Asher B. Ward. 3D Animation and Games.

The game is fully playable and ready for submission.

At least for now, there are a few more tweaks I REALLY hope to get finished before the final showcase, getting the animations to actually play in game being a major one. 

https://www.asherbward3d.co.uk/saving-james-grades

Above is a link to the site promoting the game, including a game Poster and a game play video.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=123dES2VOo-XZooIF2cfqQFT-AK-5JaOY

Above is a link to the game in a drive.

And with my final Middlesex University blog post, to Ben Wheele, Alex Charnley and the rest of the Middlesex University 3D Animation and Games staff.

Thank you.

The first image shows the Arena level, this was produced after the rest of the game, as we felt there needed to be something else to really give a sense of a game, and not a walk-through story. This was created using entirely reused models from previous levels. We were also able to bring back the use of a flashlight and baton that were removed from planning.

HUD

Now for the HUD, this wasn’t something I thought I’d be doing, but due to a lot of the game being made in a short period of time we had a few big mistakes that really affected the HUD. After making every canvas the correct resolution and not a square as it was originally, producing weird results in a build, I began to resize EVERYTHING, as what I was given was all over the place and incredibly random. 

Originally I had designed a Pager to sit in the corner of the screen, but I’ve decided not to use it for submission as I don’t like how it looks in game and as it is looks clean enough.

Unity

After getting the game into UNITY unlit, I was now tasked lighting the scene, sorting out all of the triggers for the talking and making sure the animations Lennox put in were working properly. 

I started with the general lighting, I positioned the lamps i had modelled throughout the scene and gave them each their own light. It took a while to make sure the whole level looked as natural as possible, without any lighting problems in a build.

The interact lights were next, these are small animated spot lights with halos on them. Nothing special but a simple nod to what you have to talk to that nicely fit the style.

I then went through and placed all the triggers in place. Lennox gave me 1 working trigger with default text and I went through the entire game positioning the triggers and making sure each worked as they should showing the correct text.

So in our rush to get the original game ready for the first attempt at getting into Rezzed, James Wood (there may be some correlation between him and our character) took over whipping up a simple character design and modelled Gordon for us in an overnight rush to get things ready. So I have no creation pictures of Gordon, as I was busy focusing on the rest of the game. These are all the models from the character creation process i did take part in.

Originally we were to have 2 different mushroom enemies, but after much story change, it became apparent that the happy mushrooms weren’t needed at this point of the game, if we happen to take it further then they would be usable. 

Mushroom Forest

This level contains the bulk of the game. Only accessible after completing the previous tasks of talking to DEV and collecting the welder. Before our crit we had a level with depth to it, it was very dark, with only trees behind the player, and we were told a lighter level with more depth would be more effective, these images show the creation of depth in the level. The previous level looked just like the final images, but darker, and only as big as picture 2. 

We didn’t expect to be in the running for EGX Rezzed as we only made the actual game we presented in a very short period of time, and had a planned holiday slot AWFULLY into the week we had to work on the game after the choice on who was going was postponed. So almost overnight I started again with the level, just building as I go. 

I finished up to the gate in MAYA, then added the rest of the scene in UNITY.

You can also see I took the model for what was planned to be a boss back when we were still designing STEPPES, and turned into scenery for the background.

Now there’s going to be a slight back track here.

These bricks were what I was using to test out how the game would be textured. originally I had planned to use 3D COAT to texture the scene. But after tests and working out how easy it would be to use, we decided that using the trusty Vertex Paint Tool would be the best way to go about this game. After archiving the bricks as a tester, we pulled them back out for this gate, and then ended up using them throughout the whole level. 

Looking back I’m very happy with this choice and don’t think we’d have nearly as complete a game, or a game that looked so nice if we had used 3D Coat throughout.   

Dimension’s HQ

Honestly, we didn’t plan 2 of our levels, this HQ and the arena (mentioned later), so a lot of this level was emergency modelled in the scene. 

Originally I was about to model a forest-like HQ, but it came up that actually, if this were to be part of a bigger game, and other characters from other places would also come here, then maybe it should be more un-themed. So taking inspiration from the LEGO: STAR WARS games hub areas, created what you can see above. With portals ready for more characters levels and homes to be connected to, we left it open to where we can go with this.

I decided a bar/cafe would work nicely, with the character DEV, the head of the game Dimensions, there to give out instructions. I also wanted to show, with the idea of James being there when he shouldn’t be, that maybe the game wasn’t in a ready state, with a look giving an impression of a makeover to the room.

After talks with our musician we had plans for more than one song in this level, thus the jukebox, but in the end we only have one song so far for this level and its only a novelty.

Gordon’s Home

The first playable scene I put together was Gordon’s Home, this will be Gordon’s ‘Base’ as it were in a longer game, but for our game its a jumping point for the story to flow. The player starts here before being sent about the game, with here as a central hub for Gordon specifically. 

I enjoyed the diorama project from last year and liked the idea of a world of dioramas, with portals to connect them, and this is what I went for. In terms of other characters in the future we’ve left it open for other characters to have their own personal diorama, in a similar style. 

From here the player can access the HQ and the main level. 

The last part of the foliage was the trees, luckily I had help from my second year student Gethin Dowse, who modelled a few extra trees and mushrooms for me. 

Mushrooms grew from being a very minimal part of the game and nothing more than an idea for an enemy, to becoming the whole central point of this part of the game. Lennox also bought a paint objects tool in UNITY and gave us the perfect way to distribute them around the level. 

These pictures show a very basic overview of them. After browsing the web looking at all different types of mushrooms (as seen in the link), i set to modelling them. I aimed for 6 packs of 2/3 mushrooms that will then be distributed in packs as well as solo throughout the level.

Here are the first few models after I FINALLY pulled my finger out and started to get the good stuff done.

I went into the modelling a bit randomly, I sort of built things in weird orders and went back on myself and kept changing things, so I’ve tried to put these screenshots in the correct order. There will be a a post showing the texturing decisions soon.

I started with a lot of generic items that I knew I would be using, although I have recently scrapped the crystals idea. Most of my models will be reusable throughout the game and will offer a fast build time on the game, meaning more levels can be easily produced once Lennox has the mechanics down.

Now I’m not one for drawing too much if i can help it, and i understand this is in no way the best way to plan, but for some slightly higher detail concepts i whipped up some quick scenes in Maya and then used Photoshop to give the scenes more colour, I’m also able to use this as early white boxing.