For this project I worked in a pair with Mitchel Brindley. Both of us worked and a spatial storytelling project in a Isolated 3D environment that we created together, We told the story in a log cabin which was filled with crates, a bed, Oil lamps, a board game, a Gramophone, and Other assets. Our game is a demo of what we want to create in the second half of the year. The demo foreshadows what will happen in the main game dropping hints in objects that are seen around the cabin, and with audio that can be heard in the game when using the Gramophone. My role in the Game was to make the 3D assets and some textures for the objects I created, Mitchel's Job was to make the layout of the game and all the blueprints which made the game function and the interactivity of the game.
The blueprint that was used to make the record work in the game e.g when you interact with it and it goes to the Gramophone and plays music.
When it came to time management I think we did well we did not really have any problems, We where both able to stick to the schedule a little bit, and we got the assets built and reused old assets from previous projects to use in the game, Mitchel was able to get all the blueprints built and working so the game was functional and you could interact with objects around the room, the only thing that did not get done was the coding for the dragons and ladder game that would of been a separate level in the game.
When it came to communicating with people we used survey monkey to get other peoples opinions on the game, I would go over to Mitchel whenever either one of us wanted something doing, or wanting to confirm ideas and stuff we where going to add to the game. If one of was away at any point we would message each other getting updates on how it was all going, or if something needed to be made and added to the game. We also had client meetings with Jez the 'client' for the game where we talked about what was happening in the game what the progress was like and how the functions for certain items would work.
Client meeting with all the Unreal people
Diagram and discussion on how the gramophone would look and function
When it came to problem solving there where times where I would make models and they would not look right or when moving certain parts other parts would suddenly appear that where not meant to be there, for example when making the pumpkin and putting the indents that would make it look more like a pumpkin then just a sphere, I would that at some points when getting to the halfway point of indenting the pumpkin certain parts would start to extrude and cause really weird spiky deformations. I solve this problem by looking over everything seeing if I had accidentally selected a section that shouldn't be selected and then tried again which it then worked. Also another problem that happened just before I even started writing this evaluation was that all the game assets got removed from unreal so everything visual was gone luckily all the blueprints and triggers where still there but we had to remake the entire layout of the game again, we also have learned so that we do not have this problem again to backup the file two or three times.
The way I researched was by asking people what they thought was necessary for the environment of the game and what the expected the game to be like I did this in two ways, one was I asked people around the class in person, and the other was I created a survey monkey and gathered the results from that to see what could be added or removed from the environment.
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| One of the survey answers from the survey monkey I did. |
The other methods of research I did was looking at images for reference and watching tutorials for objects I found difficult to make.
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Reference Image for the clay furnace |
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| The dismantled clay furnace |
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| The assembled Clay furnace |
For the next project that will continue from the demo we will be doing a lot more work, assets will be reused from previous games and the demo but there will be new assets and textures that will be added and will more difficult in design, for example making a cave full of treasure and a dragon that will be in the cave.
I can improve in my area of the work by watching tutorials that will show me how to make more detailed assets and textures like environmental objects like bushes, flowers and other wild life.
Overall beside from the big mess up at the end where we had to rebuild all the visual assets of the world. I think the we both did a good job on making a visual storytelling game that has foreshadowing in for the big game that will be done as the second project. We didn't really need to remove anything that we planned to put in, I made a few extra assets that we didn't use but they where just there if we needed space to be filled, we might be able to use them in the bigger version of the game or they just might never be used.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWzpAR6LecU
