Big Game: Week 8

During the last week of the Big Game course, mostly small fixes was on the list. Stuff like;

text for the tutorial in-game,

as well as text for the menus.

Props for the final scene also had to modeled and textured, like the altar which can be seen in the print screen above. It was modeled in 3DS Max, as usual, and the textures were created in Substance Painter.

An example of the small props that I also created for this week was the lantern, which can be seen in the middle of this screenshot (as well as in the previous screenshot to the left).

Small fixes was also done to the UI, like scaling them to make it a better fit. Documents were also written, for the SGA turn-in and such.

Big Game: Week 2

For the second week, I started working on the base meshes of the enemies and traps. I also had to do some concept art, since we hadn’t completely decided what they should look like. I also put quite a lot of time into creating working prefabs for each mesh.

Here’s some concepts I did, which we decided to use:

Above is the flying enemy to the left and the shooting enemy to the right. The flying enemy won’t have a flower to fly with, though. As idle, he will just fly around randomly with his mouth closed but when he senses a nearby soul from the player, he will open his mouth and start to chase the projectile. The shooting enemy will shoot from the top of his head and his middle body will rotate towards the player.

Above is some traps which we will use in the game; to the left is our ”spiketrap”, which we wanted to be more than just spikes. So, we created it as a dead enemy and will also use regular spikes which can be use in roofs, walls and next to the dead enemy. We will also have a ”bladetrap”, as we call it, which will be sawblades moving and rotating on a built trap of wood and spinning wheels. The last trap is ”push-and-pulltraps”, which will work kind of like a magnetic force. There will be two different ones, one that has a plus on the front (like in the picture above) and one with a minus. The plus will push away the projectile and the minus will pull it in. They will also have different colors, to more easily separate them.

Here’s the base meshes of the objects, some as final meshes since I had time to start working with that before I started writing this;

 

(Kind of) final meshes for the enemies.

Base meshes for some traps.

Also worked with some meshes such as checkpoints and interactable objects. The checkpoint will be just a base with transparent light on the standing plane.

Big Game: Week 1

During the first week of production, the main task was to create the player character of our game. Here’s the concept:

Modeling and creating a UVW of her head was a lot of pain and resulted in some difficulties with distortions when creating the textures, but I eventually ended up with with an acceptable result. Emissive glow would also be a big part of the character design, which meant I had to play around a bit in Unity to figure out how everything worked since I had only used Unreal before starting Big Game project.

Here’s some pictures of the final mesh:

Some elements were changed from the original concept, like for example the pearl necklace which limited her head movement quite a bit. The pearl on her arm were also moved to the flat surface of her hand to avoid distortions when moving and rotating the arm. She’s about 10k tris.

Here’s with the added textures:

We went for hand painted textures with very simple roughness and normals. The only normals are on her head and the only difference in roughness is between her pearls, clothes and skin. Substance Painter, Photoshop CC and Paint Tool Sai was used to create the diffuse, roughness, emissive and normals.

In Unity, the emissive channel works like this:

The bloom effects and such will be tweaked and isn’t the final version. The textures might also get a rework later on in the project, if time allows.

Ambient Pressure: Power-ups with animation

For the final post during this course I decided to talk about the power-ups and their animation. Our game include three power-ups, which are as follows.

• Light-up: Lights up the whole screen for 3 seconds, then flickers and goes back to dark again.
• Repellent: This works almost like an invisibility spell, it’s simply a toxic waste that masks the smell of the diver which makes them basically invisible to the enemies for a short while. The diver will have a transparent dark purple color for the duration, this will also start to flicker before it completely disappears.
• Guiding Arrow: Simply as the name states, it is an arrow which guides the player to the nearest sample. An orange arrow will circle around the diver in the direction of the sample.

We considered it important to have each pick-up animated, to further compel the player to pick it up. It would make the whole game seem more lively. So, for the power-ups I decided to just keep an easy animation where they slowly jump back and forth, with some special animation for the light-up and the guiding arrow which will be seen below.

The first power-up that was completed was Light-up. We all basically saw it as a light in a bottle, so that is what I decided to draw. This is the final version of Light-up:

The first version of this was a lot more transparent, since I created it working from a darker background than the metallic blue we eventually went with. After feedback from the playtesting, of how it was kind of hard to spot, I made it less transparent to hopefully give a bigger contrast to the background. I am also hoping that the moving light will also aid in making it more noticable.

The second power-up that was created was the repellent. Designing this as something the player should want to pick up, when it is actually toxic waste was a bigger challenge than the other power-ups. We talked about having it as a flask filled with purple liquid and that’s when we decided to give the power-ups a specific appearance; they would all be in something made of glass. I decided to make the repellent as a glass jar filled with purple liquid.

The third, and final, power-up was Guiding Arrow. I had imagined it from the start as a transparent box with a bouncing arrow inside trying to get out, so after the decision of making all the power-ups out of glass; this was of course what I did. Here is the final version:

The orange arrow inside will be used as the arrow who guides the player as well, when the power-up is picked up (or ”crushed”) the arrow will escape to the outer range of the Diver’s field of vision and spin towards the nearest sample.

Ambient Pressure: Level 4 Map

Closing in on the beta deadline, I’ve mostly been working with finishing all the different maps we want to implement in the game. This week it was level 4, which turned into this:

It might turn into level 3, though, says our level designer.

So, this is the second map I have made and after finishing this one I realized one thing; all the maps will look very similar to each other. It is a positive thing for me, since I could use a lot of already finished material from the first map that was created, which in turn saved a huge amount of time. The problem, though, is that it could become boring very quickly for the player to finish a map and then continue to a very similar map. That was when I had the idea of ”corrupting” the maps. My idea was to change the look of the map, as the game moves along and become harder. Each level will be continually harder than the previous and I thought we could use this to our advantage considering the design of each level. The easy leap to make from metal underwater is of course rust. So, that is what I tried out. I started doing some research of what rust actually looks like and tried to make something similar, but still according to our style. I also looked up some rust textures (completely free for use of course) and used them to enhance the effect. I showed it to the rest of the group and they also thought it would be a cool thing to do, to add some difference between each map.

The idea is that this level is where we introduce the rust, the next will have parts of rust along the whole map and it will continually grow in the spread along with each map. Eventually, the whole map will be completely made out of rust. Since I am not fully aware of how many maps we will have in the final version, I am not completely sure about how the rust will be placed on each map. I currently have 6 maps to draw, 3 of them already finished, and it will probably be a few more after that.

A problem I had this week was that we got the feedback that the map and diver did not completely match. Mainly because of the line thickness. Unfortunately this is because I was originally provided with a map of the wrong size, and drew the whole thing thinking that the diver would be considerably bigger than it actually turned out to be. I was told that it would not be worth it to redraw it, but it still bugged me when I saw it, so I knew I had to do something at least. Which means, I actually redrew all the lines for this map along with the other two that are also completed. I also shrinked most of the vegetation, to match the diver better in size. It took a lot of extra time that I had not planned for this week, but in my opinion it was worth it. It is not perfect, but it is an improvement.

Ambient Pressure: Level 2 Map

This week I have mostly been working on the design of the first map. Which later turned into level 2. This is the end result along with the level design I was given:

My assignment was to hand-draw the map, following the structure of the level design. We chose to do our levels this way because we felt it was important for the feeling of the game to have more detailed maps, instead of regular tiles. I designed the level keeping the concept picture I drew some time back in mind, since there was nothing else specific we had agreed on with the group. Here, below, is the concept:

The only thing that was clear about the design is that it is supposed to be underwater and probably a sunken ship. I saw  some difficulities, though, drawing it as a ship considering the level design. It is not very probable that the inside of a ship would be built so inconvenient. We had a discussion with the group and came to the conclusion that we felt that it is more important to have interesting maps rather than a realistic layout of a ship.

To somehow deal with the problem of the ship’s design, I decided to add ladders in the high areas where it would be impossible to walk or even climb. This also helps the diver in the bigger rooms, since generally people tend to keep to walls in the dark: to have something to follow. With the ladders in the middle of the room, it gives the player something other than the walls to follow when feeling lost.

I also chose to add different elements to the ship, other than the regular walls. Some vegetation was added to show that the ship has been there for some time and other decoration, such as the sign, was added to give some more interesting elements to the map. The sign and the warning lights are supposed to be slighlty lit up, which gives the player some extra vision and not just their own light and their flare gun. We thought it would be fun to add different light sources during the levels to show that this was once something functioning. It also provides some security for the player. These will have to be added as seperate objects, since it is far from optimal to animate the whole map. Animation for these items will hopefully be completeted in a later stage during the project.

The whole thing was drawn in Paint Tool Sai.

Ambient Pressure: Swimming Animation, Diver

This week I’ll be talking about my process in the making of the main character’s animation.

First off, I did a very loose sketch of how the animation could look like, even before the base sprite was finished. This was to just feel if I could really pull off a swimming animation and to give myself some time to consider how to work with it. So, here is the first sketch which I worked from:

It only includes the basic, main frames. I knew I would have to add more frames to have it look smooth, and also put some more work into the dynamics of the flippers. I did not want it to be a super realistic swimming style, as long as it was obvious that the character was swimming. I am aware that the feet and legs are generally in a higher position compared to the head while diving, but I wanted the head to be the main focus and to really have the character looking forward.

I decided to take the animation in small steps, since I knew it would be difficult for me to animate. I have never done it before so I needed to figure out the quickest way for me to do it. Since there is a lot of details included in the finished base sprite (which can be seen below), it would take quite a lot of time to draw each frame. This is when I thought of skeleton animation; where there is a base skeleton underneath, which is used to move the character around. I decided to use that as inspiration and did an extremely simplified version of the techique. Since I did not have a ”base skeleton” I just used the simple method of copy and paste, and redrew the parts that needed fixing. All frames were basically created out of this one:

The first step, to me, was to get the legs moving. I focused solely on the legs, excluding the movement of the flippers. This version would only include the main frames, and consists of only 6 frames. Which makes the legs movement a lot quicker than planned and not very smooth. Here is that result:

After that, I thought it was important to get a good look for the flippers. The previous version makes them look very stiff and it’s just not working. If I’m going to be honest, the flippers were probably what took me the longest to do, mainly because I had a lot of problem getting them to look natural. Eventually I ended up with this;

It’s still not smooth or in the speed it’s planned to, but it does look more natural. After this I started focusing on the arm’s movement and adding the light which will hang from the belt. The arm holding the pistol will eventually be completely removed, since it will be separate object moving along the cursor. After struggles, several extra frames and a lot of redrawing, I ended up with this:

This is the current finished version, but will possibly be worked on again before the final version of the game.

Ambient Pressure: the Enemies

This week I will be talking about the process of how the design for the enemies were created.

First of all, here is the end result:

How I came to this conclusion, can be read below.

We did have the concept document from the last group to go after, but I still wanted to create my own designs for our game. I used the enemies they had created and used as a base for my own ones. Which means, I kept the attributes for each fish and changed their design to better suit the style I was going for. We all decided on a simple backstory: there has been sightings of mutated fish and you have been assigned to collect samples that will tell the world what happened down there and what happened to the fish. I decided that these fish would be tropical, colorful fish. I liked the irony of the colorfulness along with the mutated look. I wanted it to be obvious that these were not created as mutated, they have once been just regular tropical fish.

I started out with the Sharptooth;

This is like the ”basic enemy” in our game. It is the weakest one out of all the others, and it is not especially scary to stumble upon, considering its small size. This was created to be 128×128 pixels big, the smallest one out of both the diver and the other fish. Its attributes is to simply patrol an area until the diver is stumbled upon. The previous group used a pinkish purple as color for this one, and I decided to do something similar. I remembered a Betta fish that I saw some time ago, a screaming purple and orange color, and decided to use that as inspiration for the color scheme. In the end, it turned out a lot less colorful to not completely loose the scary feeling.

The next enemy I started working on was the Slowfish;

As can be noticed in the name, this fish is slow. It would also be considerably bigger than the Sharptooth. It was decided to use a 256×256 pixels big sprite for this enemy, just as big as the diver actually. Keeping this in mind, I started designing the fish. Because of its slow movement I wanted the body to be big and not very flexible. I also wanted it to have a more oval look than the Sharptooth, to give it a bigger feeling. I originally started out with a blue and pink color scheme, but considering the blue water, it could be more difficult for the player to spot it. So, a more green-ish blue was used for the body.

And the biggest fish among them, the Diafol;

We decided to incorporate this fish in our game as a final boss. It will be shown throughout the levels, hinting of its existence, until the last level where it will be all about escaping from it. This would be the biggest and baddest fish in the game, so I naturally designed it keeping sharks in mind. It’s not much to the design other than the shark-like features and mutated look. This one was also originally supposed to be blue, but was changed to a more green-ish blue, for the same reasons as previously mentioned. To give some contrast, the eyes are yellow.

And the last one of the bunch, the Creeperfish;

This was not a part of the previous group’s design document, but created by me. I wanted to add a fish that could really play and lure the player. The first thing that came to mind was of course the famous anglerfish. The design is based completely on that fish, with a dark color scheme to hide the body even better in the dark. I decided that the glowing elements would be a bright blue, a fairly neutral color, to use as the lure for the player. The glowing elements in the samples will be the same color, which will give the player a challenge to tell them apart.

Ambient Pressure – Second week

This was the first week we really started working seriously on the game, after choosing the concept last week. We met our Scrum Master on Monday morning and started assigning everyone tasks for this week. My job this week was to create concept art for the game; of the characters, the game in general and such.

The game is about a diver who’s on a mission to find out what’s going on with the underwater life in a specific place, there’s been sightings of mutated fish. The goal is to dive down this sunken ship and collect as much samples as needed to test what’s really going on down there. There will also be angry mutated fish, which you can not kill easily (not by yourself, at least); but tricking them is easily enough when you have access to a flare gun. We modified the concept slighty, both gameplay and story.

I started out with working on the diver, I did a quick sketch traditionally and shared it with the group. They liked the design and we decided to go with that design, except for some small changes. Here’s what I ended up with:

The original design by the other group was modern and sleek, but the group told me they wanted to try it out with one of those old diving helmets. I mixed the modern and the old a bit, to give a different feeling. I also changed the glowstick gun to a flare gun, the group agreed that it would make more sense when the light it brought would only be temporarily so we kept it.

The next thing I started working on was the fish.

The first one is the Sharptooth, the one under it is the Slowfish, the left top one is the Diafol and the last one I decided to call Creeperfish. All the other fishes except the last one, is based on the previous group’s fish. First, I had the idea to have the fish kind of normal-looking at first, until they notice you, and they open their jaws and just surprises the player. I didn’t want them to look too happy, though, so I made them a bit more creepy. I also thought it would be fun if the mutated fish would be colorful, like tropical fish, to give some contrast between their creepy look and their assumed original form.

These fish were also designed at the same time, based on the previous group’s Thundereel and Inkspitter. We decided to have these as extra enemies, which means that if we feel like we have to time: we’ll add them in the game. That’s why they aren’t shaded. Their AI would be more difficult than the other fish and we don’t want to stress the programmers too much.

The last thing I did for this week was an example of the walls and such in the game, which ended up like this:

This is just how I could imagine it looking, the actual tiles in the game would probably look a lot different (all very similar or all the same), to make it easy to code. I’ll probably get to work with 2 or 3 different tiles maximum.