Tuesday 26 February 2013

Ok, so between being sick and being tld that I blog alittle too much, my posts have been alittle thin for the last week. but im back and working at my regular pace again so I thaught I would uplead one of my gun designs.

I realy like the idea of it. It is the body of an mp5 with the butt, hammer and grip of a sawn off and even a little holographic sight on the top there. I figure it would be realy cool if the gun could shoot normally like an smg, but could perhaps have a close range shotgun blast for close range encounters.

Ive decided on an art style for my fps and tower defence games. Up till this point ive been brainstorming, but honestly, none of the ideas felt right up till now.

So for the FPS I would like to do a futuristic space shooter with lots of hard metal objects, straight lines and blue/orange lights and lense flares from those lights. Somehing akin to if the millenium falcon was recreated in killzone 3...

And for the tower defence... I would like to do some gangsters defending thier smack from the cops... Just because its funny and well, the whole 70's theme is rather in at the moment. I could really have fun with it as a cartoony art style though and thats the important thing.

Sunday 17 February 2013

Spent the rest of the day just fooling around to see what Unity can do for a guy that just clicks random buttons. mostly I just figured out how to use built in effects like water, smoke etc, but I figured out the basics of turrain painting and making grass... I want to try to figure out how to bind different textures to different angles on the turrain, so a sharp angle will be rock, where as a small angle will be grass.

I also want to see if i can implement interactive water so it ripples when I touch it as well as sky domes... Those would be nice...



Saturday 16 February 2013

Friday I did some simple designs, consepts and general planning for my map, Saturday i spent the day making the models for the walls, floors and everything else. So after a day of working in 3ds max, it gives me a BSoD and wont open any of the work save in the file of that I was working in... So I re-install max and try again, ut alas, I;ve lost all of the days work, so I start again. Today I have taken ill, so work flow is painfully slow, but atleast I'm working.

I made 2 different walls and 2 different floors, I desided to add details and all the other objects when I need them. I imported them into unity and figured out how to use them, apply a simple texture made in 5 seconds in photoshop and normal maps that are just a black and white version of the texture. I allso addded a simple light to the sceen and I'm now just placing the different wals and floors into the level acording to my map consept.

This is what I have as of this moment:
 

I had hoped to get more work done by the end of the weekend, but what can I say, sometimes shit just happens.

Thursday 14 February 2013

Ok, we did the basics of Unity prefabs today, I think I'm confident enough with Unity to try to make a full blown map in it over the weekend with textures and hopefully even some weapons and bots, who knows, I guess it will all depend on Unity not crashing and if I can figure enough of it out for my self. Should'nt be too hard and I recon it miht be similar to Unreal or Cryengine in sime ways wich would help as I know enough about those engines to make a map. Should be able to figure something out. (Read Optomism and Tutorials)

So far I've been trying verry hard not to get infront of what I'm being taught as to not skrew anything up and to just soak in some knowlage. But I guess I'm just not patient enough to only work durin classes.

Anyways, heres the rough of the map I will be trying to make this weekend:

I've been told repeatedly that it makes no sence, so I'll just say that the RED is the bottom floor, the BLUE is the top floor and the PURPLE is where the top floor lies above the bottom floor. So, there is both RED and BLUE area that makes PURPLE. It made sence to me at the time and still does and I guess that thats what matters at this stage. Hope others can kinda understand though.

Wednesday 13 February 2013

So today we did some UV mapping on a 3d character over here:

 
But more importantly I desided to continue on the Scythe at home. I thaught it may look realy good if I used copper and Cogs on the Scythe and then a silver blade and a wooden rod. So i made a couple cogs in 3ds max to use as 2d PNGs in photoshop and found a victorian pattern to add the the copper and here you go!
 
Now I'll start thinking about a gun that matches that style... Maby it will be covered in steaming pipes, or perhaps it will tick with every shot.... We will see.


Tuesday 12 February 2013

Today was weapons again. I feel as if I;ve been talking about the Scythe too much... Well guess what, I've decided im going with it. I like the curve of the blade and pole as well as its leangth for sweeoing. Some times you just have to take it and run.

Was going to do some more work on that today when I got home and upload it, but realised that I dont have a tablet at home... Guess I was out of it alittle today... Oh well, theres allways tomorrow.

I've also been playing with some steampunky stuff. Like using pipes, gears and clockwork parts as decoration. So far the gears and clockwork is working out realy well, while pipes just look cheap.

Also did maps again today. But it was more learning Unity and Maya so nothing I can realy post about consept or implemented designs.

Monday 11 February 2013

Today we focused on building consepts for our turrets/towers. Im leaning towards a cartoony, light steam punk with bright cartoony enviroments. Kinda like Jak and Daxter I guess. So here are just some quick consepts and such.




Now I've also been bussy with characters and Melee weapons here:

Ive realy gotten attached to the Scythe... I realy like the idea of using it almst like an anime character would run with a massive sword, you know, behinde them and swing with braud strokes... I'll probably do a 3d mock up of it just to see what its like in 3d.

Thursday 7 February 2013

Today we just got into Unity and started messing around, point is that I'm ganna spend tomorrow throwing some props into it that I made over the holidays and just see what kind of enviroment comes out at the end. Hopefully something playable.

Wednesday 6 February 2013

Today was 3D character consept and creation. it was fun to just make acouple consepts, but ultimately it was just the intro to the class. i think I will enjoy it when it gets more intence.

Then I decided to install unity and have a look at how it qorks quickly before we have the classes on it. In my opinion it seems so much like cryengine, exept with out the tedious things, it would apear as if its all the best parts od Unreal combined with Cryengine, just without the negitives.

Then again, I didnt do much, I was mostly just seeimg how it works, so I played with the file system, fiddled with assets and effects and tryed its way of terrain creation. Over all. Verry impressed.

Tuesday 5 February 2013

Ok, today we started with some weapons concept  Just making silhouetted shapes in Photoshop really, but it was still interesting thinking about things like weapon weighting and balance. It also made me realise that more games need a scythe as it is perfect for swarming enemies and well, who doesn't want to use the weapon associated with the grim reaper? I mean, its fast, its lethal and its got a really good broad sweep.

We also did some Map design and concept, by far the best class of the day. Its great to learn about things that you just don't really realise until you actually sit down and think about it. I mean, I always play games and loo at things trying to see how they did something or why they do it that way. The downside to this is not being impressed by aesthetics as you know how they make a game look pretty by hiding its flaws. But one doesn't really think about things like, where am I running too? Why do I feel like I need to hide here? So its really fun to think of a map like that, just to get a better understanding of how to build one.
 
I find I'm rather inspired by Jak 2 and 3 in the way they used the same walls throughout the entire city, but used props like pipes to make each wall seem unique. I also find I'm thinking about how to make a good pile of rubble, or chunks out of walls like in Killzone or Crysis. It should be easy if I made the wall, then the broken bit and then subtracted that from the wall... It could work, I'm just concerned about texture and object clipping...

But I'm over all quite excited by the whole proses of making a map. its fun. not as fun as coming up with a new idea or planning out game play. But its really one of the best parts of what I do.

Monday 4 February 2013

 

Day 1

So today is the first day of our new semester. To be completely honest we are learning more this semester than I first antisipated wich is, in all honesty, realy good.

Today we found out alittle of what we will be doing, but mostly, between bad jokes and anime watching, we exported a simple game to iOS, or atleast some of us did, and we started with ideas and consept for a Tower Defence game...

Now I apologise for typoes and bad spelling. Some of you may be asking why a dislexic person has a blog, well, wonder no more! Its a just one of those things a Dev needs.