The Unit Brief and Beginning to generate Ideas;
So far for the second year of Games Art, the unit brief (for our six week project) has been given to us, First impressions of this brief, being that we need to produce a side-scroller game, optimal for mobile tablet use, it is In fact incredibly exciting.
My starting thoughts/ concept idea's:
.'Giant Crazy Golf'- As a personal lover of crazy golf, my first thoughts was to make a side scroller game as a character that navigates their way through an enormous crazy golf course with cool puzzles and obstacles to make the game challenging. As I'm fond of this idea I've already taken the initiative to grab some source imagery from a local crazy golf course that could give some inspiration for design aspects in the environment of this game!
Primary interest towards this project is the creative freedom it can hold: crazy golf in itself is designed to be CRAZY! So, i can use this to my advantage to create more interesting environments within the game. Although it will be important to not go too over board with this as i need to keep referring to the optimising of the game and the restraints this holds.
All of the Areas around this course was entirely diverse and different, changing the atmosphere and environment around you- Perhaps applying this to a game to change mood sets or obstacle differences, maybe even using this as a way to make each level different from the last.
Bullet Point thoughts of the Design reference images:
.Interesting Wall Designs
.Overall Greenery is a prodonement colour for large sections
.Interesting and random objects/ Obstacles that make the scenery more enjoyable
. Obstacles that look challenging- could in essence make the game-play seem difficult, maybe intimidate a player, or even excite them!
.wallpaper textures that create optical illusions and vary with each wall panel. Offers a more diverse and dynamic exploration basis for individual and unique areas in an environment.
Week 1 Overview:
An issue I've already encountered is the art board stage, I have enough reference imagery to begin this 'Giant Mini Golf' concept and run with it for the next 6 weeks. However, before Friday i need to present different ideas. On one hand this is a good opportunity to think if i can generate any better ideas, maybe something i could potentially be more engaged with, and make the overall experience of the game more fun. On the other side, I feel strongly about this Design Idea, as it leaves a lot of open space for creative exploration- changing the environment throughout the course of the same level can put emphasis on the crazy part of this games universe.
Planning out the art boards as drafts: Currently two out of the three i'm defiantly more inspired by;
I feel that i can generate a more interesting game environment with my more favoured concepts being; 'Giant Crazy Golf' and 'City Runner'
Puzzle ideas draft for game mechanics: good to understand early on in the project as it gives me more time to think about how they will work within the environment.
Week 2:
Progression of the art bible has been consistent; Having a large amount of reference imagery has made this incredibly easy for asset building and general progression of this project.
At the moment i'm struggling to be satisfied with the depth and verticality of my project; i'm going to be dedicating some time to refine the blockout and ensure that the game environment feels as it should be before making a lot of progress into the refinement of the project.
From the classes I've begun setting some interactivity tasks for me to strive for within my project:
1) Colour selection for the ball-
We all know that this is a definitive factor of crazy golf- having the choice of character colour selection gives it a more diverse feeling in its reality and immersive experience.
2) The player Uses a lever to open up a passage
3) The Windmill. I can't be the only person to have ever found the windmill daunting in a game of crazy golf; Giving this windmill the ability to spin around and potentially knock the player off their course can majorly affect their score in a game of crazy golf, so implementing this daunting windmill to me would make a fun little interaction.
These interactions feel achievable within my game; as well as fitting for the theme.
Art Bible
I feel that my art Bible is progressing very nicely- I would like to populate it a little more however: over the course of my weekend it could be very beneficial to add some more content into the art bible: increasing the visualisation of the project- making sure its clear for others to interpenetrate clear methods of workings out.
Goals/ What i want to achieve
.2 levels complete with 1 hero asset for each
.A lighthearted experience for the player just to have some fun
.interesting and unique environment
/colour is very important in the scene- keep vibrant
.Interactions- Cannon shot; get passed a dreaded windmill (cannon and windmill fit together), climb into the mouth of a clown to fall into the golf hole.
Within just a week i have managed to successfully make a large amount of progress within my environment; Piecing together the last of the blockout and beginning to refine certain areas of the map: I'm consciously aware that i'm going to need to test this regularly to see how optimal the game is going to run when played on the tablet device.
I'm generally very pleased with the pace my scene is developing at; with this work progression it will give me more time to focus on the environment of the game as well as the interactivity; i want the experience to also be fun for players.
For the following week; i'm going to need to devise a work plan over the next few weeks so i can set some goals for myself and keep to a good consistent time schedule.
Friday- I had my tutor present my own Art Bible; this was definitely interesting as it was an opportunity to see if my game concept conveyed over to others and not just myself. It also opened more doors of possibilities for the game environment; for example, he suggested some ways i could make some of the interactions more fun- i'll be sure to take the feedback on board over the course of the next few days and perhaps adapt my interactions so it feels more fun for the player.
An overall summery of the week would be best described as very practical- i have shot ahead in the development process and already near the end of my blockout stage- this will allow me more time to consider and think about alternative ideas that i might want to implement into my environment. to add to this, it also gives me fine tuning time; meaning if i follow the same work ethic and standard i should be left with plenty of time to ensure the game environment is as crisp as possible.
Week 3:
To start the week I've had a good start in understanding how i'm going to make the most out of lights, as they need to be static i need to think about how to get optimal lighting with the most minimal point lights possible- researching into making mobile game optimal lighting would be beneficial for the section of the project where it will be lighting intensive; more so towards the end of the project where i'll need to make the game viable for a mobile device.
I've managed to input one of my main hero assets for the end level. Entering the clowns mouth to fall into the hole is something amusing and fun at the same time really giving off the crazy golf feeling- the next step will be to implement my hero asset for the second level: being a pirate ship it might take a little longer; and the interaction will be slightly more complex.
The second level interaction idea being the player being able to be shot from a cannon, over the ship and into the crazy golf hole: this in terms of blueprints shouldn't be overly complex to set up meaning i can flesh out the velocity and in essence how i'm going to make the level challenging for the player.
Throughout the course of the week I've found that I have dedicated a fair amount of time on the camera movement and lighting; on one hand i feel that at this early stage i may have gone a bit to far ahead with the lighting. Alternatively it enabled me to learn a lot about baking lights inside unreal engine to get nice looking results. especially around my clown themed end level.
I need to divert my focus however into the final level of my game now; implementing the last of my assets- i want to refine my goals and structure a more specific schedule for the end of the project: this will enable me to refer back to my personal progress; this is very important if i want to reach a point in the project that i'm happy with.
I feel that my progress throughout the week has slowed down a little- yet i believe that has a lot to do with trying to learn and understand blueprints better- and putting some focus on implementing them into my game to enhance the in game experience. Having a plan in place for the next few weeks of the project will really be beneficial to keep on track.
At the end of this week we had a session dedicated to formative assessments- this has allowed for me to have a deeper under standing of the direction in which my project is heading; being able to filter out what needs to be added to the project to make it better; one thing that was mentioned was that by creating a second level for the game I've given myself a lot more work to do- it could make it more tricky to refine, but i prefer to challenge myself and invest more time into it- By doing this slightly bigger environment also gives me the opportunity to have some diverse interactions- as supposed to having a generic pattern of interaction in my game- i can give some unique interactions such as: shooting the character through a cannon into a golf hole (being the end of level 2) This special finisher just shows a diverse style between the two levels- both requiring precision and timing, yet they both take different approaches.
Week 4:
To start the week in lesson we've been looking at substance designer- this was actually very useful as i took what i learnt and applied it into my own environment. creating a tile-able texture for water in my scene- utilising substance designer also allowed me to get a feeling in real time of how to overall texture would look on a plane; as this was the geometry it was going to be placed on i found this incredibly useful.
In regards for the rest of the week i have set up a schedule that will help me keep on track up until the end of the session: making sure i reach all the goals i want to before the submission.
I also received some really good and helpful feedback from my tutor about my scene; he brought to my attention he would like to see some roe refinement in my lamps within the scene seeing as they're very much in the foreground for the character to see. In addition to this, he also commented on the way the player moves through the clown: Adding some tubing going through the clown could be a cool addition to the scene to really illustrate the crazy golf feeling.
Week 5;
Following what my tutor had informed me of; in that by making a second level I've made a lot more work for myself. However, i'm very pleased with this decision as it's made my game feel more unique and diverse with clear environment transitions to new levels. Most of this week has been spent generally refining my interactions and blueprints. Due to the smooth camera kit not working within my scene, I've blueprinted all my camera movements from the start of the game to the end, I've been able to control camera movement with time lines which effect the transition of how the camera moves along a value input: It has definitely been a very interesting process that has helped me understand blueprints in further depth.
Week 6:
The Start of the week has been a hectic process, refining the last of my blueprints as well as art work. one of my concerns has been getting the end of the game to work efficiently and reopen the game, It took up a little more time than what i would have liked- however i'm pleased with the results as a whole as i have the fundamentals of it working.
As a last minute touch I've learnt a little bit about Fresnel inside of unreal engine and it has allowed me to add some cool looking lighting effects around main objects inside my environment that the player is able to interact with.
Reflecting back on my project, i'd say that it's been a massive learning process inside of unreal engine 4 about how to make an environment and have interesting interactions. On the art side of the project i already have a lot of experience. Alternatively in terms of the interactivity this was something new and exciting to me- i'm glad I Invested some good time into the learning of blueprints as it's allowed me to have some more interesting interactions in my environment. In regards to the environment and its art, i'm pleased with its outcome- it has kept a strong aesthetic throughout the world and even between levels it still feels like the same game, but transitions nicely into a new level. From this project I've certainly learned how important it is to keep a good, clean and tight organisation structure from the get go, i found that on the last day of the project, i spent a bit more time than i'd like to renaming and organising some folders for the submission that had been left for a while. But with this knowledge it can be applied to future projects from the start.
If i was to redo this project I think the main thing i would change is a few of the models: for example, i would have liked to just add some certain details in some of the props like the lamps that the player interacts with; this was pointed out to me in some formative assessment- I Changed the properties of the materials originally and it felt a lot nicer, however, given more time i believe it would have been a good idea to refine some of those details.
Overall with my project i'm pleased with the result and from what i have learnt about making a playable game, fun and with a cool looking environment; learning new aspects about decals and blueprints has been good skills to develop and helps me as an all round artist to broaden my skill sets. I'm certainly pleased with how i engaged with the project from early on making quick plans and ideas easy due to having more time to do so. I even devised myself a rough schedule for me to follow which enabled me to stay in check through the later weeks coming towards the submission which is definitely helpful for keeping good structure. As a whole i feel that i exceeded my own expectations with the overall execution of the game- As it was my first game inside unreal i learnt throughout the development all the way up to the end of the packaged game which helped improve my game along the way.