Final Reflection

Final Reflection

Game description 

Endpoint is a third person gauntlet style racing game you play as a robot that want to win his own refurbishment so you must race other players all bidding for the same prize of refurbishment.

The first trap is the elevator this is mainly focused on multiplayer you must survive the first elevator ride up using your air gun attached to your arm to blow the other players of the elevator so you are the last man standing.

Than you come to the electric grid the grid is a machine that has passive and hostile squares that are randomly activated you must avoid the hostile squares when they are active or you will die. While you are on the grid you will have to attack or defend against other opponents by using the air gun to blast enemies into electricity.

 The last trap is the wind tunnel the players must wait for the fans to stop to be able to navigate the trap if you are not behind cover you will be blown into the pit and have to start at the start but there are walls that are in the sandblaster to take cover behind to avoid getting blown into the pit. In the sandblaster you can use your air gun to blow other players out from cover and into the pit the player that reaches the endpoint first becomes the victor winning refurbishment.

Critique

A lot has changed about this concept  since we have started to develop it I think it has some nice features like the air gun and the electric grid but I think it still may need a bit more wow factor and more look and feel as in visual art style. The animation on the character has a lot of room for improvement but generally pretty good the sounds are simple but effective and not over powering.

 The traps themselves could be a little more complex and thought out but what has been achieved already is quite good. To summarize I like the concept of the game but I think it could have just a little bit more content and be a bit more polished but overall a good concept   

Conclusion

To assess the process we undertook for the development of this concept was a great experience for me to work within a group dynamic working with other people with different skills motivates me to learn and experiment with new ideas and processes. I am blessed to have had hard working people in my team but in saying that there were the acceptation of a few that could have pushed just a little bit harder. The process of the meeting was simple using Skype to meet two times a week to prepare for presentations and present work than we would meet briefly after desk critiques and presentations to discuss feedback and any issues that we might have. I am happy with the outcome of this concept design all the team members had input and had opinions heard and I think as a result of all theses things produced a better result the game play and mechanics, the textures and animations all look great and fit well and I think and it is because we had a good hard working team with good communication and I think the work reflects that.

I played a role or 3d Artist/Animator and sound designer so I had a big part to play I took part in designing levels and traps, level layouts and assets creation.

 I produced the electric grid and the elevator. I made the robot character from grays concept so Gary (Concept Artist) got to design the robot character but I modeled unwrapped rigged and animated him. I made the air gun sound and some ambient noise as well as an original composition for the music in the game.  So as for the least satisfying task would have had to be the promotional trailer recording and editing the footage and rendering is never fun so that was my least satisfying task I had to do. 

What tested my abilities was one the character and two the promotion trailer. The character was already set designed conceptually but I created a working model from the concepts the task of taking that concept and making a working 3d model that can be animated for the game. Having to rig and animate can be long I spent many tiresome hours on the animation but managed to have it working and in the build.

 The trailer was a annoying having to watch the same footage for three days editing and changing re rendering I lost a lot of patience with after effects and technical issues I had with it but after a lot of hard work and effort I got a cool trailer that I am proud of.  

I learned you can never be to prepared plan discuss give and receive feedback  everything to the detail test and then if it works good if it does not work disregard  and move on also that routine and reliability is the key to time management within a group if you can incorporate these things into a routine and communicate on the right levels and the team understands this the process itself becomes much easier and leaves more room to focus on other priorities.

· What plans do you and your team have for the next phase of development of your project?

We have made plans to add more content and and make a nice simple polished concept develop more characters and customization's and develop more traps

Sandblaster (Brownish)

Experience:

The wind tunnel is designed to blast robots with sand to strip off their paint, with a large pit at the base to catch any fallen robots/the removed paint. The wind blasts are constant and do not immediately push the player to a “killed” state, allowing some recovery.

1. Start at a narrower portion of the tunnel with some large walls near the entrance.
2. The tunnel expands slightly and so does the spacing between walls. The walls are also separated by gaps in the floor forcing the player to jump between them
3. The walls are now quite far apart and notably smaller. There are also more gaps to jump between.

Electric Grid (Blue)

Experience:

Dimly lit room (similar to a cave) with a glowing and sparking electrical grid. Platforms on the grid light up before electrocuting whatever stands on it, forcing the players to move from that platform. The whole room is one giant grid that ramps in difficulty the platforms that have been triggered stay lit.

1. As the grid is first entered the amount of safe platforms outweigh the amount of “active” platforms
2. The grid has some lines and zones of “permanently active” platforms as well as more “active” platforms than previously.
3. Along with permanently active zones and more active platforms, some wires hang from the ceiling and walls and upon touching, the player dies.

Cutting Room (Silver)

Experience:

Continuous conveyors leading the players through various cutting instruments designed to first, hack and slash and then leading to more precises instruments

1. The players start along a slower moving part of the conveyor dodging buzz-saws and other larger cutting instruments
2. As the pace of the conveyor quickens so do the quantity of buzz saws
3. As the conveyor reaches top speeds lasers are introduced as another element for the player to dodge.

Smelting Room (Black/Red/orange from heat and light)

Experience:

The smelter is a large object within the room with molten metal inside it, the player runs along a conveyor above the smelter with various crushers attempting to stop the players

1. The conveyor keeps a relatively straight path with crushers attempting to stop the player
2. As the players moves through the room the conveyor forks and takes different paths that other players may be split between. The conveyors begin to take more complicated and dangerous routes so the player must now dodge flaming exhausts as well as the crushers
3. The conveyor runs closer to the smelter and much faster. The players must then dodge blasts of exhaust, crushers as well as blasts of molten metal shooting up from the smelter.

Cooling Room (light blue/white icy look)

Experience:

Similar designs to an industrial cold room, dimly lit the cooling room has various obstacles such as exhausts of cold air freezing players, falling icy stalactites as well as a “temperature gauge” that the player must also keep an eye on as when it decreases the player slows in movement. As the players first enter they will notice a new GUI icon indicating their temperature within the room. As the gauge gets lower the icon updates with a “freezing” mask so the players knows what they are doing. The room will have some “warm spots” (maybe one halfway) where they can charge back their temperature gauge.

1. The players will notice a few pipes and stalactites as they first enter, with the room starting at a relatively warm temperature (so the gauge progresses slowly)
2. More pipes and stalactites as well as the room getting colder and narrower.
3. The room proceeds to freezing temperatures so if the player isn’t quick enough they will freeze solid

Elevator (Dark metal, yellow (danger lighting))

Experience:

The elevator is an incline lift moving at a rather slow pace will several obstacles coming from the walls as well as being heavily pvp focused.

1. 3 Incline lifts move at different speeds up and down the pathway (allowing other players to not have to wait as long). Not many other obstacles, just pvp focus
2. Decontaminate sprays which can knock the player off the platform, as well as pvp
3. Sprays and pvp and the track begins to falter causing the elevator to move in a more erratic fashion

Packaging (white, brown(boxes), coloured via containers and banners)

Experience:

The packaging room is a giant warehouse with lots of machinery constantly moving and blocking/re-opening paths. More designs and exposition to the story (T.V. equipment, sponsorship banners etc).

1. Players come in off the lift into a storage style warehouse with machinery moving constantly. A crane will occasionally drop a shipping container on the ground killing any players underneath it, and then picking it up again and continuing in a loop
2. Crane moving from above as well as other machinery picking up containers in a horizontal fashion blocking certain paths whilst opening others.
3. Cranes + other machinery as well as forklifts providing players with elevated platforms and other vehicles attempting to run over the player.

For The Prototype

All layouts will have a ‘sampler’ within the prototype level giving a taste of the functionality and gameplay EXCEPT for the elevator and the packaging stage. The progression will be similar to as follows;

Start in a small-scale wind tunnel (3-walls, quite short) before moving into a 6x6 electric grid with the “active” platform functionality implemented, then the cutting room will be one short mostly-straight conveyor with both buzzsaws and lasers equally. After that, we will enter a smaller version of the smelter including a forking conveyor with some crushers. The cooling room will be the final section, with a much shorter room to showcase the temperature gauge.

Promotional video and pesentation

So i completed my promotional video that i had to make for the presentation and i have spent close to three days straight on it on top or technical issues i have overcome but i feel that i have done a good job

 i got it to a standard i was happy with but from feedback from the desk crit i had  to now rivet the video and take some things out and change some thing add text but i think i have it to a standard that i am happy with and now i reflect on the work i presented before to the work i have now and now i can see that i could be much better if u spend a bit of time and effort how things can turn out.

i felt that me not being up for the presentation was a bit unfair but its no biggie

so i have had more issues wit making the promo vid it is eating a lot of my time but i have finally got it to a stage that the group is happy with

defiantly learned something from this about having a plan and sticking to it

her are some screenshots of me editing the video

rendering the video quite tolling on my system it was a very tedious process to try and get it to look good

after lots of after effects crashes and loss of work i have finally got a render that i am satisfied with

Promotional Trailer

I have been tasked after last weeks desk crt with making the promotional trailer for the games pitch

so we met on skype and recorded all the footage from playing the build for me to later edit in after

effects i like all the shots we got from the recordings but its is tedious scrubbing through all the

footage and piecing the right material together it is a lot more work than i remembered from last time

i did a trailer so i will meet again with the group to present my work and get feedback I am sure I

will be told how good or bad it is  i am happy with the result so far i will post a vid once i have got

he desired footage

Animation

here is me animating the character for the the game

couple of screen shots the animation is not the best it could be a lot more refined but at this stage i thing it will do just fine

my rig i created and its controllers a very basic rig but it works for what we need it for

getting this character to the stage its at was not easy but hay nothing worth it was ever easy i am happy with the result 

making this character was a sort of self test i wanted to see if i could make the character from scratch

i had to make the geometry unwrap and rig the character 

i like a challane i could have just downloaded a model but that's no fun 

Multi player Testing

we have weekly meeting and we build the level and test it online together at the meetings and discuss problem ideas and optimize

Here is the look of the game without HUD in the feedback from the desk crit we needed to implement the character and the HUD 

So here are some screen shots of the game with HUD we have tested the cool down and that all works which is sweet

This is the air tunnel area as you can see the little GUI is the gun cool down meter

This is the electric grid area has testing some functionality

This is the elevator area testing functionality 

testing the game was alot of fun bieng able to test with the group was a good process to gain feedback and also give feedback the level is coming together really well there are still some things that i am unhappy with at this stage but im sure after discussing with the group we can resolve such issues

Character Development

This week i was tasked with making the character model to replace the model we have been testing for the build after the meeting and getting the concepts of our artist i Created the mesh of the robot using blender

the concepts didn't line up 100 percent but i made it work and put my own little spin on him

 and came out with a cool robot so unwrap his UV in blender ready for when i want to texture him

now that the model is unwrapped i used a add on in blender called the meta rig armature to drive my character

Once i posited the armature i sett up my rig with IK for the arms and legs

used bitmap to material to generate my maps

than i animated a run cycle as well as an idle animation

for my character by key framing in blender 

Implementation

i continued on with the electric room concept adding in the assets i needed from my assets list than i exported so that it could be tested in the game engine and over the network.

we tested all of us playing together on the network in the level that i exported

i added a generator and some wires hanging down and the grid of platforms and texture the platform walls and the generator.

this was a relly good way of getting my ideas for how i wanted the room to look and feel rather than bog yourself down in detail the use of lighting in the right way can really deliver the mood and feel for the room

i also started to model the elevator for the elevator room

i just have to unwrap texture and export

i thgink that it  is a little more than what had been discussed and agreed upon but i don't see a problem with doing a little extra

the elevator turned out really well it didnt take long for me to get it looking how it looks everybody in the group seems to be happy with what i produced so that is a plus

Conceptual rendering

my group and i made an asset priority list in our meetings and work out what needs to be models we have to make for this stage of design and i was tasked with creating a 3d environment concept of the electric room

this is were the robots are deactivated and rewired and has been fitted out to a challenge area for multiplier combat

players must make there way across the and across the platforms safely to complete this area electrified fences block the player exposed wires and electrified platforms as well as out of control assembly arms in this area are all trying to stop or slow or even kill the player.

this  is a concept of the electronic facility  that will be in the prototype and was the first of the priority list to try and portray the look and feel of the room

we came up with an idea for colors that are in each room for example blue for the electrical room

grey with color accents and dark grungy textures strong industrial feel mechanical theme to this room

i think that this is a good idea to reflect how i want the level to look like based on what was agrred upon by the group in our meetings i ham happy with the out come

trap and level design concepts

so we went through in this weeks meeting an discussed some level design and what the astetcic of the game the logic of what the level is and how it will function and how we will be relating to game play what types of traps will be used and how they will be used in the level thinking about how the level will flow with game play and difficulty

we also tested Sams local lan networking and it all worked to we will be able to test gameplay as we build the prototype

Section Layouts

The Wind Tunnel (Brownish)

Experience:

The wind tunnel is designed to blast robots with sand to strip off their paint, with a large pit at the base to catch any fallen robots/the removed paint. The wind blasts are constant and do not immediately push the player to a “killed” state, allowing some recovery.

1. Start at a narrower portion of the tunnel with some large walls near the entrance.
2. The tunnel expands slightly and so does the spacing between walls. The walls are also separated by gaps in the floor forcing the player to jump between them
3. The walls are now quite far apart and notably smaller. There are also more gaps to jump between.

Electric Room (Blue)

Experience:

Dimly lit room (similar to a cave) with a glowing and sparking electrical grid. Platforms on the grid light up before electrocuting whatever stands on it, forcing the players to move from that platform. The whole room is one giant grid that ramps in difficulty the platforms that have been triggered stay lit.

1. As the grid is first entered the amount of safe platforms outweigh the amount of “active” platforms
2. The grid has some lines and zones of “permanently active” platforms as well as more “active” platforms than previously.
3. Along with permanently active zones and more active platforms, some wires hang from the ceiling and walls and upon touching, the player dies.

Cutting Room (Silver)

Experience:

Continuous conveyors leading the players through various cutting instruments designed to first, hack and slash and then leading to more precises instruments

1. The players start along a slower moving part of the conveyor dodging buzz-saws and other larger cutting instruments
2. As the pace of the conveyor quickens so do the quantity of buzz saws
3. As the conveyor reaches top speeds lasers are introduced as another element for the player to dodge.

Smelting Room (Black/Red/orange from heat and light)

Experience:

The smelter is a large object within the room with molten metal inside it, the player runs along a conveyor above the smelter with various crushers attempting to stop the players

1. The conveyor keeps a relatively straight path with crushers attempting to stop the player
2. As the players moves through the room the conveyor forks and takes different paths that other players may be split between. The conveyors begin to take more complicated and dangerous routes so the player must now dodge flaming exhausts as well as the crushers
3. The conveyor runs closer to the smelter and much faster. The players must then dodge blasts of exhaust, crushers as well as blasts of molten metal shooting up from the smelter.

Cooling Room (light blue/white icy look)

Experience:

Similar designs to an industrial cold room, dimly lit the cooling room has various obstacles such as exhausts of cold air freezing players, falling icy stalactites as well as a “temperature gauge” that the player must also keep an eye on as when it decreases the player slows in movement. As the players first enter they will notice a new GUI icon indicating their temperature within the room. As the gauge gets lower the icon updates with a “freezing” mask so the players knows what they are doing. The room will have some “warm spots” (maybe one halfway) where they can charge back their temperature gauge.

1. The players will notice a few pipes and stalactites as they first enter, with the room starting at a relatively warm temperature (so the gauge progresses slowly)
2. More pipes and stalactites as well as the room getting colder and narrower.
3. The room proceeds to freezing temperatures so if the player isn’t quick enough they will freeze solid

Elevator (Dark metal, yellow (danger lighting))

Experience:

The elevator is an incline lift moving at a rather slow pace will several obstacles coming from the walls as well as being heavily pvp focused.

1. 3 Incline lifts move at different speeds up and down the pathway (allowing other players to not have to wait as long). Not many other obstacles, just pvp focus
2. Decontaminate sprays which can knock the player off the platform, as well as pvp
3. Sprays and pvp and the track begins to falter causing the elevator to move in a more erratic fashion

Packaging (white, brown(boxes), coloured via containers and banners)

Experience:

The packaging room is a giant warehouse with lots of machinery constantly moving and blocking/re-opening paths. More designs and exposition to the story (T.V. equipment, sponsorship banners etc).

1. Players come in off the lift into a storage style warehouse with machinery moving constantly. A crane will occasionally drop a shipping container on the ground killing any players underneath it, and then picking it up again and continuing in a loop
2. Crane moving from above as well as other machinery picking up containers in a horizontal fashion blocking certain paths whilst opening others.
3. Cranes + other machinery as well as forklifts providing players with elevated platforms and other vehicles attempting to run over the player.

For The Prototype

All layouts will have a ‘sampler’ within the prototype level giving a taste of the functionality and gameplay EXCEPT for the elevator and the packaging stage. The progression will be similar to as follows;

Start in a small-scale wind tunnel (3-walls, quite short) before moving into a 6x6 electric grid with the “active” platform functionality implemented, then the cutting room will be one short mostly-straight conveyor with both buzzsaws and lasers equally. After that, we will enter a smaller version of the smelter including a forking conveyor with some crushers. The cooling room will be the final section, with a much shorter room to showcase the temperature gauge.

we also tested Sams local lan networking and it all worked to we will be able to test gameplay as we build the prototype

Viability and scaling

after feed back from our viability presentation the sum we got  was we need a lot more conceptual art and visuals to portray art style and aesthetics of the game and to break it down to a more manageable parts for this part of the design process. So we met as a group and discussed what was need to be done.

at this point it is really reliant on conceptual design and art.

so we talked with our artiest and explained our ideas and what is need from him and made sure that the whole group was on the same page

also we discussed in our skype meeting level design broke down the what the whens and the hows of the environments and traps to what will be happening in the environment and correlate to the story line broke the level down to one design and logically layout the level from how it will function and than apply that to our level design.

now that we had done this process it became easier and made more sense the traps made more sense because that is what would really happen in that environment. and this is all documented in out GDD and our meeting documentation

i will also be looking into scaling factor from our 3D software packages into the unity engine so that all the animators and modelers are keeping to a uniform scale and measurement system

Level layouts and difficulty curve

from feedback received i was tasked by my group to explain how the player will be delivered game play, flow and difficulty so we started to think about game flow and difficulty so we came up with a difficulty ramp and how they will tie in with the traps and game play giving the player a rest in between traps and combat between other players.

 Here is a difficulty chart we made to represent flow of difficulty in the game relating to level design and how traps will be introduced to the layer

with that done i was also asked to do level layouts what the traps are and how they function so i designed a quick mock up as a visual aid for my viability presentation i was given to levels to layout

Design stages

after presenting our ideas to the class and some feed back from our coordinates we have continued to build upon our ideas and have been having meetings on skype and discussing details  on who and what to present at the pitches and desk crits.

 trello so we can all organize workflow for the group.

we have created a meeting document and a design document that we have been populating with our ideas plans designs and sketches that have been presented by the group at theses meetings to await feedback

after some feedback there is still a few things we have to think through and work out details on like game play, immersion, and ramping intensity.

i have had an idea for  ramping intensity maybe best used as audio cues whether it be music crowd roar or a commentator as sound now plays a big part in the game play experience.

and for the game play intensity to keep that consistency and flow of game play in a short round by round situation would be an type of episodic flow to it play-feedback-play curve up intensity than rest than where the curve ends on first is where the second starts.

this will mean ramping difficulty or speed or reaction time or whatever it may be.

in the green areas maybe a penalty are as well as a feed back area this give the player time to reflect reload and plan out an attack

this making intensity dynamic and fun as well as not exhausting the player.audio can also foreshadow what you may face  in the traps as well as engage the player further.

Playthrough Ideas

This is a play through design mock up o have been tasked with this week we met on skype and chatted about our ideas this i what i came up will.

Play through

Player spawns in round room with all other players they all charge for the second room a platform room With flames that engulf certain platforms but leaves a path for players to find and follow player must make it to the entrance to the second room the air gun can be used to extinguish flames and get to the other side quicker and try and blow your opponents into flames or of platforms but beware air gun has cool down.

Room 1

Players enter room in this room there is a grid on which the saws travel on different axis’s randomly  the player must attack or defend against opponents as well as evade the saws. Turrets placed up high that shoot at players but there will be a switch or some mechanism that you can reprogram the turrets to attack other players for you players must reach exits.

Room 2

Players enter room and cleavers fall down blocking the player’s path the player must wait for cleaver to rise again to be able to proceed there will be many of these in the room. There will be no way for the player to get around cleavers because all the wall are electrified and will damage player or force them into cleavers room players must attack and defend using air cun against opponents and reach the exit.

Room 3

The players enter this room this room will have elevations and magnetic explosive ball tumble and fall from above side and below  the player cannot get to close or the bombs will be stuck to the player and explode. The air gun can be used to blow the bombs at players or away from themselves players much reach exit to proceed to the next level.

Room 4 (End)

This room is the most complex this is the final show down  this is where the players fight to the death all versions of traps are here Turrets, Saws, Platforms etc. players eliminate each other until last man standing and then must undergo one final test to become champion of the cobra arena.

INB379_15se1: Game Project Design