Production Week 3

The fruits of our programmers' labor is apparent this week with a slew of new tools now available to the designers of both teams. This opens up a whole new ease of design for the teams, so expect to see some great improvements to environment design, input controls, and other placement-related mechanics. Both teams have also hit the web, rolling out preliminary designs of their sites with plans to go live within the next few weeks. This week also ended the status reports for Spring, as the week of the 27th is final exam week for UCF, and class assignments are wrapping up for FIEA as well. The next few weeks we'll be focusing on unique aspects of each game and then May 18 classes resume with the first summer status report!

Drifters
The cinematic team has finalized their script and started storyboarding. During this process, camera track pathing is being taken into consideration and the team will begin working on this development shortly.

Storyboard treatments

Audio has been hard at work developing the soundtrack for the game to best fit the paranoid atmosphere that is their target feeling of their environment. The voice actors are all approved and cast in their various roles with recording to commence on the 2nd week of May. A fully ranged cast of 11 and a large script of dialogue snippets for in-game actions, as well as the narration and population of the cinematic will make for a rich audio experience once everything is cleaned, mixed and implemented in-game.

The programming tools made available to the design team are a path management editor, a gameplay value tweaker, and a character attribute editor. The path management editor makes it simple to add pathways for the NPCs to travel, allowing for branching pathways and interconnected paths that create more of a variety and less chance of a player observing a 'track' that many other characters are walking on. The gameplay value tweaker will allow the adjustment of numeric values such as the drift radius or attack range, allowing for faster testing of the game mechanics during play tests. One of the most impressive tools is the character attribute editor which allows for the assembly of body part combinations for the Voltron rig. The tool allows a designer to manually piece together a 3-part combination and save it as a single NPC scheme, allowing them to make hundreds of unique NPC variants, class them as a certain action type, and then later use that setup with the pathing tool to create a completely unique NPC action.

The Character Path Management tool

Aside from playing with their new tools, the design team has been working on iterations of the kill system for the Drifters. They've decided on a 2-move plan where one will be a simple killing move common to all players and the other will be a flashier style unique to the personality of the Drifter they've chosen. Discussion is taking place on if this flashy move will effect any other aspects of play, such as a higher point value for its use to offset the extra time it takes to use the move. Development on the user interface is also underway with the lobby system in place and functional, allowing new players to connect and see who is hosting a game. The title screen also has a more polished look and video backgrounds are being toyed with to give the menu screens more life.

The background screen for the new title screen and sample of the lobby system dialogue box

Sultans of Scratch
The website design was previewed this week with an emphasis on an urban advertising design scheme to keep with the style of the game. Using locations around the Downtown Orlando area, the team is doing a photo shoot to gather material for the backgrounds and graphics of the site, as well as a headshot shoot for their dev team to allow for forming of a team roster.

The mocap and animation team has been working on another shoot to capture data for interim animations as well as the crowd behavior. With the release of Tiger Girl's model, they were also able to map her rig to the breakdancer animations and get her dancing in game as well.

The design team has 2 tools available to them now to facilitate the creation of action notes on a song and also to create the combos for DJ and dancer. One of the special points of the combo tool is that it works with the newly developed audio library to attach scratch sounds and announcer sound bites to various combination inputs and also errors. The library holds over 150 sound bites right now with more to be added, so there's going to be a ton of variety in the custom command sounds! The action note tool allows the loading of a song track where it can be played and scrubbed as needed while the designer adds notes where appropriate. The realtime play of the song will let the notes be added during natural beats and not have to be inserted on an estimated basis. The combo tool allows the designers to create a new combo by assigning the button presses needed to execute and the dance move it performs, or for the DJ the button presses and accompanying scratch sound. The tool can preview all the dancer animations and scratch sounds easily, making it simple to play around with various configurations.

Lots of modeling has been going on this week as well. The prop concepts were reviewed and the team picked their favorite designs to be turned into rendered pieces for the environment.

Three of the prop pieces modeled out

Low polygon models of some crowd members have also been created so once the crowd mocap data is captured and cleaned, work can begin on rigging them and getting a live crowd jumping to the music.

Some of the crowd models

Some other extraneous characters like bouncers and waitresses are also being concepted and a character portrait has been created for Tiger Girl, much like the one Mr. Yin-yang has that's serving as the current title screen.

One of the biggest changes to the game design lately has been the club environment. Taking the advice of Rick, the team added more curves and personality to the club's interior to give it a more organic feel.

Before (left) and after (right) views of the bar and DJ areas.

Production Week 2

You would think that with the programmers being buried under end of semester final projects and the artists swamped with work on their portfolio pieces, work on the games would grind to a halt. Not cohort 5! Our teams have managed to keep their personal classwork and game tasks in balance, allowing for them to focus on keeping their grades up in their track-specific classes, but also still show some great progress within their game's development.

Drifters
One of the major targets the team was challenged to reach for last week was to implement the combat and ability to make a kill within the game - and it was done! The programming team has also created a tool to place graphical spawn points for the NPCs so they don't spawn randomly into exhibits. Coincidentally, the programmers next project within their non-game curriculum is to build a tool for the game they're tasked on, something the team is taking full advantage of by creating a list of appropriate tools that the game could benefit from so the programmers can decide on which tool to work on.

Design has been hard at work in various areas, the environment has been populated with the artifact displays so characters have obstacles to navigate around.

The main platform of the museum with artifacts on display

Sound has also been hard at work, having 9 of their 11 callbacks for voice talent being scheduled and cast with the other 2 being finalized by the end of the week. The team met for a DevTrack overview and the accounts and assignment system are active and functional for QA testing to begin at any time. Website infrastructure is also up and running with a basic layout and content shell in place, login active for all team members, and the ability to add content active.

Website structure with dev team profiles

The cinematic team has met several times to script the opening scenes in preparation for storyboard treatment - a great collaboration between the design and art teams. The concept of the drifter form, while previously appearing as a skeletal shell or armor over the main body, is being reiterated to a more flowing, ethereal design by way of a glow shader with particle effects - one of the art team's current tasks.

The new concept for the Drifter form

More touch ups were done on the museum interior with the floor texture updated, lighting retouched, and the introduction of a great melding of programming and art: the "Voltron" rig. This 3-piece NPC creation system allows the artists to produce any number of torso, head and leg pieces and the programmers to randomly assemble them on an animated rig to create nearly endless amounts of visual combinations. The animators have also finished cleaning up the mocap data and have it ready to attach to the Voltron rig.

Sultans of Scratch
With the character decision made and 2 playable models decided, the team can switch focus on development of the club environment and camera systems as well as other essential pieces such as the DJ table, environment props, and particle effects. A tool was created by the programming team to allow the design team to easily program note streams for each song, shaving off a considerable amount of time and reiteration in the gameplay testing. The team got their hands on the first prototype of their DJ turntable controller, thanks to the UCF Engineering department, and spent the weekend integrating their input system into the current code.

The team gets their hands on the peripheral for the first time

Lots of work is going down with the artists including 3 turntable concepts being modeled, as well as the Tiger Girl character's full 3D model with textures.

Tiger Girl, fully rendered in Maya

The spinner and fish turntables fully modeled

The in-game environment is being expanded with a concept drawn and a basic model created and lit with textures being worked on.

A better render concept of the stage area

Concept sketching is also in progress for club furniture and stage elements and once designs are approved they'll move into being modeled and textured. Particle effects are also further developed with a short concept video produced to give an idea of how the graffiti-esque trails will work.

Some tests have been run with the camera system, creating mock fly-throughs around the expanded environment. These sort of movements will create transitional clips to use between dancers, songs, or gameplay events.

The final parts of the mocap data have been cleaned, named and assigned to combo sets - all ready to go in game. The animation blending system is rough but working and being adjusted through rigorous testing.

FIEA SE Trip

Wednesday April 8, 2009

Technical Director Tom Carbone and I started on a small recruiting trip through North Carolina in search of programmers. Yesterday we visited East Carolina University; today we are in Chapel Hill; tonight we are at Duke and tomorrow at Clemson.

ECU yesterday was a great experience. We touched down in the tiny Pitt-Greenville airport and alas, one piece of my luggage was lost. Bad start.

But we took our rental car and found some food at the Cookout, a burger/hot dog/milk shake kind of place.

We headed through the small town of Greenville and quickly found campus. It is a beautiful southern campus with magnolia trees and dark red brick buildings everywhere. We went to the Career Center and talked with some advisors there about the school and our program. I told the associate director I would send her some information.

We headed to the CS department and met Qin, a professor there who was organizing the talk for 7 that night. She was friendly and introduced us to several of her colleagues and the department chair.

They were warm and welcoming. We ate dinner before the talk at the Japan Inn, a good Japanese restaurant. We also ate with a CS student who had just defended his senior project named Chris. He was tired but happy he had finished.

The talk went well and lasted about 2 hours. We had 35 or so in the audience and both faculty and students asked a lot of questions.

We left ECU about 9 and went back to the airport to find my luggage. Turns out someone else h had taken my luggage. After contacting them, we drove into a nearby neighborhood and picked up the bag. I was very happy to have my clothes for the trip.

We got into the hotel late last night and today we talk at UNC at 2 p.m. and at Duke at 6 p.m. Should be a great day.

Will update again soon, travel permitting.

Todd

Thursday April 9, 2009

Today was a doubleheader of two of NC’s most famous basketball schools, UNC and Duke. After a late night into Chapel Hill, we woke bleary eyed at a Hampton Inn. Tom and I answered email and made phone calls first thing before heading to campus. We came in on a very crowded South Street.

The campus is absolutely beautiful with old, brick buildings and beautiful green lawns and open spaces everywhere. The Weather was so beautiful and the campus was crowded and active. We quickly learned that a major problem on campus is parking. There was nowhere to park. We circled in one public lot and then decided to eat some burritos at a place called Carbabritos. It had a funky, hippy interior and a great menu. We both had fish burritos. Very tasty.

We finally found a parking spot on the Raleigh Street. Tom did an illegal u-turn and pulled off an amazing parallel parking job just to get the spot. Then we had to beg for some change from some unfortunate passersby. Even with all of our efforts, we would barely have enough time on the meter to finish the talk. We walked across the stately campus with all the trees in bloom. Incredible. We finally found the Brooks building after walking through the north quad. Donna met us and took her into her class of 7 or so.

The presentation went well and the kids asked some great questions. Afterwards we stopped at the bookstore and marveled at all of the championship gear. I got some shorts and Tom bought a shirt.

We left and started to head to Duke. I had forgotten an important folder on campus so we had to circle back but then left without finding it.

We quickly drove to Duke. We parked and headed to the building. Tom’s original contact was sick so we were greeted by Susan, who is a professor in the CS department. We finally found the department and headed in. There were only three people in the room with 10 minutes until the talk. Then the room filled up. It was an ACM talk and was nicely run and attended.

The talk went great. Everyone asked questions and they brought in pizza. Lots of student seemed interested in FIEA and the game industry. We both were talking to students for 20 minutes afterwards and we met another faculty member who teaches game classes there. We left Duke and ate at Mcallister’s Deli. Good food.

Now we’re driving 2 hours to Charlotte, where we’re staying the night. Then up in the morning and another two hours until Clemson. Can’t wait to get there.

Saturday April 11, 2009

We drove through pouring rain to Clemson. Clemson is a bit out the way but a beautiful campus. We met our contact Brian at the student union. He took us with the department head Don and Brian’s wife Jackie to the country club for lunch. A nice buffet was served and we talked about all the connections we had in our work. After lunch we were given a tour of Clemson’t Digital Production Arts by Steven, a student who had started at Full Sail. He knew about us and UCF.

The program really does a nice job teaching technical artists and has had some success putting students onto some very well known films. We saw a demo reel and talked to a faculty member about the difficulty of teaching artists and programmers. Our mutual challenges sounded very familiar.

We then got to meet with 4 or 5 students and talked to them about the industry. They asked some great questions. Then at 3:30 the talk started and about 30 people watched it in a crowded seminar room. The students and faculty were very sharp and asked some excellent questions. I think all got a lot out of the talk. Or at least I hope so. Clemson had really treated us nice and I appreciate their hospitality.

We drove to Greenville where I would stay with some friends and Tom would stay with family in the area. A long flight the next day and we were home. It was a great trip.

Production Week 1

Last week we took a break from status reports as the Drifters team had just presented the Thursday prior, and Sultans team had a pseudo presentation on Tuesday with the Engineering department in regards to their peripheral. Therefore, the teams took the week to consider the information from their vertical slice presentation and organize their final plans to transition into production. Therefore, this week begins our first update on the actual full production of the games. From here on out, the content delivered during the status meetings is all geared toward the final product. Expect to see more major updates and amazing work coming out within the next 3 months!

Drifters
Two weeks ago the Drifters team held voice talent auditions here at the FIEA conference rooms. Dozens of voice actors were provided with sample scripts to read in order to find narrators, Drifters, and crowd voices for the final game. After a review of all the candidates, callbacks were made and now the casting is being determined. Scripts for cinematics and the voice clips for in-game use are being written, reviewed, and should be finalized by the end of April to begin recording.

The cinematic team has been hard at work and are at the last revision of their script. Once the script is approved, it'll get a storyboard treatment to allow the art team to begin visually rendering the assets needed for completion. A schedule has been developed to keep production running on track, as the cinematic is a large part of setting the tone of the game and establishing the fiction.

Exterior shots of the museum, yes that first one is an actual in-game render!

The design team has also been working on the crowd behavior, namely the makeup of the population and the exhibit placement. The goal is to create a realistic-looking museum environment that has a good population of NPCs for drifting into, while not seeming overly crowded and impede movement. The preliminary layout of the museum is simple and straightforward, allowing for potential expansion with other wings and rooms if the initial design proves to be too simplistic.

To help the design team with the population of the museum main floor, the programming team has been working on some tools to allow an easier placement of objects within the game. NPC pathing tools, as well as scene design tools allow producers to place assets with little to no scripting necessary. Integration of the Python language is also being researched, as it will open more scripting options to the programming team. Alongside the tools being developed, network play is still in the cards and being worked on. Drifting now works across the network, with one player being able to successfully drift into a NPC and then another player in Drifter Vision able to see the effects of that move. The lobby for joining a networked game is next on the development list and being started currently in this sprint.

As previously mentioned, the NPC diversity issue is still being solved with the segmentation of body parts to allow for a mix-and-match system, creating hundreds of combinations. Currently, the bodies are broken up into 4 parts: hair cap, head, upper body, and legs. This structure can be further broken down into 4 hair caps, and the other parts having 3 types of geometric structures each with 2 unique textures - and that's just for a male NPC. This almost guarantees that with the target number of NPCs set to appear on screen set at about 80 and with a blend of male and female models, there's a near impossible chance that the same 4-piece combination will appear on screen twice. A tri-rig system is on the programmers' list of features to begin working on to allow for the randomization of the pieces and combination into a fully functional model.

"Maria" "Agnes" and "Mitch" - some of the new models

With the fictional switch from a normal museum day to the opening night reception of the museum, the lighting has had to undergo some changes to a more dimly lit, dramatic scheme. The rays of light that used to shine brightly from the ceiling are now toned down and tinted slightly silver-blue to simulate moonlight streaming in from above. Orange-yellow sconces on the wall show off a warm glow, while the rest of the interior has an intimate, darkened tone - helping establish that dark feeling of paranoia within the crowd.

The museum interior with some of the basic lighting adjusted for night time

Sultans of Scratch
The Sultans team is showing great progress with new characters, designs, and the arrival of their first peripheral prototype looming on the horizon. They've established an April 26th milestone for a lot of the major gameplay elements to come together in a solid, playable version of the game.

A meeting with their DJ on April 6th allowed the design team to lay out the scratch sounds for the music tracks, meaning note additions can start taking place and create a rhythmic gameplay rather than just random testing notes. The UCF engineering team that the SoS developers have partnered with has announced the first iteration of the custom DJ table controller peripheral will be available to the team on April 11th. Once the team has their hands on it, they'll be able to assign the drivers and have the table controls respond in kind to the proper input commands within the game, giving a much more finished feel to the gameplay.

Artistically the team has been giving their concept artist plenty to do with a female character needing development. After creating concept sketches for over 20 different female styles, the female FIEAns were asked to come by and pick their top three. A consensus was met and the new female lead dancer has been fully sketched and ready to render in Maya.

The unnamed as of yet female dancer

More artistic progress includes a new iteration on the particle effects where they resemble more of an ink swish or streak rather than a spray cloud. Many new turntable concepts have been developed as well to give the user more options on what style of table they'd like to scratch on.

Different trail styles

Various turntable designs

The in-game assets have been cleaned up with a simple turntable layout and note stream areas overlaying the stage. The shader is in place and looking awesome on Mr. Yin-Yang who can perform several seamless dance moves chained together, as the animations have been progressing well through the cleanup stages. Another notable addition was the change to the menu screen, which hits their target of urban and stylized very well.

New start menu