All Things Code and Wonderful

Over these past few weeks my 3D work has somewhat been put on hold because I've pretty much been focusing on this 2D Game so the only time I do any work on 3D is in the allotted time during the week where I pretty much do the same thing and that's trying to rig my character, my main issue is trying to get the hands and fingers into the correct position however I have yet to figure it out. 

However the 2D Game has a slow and steady progress to it as I one of many on the course are not that confident and comfortable with coding even when watching a tutorial, but when I sit down and look at the code I can understand what it is doing. My main issues with it is actually remembering it to the point where I could repeat and write my own if it requires that little extra to make it work.

So far I have managed to get a menu, player with movement into the game by following tutorials from this YouTube channel.

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEXxtHhSvUmz2qcZoWay9kw.

However the only problem I have with this channel even though they are short clips and they get straight to the point, it's very hard to take certain videos and mix them with others and for the majority of the videos the guy is working to create a specific game where as I wanted to create something different.

my concept for the game was for it to just have you move up and down on the left hand side of the screen and shoot at the enemy as they spawn and have them shoot back at you. my aim with this assignment was to produce what ever it was I could and I didn't want to create anything overly complicated.

Milestones:

• Research and practise Rigging and Skin Weighting for 3DS MAX (On Going)
• Watch tutorials on XNA and begin working on the Basics for the 2D Game
• Add screen bounds, scrolling background and enemy spawns

Production time

So we've been back about a couple of weeks now and now it's time to really get the ball rolling as we have from now until after the Easter holidays we have to produce a 2D Game, Cut Scene and 3D Game. Now the 2D game doesn't essentially have to link to your game concept this assignment is to allow you to get to grips with using XNA and creating a small 2D Game. However I do intend to produce the 3D Game and Cut Scene around my game design and link them both together in order to use the models made for the Cut Scene into the 3D Game in order to make the process run a lot smoother.

In the two weeks that we have been back I have decided that I am going to switch from using the CryEngine to using the Unreal Engine as not only will it will give me experience in more Engines but not only that, our tutor has more experience in this Engine and can provide an invaluable insight into the ins and outs of the software. 

Originally we we're going to be shown how to import a Character and then it went to a Weapon both melee and projectile but then again returned to the Character and you can get the a weapon in but it will have to be from your own resources. So from this point we're going to get master class in UDK. Because I have some previous experience with UDK from my time on the BTEC Course I felt like it would be good to use UDK. But as we are getting this Master class in UDK we must meet a interim deadline for the 2D game by the second week in February, this is to encourage us to get the game out the way as soon as possible in order to allow more time on the 3D game.

In terms of the Cut Scene we have been researching and practising Biped integration and this week we were introduced to the Skin Weighting, now I didn't have fond memories when it came to weighting from my time on the BTEC course so this wasn't an area I believed I was going to get to grips with any time soon.

Milestones:

• Research and practise Rigging and Skin Weighting for 3DS MAX
• Watch tutorials on XNA and begin working on the Basics for the 2D Game