The Drifters opened this week with a look into their current organization and task management systems. They're using a modified SCRUM along with planning poker and tasking with "user stories". User Stories are short descriptions of various types of user experiences that could take place within the game (i.e. "I want to kill someone while in drifter vision"). Each Story is assigned a level of importance from 1-3 and the top priority Stories are assigned a Strike Team who break it down into the tasks needed to accomplish it. These tasks are assigned to individual members who work on them until all components are complete and the Story can happen. Tucker, the scheduling and analysis master of the team, has calculated that the team accomplished an extra 23.5 hours of work this week with a total of 154.5 more man hours this sprint.
The organizational board
The Voltron rigs for the Maria and Howard NPC types are active in engine and nearly every geometry variation is working on each rig. The Agnes NPC is also nearly complete and almost ready to be placed within game as well. Currently, 40 NPCs are being placed within the game, each with their own unique path and randomized texture configuration. Shadows in-game are slowly being implemented in, as they had been turned off for testing purposes to keep the frame rate up to snuff.
New shots of the more polished museum interior
With the main part of the museum almost finalized, work on the back part of the museum, which is slated to be a bathroom area, is getting underway. The team decided this lesser-seen part of the environment should be something serious like a bathroom area to keep with the realism of the game.
Modeled layouts of the bathroom area
The central focus of the museum floor - an ornate fountain - has been base modeled, positioned in the environment, and is ready to be textured.
The fountain model
On the cinematic side, basic play blasts of some of the camera paths for the various scenes have been created for testing and reference. The paths have been finalized and the voice work is all ready to roll once the scenes are assembled. Some of the camera and animation work for the cinematic is also serving double duty as the menu screens get a wonderful motion upgrade. A preview video was shown of how the new menu will act, hovering outside the museum before the game starts, then rushing into the blinding realm of the Drifters beyond the doors.
During the initial game demo, 2 players were in-game to show playability with the ability to enter drifter vision, make a kill, respawn, and have a game status with kills/deaths and current score. Prior to starting the game, a player can choose to host or join an existing game, give themselves a unique player name, as well as choose their drifter. A player who hosts the game can set game parameters such as the game name, number of players, time limit, and number of kills to win. Improvements on the drifter vision were shown with the glow effect in place with the environment and on the NPCs, as well as a new 10-second waiting period in which the drifter has to stay in drifter vision for that cool-down period before switching out. The tells system is also actively working, with the player's currently controlled body having a coughing action that increases over time as they possess the body.
After the 2-player success, the team was challenged to try out 4 simultaneous players just to see if it would work - and it did! With four players being the target goal for the end game, it was a great success for the team to see their goal already met so far.
Sultans had a lot of new content to show off this week including environments, props, characters, and shiny new peripheral prototypes. Heading full steam into the new Warehouse stage, a slew of new industrial props are being concepted, modeled and textured. One of the big focuses is on speakers, as they're not native to the environment like they were in the club, so some great creative approaches have been taken to keeping with the urban feel.
Models of some of the new props and speakers
The new environment's textures are coming along as well, with light maps and graffiti sprays on the warehouse walls.
The warehouse interior with basic textures
The 3d Menu concepts have been modeled out and assembly of the interior of the record shop has begun, including props and placement of the menu elements.
Original menu concepts
The exterior of the menu shop and interior construction
The rack where you can select your turntable
The new DJs and characters mentioned last week have got further life pumped in to them as they enter the realm of 3D. Godzilla and Damien are modeled and now all the characters can be textured and ready to roll in-game. They've gone a long way from paper concept to 3D and they look great!
Godzilla's concept sketch and 3D render
The DJ concept art and Damien's final model
Within the game, some of the low-poly crowd models have been placed and animated in scene with a potential of 16 identical models in without performance issues. The target goal is to have 5 unique crowd models each with texture variations to create a diverse crowd each time the game is loaded. Along with the crowd's normal animation, their actions will increase as they get more pumped up when the players perform well; the tiered performance system at work!
Textured crowd models
The initial club stage has a new view which places the DJ more at floor level of the dancer and includes a progress bar for the Synergy Notes to fill up and activate the "Pass the Spotlight" feature. Basic announcer vocals are functioning on a randomized basis, giving players encouragement or criticism as they compete.
A tutorial mode is also being developed to give new players an overview of how the controls work, the combo system, rewards (crowd hype, pass the spotlight, and scoring) and overall game play. The messages that appear during the tutorial have been written in an easy to edit XML script, perfect for anyone on the team to pick up and change instantly.
A few things coming up in the next few days include a female dancer mocap shoot which will not only produce new moves for Tiger Girl, but also help with making more idle dance states so the same action isn't repeated as often. A 3rd stage is on the timeline for implementation and so far the team is confident they're on schedule to begin developing on it shortly to make a total of three unique environments for players to choose from. The second peripheral prototype is currently being held by the UCF Engineers as they further develop on it, but it looks great so far!
The 2nd peripheral prototype
The final iteration is slated to be a modified actual electronic turntable which is much smaller, lighter and durable.
A preview of what the final turntable should look like
The team's urban photoshoot for their website
