Monday, 29 April 2013

UDK Interactivity + Tasks For This Week

We had our feedback session and they basically said to do what we were thinking.
And that was increasing interactivity.

Were trying to think of the simplist way to do this as we don't have much time left.
http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/categories/wold-members-tutorials/petebottomley/udk-pick-up-place-items.php

I have found this tutorial, so basically i am going to try this and see if it will work.

Update;
I got it to work as well as including a counter. So when you have picked up all of the audio devices you will be able to press a button to get through a door at the end of the level.


I am now going to look at how to get a video to play at the end.

_______

-Alex edit

Now that Dani has figured out the kismet for this interactivity, we have all been discussing how a concept for this would tie into the current narrative concept.

The first obvious thought was 5 keys to unlock a door, or 5 buttons. This was hard to put real world sense to. Dani was then able to make it so once all 5 audio devices were collected only 1 button would need to be pressed. A concept i came up with then was to have some what of a portal door that the character Nesha made for her father to find. Split a plane into 5 sections and tie each piece to an audio device, which becomes unhidden once collected, once all are found players can progress to the next theoretical level.

_______

[Jack update]

Also following the feedback from the session on Monday here are this weeks task:

Jack: Finish texturing the fireplace, workshop and anything else needed. Continue to place assets at the end of the level around the workshop.

Dani: Continue to work out the interactivity (see above) for the level and model a door asset to end our level at.

Alex: Continue to place assets around the alleys and also place the rest of the audio devices.

Wednesday, 24 April 2013

Level Update week ending 260413

It's been a few weeks since a blog update to the state of the level, but however we have all been completing our set tasks for each week, as is laid out below.

This is a general group edit

This is a section towards the end of the level jack put together this morning, with an edit from me, Alex. This shall be fleshed out this week.



This area also includes the workshop that was seen and described when we pitched the game. We have had to pull back our initial vision and instead of being able to enter and pass through the workshop you instead just see it from the outside, as a landmark and will also serve as a memory trigger for the protagonist and maybe also a means of transitioning to the next area that we will be working on in our 3rd year.

Below are some sketches Jack created for the workshop with input from Dani and me, Alex - and the model created by Dani, which shall be textured by Jack this week.





Dani also created an interior for the mosque building as Alex had an idea to use this interior room as the place where the daughter killed her family member before leaving the message for her father, hints of a fight will be shown here

We are still working on the lighting and Jack is still texturing the fireplace and walls, Dani created the fire for the fireplace.

Entrance side door to the mosque










For this room i did a very rough concept for dani to model various objects from, which Jack has then textured - this area still needs to be fleshed out in more detail using other props from around the level.





Drawing from jack and I's artwork we put together some mock graffiti, some work better than others. This may not be perminant as it is only an easter egg to have fun with and may not work as well as expected.


The lighting is not build here, so these decals do not blend in as well yet


Alex organized the Kismet that manages the audio triggers, ambient sound at the top, male voice clips right, music clips middle, and female clips in game so far.

This kismet sequence manages how all of the female clips will function. Once inside hit box player can press 'e'. Upon pressing 'e' mesh audio device mesh will become hidden and voice message will play.
Dani made it obvious that you had to hit E by creating a little message



Jack has also been working on making sure every static mesh in the scene has a unique lighting channel for the lightmaps, that they all cast shadows correctly and also that the resolution are the right size for each object - this helps to manage the build time and also the overall quality of the final result.


Dani has successfully designed, created and programmed a functioning main menu for the game (using flash and kismet) that is the first thing to load. When you press play the initial custcene (from our pitch) plays and then the player can start playing the game. This should hopefully fix out exporting issues which we shall test soon.

The graphics aren't final and will likely change.


[Edit by Jack] Here are some more textures that i have done during last week, in UDK, models by Dani:


-Dani ~Although it doesn't look like we talk much, we speak alot on facebook and in person and this is how most of our ideas come across.

-Alex

Took the Heat ripples material Dani made earlier, applied it to a plane, then attached the plane to the players camera at a set distance. The screens below demonstrate, however the effect is supposed to be subtle so is hard to represent through screen shots.


This is the second daughter voice recording to be found

At the moment there are 3 audio devices hooked up to disapear and play on button press.

 Another demonstration of the subtle heat ripples at the far market stalls


 Collisions where added to most core meshes today, so now it is possible to climb desired vantage points.



 It is also possible to reach undesired vantage points, so either we need to lock them off or cover more bases in terms of holes in the map that the player can see. There is not many holes like this so that should be fairly quick and easy. 


Jack ran into some issues reimporting the textured interior, but once this is sorted that area can be almost locked off too. 

[Jack Edit] I've managed to fix the interior - it was a complete pain but it's working with the rest of Alex's file now. It's mostly finished apart from the fireplace. The fire is missing from the screenshot and the ceiling hangings look odd without lighting, once i have built the lighting the scene should look much better.





I (Alex), have added the opening voice clip to the intro cinematic, so that is ready to hook up. Also i have begun to have another look at the ambient sounds. this should be done next week.

Monday, 22 April 2013

Schedule Commencing 22nd April

In reference to 'The Next 3 Weeks' what is left ot be done is;

Needs everything to be finished placing.

Models
Audio Device
White House on the Hill

Graffiti
Needs to be made into decals so we can place in the game

Interactivity
Movement Speed

Textures
Fireplace
Room Under
WorkShop Exterior
Fancy Fence Side

Audio
Ambience

Misc
Collisions

Dani
Have a look at VFX - heat wave
Sandstorm flying by?

Alex
Ambient Audio and Graffiti Decals and finally placement

Jack
Finish the last of the textures like your life depends on it

Tuesday, 16 April 2013

The next 3 weeks

In no order yet

Red colour = high priority

Concept starting area
concept landing pad
concept empty animal cages
model any meshes to go with that
place objects


Models:
landing area walls
animal containers/cages
audio device unwrap + texure
white house on the hill


graffiti
http://artofjackeaves.tumblr.com/post/42062775935/this-weeks-weekly-concept-the-theme-was-heavy
http://artofjackeaves.tumblr.com/post/40134868938/first-weekly-concept-of-2013-started-in-2012-a
http://artofjackeaves.tumblr.com/post/36806957380/this-weeks-weekly-concept-had-to-design-a
http://artofjackeaves.tumblr.com/post/34781871519/this-weeks-concept-based-on-halloween-wanted-to
http://artofjackeaves.tumblr.com/post/32834291194/some-of-the-final-design-work-for-this-weeks-2d
i guess 10 to 15 is a good aim?


Interactivity
picking up and playing dani's audio on button press
movement speed decrease
 more detailed audio placement

textures still to do
- Fireplace
- Fences (3 variations)
- Room Under (Inside of the large building)
- Workshop exterior
Anything that is yet to be modelled


intro cutscene
making udk play cinematic on start
or a main menu
possibly revamp intro




Audio
take another look at a 'sound-scape' town ambience.


Misc
more dense world placement

put demo together for some testing
movmentspeed fixed, audio placed
collisions 
background city scape

Monday, 15 April 2013

Schedule Commencing 15th April

Over the half term we were working on our essays so we haven't got very much done.

For this week;

Dani
Model the final few objects - fence etc and continue placing and if time work out how to do the final few vfx parts

Jack
Continue to texture.

Alex
 Decide on what art work we are putting in to the picture frames (probably 10)
Find some work that would work as graffiti for decals
All audio placed and fixed etc.


By April 29th have everything placed and final models modelled.

Friday, 5 April 2013

Recording device

This update is a little late from me, had a few lazy days of the holiday and didnt get as much done as i should have but here is some of what i've been doing.

wanted to do a proper design of Nesha's journals as they are going to be one of the key story drivers.



some sketches i did a while ago


I felt these where at the extremes of either a bit too crazy and not sleek enough or too boring. so i had a look at current Dictaphone designs and drew up my own version.

 after watching some modeling tutorials i have been trying to work on topology and polyflow. Not sure i got it right as the tutorial i was watching he made a high poly model, then a low poly model, but as my model was not very high not not very low i tried to find a happy medium.




Here is what it looks like untextured in UDK. I auto unwrapped it just to see it in the world. I have made it a little bigger than life size to make it a bit easier to see. To go with this it will have some VFX highlighting it.

Working on re applying the music currently with the voice clips in game and adding effects to Nesha's voice recordings.