As you can see, the stubble is coming along just as nicely as the game!
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Drifters Team: BEARD-OFF! Week 2
This is the current roster of contenders:
As you can see, the stubble is coming along just as nicely as the game!
As you can see, the stubble is coming along just as nicely as the game!
4 Week Countdown!
There's been lots of excitement around the cohort this week. From the hype of the Orlando Magic games taking place across the street to rumors of confirmed interview companies all the way to extensive (and competitive) play testing, quiet moments within the cohort space are becoming few and far between.
The museum environment is looking more and more realistic by the week, with nearly all the exhibits and aesthetic pieces making it into the current build. Next week they plan on having all the placements finalized so full work on the final lighting and shadows can be completed. Currently 8 new lights have been added to effect the characters: 1 directional light and 7 point lights to help with shadows.
One of the biggest additions this week is the 3D sound effects within the game build. 3d sound is basically a technique used to create a more realistic sound within a game: as a player gets closer to the item creating the sound, the sound gets louder, as they back away, it gets softer, just as it does in real life. Aside from the already impressive custom music score, many of the exhibits have been augmented with an audio tour guide voice over that explains the story behind each artifact on display, telling its history and how it was used as an 'instrument of death'. This is how it works in normal corporeal vision; switch into Drifter Vision and walk past the same display to hear the sounds that occurred when the item was used to kill its unfortunate victim (or victims, as with the heavily used guillotine).
The second biggest addition is the new Drifter forms for Luther and Sid. They now work correctly in-game (no more double model) and they're reacting properly with players being able to select a specific Drifter over another and have that one show properly in form. The character select screen shows slots for all 4 Drifters and when a specific Drifter is selected it will also show their bio and unique stats. Not all Drifters are created equal: they have 3 categories of stealth, drift time, and strength that will effect how they perform in the environment.
The cinematic team is ready to begin production, as their camera and shot layouts are finalized and a basic mockup of the storyboards has been rendered with stand-in models and a basic untextured environment. They're working on getting the finalized assets into the cinematic builder and then it's full steam ahead.
Testing is starting to be the next big thing with the game, with strike teams created for various sections to consider when looking at gameplay. One of the biggest focuses is optimizing the game to run as seamlessly as possible. A few of the ideas they're working with is the reduction of the character texture size (each piece of each NPC is a separate texture) to free up video memory, and also optimizing collision checking by dividing the areas into zones, having the characters only check collision on the zone they're in rather than the entire environment.
A few of the bugs that have been worked out since last week are the same time attack that would cause the game to crash when players attacked each other at the same time. The Drifter form was fixed and glow shaders work with the alpha on the environment during Drifter Vision. Load screens have been added between match start and the actual game load, so there's no more confusion if the game build froze or not.
Within the game, taunts are now active and also done in 3D sound, so a player can activate a vocal taunt near a group of NPCs and quickly move away so it resonates from decoys and not their own body: a great tactic for throwing off a pursuer! The game menu was updated again with animations, transitions and sound effects. More updates to the NPCs paths have been made, so they now stop at exhibits, examine them, and continue on, which is a behavior pattern a player can easily emulate to blend in while stalking targets.
The next steps for the team are to continue testing and tweaking the game play to get the smoothest, best version possible ready for Alpha stage testing. The last exhibits will be placed and sound added and the final texture sets for the 3 NPC Voltron rigs will be finalized and put into the randomization cycle. New animations from the last mocap shoot are almost cleaned and ready to be added for the final animation sets to finish off the pathing. The 3rd drifter model is being textured, everything is getting a cleanup and quality check, and the final image of the game is definitely coming through!
Last week's mocap session should be the final one and created a whole new set of dance moves with a female dancer, giving Tiger Girl her own personal move set with a more feminine feel. Data was also created for more unique idle states, giving each dancer a total of three unique idles, as well as more crowd actions and new data for the 3D menu navigation. After this session, the final animation lists are now finished and finalized.
Lots of texture updates this week with the warehouse environment and record store menu environment having been completely textured and ready to roll.
The sexy clown is even hotter now with his textures added, and two new crowd members are modeled and ready to be textured.
In-game they've got a new scoreboard running along the top of the dancer's stage that not only has an incrementing score but also the timer for when the round is over. While the game is playing, the announcer will now pop in with comments to cheer on good performances or encourage failing performers to step it up. One of the most positively received turntable concepts, the gears turntable, has been modeled, textured and animated to become the second turntable style available in the game.
Perhaps one of the biggest changes in the game demo this week was the addition of camera pans to transition from one crew to the other. The first crew is performing at a light board stage with a DJ booth. After they perform for a set time limit, their session pauses and the camera sweeps behind the light board to reveal another DJ booth and a stage set back by the bar, where the 2nd DJ/dancer crew can begin their performance. Once their time limit is up, another camera pan back sends the gameplay to the original crew to finish out their performance.
The museum environment is looking more and more realistic by the week, with nearly all the exhibits and aesthetic pieces making it into the current build. Next week they plan on having all the placements finalized so full work on the final lighting and shadows can be completed. Currently 8 new lights have been added to effect the characters: 1 directional light and 7 point lights to help with shadows.
One of the biggest additions this week is the 3D sound effects within the game build. 3d sound is basically a technique used to create a more realistic sound within a game: as a player gets closer to the item creating the sound, the sound gets louder, as they back away, it gets softer, just as it does in real life. Aside from the already impressive custom music score, many of the exhibits have been augmented with an audio tour guide voice over that explains the story behind each artifact on display, telling its history and how it was used as an 'instrument of death'. This is how it works in normal corporeal vision; switch into Drifter Vision and walk past the same display to hear the sounds that occurred when the item was used to kill its unfortunate victim (or victims, as with the heavily used guillotine).
The second biggest addition is the new Drifter forms for Luther and Sid. They now work correctly in-game (no more double model) and they're reacting properly with players being able to select a specific Drifter over another and have that one show properly in form. The character select screen shows slots for all 4 Drifters and when a specific Drifter is selected it will also show their bio and unique stats. Not all Drifters are created equal: they have 3 categories of stealth, drift time, and strength that will effect how they perform in the environment.
The cinematic team is ready to begin production, as their camera and shot layouts are finalized and a basic mockup of the storyboards has been rendered with stand-in models and a basic untextured environment. They're working on getting the finalized assets into the cinematic builder and then it's full steam ahead.
Testing is starting to be the next big thing with the game, with strike teams created for various sections to consider when looking at gameplay. One of the biggest focuses is optimizing the game to run as seamlessly as possible. A few of the ideas they're working with is the reduction of the character texture size (each piece of each NPC is a separate texture) to free up video memory, and also optimizing collision checking by dividing the areas into zones, having the characters only check collision on the zone they're in rather than the entire environment.
A few of the bugs that have been worked out since last week are the same time attack that would cause the game to crash when players attacked each other at the same time. The Drifter form was fixed and glow shaders work with the alpha on the environment during Drifter Vision. Load screens have been added between match start and the actual game load, so there's no more confusion if the game build froze or not.
Within the game, taunts are now active and also done in 3D sound, so a player can activate a vocal taunt near a group of NPCs and quickly move away so it resonates from decoys and not their own body: a great tactic for throwing off a pursuer! The game menu was updated again with animations, transitions and sound effects. More updates to the NPCs paths have been made, so they now stop at exhibits, examine them, and continue on, which is a behavior pattern a player can easily emulate to blend in while stalking targets.
The next steps for the team are to continue testing and tweaking the game play to get the smoothest, best version possible ready for Alpha stage testing. The last exhibits will be placed and sound added and the final texture sets for the 3 NPC Voltron rigs will be finalized and put into the randomization cycle. New animations from the last mocap shoot are almost cleaned and ready to be added for the final animation sets to finish off the pathing. The 3rd drifter model is being textured, everything is getting a cleanup and quality check, and the final image of the game is definitely coming through!
Last week's mocap session should be the final one and created a whole new set of dance moves with a female dancer, giving Tiger Girl her own personal move set with a more feminine feel. Data was also created for more unique idle states, giving each dancer a total of three unique idles, as well as more crowd actions and new data for the 3D menu navigation. After this session, the final animation lists are now finished and finalized.
Lots of texture updates this week with the warehouse environment and record store menu environment having been completely textured and ready to roll.
The textured and partially lit Warehouse stage
Various angles of the record store menu environment
The sexy clown is even hotter now with his textures added, and two new crowd members are modeled and ready to be textured.
Admit it, he's even sexier with the tie.
Concept sketches for 2 more crowd members and their 3D modeled counterparts awaiting textures.
In-game they've got a new scoreboard running along the top of the dancer's stage that not only has an incrementing score but also the timer for when the round is over. While the game is playing, the announcer will now pop in with comments to cheer on good performances or encourage failing performers to step it up. One of the most positively received turntable concepts, the gears turntable, has been modeled, textured and animated to become the second turntable style available in the game.
Perhaps one of the biggest changes in the game demo this week was the addition of camera pans to transition from one crew to the other. The first crew is performing at a light board stage with a DJ booth. After they perform for a set time limit, their session pauses and the camera sweeps behind the light board to reveal another DJ booth and a stage set back by the bar, where the 2nd DJ/dancer crew can begin their performance. Once their time limit is up, another camera pan back sends the gameplay to the original crew to finish out their performance.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Production Week 9
Nine down, five to go in the countdown to the end of production. Testing is gearing up, assets are being finalized, animations are being cleaned up, and beards are growing as the teams ramp-up to industry speed.
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 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.
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.
The central focus of the museum floor - an ornate fountain - has been base modeled, positioned in the environment, and is ready to be textured.
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.
The new environment's textures are coming along as well, with light maps and graffiti sprays on the warehouse walls.
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.
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!
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!
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 final iteration is slated to be a modified actual electronic turntable which is much smaller, lighter and durable.
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
Monday, June 1, 2009
Drifters Team: BEARD-OFF!
Further proof that FIEA is never all work and no play, even in the home stretch our teams find ways to keep themselves motivated. Team Drifters has made an official Beard-Off competition:
For those men and women interested. On Tuesday, June 2nd, we will be starting the first annual Team Drifter’s Beard Off. For the last 4 weeks of production, those who choose to participate will be growing our playoff beards to keep us warm on those late nights as the game nears its completion. Don’t worry we will be shaving before industry interviews. So here are the rules:
1. You must have a clean shave on Tuesday the 2nd (if you have some facial hair you don’t want to lose, trim it down as short as possible)
2. During the 4 weeks you may only shave your neck to keep things clean
3. Shaving or any trimming during the 4 weeks results in disqualification
4. There will be multiple awards and fantastic prizes for the winners of numerous different categories including The Grizzly Adams Award and The Patch Adams Memorial Trophy, so anyone can participate
5. If ladies want to play, creativity is welcome
6. At the end of the competition, shave the most creative facial hair for bonus prizes (ex. Fu man chu, handle bars, etc.)
7. If the faculty thinks they can hang, let’s see it
A special celebrity judge is rumored to have signed on to the event. We'll keep you updated on the weekly growth!
For those men and women interested. On Tuesday, June 2nd, we will be starting the first annual Team Drifter’s Beard Off. For the last 4 weeks of production, those who choose to participate will be growing our playoff beards to keep us warm on those late nights as the game nears its completion. Don’t worry we will be shaving before industry interviews. So here are the rules:
1. You must have a clean shave on Tuesday the 2nd (if you have some facial hair you don’t want to lose, trim it down as short as possible)
2. During the 4 weeks you may only shave your neck to keep things clean
3. Shaving or any trimming during the 4 weeks results in disqualification
4. There will be multiple awards and fantastic prizes for the winners of numerous different categories including The Grizzly Adams Award and The Patch Adams Memorial Trophy, so anyone can participate
5. If ladies want to play, creativity is welcome
6. At the end of the competition, shave the most creative facial hair for bonus prizes (ex. Fu man chu, handle bars, etc.)
7. If the faculty thinks they can hang, let’s see it
A special celebrity judge is rumored to have signed on to the event. We'll keep you updated on the weekly growth!
UPDATE: Tuesday, June 2nd - The Shaven!
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