Thursday, November 18, 2010

Cutscenes and end screens

For the end screens, I tried to take influence from the death screen from Uncharted, and the cool green and black look from Metal Gear Solid. I think it came out pretty cool, if I do say so myself.









I did the cutscenes for the game, setting up the scenes in maya, and rendering them out, as well as writing the text. Dan did one of the renders, for the statue. I originally did them at 800x600, until we chose to go with a widescreen resolution. I kept two of them the same, though, as they were taken from within unity anyway.

Level One





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Level Two





Level Three





I also did an end cutscene movie. Dan modeled, textured and animated the female character. I set up the environment around her, animated the the camera and doors, and compiled it all in aftereffects with sound and everything. I'd only ever used Aftereffects very limitedly, so it was a bit of a challenge, but fun. The result isn't super fantastic, and isn't up to the level of actual game cutscenes of today, but I'm happy with my first effort.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmcN8AZFYjE

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Gunishment

After a brief PC failure delay, I'm back.

Train carriage:

Level 5

Thought since I was already doing this blog thing, I might as well chuck up some more stuff.

This is a thing I did as an idea for how room 5.34 would be done in the scrapped Level 5 game. Amazing, I know

Gunishment

So I've done some stuff for Gunishment, as well as stuff for Kebablhu, but I'll post that later.

I've textured the containers, and recoloured them for variety. I've done some other assets and just chucked them into a scene to see how it all looks together. Some stuff isn't textured, but this is just a work in progress, so show I have actually done some stuff this semester. Because updating your blog is important.




Monday, August 2, 2010

hallway concept

Quick design, will have more for Wednesday. I thought the poster boards, or at least a couple of them, could show and update your progress within a class. Show you how much more you still need to do or whatever. Just a thought.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Start Screen

I made everything on the Windmill Island, except the tree which I downloaded for free from turbosquid.com

Here's a render I did, and the start screen that resulted.




Castle



Windmill



Houses



Town

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Personal - scene concept

This is just a quick scene concept of what I'd like from the outside. Nothing too complex and hard to do, but just compliment the house.

Personal Project - concept idea

I'm going to do a strawberry house scene. Probably on top of some hill or something - Ponyo style. I also want to do the interior as well, and fill it with cool interesting things. This is just a rough unfinished idea of what I'd like for it. I'm not sure whether to have it flipped upside down, so the tip goes into the ground. People said they thought it looked like an egg, which is less cool than a strawberry. Maybe once it's textured and shaped a bit differently it'll be fine. This I shall ponder further.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Islands - Dialogue

As a continuation from the last post on NPC interaction, this is a mock up of what will be triggered once you start a conversation. The screen should transition to a static screen, and will work basically the same way as it did in Persona. I'm not sure if this is going to be too jarring for the player, but if you're not landing, I think this might be easiest. It depends if it's something that takes time to load each time.

Islands - NPC interaction

Stemming from Morgan's suggestion, we've come up with a way in which the player can interact and pick up deliveries from characters, without having to land. This makes everything a whole lot simpler, and it makes sense to keep the emphasis on flying. We'll need to test out if being unable to land will feel frustrating to the player.

Anyway, this is just a quick design I did to represent how it may work in game. We could end up just having one light beam that represents the characters you can interact with.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Islands - different island styles

There will be four main islands that make up The Great Island in the Sky. Each of these will have a distinctly different look and feel.

Island One – Starting Island
Features: Windmills, grassy plains, hills, small cottages

Island Two
Features: River, beach, palm trees, wooden walkways and jetty’s, wooden huts.

Island Three

Features: Snowy mountains, pine trees, snowy huts with campfires

Island Four
Features: Cherry Blossoms, small springs and ponds (with koi fish!), wooden huts, and lots of lush foliage


This is a rough map of how the islands should be broken up, and an idea of the level design.

Islands - Story

The story overview has been written up now. It's posted on google groups and the team seems to approve.

Story Overview

Life back home
Life is lonely. Once a normal and happy kid, you have since become introverted and feel a disconnect from others around you. This was brought on by your mother’s Fatal Tragedy from a couple of years ago. Before this time, you and your mother and father lived happily in the heart of town. Your father made hot air balloons and took you for rides on the weekends. These are the happiest memories you have, flying high in the sky, together as a family. Since then, you and your father live on a hill, on the edge of the town, peering down on it. You spend many lonely nights looking at the town lit up, emitting a glowing sense of warmth and togetherness. Barely holding himself together, your father spends most of his time working in his workshop, doing nothing in particular. The great big hot air balloon that once took you high over the town, and instilled a complete sense of joy, now sits growing dirty and unloved in the backyard. One day while falling asleep inside the balloon’s basket, it mysteriously takes off. This is where your journey begins.

Beginning of the game
The game starts with you hurtling through the clouds in a hot air balloon, before suddenly finding yourself heading straight into a floating island. Woah! Hitting a cliff, the balloon topples over, sending you perilously towards the ground at an alarming rate. Scared for your life, you wish you could fly. And you can! You take control of the player as you realise you can fly freely, just before certain death. Narrowly alluding death, you settle on the ground as witnesses to the event gather around you. They are startled, but quickly resume their own lives and only mumble vacantly at your attempts to communicate with them. All but one cute little girl, about the same age as you, who takes shy notice of you.

The Great Island in the Sky
The Great Island in the Sky used to be as large as a boys imagination. At the center was one giant town where everyone was happy, and life was perfect. However, some time ago, the people started to become introverted and anti-social. No one knows what caused this. Opting to keep to themselves and communicating only when necessary, the town began getting lonely with townsfolk drifting through wordlessly. As the people drifted apart, so did the The Great Island in the Sky, splitting in four. Far too self-absorbed and introspective, no one noticed this occurring. Before too long, it was too late. By the time people took notice, the islands were already too far apart. People had been emotionally isolated for so long, they no longer knew how to function in a social environment.

The world is an allegory for your life back home, a mirror to your emotions. As an outsider, people take notice of you, particularly a 12 year old girl. They also take notice of you, because as it turns out, you can fly! Because you are also so emotionally distant since your mother died, you struggle to try and talk to this girl and the people on the first island. Slowly your friendship blossoms, and you begin to learn the history of The Great Island in the Sky. You find out that friends and family have been separated and live on different islands. By flying between them, and delivering messages for different people, you slowly bring back the islands together. This is the goal of the game, restore the world to how it once was, and bring back happiness to all. Helping the people of the town come together, gives you the sense of togetherness you have sorely missed. By helping them, you help yourself. They are you.

Characters
Main Boy: 12 years old, melancholy and lonely. Feels isolated and disconnected from the world around him.
Main Girl: 12 years old, shy and cute love interest for the main boy.
Kooky old dude: Works as a father figure for the boy, he runs a workshop

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Islands - Character concept

I'm sick and felt like drawing instead of thinking.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Personal Project - Overview

For my personal project I will be designing an environment.

I'll update this later.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Lantern - Level concept

An example of the game level.

Islands - Concept sketch

I wanted to create the mood and atmosphere the player will experience. We would like to have different times of day and maybe weather conditions in the game, so this is a representation of the sort of colour palette I'd like for a dusk setting.

Lantern - puzzle concept

This is a rough idea of the sort of puzzle solving I had in mind.

As Lantern Guy, you come across a dilemma along your travels; a gate impeding your progress. Using your trusty lantern, you see something attached to the gate. You also see a shining stump on the ground. Focusing your lantern light onto this point, the light gets reflected onto another strange shining stump inside a tree. Reaching it's final destination, the light reveals a rope. Handy! However, the rope is up in the trees, and Lantern Guy is ill-equipped for daring feats of athleticism. Bother! At this point you switch characters to your nimble little creature of darkness, who scampers up the tree, and frees the rope tying the gate shut. The gate swings open and you are free to continue your forest expedition of wonder.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Game Pitch

Game overview


General Concept:
A casual, relaxing gaming experience.
Fly around the levels collecting items and taking photos.
Players should be able to pick it up and immediately get into it, and relax.
Use a flying scooter looking thing, like in Laputa Castle in the Sky.



Location/Game space:
Floating islands in the clouds
Each island should feel like a little utopia, peaceful grassy plains with trees and lakes. Some could have small towns.



Similar to games like:
Pilot Wings 64, Flower, Pokemon Snap





Objective:
While there are no real forced objectives, you can fly around collecting miscellaneous glowing items, and take photos. The real goal of the game is to provide the player a relaxing and peaceful experience, letting them decide the course of their play through. Subtle direction can be given to the player through the glowing items, pointing out different areas of the map for exploration. Collecting them all, or taking a photograph of certain things, could unlock new maps.



Platform:
iPhone: The iPhone seems like a great platform to develop this on. Allows players access to the game any time they like, when bored on public transport, or stressed out at work.
Web browser: Allows for easy distribution to a large audience.



Controls:
iPhone – touch screen, or tilting the screen to move in all directions.
Web – Facial recognition to pilot the airplane seems like an interesting idea.
Mouse as an alternative.

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