I didn't end up doing as much as I wanted over winter break. My time in Unreal was spent working out some immediate bugs (to some success). The use of networking is still proving a big hassle, with features having been long complete on player 1, but still not working on player 2. I had hoped to fix a lot of networking issues and add animations to the grapple, but I didn't make that happen. I studied up a lot on networking in blueprints, though, and hopefully I can fix networking issues soon (like health bars working better on server players).
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Winter break was, unsuprisingly, unproductive. Now that the new term has started It's time to see what needs to be done with the project now ad work form there.
Time to get our noses back to the grindstone! Over break I took some time to relax and planned on getting some more modular assets and ruins done... but life got in the way like it often does. My family issues that I was having last term took a turn for the worse over break which unfortunately took up most of my time. I did manage to get work started but nothing significant yet. I will be using this coming week to reorient myself, get my assignments done, and prepare better for future personal catastrophes. Looking forward, I have no production classes this term and just fluff electives so I will have more time in general, which means more time for the project.
After an exhausting finals week, I decided to take the first week off and take a break. When I started work on the second week my hard drive crashed halfway through the week, so I spent most of my break trying to fix it because my hard drive wasn't the only thing that broke apparently and I'm wasn't going to pay apple to tell me what's wrong with it. (take that capitalism!)
Luckily I was able to fix my laptop and recover all my data last week (thanks 2017), but I lost a lot of time in between. However, before my laptop died I did squeeze in some work before everything crashed and burned. I started modelling a newly designed male armor for the final build. For now the alpha model is fine, but I plan on replacing it with a more professionally polished one later in the term. I also started modelling island hexagons with more detailed rock and roots on the bottom. I also helped Healthy and created a base dragon head that I plan on helping her finish this week. Overall although I didn't finish what I started, I'm glad I got the ball rolling. *Will add pics later* Did I mention I have no production classes this term? I'm so happy.
Over break, I took some much needed rest (I had a blood analysis, and the doctor said I needed too since my pituitary gland was weak, she even prescribed supplements). I spent almost two weeks at home doing very little. I watched a lot of movies, the best one was Eric Rohmer’s My Night at Maud’s. The art team was assigned to work on 4 models of ruins over break, and I eventually got around to those. I am especially happy with my “Tower Entrance” model. You can see Sketchfab versions of those below. The last week I was on vacation with my family and could not have gotten any work done, even if I wanted to. All in all, a pretty good break, I would say. I wasn't expecting to be especially productive, but this term I am only taking one other (non-prouction) class and will have plenty of time to work on this game.
Random Bits by ricardotnet on Sketchfab
Here's some photos I took on my trip, and a 3D scan of my dog.
Lucas by ricardotnet on Sketchfab With the Alpha deadline approaching, this was absolutely the most productive sprint of the quarter. As a team, we have a combined 272 hours of tracked work for the past two weeks. For the Alpha build, the programming team did a ton of bug fixes, but ultimately spent it's time getting in as many of the mechanics in the game as possible, as thoroughly as could be done. Because of that, we've ended up with working shooting on both the human and dragon, a health framework, a newly functioning HUD, a new map layout, and many updates to old features. The art team also did a fantastic job updating from our old graybox the real aesthetic. The Human character is fully textured with a glowing bow, the dragon has blue flames coming from it's body, and most noticeably the environment is now vibrant and filled with art assets. The old hexagons are now stylized islands with ruins spread across them, and both our characters have original animations in them (some hand made, some motion captured) Pros: The team was incredibly productive this sprint. We took the game from a jumbled mess of a graybox to a genuine representation of our game. While there are still many bugs, and plenty of the features are incomplete, the amount of work put in to this was incredible and we believe it shows.
Cons: Not all of the mechanics are finished, and plenty are buggy. Not all of our art made it's way in to the game as we'd hoped, and integrating ended up taking longer than expected. The last two weeks were very productive for finishing/adding features to the game. I got the shooting to the point where it's a complete representation of the mechanic fit for the Alpha build. The health system is also implemented (although only complete enough to show the mechanic in the build). One of the biggest problems I had was making events that worked perfectly on the server work on the client as well. Sometimes I'd get just the server working, other times the client would seem like it worked but not show on the server, vice versa, and more. Looking back near the end of the quarter, despite fixing a lot of our gameplay design, adding networking to the game was a huge challenge. We understood it would be, but it's still impossible to have predicted the amount of time that went in.
Along with the implemented mechanics, I finally fixed a ton of bugs that were in the game. The HUD now works client side and on the dragon, no grappling to yourself or falling while grappling, and lots of other small less noticeable bugs that piled up. Pros: Many bugs fixed Health and Shooting in the game (albeit still buggy) Very productive Cons: Not as many features as I hoped by now Always more bugs Despite being productive when I was on campus, when I was away for the vacation I didn't have access to Unreal. Thankfully my computer just got fixed and it won't be a problem for winter break. Hours Worked: 38 These passed 2 weeks were suffering. After meeting with our Adviser last week following our previous presentation, we set up a large amount of milestones to achieve before the Alpha pitch. A crazy amount of time was spent all over the project, adding new feature, fixing bugs, and integrating art assets to try and reach the alpha deadline. Personally, I spent majority of my time on many new features, including fixing timer/win state, working on dragon combat/cross hair aiming, large amount of bug fixing, and integrating both the new environmental art assets and dragon effects/animations into unreal. New Map with Environment: Part of the Dragon BP Pros: More work has been done, art has finally been integrated, networking in better condition, nearly all functionality of dragon and riders in, Island vertical movement integrated, code not fully implemented yet though. Although rough, we have enough functions in to get a good game in for beta.
Cons: Networking is destroying us. Every function we try to add, we must spend another day or two figuring out how to get it to work over the server. Just getting everything to work on both server and client has severely affected our progress, and there is no easy solution to it. I am wholly convinced that if we weren't convinced by the faculty in week 4 to adopt networking and have local multiplayer, we would have nearly all of the functions we cut already. Hours worked over passed 2 weeks: 39 hours
I had to make adjustments to the rig so I would be able to have decent animations for alpha. I also started on making more environmental assets. Although I did not need to work on those, I believe they helped our game a lot. Each environmental piece took me some time, but in the end, they do help our game. I also was able to start animations. I struggled getting decent animations. I complied a list of things that need to change. I’ve done more than usual, but I’ve done so little in comparison to Sally. But going forward, I will have more time and no excuses for how much work I get done. Here are some of my things and scroll down all the way for my pros and cons!
Pros:
We are in an okay state for Alpha Going forward, I know what needs to change for our rig. I know what needs to be changed for our dragon. I know what I want for a dragon animation and how I can get there. I just need more than one week to do it. NO MORE PRODUCTION HEAVY CLASSES! SPROJ GETS ALL MY ATTENTION NOW! Just like the clingy boyfriend I never wanted. Con: Our rig will most likely be completely redone. But that was inevitable since I was able to figure out what needs to be adjusted on our dragon proportion-wise. I am terrified that the process for me to get the new dragon and rig will take 8 weeks to get to me for clean up… This was the worst Thanksgiving ever. After our previous presentation, I made sure to address as many concerns about our game as I could during the thanksgiving break. I think I could’ve done even more, but as an animator who has little experience with games I did spend a great teaching myself more about substance painter, zbrush, and how to transfer maps to keep our game relatively low poly than what I’m used to. Pros: I added alpha textures, normals, and ambient occlusion onto the characters. I made some environmental models such as trees and a new island that I quickly threw together. I was also able to texture Healthy’s existing buildings although everything is still very rough people can have a better idea of what to expect our game to look like. Cons: Spent time learning programs set me back a bit. I think about a fourth of the time spent on the game this week was just getting comfortable with the programs, but now that I understand them a lot better production will become more efficient. Also I think my mom hates me now because I didn’t go home for the holidays and I didn’t answer her calls because I was working on this game. It’s great for the game, but bad for me... Total hours: 35+ hours (I didn’t track my hours accurately this week because I was just working constantly on the game throughout the day)
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