Running out of Clever Names for Post Titles!!

A little late on my blog post this week and I must say I am pretty exhausted, brain dead is the only word that is coming to mind. A very busy/hectic week but now I can finally take a breather. The assignments I was working on is finally completed for now, the two I was working on was creating a scene with a block wall and creating a sphere to knock them down and the other was creating a camera system that could move in certain positions (i.e. first person view, third person, static and over the shoulder) The sphere one took some time as I was trying to create a sphere in Maya and apply physics to it so that it would crash down into the wall however I kept coming across problems. The way I fixed this was I used the directional vector of the camera and determined the aim of the ball, therefore when a ball shoots it will always shoot from the middle of the camera position, I added havok physics and gave it velocity to shoot forward. The ball shoots out and crashes into the wall and it is the most beautiful thing ever.

Breaking the Wall Down

The reason I worked on these assignments is because I feel they will help contribute to our game. The game will need a hit detection and what game doesn't need a camera system?

Speaking of our game we had talked a bit about it this week and we need to get cracking on certain aspects. Team Smash has some concept drawings and ideas we just need to put them into action. Below are some concept drawings that some of the team members thought we could use in the game.

Torture Item - Knives laying around basement

Torture Item - Chain and Hook

Torture Item - Chair Main Character Wakes Up On

Main Character Body Structure

It just keeps coming!!

Well here we are again, another week another post. It feels like Ive just had the same week twice, assignment after assignment and then there's the game we are creating. However things are finally shaping up, I am now working on an assignment that could be used in our game (the whole two birds with one stone) it is pretty much collision and adding physics.



At first I thought the engine we were using was very hard but after looking into it, it is very helpful. There are a lot of functions that help you and by just using the things embedded into the program already, things can be created much simpler.
There is one problem I'm still having and that is...FATAL ERRORS!... Everything started fine but I added a function that was already included in WildMagic called applyForce and everything went downhill from there. I tried everything to fix this mysterious error and the more I changed the more I messed things up! In time I believe I can get it, I just have to keep playing with it.

On another note we had our milestone this week. This milestone was for our designs and how we would be implementing these things into our game. I believe our idea is strong and we have somethings that are very crisp and somethings that need work. For example I believe Deceptus (game title) has a strong feel of our theme which is fear, the only thing we need to get into motion is our sound. How the game will look in design is covered but we did not think about the sounds. Sounds that we will look into include rain, thunder, creaky floor boards, screams from victims, footsteps and most importantly heaving breathing/panting. We are probably going to record our own sounds from different objects and people.

I hope our game is a success and people will enjoy it!

Homework Time!

Its time to get into a new and exciting way of creating games. We are using a game engine this year. Right now I'm going through the assignments and deciding which I should attempt. Doing the homework assignments plus the other assignments from my other courses and starting to study from my midterms its been a very non-focused week. The ninja model I have been working on has reached a critical stage, the model is complete and now we will be adding UV textures. The week to come will be mainly focusing on homework assignments and studying for midterms. In case you guys missed the video post of our discussion on creating a game I'm going to re post it.

Ninja Model

Part1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRck1YYie10

Part2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzkjgkNoNX0

Ideas, Ideas, Ideas!

This week in the race to completing our game we sat around and thought about our theme. What objects we will use, how can we make our game have the right feel? Going through pictures of objects we would like to use we came to the conclusion that the style of our environment would be Victorian. We created a video blog this week however due to some technicalities it is still in the works of being setup for viewing.

The first level will be a basement, it will have the look and feel that frightens the players. It will look like a Saw torture area. This is where the character wakes up and breaks out of his bonds.

Saw Torture Room Example

The second level is two floors of the house, it will be placed in the main floor (including the kitchen, sitting room and dining room.) It will look like a very neat old grandmother house, this will allow it to have a very creepy and suspenseful feel to the game. The second part of the level will be the second floor. The player will walk up the wooden stairs as it creeks and cracks. The player will see a long corridor with many doors. The doors that can be accessed will be different torture rooms, each with its own unique design.

Dining Table Example, will add small teddy bears and other creepy objects.

Finally, the last level will be outside where the player confronts the killer. It will be at night and a thunder storm will be constantly occurring. Dead vegetation will be around the perimeter of the house and a single dead tree will be near the killer.

Scary House Example

Video Blog

Part1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRck1YYie10

Part2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzkjgkNoNX0