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
