Week 11 Journal

On the final week of this project I really focused on polishing my textures and getting the game-play as close to complete as possible. The game is fully playable now and I got pretty close to my concept art with the lighting and overall texturing.

There were, however, several issues this week that caused me to fall behind and not have as complete a level as I would like. First, I had planned on putting my meshes into Mudbox to create the normal and diffuse maps, but for some reason I couldn't get it to work. The normals that were created were either completely wrong or way to sharp in some areas. It could be one of several issues, but by the time I had come across some possible solutions I had resigned myself to creating my normal maps by hand, which cost me quite a bit of time.

There were also, of course, some of the usual issues of learning a new, coding-heavy programs. Some of my codes that were previously working decided not to anymore, and when I replaced a few meshes I couldn't re-create the sceneario in which the code had been working fine.

All in all I enjoyed the experience of learning new software and I plan to touch up and/or redo the level at a later date when I can focus more on design of the game without having any real time restraints.

Week 10 Journal

This week I focused on texturing most of my assets, including the log, trees, and fish. I wasn't able to get too far with them, however, due to complications with other classes, but I am confident I will be able to finish my texturing by finals.

My game was tested by two classmates and they both seemed to enjoy the game. One suggestion, however, was to give some sort of indicator to let the player know when he/she is going the wrong way, since there is a lot of tall grass in the level and it is rather easy to get lost.

Week 8 Journal

     This week I created my meshes for my level based on my placeholder objects. I ran into a few snags with the unfamiliar forms, but overall I'm pleased with my results. The meshes are pretty organic looking and they will look even better once I take them into Mudbox and add some normal maps to them.

     I also added some meshes to my list. Originally I had one mushroom that I was replicating into small clusters around the level, but I decided to create 3 groups of mushrooms with 2-3 mushrooms in each group. They are all connected as one asset, and this should help get rid of the placement and rotation problems I was having before, and it will look a lot more natural. I also added one more flower and vine to the mesh list to give the level more variation since the player will be passing these objects throughout the entire level.

This is my updated mesh list with the new meshes included and documentation of my progress so far.

Mesh List

I also made a mesh list this week. I decided to add a few meshes to the original list by creating variations of the plant life. This keeps things from getting repetitive but still allows me to easily replace the placeholder meshes with the higher-quality meshes.

Week 7 Journal

This week I created concept art thumbnails for two sections of the level; the entrance and the end of the game. The concept art helped me generate the general look and feel of the level, as well as what specific types of plant life I would like to include. I also made color palettes for each to help with texturing later on.

 

Week 6 Jounal

    This week I added the interactivity to my level. I have included a GUI texture at the beginning and end of the level to help the player along, and I also added a particle effect to the end of the level to help the player know that the level is complete. There is also a teleporter in the water area so that when the player falls into the water he/she is sent back to the beginning of the level, and I placed collision boxes around the pathing of the level to prevent the player from exploring in areas I do not want him/her to go into.

     I am still having an issue with one aspect of my level, however. I have animated fish that I would like to include in the level for the player to jump across (kind of like Frogger) so that he/she can get to the other side of the water safely. The animation has been successfully imported, but I cannot seem to attach any sort of collision to the prefab and the player keeps going through the model.

Week 5 Feedback

This week a few classmates tested the Unity level at its current state and gave me some feedback.