Maya – UV unwrapping

Today I was tasked with using an already created ship and UV unwrapping this. This is the first step that is required before we can begin to texture the ship. It requires us to select all the different faces and then put a checkered pattern on them. Once this was done I had to group the different parts of the ship together and UV unwrap these. For example I had to do the under side of the wing separate to the top of the wing because if not there texture would become stretched. Once the underside of the wing was selected I had right right click while holding alt and click ‘Planar map’. This would then allow us to move the selected faces. Once this was done I had to select UV’s and unfold the faces so that the texture fit them correctly. Once multiple components of the ship were done they could be sewed together so that there wasn’t loads of different checkered patterns around the model.

Unity – Roll a Ball

Today I was following multiple different tutorials on how to use the basics within Unity. This is a game engine and a software that is used to make games. When I first opened the software I had a play around with the different mechanics and physics that were available to me, I learnt how to add objects and resize and texture them. I also added a movable character along with a ball that has rag-doll physics so that it can be moved by the player. I had created two goals along with spotlights above the playable area. The only problem with this game I created was that it had no basic mechanics, such as a scoring system.

Once I had gotten a little bit familiar with the software I began to follow a tutorial on how to create a simple game called  Roll a Ball. The first steps of the game creation were to make a plane and add a material to it. I made the lane purple so that the white ball would stand out against it. Once I had the plane sorted I began to add walls, I did this by adding the 3D cube object and resizing it and then moving it to fir the edges. The ball was also added however this was not yet controllable.

Once I had the basic structure of the game I was able to code the ball so that it was controllable by the player. I did this through the use of scripting using C#. I found the necessary code that was required on unity’s website and added the script to the object.

The code worked and the ball was now a movable object however the camera was now an issue as it did not follow the player and it made the game almost unplayable. I did the same step as before and found the necessary code that was required and inserted it. The code made it so the camera would follow the players object which is the sphere.

After these steps were done the game began to be playable however there was not exactly an objective so a new pick up item was added to the game. The pick ups are another object that was added the the scene. They are simply cubes that have been resized and rotated. To make them more appealing to the user we added another piece of scripting that would allow these pick ups to rotate.

This is what the game looked like once I had copied and pasted the object in numerous times. so that the pick ups could be easily copied and to keep the same code they were all attached to each other, as you can see in the Hierarchy on the left side of the screen.

Below a quick snippet of how the game runs, you can see that the ball is controllable and the camera works correctly. The ball can also not leave the walled area and the pick ups spin around as they should; however they can not actually be picked up yet.

Publishers & Developers

Publishers –

Publishers are the companies that prepare the games so that they can go on sale in the various shops. The games that these companies publish will have either been developed by a different games developer, or in some cases they may have been developed internally by the developer within that company. An example of a major publisher is Activision/Blizzard, this is the company that publishes call of duty and World of Warcraft. Without the publisher in many cases the game may not have been as big as they are because the publishers are in charge of the advertising of the game. Other than advertisement and marketing the publisher is also in charge of manufacturing the product. The publishers also have the right to choose what platforms the games will be available on ; in some cases the publishers may have exclusive deals with the platform holders so it may be an exclusive title. For example Dead rising is a game that is published by Capcom and they have an exclusive deal with Microsoft. In many cases the publishers will also fund the development of the games so that the development of the game can run smoothly. There are many different publishers however a few of my favorites are…

• Ubisoft
• Activision/Blizzard
• Telltale Games
• EA

Sometimes publishers will have something known as first party studios which are developers that are owned by the publishers. One of the well known first part studios are 343 industries, these are the developers of halo. Which has been a console exclusive for many years.

Developers –

The developers are the people that create the game, for smaller games the development team may be small and in most scenarios the creators will all work for the company developing it. However for triple A titles development teams may begin to grow and shrink during the different stages of development. At one time there may be hundreds of members of staff performing different tasks. The reason for different members of staff is because making a huge game with 15 people would be an impossible task to perform in a couple years. Different artists and animators may be hired to add new components to the game but these will only be contract workers, so once the work is done they will be let off by the development team. Other than this many testers will also be hired during the alpha and beta periods of the game, this is so the workers can spot the mistakes and errors in the game so they can be fixed before the final product is released and published. A few of my favorite developers are…

• Rockstar North
• Valve
• Naughty Dog
• Bethesda Softworks

Other Involvement –

Other than the Developers and publishers of games there is also other steps involved before the game can reach the consumer. Once the publisher has done their job of marketing and manufacturing the game it will be passed onto the distributor. These are basically the people who deliver the games to the retailer. The retailers are the shops such as Game or Tesco. These will receive the game just before its release and then on the day of release they are free to sell it to the consumer. The consumer will then get home and be able to play the game. As technology has advanced the publisher has tried to lower the amount of other involvement that is needed through digital releases. Almost all games are now released digitally for download by the consumer so they do not have the go to the retailer to buy the game, instead they can buy it from an online store and play the game once it has downloaded.

Flash Games Testing – Slither.io

Another game I decided to play is a game called Slither.io This games objective is to eat mass and try and become the biggest snake in the game. Within the game there are hundreds of other players who also have the same objective. The mass that you eat are small glowing circles and when these are eaten the snake grows. When the user starts they are very small. The games background is very simple so that the emphasis is on the different snakes. The snakes are either random colours, or patterns that can be unlocked through numerous different methods. It’s not common that I came across a player with the same skin as me which means that the game has a vast art style which makes everyone unique. The game is addicting as you compete against other players to be the best. You also have the choice to sabotage players so that you can eat them and steal mass. The image below shows the mass circles on the map and the different snakes up against the background that they slither across. 

Flash Games Testing – Super Hexagon

As a research task I had to play a flash based game, the game I chose to play was one I was more familiar with called Super Hexagon, this is a PC game and it was also ported onto mobile devices such as touch screen phones and tablets. The game is simple which I think makes it more appealing. It uses simple shapes such as hexagons and rectangles and these are randomly generated as the user progresses to make it harder for them to get a high score. The objective of the game is to dodge the incoming walls and the scoring system is based off the amount of time you have survived. I don’t think I can really fault this game due to the simple nature and how addictive it is. Ever time I fail I want to try again to get a higher time than I did last time. The game never ends however when 60 seconds is reached on a level you can progress to a harder difficulty to try your luck on that. There is 6 levels in total and the first level is hard difficulty, this shows the game is challenge from the moment you pick it up. However with practice you do improve. If the games art style was not as simple with its use of shapes and flashing colour I do not think it would be as fun to play. Other than just the visuals and gameplay the audio is also a key aspect in this as it has a song that fits perfectly with the pace of play and the type of game it is. 

Drawing – Adventure Time

Today I was learning different types of drawing techniques and we also looked into how 2 dimensional characters are not as simple as they look. For an example I was shown a snippet from the cartoon TV show Adventure Time. From this we could look into how these different characters were drawn. Even though the main character Finn looks flat his character is still made up from circular shapes and cylinders to give him the 3 dimensional effect. Using this technique we had to adapt our own character to the drawing style so I chose captain America. I started by drawing the different circles where the character would bend slightly. From this i began to draw the outline of the character in a more thick pencil line. Once I had the basic shape I could start adding different details such as his eyes and his mouth. Once I had the character lined out the detail could be added and the sketch marks could be rubbed out. 

Vector Based Images – Practice

Before I had the task of creating myself I had some practice using different kinds of shapes and  line tools so that I could get familiar with the software that I was using.I did this by inserting different shapes into the document and adding the colour to it and different types of lines. Using this knowledge I created a practice character who looks a little bit like an alien.

Vector Based Portrait

Today I had the task of creating a vector based character using myself as inspiration. I used Adobe Animation CC to create the image of myself and I used a mixture of shapes and lines with added curves to create the basic structure of the face. From this I began to add different circles and squares to create the eyes and the mouth then manipulated these by distorting them into different shapes. To add more personality to my character I added a Rayman inspired body with a blue shirt as this is one of my favourite colours.

Welcome

Welcome to my very first blog, through my course I will be updating this blog with almost everything I do to show off what I learn during my time here and how my skills will develop through different methods