right the air is saved and the ship has a few more hours of live support ensured. With this done the door to go onwards is opened and Lu can proceed.

[img]http://www.furry.org.au/caroo/game/product con one.jpg[/img]

After making the needed visual and audio assets it was time to start compiling the scripted sequence. The whole process took me around two days. One day spent in trial and error refining the script and events until it was playable. Being the Concept artist, Asset maker, Level designer, Audio man and QA guy I can clearly see where the 45 hours have gone.

[img]http://www.furry.org.au/caroo/game/level_design_dev_016.jpg[/img]

So. There are still a few more little things I have to do. But all in all I think I?ve done quite well so far. It's not the best looking folio you?ll see. But it's including as many different production aspects as possible.

As always; Opinions and critique is encouraged guys. If you have something you want to say just to me please forward it to carooau@yahoo.com.au or else just post it in this forum.

Thank you for your time. .

Submitted by nexx on Tue, 25/04/06 - 6:07 AMPermalink

That's one long ScriptedTrigger setup! Have you considered breaking it up into several shorter ones? Not that it really matters, and you've already got it setup and working. I hated the damn things tho [:p]

Project is looking good [:)]

[img]http://www.furry.org.au/caroo/game/logo%20before%2020.jpg[/img]

BEFORE20 - ISSUE TWO - PART ONE

Please refur back to issue one to get a sum up of why I'm doing this project.

Production: Week three.

This week while being productive in some ways was also quite short. I only really had 3 days to work on the project. My Wednesday was taken up by a driving lesson and a quick call up from work denied me the chance to effort on it later in the day. Thursday was only half productive due to me going out to get some necessities. And Saturday was spent making some new friends and meeting some faces at the Melbourne Chapter IGDA gathering, then the rest of that day was spent at work.

I did however get a few small things done. A few concept arts and two static meshes with full texturing. While it doesn?t sound like a lot these two meshes where so far the most complex I?ve had to make so far. Each one being around 350 polygons and having 512x512 textures. Plus a few animated textures for the consoles.

Hopefully I can get more done next week.

[img]http://www.furry.org.au/caroo/game/level_design_dev_010.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.furry.org.au/caroo/game/level_design_dev_011.jpg[/img]

Production: Week four:

What a week! To say the least I?ve gotten a lot of work done. But I better start on somewhere.

The total focus of this week was the same as last week. Room no 2. Or known as the ?life support? room. I don?t know the hours I?ve pulled this week. But it's somewhere between 45-50 focused on this project. I?m a little annoyed that even though I?ve pulled so much time into doing this one area it's STILL not finished. But this has given me an appreciation to single-player level builders. Everything needs a sound effect. Everything needs thought put into it. While you get faster with experience. Level building seems to be something you just can?t rush?

One thing I have to draw attention to this week is the main visual asset of the room. The ?Life Support Control Hub? This mesh I believe is a great benchmark of an understanding of the art of asset creation in basics. I?m not referring to the quality of this asset. In comparison to the efforts of a real game artist it's poor. But take a second to analyze the different texturing and modeling techniques used to give this asset its overall appeal to the player:

[img]http://www.furry.org.au/caroo/game/level_design_dev_015.jpg[/img]

As you can see a good deal goes into just one asset, and this has excluded sounds as well. A few other meshes where made. The floor under the life support hub is a mesh with an alpha texture. I also made the wall and ceiling textures, which I am quite happy with. Here's an example:

[img]http://www.furry.org.au/caroo/game/wall_tech.jpg[/img]

The second part of this week was spent scripting the large sequence that was to be the feature of this room. Following the outline I make on my ?game play overview document.? For this room I drew up a basic plan of what was going to be needed and included into making this segment a reality.

The game play over view:

Point two: Restoring Life Support.

Location: Life Support room.

As Lu enters the dark and damaged room he?d look to the main console, one of only a few still lit up. It showed alarming statistics. The ship only had a few minutes of air left unless the leakages could be centralised and sealed up. The player now has to do a series of tasks in order to preserve enough life support for the survivors. These include pressing a few buttons on consoles. Once the sequences are done right the air is saved and the ship has a few more hours of live support ensured. With this done the door to go onwards is opened and Lu can proceed.

[img]http://www.furry.org.au/caroo/game/product con one.jpg[/img]

After making the needed visual and audio assets it was time to start compiling the scripted sequence. The whole process took me around two days. One day spent in trial and error refining the script and events until it was playable. Being the Concept artist, Asset maker, Level designer, Audio man and QA guy I can clearly see where the 45 hours have gone.

[img]http://www.furry.org.au/caroo/game/level_design_dev_016.jpg[/img]

So. There are still a few more little things I have to do. But all in all I think I?ve done quite well so far. It's not the best looking folio you?ll see. But it's including as many different production aspects as possible.

As always; Opinions and critique is encouraged guys. If you have something you want to say just to me please forward it to carooau@yahoo.com.au or else just post it in this forum.

Thank you for your time. .


Submitted by nexx on Tue, 25/04/06 - 6:07 AMPermalink

That's one long ScriptedTrigger setup! Have you considered breaking it up into several shorter ones? Not that it really matters, and you've already got it setup and working. I hated the damn things tho [:p]

Project is looking good [:)]