FaceGen IT!

Winters Coming

We recently had an interim for the 3D Modelling and Sound module which I managed to reach with some ease, now the audio side wasn't too taxing as I only had to write a short paragraph talking about my soundtrack for the cut scene animation I was going to create. 

However for the 3D Modelling side there was more to it and that was to have your Character model sculpted or modelled and textured ready for what we will be doing after the Christmas Holiday which is tackle the animation side so this will include the rigging, weighting and motion capture. 

Because I modelled the armour pieces separately in 3DS MAX it made it so much easier to tart the armour up because I had the basic layout of the armour which allowed me to add detail pretty easily and quickly. I don't think I spent more than a couple of hour sculpting into the armour before I was happy with what I had achieved, now I wasn't brilliant at it so that was why I satisfied with what I had achieved. 

However I didn't leave myself with much time to do much detail because I had spent so long trying to figure out how to do armour and because I wasn't sure how long the texturing would take I swiftly moved onto the texturing side which as it happened to be quite simple really. It was just a case of painting the colour onto the separate armour pieces, although when I started this process I did come across a small snag and that was when I painted onto one armour piece, the exact same detail will appear on all of the other armour pieces and this had me baffled for a while so in order to resolve this I asked our Modelling Tutor who recommended I create a new material for each piece which in turn solved the problem and as result I managed to texture my character with ease.

The last stage of creating the character was to normal map which essentially takes all the sculpted detail from the high poly mesh and transfers it onto a low poly mesh as a texture. following this we also got to grips with the software FaceGen which creates a 3D model of your head when provided with 3 profile images, this was for the purpose of adding to your characters if you wish to do so.

I haven't really done much mile-stoning leading up to the Christmas Holiday as I felt this was still a Pre-Production phase as I was producing a comprehensive Game Design Document and because I getting to grips with new software I didn't really feel like I could have set realistic mile stones, however when I return from the Christmas Holiday its going to be focused on production in terms of a 2D Game, Cut Scene and 3D Game so there will be much that will need Milestones. 

However after a few months working on the Character here is the stage it has reached ready for rigging and animation come January.

All by Myself

So the latest news to come out is that we are no longer going to be taught how to get a character into the CryEngine or any Engine for that matter so if we want a Character in our games which will be pretty much everyone that means we have to do it ourselves, which is ok for me as I am going to be using the CryEngine and I already have tutorials lined up and ready for when the moment comes. However it isn't all bad as Chris will be showing us how to get a weapon in there whether is projectile or melee which will be handy for me as I will be sporting a few melee weapons in my game and I do not have any tutorials lined up for that as the person that I follow on YouTube hasn't uploaded one even though he replied to my request.

Getting into Mudbox

Well over the past few weeks I have been trying to get to grips with Mudbox. Because my character is going to be set in a Medieval setting he will be suited up with armour. Now at first I had been struggling on how to actually make this armour as I hadn't been sculpting for very long and so far I could only manage to do stuff to the face to a very limited level. 

As time went on people were saying that you could use 3DS MAX to do the armour for the character but I had no idea how I would be able to make the armour in max and then get it to look right also being able to get back across and make it look half decent in Mudbox. So I then thought I might as well give it a go and just stick with Mudbox thinking it would be the easier option. So I started messing around with the freeze tool in Mudbox so I could just sculpt the armour onto the model, which seemed like a good idea because from what I managed to get out of it in such a short time seemed promising. 

However it would soon be revealed to me of an easier way and that was infact using MAX. In one of Gin's lessons he showed us how to link Mudbox and MAX together, not only that but he showed us how to make armour just by using the human model as the template, he would just select the polygons he wanted the piece of armour to cover and then clone the polygons, then by just scaling it up a bit he managed to make it look like shoulder armour which was brilliant as it fitted perfectly and looked like the real deal. Then it was just a simple case of exporting back over to Mudbox. 

So after he had showed us this technique I was right on it, however when I did it at confetti the files wouldn't open at home so I pretty much have to do everything at home. When I'm in lesson at Confetti I'm just using it as an opportunity to experiment without any issue of risk to my work due to the fact I can't seem to open it up at home after I have saved it at Confetti. So here is what I managed to make, now it is only the base model for the armour and for the next three weeks I'm going to sculpt the armour to create nice detail before I have to paint the model for the following two weeks.

Game City

This years Game City was very interesting, not only due to the game's that had been produced but also in the way that they were discussed. I really liked the discussion's around the game Thomas Was Alone, because it was more of a Pod Cast style lecture similar to the Ricky Gervais show. I prefer this format because I find it more interesting when I hear people having a conversation about a certain topic instead of someone just asking questions after questions with no real back and forth discussion.

Now there seemed to be a bit of a theme when it came to the games and it was that all the games seemed to mainly feature shapes for example Thomas Was Alone which the character is this Rectangle that can be manipulated throughout the game, although I haven't played it myself but that's what I got from it when I saw the small trailer. The point of the discussion about this game was so that the designer of the game could talk to the other industry professionals who were also doing talks at the event about his game. He spoke about the game on three different occasions, the two that I caught were the one's about story and gameplay then there was one on the art side.

Then you had the game Hundreds which is based on using circular shapes to accumulate enough numbers to make 100. Now at first I didn't understand how the game was played at all from the first video clip that was shown, however I was interested in the actually design of the game as I would never have thought of it myself. Personally I wouldn't have been interested in playing the game, but the concept was most definitely the interesting part of it. One personal note and that is the presentation could have done without the dull mood setting backing track. The purpose of the talk was for the designer to show the production of the game from pre production to production and then finally post. Which was interesting as he also spoke about having to work with people from all over North America, not only that but he mentioned how many things they had to rethink in terms of level designs. He even went onto mention how they had taken much longer than had hoped to taken which would make you think that sometimes even if you go over your pre determined timeline, it can be good but only if what you have stumbled upon is actually gold. 

My final example to be is the game Super Hexagon which was my favourite from the whole week. I can probably say we could have just spent the entire lecture just watching him play it over and over again, which would have probably been better as the person who made the game clearly wasn't comfortable with the whole public speaking aspect of the lecture, which was definitely apparent when he was being asked questions. I think what was more shocking about the lecture was that he went through all the other little games that he had made and how much little time was actually spent on making them, but the quality was brilliant. Now the actual design of the game itself is pretty simple and the audio for the game was one of the addictive parts of the game, he even said it was just a random coincidental success in terms of the music fitting so well.

Probably one of my favourite talks was by Anthony Johnston who was talking about the importance of having proper writers in games and how comic books are a better reference material for making games and making cut scenes for games than films are. Not only did he make this claim but he definitely managed to demonstrate this by taking a cut scene from a game and by using comic book techniques he managed to cut out a lot unnecessary content. I also liked his comment about how games and comics are in a sense an outcast media, which in a sense is true because I used to look down on comics myself probably until that lecture. I guess it's one of those things where if you don't really understand it and just judge it by the stereotypes then you're going to have your nose up to it, like most people do to games. Until you realise what actually goes into making them and the logic behind it, you can actually get drawn into it and begin to respect it.

What did I learn from this week?

Well I learnt that it is possible to make a very effective and addictive game just from using your most basic shapes. Now I can safely say that most the people on the course were thinking of more extravagant game designs when it came to the 2D game that has been set by Chris, but I think by going to those talks people will definitely have a different frame of mind when it comes to designing it especially after seeing Super Hexagon not only that but ever since that talk pretty much everyone now has it on their phones. 

Now when it comes to thinking about the cut scene which I have to make, I'm going to try and take on board what Anthony talked about and implement the thought process to the production of mine. 

A little bit of Country, A little bit of Rock n Roll

Over the past week after finally deciding on which game design I was going to produce, that being the one that I designed for the previous year. I decided to go over it with and see what aspects of the game I wasn't completely settled with and what I think wouldn't work well in terms of outcome or the actual possibility of it being made.

Not only that but I also looked over the deadline diary and looked through it to see how I could link these into my overall product in order to make it flow a lot smoother. So with that in mind I decided I would use the assignment for AV Production as an opportunity to create the main character for my game and I thought what would be cooler than having me as the main character in the game seeing as we will be using the FaceGen software and applying our faces to this model that we would be creating for the cutscene.

Then seeing as we are making a Cutscene for our assignment I thought it would be good idea to make a Cutscene for the game as well as making the actual playable level, so as you can see those assignments go hand in hand with each other and will make the actual process a lot smoother. Instead of having to make other assets for other products and having it feel like you're being rushed and not being able to produce high quality work.

Over the past week I have been battling with the idea of how I wan't the game to look. Originally I wanted the game to be a Cell Shaded game but after talking it over with some of my fellow course mates it came apparent that maybe trying to make it a Cell Shaded game would be more taxing on time and resources than I had first considered. From this I decided I would just mention in the game design that Ideally I would like the game to be a Cell Shaded game as I love playing Cell Shaded games as they add another element of fun to the game, not saying that it's the best look for a game but it has that special quality to it. But I do enjoy on the over hand the crisp and rugged look you can get from the standard 3D look.

When I had decided on that I then revised the actual theme of the Game that being the Medieval/Futuristic feel to the game and originally I wanted the game to be very futuristic with medieval qualities but my heart has changed where I want the look and feel of the game to be very Medieval but have a Futuristic back drop, where you can go to other planets and the weapons are energy based. However the architecture and clothing/armour is very medieval, the look of the characters will be highly influenced by the HBO TV Series Game of Thrones as the look for each of the cultures from that show fits perfect to how I want my characters to look.

Now for my final thought and point, the level design because I have made these changes in terms of look and how want the game to look and feel, I had to alter the Level Design of which I'm going to create as I wasn't entirely comfortable with what it was that I had in mind. Because originally I had it so you were going to kill the leader of the opposition but they are aware of your mission and set out to capture you, which then adds a second objective to the level which in turn overrides the first one which is now you must get back to your ship which you don't actually succeed in doing.

Aims for the upcoming week, will be to hopefully come close to a completed draft of my GDD and get started on properly producing my character for the Cutscene, however I do feel that I still need a few more days just messing around with the software just getting to grips on what to do and how I can create what it is I aim to create.

Introduction and Influences

Hello my name is Ross Fielding and I will be creating this blog in order to document my progress as I produce my game for the second year of my course. Not only will I be talking about my thoughts and decisions I hope to see worked out, I will also be demonstrating this with accompanying videos of either me talking or just a quick video which records some of the work whether it's in progress or reaching its final stages. During each week I will note down any thoughts or new decisions after making a weekly plan.

For this first entry I will be covering the game design choice.

To note I have chosen to go with the concept which I designed for the assignment at the end of the first year.

Over the summer I have been debating with myself which design I should do. Although it probably wasn't the design of the game I was more curious about when it came to making up my mind, it was more the story and why it was you were playing the game. Even though I'm not much of a story player when it comes to the games I buy but I do love the story element of the game. This probably because I have a love for story more so in song, film's, history and the present day.

Originally when I was first contemplating the design of my game it was going to be an RTS as I thought it would be interesting to make one using the CryEngine and maybe it would show off some skill. However it would require a lot of knowledge when it comes to programming AI and when I was studying the CryEngine my worst part was learning about how to use AI. So instead of going for the typical FPS game which was hinted to be a not so original choice. From this I decided to make it a 3rd Person shooter which I find adds more flavour to the game as you can actually see the character that you are playing and I think actually makes the player feel more for the character as they can actually see the character.

From this I then chose to go with a visual style that I thought would be interesting to work with and that would be Cell Shaded, now I thought it would look interesting with the actual theme of the game which was a Medieval/Futuristic look, some would say this is a comparison to a steam punk look however the actual thought process was inspired by the game Crackdown even though that's just modern day mixed with futuristic I could still visualise how the game could look and be played out.

When coming up with the story for the game I was very much into my European politics at the time and the huge controversy about how they were going about things not only that but the very strong views and opinions held by certain parties such as UKIP and others with the parliament. Not only that but I would also take influences from how the EU came about especially after the events of WW2. Because I'm very much into these topics it seemed ideal that I could create a story with these two elements of history and current affairs to help mould a universe in the distant future where it felt like I could get across something people might actually be comprehending as an actual possibility in our life time and convey within a game.

However once the assignment had been done with and a few weeks had gone by, I started to get influenced by other things and once again thinking about story ideas, I felt like the idea that I had made for the assignment wasn't that good mainly due to the game element as I was thinking about other stories and how they could played out and because I was in a group over the summer where we were considering on doing an action adventure puzzle game which is something I would never have considered doing before, it definitely made me think when it came to writing a story for it which I actually enjoyed the process and actually came up with a pretty decent story.

As the months went on I actually watched the 2009 Film Avatar for the first time and was truly enchanted by the world that was created and even though people say that the story in Avatar wasn't really original I still felt that it was well told. I've always said that it's not what the story is about, it's how it's told. Not only that but the cast of the film was brilliant.

However that film haunted my mind for the following few weeks and really inspired me to want to make a game with a similar story line to that however there would be no way I could get away with that. Or at least something similar to the basic story line of that film.

Not only that but because I love my history I was seeing this basic story come through in many moments in history and it made me want to take that piece of history and turn into a game, or just take that piece of history and create my own world with influences from those events and convey them in a totally new world with new characters.

This year I want to actually try and get to grasps with soundtrack production because I absolutely love the music within the games that I play and half the time just hearing the amazing music that they have produced for the titles makes me want to play them. For example Rome Total War has been out since 2004 and all it takes is one soundtrack on my iTunes to make me want to go back on it. I truly think that audio really empowers the game and adds that extra layer of excellence.

Even though this has been pretty much a huge ramble I hope this really gets across my thought process when it came to designing my concept and the battling thoughts I had when deciding what I was going to go with.