3D Modelling Stuff

So I worked on the Space Agents Space Ship this weekend and got it all finished up (as you can see above), but there's one thing I see being a blocking issue and one thing I see being interesting.

1) I really like how the model looks without any sort of texture filtering. It blurs the model too much. the pixelated look is really quite cool and suits our art direction. I'm not sure if there's any sort of filtering in our engine and will have to investigate that.

2) Any models we create as "objects" to appear in scenes are going to have to be placed by the programmers, since when I've tried to do it, UV maps have gone absolutely crazy. This is something we're going to have to discuss with programmers, because I'm seriously concerned about how UV maps are going to work on levels like the one Ben is working on.

Walk Cycle Update.

I know i've been working of this walk cycle forever... but i'm making some progress with it and its likely to be completed by the end of sprint 3.
so just to show how its looking and the progress thats been made in the last week and a half, ive compiled 3 gifs of each stage of production.

Stage 1; blocking out:
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j200/scott_higg/WalkTest.gif

Stage 2; Details:
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j200/scott_higg/Walktest2.gif

Stage 3; Waist Correction:
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j200/scott_higg/WaistCorrection.gif


its still not finished.. must clean and add feet.
~Scott

Art Vision Pt2

I worked on the textures for the Space Agency level a bit more from home tonight, since I want to try and get an art direction down for the levels. Right now this is all just low level design and conception. What I hope to eventually do is throw a light in the scene and bake some high contrast shadows onto the textures to end out with a result not unlike TF2's style, but this is the simple, minimalistic direction I thought would be good to take based on Scott's idea.

Rolling with the whole Perfect Dark theme, too. The two things I'm not happy with is the way the cafeteria walls blend with the other walls, and that the support beams look a little bit too rustic.

Art Vision

I've been having some trouble imagining how the vector enviroments and pixel art characters will combine ever since we decided upon that as our art direction... this morning i started to think that the current pixel-esque art style of the characters would blend extremely well with TF2 style scenery.. so i took a screen shot in garrysmod and just dropped the characters in and i think it blends extremely well.
it has a "cartoony"/comic look about it and it allows us to make low poly models without sacraficing quality or leaving us looking amateur, that is of course if we can nail the textures.
Tell me what you guys think.. I'm probably not going to be doing much in ways of enviroments because the sprite art is turning out to be a huge task, but think it over and tell me if you guys feel comfortable going with in this direction artistically.



~Scott

Design - To Be Discussed

I know Peter had something in mind for a design meeting, but we didn't get to have it on Wednesday.

We still have a lot of stuff we need to discuss as a design team. I did write up a decently sized game design document but it's still incomplete. Mostly right now it covers characters and story, but it's all subject to your thoughts. You can download it here.

Right now the things we need to cover are:

• Weapons and Armor (What they are. How they effect the character exactly.)
• One-Hit Kill Weapons (How exactly they will function and what their effects are.)
  
• AI Allies (How exactly they will function and what their effects are.)
  
• Level layout (How long do we want the game to be played? How many fights in one level?)
  
• Level artwork (What sort of art style do we want? How are we going to do it?)
  
• UI (Do we want text popping up on screen when characters talk, or do we want no talking at all?)
• Storytelling (How exactly is the humor going to work? Is it all visual? Are we happy with the story written so far?)
  

This is only a spur-of-the-moment list, so if you have anything you wish to add I suggest you add to it. But I'm going to say we need to have an extended design meeting on Monday, get all this stuff ironed out, and move on with creating the code and artwork for it all for the rest of this project.

Marketing - T-Shirts

Okay. On the T-Shirt front, I meant to get everybody's sizes on Wednesday but never got a chance. I'll try again on Monday.

After tossing a few e-mails around I've decided to stick with the first printing company I found, which means that each t-shirt will cost around $22 each. We'll be going with the black shirts, small logo on the back and big logo on the front.

So if you can, try to have at least $22 put aside by Wednesday next week for a t-shirt, the Wednesday following at the very latest.

If you're on the blog here (like you should be), do me a favor and reply to this comment with your name and shirt size.

Game Design - Talk

Check out Brad Power's talk from an IGDA meeting...

http://pve-blog.blogspot.com/2009/08/pragmatic-designer.html

Art: 3D Information

Edited to Andy's recommended max sizes.

2000 polys per level model max.

1024x1024 texture resolution max.

Design: Themes

We decided upon the themes for our 5 primary levels.

1. Space Agency (Tutorial, Menu and Last Level)

2. Space Debris (Junkyard in space)

3. Space Hive (Bugs in a meteor)

4. Space Pirates vs Space Ninjas (Space Dojo vs Space Pirate Ship)

5. Space Moscow (Moscow. In Space.)