The next assignment, in extend to last one, requires me to transform the bixi thinggie to a set of weapons. It is actually up to me to do how many of them. I went to a family trip during new year break, in the middle of production, which was inevitable :p. Rather than rush it to the end, I and my professor agree that I will take the time to polish one weapon to perfect.
Well this course should be about Z-brush. But the software is not installed on the computers in our labs, so… everybody learn Mudbox!
As usual, begin working with some sketches. Bi Xi is the dragon turtle who always be seen underneath pillers and monuments. I am turning it into ancient mass destruction weapon pod. Keep an eye on it!
Just a quick recap. I did not enjoy this as the horn. Because the upper part, lower part and the eye lash are sent to mudbox and painted separately, I experience some problems while bringing them back to Maya. Sometime the texture’s gone. Sometime it is visible but gone after rendering … Btw the fur is quite easy to make. I feel like I am cheating with technological advance.
final render:
While the eye is mostly in-shape, I focus on the form of the horn. This horn should be part of a evil donald duck. (Wonder if i mentioned before) See figure:
After a bit of extruding, scaling and finally putting the “rod” to lattice deformer. Yay there you go!
Lattice deformer is extremely handy to create organic form after you have the basic form. The only thing I am worrying about is the faces may have crossed by each other if the distortion is over while i am not paying attention.
While I am kicking off my unwrapping journey, ultimately unwillingly, Melissa brought us interesting tool to look at: the Mudbox. As the assignment did not specify any restriction on method. why not try sth new! I am always happy to hv potential shortcut.
This is insane. I felt like the effort we put in early quarters in texturing with photoshop were wasted. Of course the case is not like that. But this painting way and the brushes are just too easy. Mudbox even has an interface similar to photoshop, particularly the layer part, but in 3D. I KNOW! THEY ARE ALL JUST TOOLS!
It is obvious that I enjoyed that pretty much.
In this quarter I am taking a modelling class entitled Sculptural texturing for games. From the name texture should be the focus of the class. But it seems like my professor want to kick start our study with some modelling. So there you go here is my progress in the first class. We are preparing for the first assignment which we need to create an creature’s eye and horn. Should be a great class!
This game is inspired by project Container (OVA Studio, 2012). The ideas that are developed are the result of the collective brainstorming by me and the OVA Studio. This document is written as understood by the SCAD Policy on Academic integrity, unless otherwise cited.
Container City (proposed name)
Container City is a 3D puzzle game inspired by an architectural project: Container Tower by Ova Studio. In the game, the player controls containers, which are units of a building, to fit into a structure. The structure is a building where residents will move in. The better the structure is satisfying the requests of the residents, the higher the popularity of a structure, hence more residents will move in and more money can be earned. The player can also design, sell and trade their containers with other players through social networks. The player will gradually build up a collection of buildings, which display as a city.
Vision: Container City becomes the most active social game in the world.
Platform: Smartphones, iOS and Android. Network access is not required but recommended.
Player(s): Mainly single, but player can interact with other players online.
Genre: Puzzle, Simulation (GOD game), Strategy, Social, Casual game.
Target audience: ages from 16 to 30. Elder teens to adult, male or female.
Background
Container Tower is an architectural project of OVA Studio. A Container Tower is constructed by fully portable and customizable units. Along with a core units utilized with an elevator, the containers in the shape of cargo are slotted horizontally into a grid made of steel beams. The containers can be built somewhere else and assembled on-site. They are fully portable and flexible. A container can be removed on demand, shipped to other places and fitted into other similar structure. The containers are also fully customizable within the given form factor. They can be manipulated into different functional modules, including but not limited to: residential, office, shop and leisure. Customers can design their own combinations and slot the design into the structure efficiently.
In the game the player is creating his own container tower through challenge. The player will see various residents gradually move in and receive rent from them as feedback. The player will develop an emotional attachment by owning and managing his own creation. The ownership and reward are the positive reinforcement to encourage the player to play the game. The progress of the player can be measured by continuous growth of the city and the growing income rate. He is also motivated by competing on a leaderboard with the coins he have.
I am extending my previous study on SDL library for my final. From the tutorial page I blogged before, they are just separate utilities like input event handler, collision detection, sprite animation etc. Each of them consist of multiple functions and classes. My job is reading all the lines, extracting the essentials and stitching them into a piece. In order to clear out my mind, I started with a diagram that tells me what are the components in a class, so that I will not miss anything when I brought them in.
I also made use of a game idea I created last quarter as the content. It is a game that the player hit and replace obstacles on the map with good road, so that a truck can pass through to send resource to poor villages. I simplified it to a demo within a given time frame.
If a frame is already working, it requires courage to start changing the code. It is sad to see errors come out again. The worst case is I added many lines of codes but the program is not running in any ways and I cannot change it back. For this biggest program I have ever made in this quarter, I back up a version each time I successfully implemented a features. The process is as follow:
1. Tile map (last time) + Keyboard control character
2. Character with animation
3. Collision and logic <- change a tile to something else when touching it
4. Create the sprite sheet for the tiles and walkcycle of the character
5. Add another class for the truck and load an image into it
6. Make the truck move.
This is how the game looks like at the moment:
This is a trace back of older assignment. May be I was too tired to blog this at that time? I do not know.
I intended to make this assignment a test of the logic I planed for my own other project. It is a pipe connecting game which a player can tap and rotate a pipe tile to connect them into a complete water way. The logic is not limited by the platform, if I can test it out and make that an assignment, why not? Smart hah!
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