FMP Sound From BBC Library

With enough time set aside for sound engineering in my game space, I started collecting sounds for every aspect of the level I could think of. The impact noises of the different types of materials e.g. wood, metal, stone, I then developed a script which plays these noises if the object is moving equal to or above a certain speed, in most cases this was 5 in my unity project. The tutorial which I followed to help me with this mechanic is below. What I would like to do is limit the sound so that it can only play once every, for example, 0.5 seconds which would stop the effect that it currently has which repeatedly plays the sound at its fastest rate as long as the object is travelling above 5 and colliding at the same time. Put simply I would like to make the sound effects more realistic by a few tweaks to the code but can only do this if I have enough time to go back and redo a few of the little things in my project.


After I had collected some of the individual hard to find noises like bangs and scrapes, a tutor suggested that I use the BBC sound library, I was reluctant at first as when this was suggested to me before I had always had too many other things to do in my projects than sit and go through libraries of sound effects until I find the one that fits best. This time though I had enough time and found it was very rewarding to use professional sounds and effects instead of quickly downloaded low quality ones from the internet.

FMP Finishing the Game World

Another example of tutorials I watched when problem solving how I would do certain things in my gamespace, this video was a possible solution to how I would create the terrain in Unity or Maya, I know about the unity terrain tool but didn't think it was necessary in this particular instance. I followed the tutorial and come up with undesired results which I ended up scrapping. In the end to solve the terrain problem I used simple geometry at a very large scale to create mountains and then using the fog tool to fade the background out and get a very atmospheric environment for my bridge to go on. This did though create more problems, like the fact that the background picture I drew was no longer visible at the level of fog I wanted and the snowy mountains looked too 'plain' I decided to leave the background image issue alone and simply added some of my pre made scenery to the mid ground so that it didn't look so plain. Other than that though the final touches I focused on adding were sound (which I will get to later) and particle effects like fire and snow.

Below are a few examples of me playing with background ideas and particles to see if any combination of them worked to my liking.

FMP Finalised Artbook Format

The above notes are what I finalised on when trying to decide what the formatting of my art book should be, I have completed everything that I needed to, to meet all of the goals I set for finishing the art book, this means that I just need to organise and neaten everything up before submitting it. This could take a few days because as it stands the book reaches 87 pages, I will try my best to complete these to their fullest but may have to leave it at a stage I am happy with before going back and finishing it fully for the end of year exhibition. 

Anyway below is one of the finished formats I will be using in the book, the writing at the moment is just a placeholder, I will be making my own notes as well as collecting other peoples opinions on my work to fill the space and keep the book interesting. As well as get real opinions and advice as to what could have been done better as well as what has been done well and anything else they wish to write.

PPP Retro Game Convention

These are some picture of the Leeds town hall retro game convention a few weeks ago, my friend told me about it and I thought yeah why not, and that it might be a good networking opportunity. Turns out it was not, everyone there was either just selling old game they had or general public who were buying the retro stuff. It was fun either way but hopefully the next thing like this I will find some better networking opportunities. The main thing I took away from this though is that it is always worth trying, something you can easily forget when you are preoccupied.

FMP Character Modelling and Rigging

Here I was working on my PC desktop instead of my mac, so I had a chance to record how I modelled the character mesh. I found some really useful tutorials which are mentioned in an earlier blogpost and followed some of those tutorials to refresh myself on how to model in maya, the most noteworthy tool was the one I made to automatically mirror the geometry I was working on, it is visible in the recording of me using this tool and it really helped with quickly seeing what the outcome of mirroring one side of the geometry would be and if it worked or not. In this instance I very quickly UV mapped the mesh to the reference image I was using as I wanted to save time and work on other things that needed working on, I know this is not good practise but was a necessary timesaver to be able to reach my goal of finishing everything I had planned, I may go back and redo the texture as it will be presented at exhibitions soon.

Below is my char with the controllers attached, I again went through the same process as last year for creating these, the tedious renaming, the parenting and locking components and so on. Overall though it didn't take as long as I thought it might have, which was good because it gave me more time to polish up on my environment.

From my previous experience in modelling and texturing I know that this is what an actual professional mesh texture is supposed to look like for a character. These are from the game League of Legends and have the same sort of distance from the camera in game as what I am expecting from my game. So this is an accurate amount of detail I should be aiming for what redoing my own character texture. 

Again as above, I understand that this is a industry worthy 3D model and I should be aiming for this kind of level of work to be able to get a job in this area. As stated in the image the model was made using 3dsmax, Zbrush and mental ray, programs I expect to be using in the future.

FMP Unincorperated Aspects of the Game 2

Another section of the game which I have explored is the element of cards incorporated into the gameplay mechanics somehow, I thought about character cards as a way to choose which character you could play as, I thought about in game playable cards which would enhance or change some aspect of your character for better or worse, much like the Anime Yu-gi-oh which would include characters using cards to battle monsters or also like the Xbox game Titanfall in which the character can choose a 'burn card' before spawning and would subsequently get enhanced combat abilities based on what card they chose to play. I thought if games and tv shows can incorporate cards into completely unrelated things like first person shooters then it would be easy for me to incorporate fantasy or magic cards into a fantasy and magic game.

Below are a few examples of what I imagined my own cards would look like, I ended up not having time to work on digital painting as much as I would have liked in this module but have been fully kept busy with all of the other 3d aspects of my project. If Id have had enough time I would have produced a series of cards probably including character cards, magic cards, instant cards, and map cards. These would encompass most aspects of the game and I may have enough time to include a few of there for the end of year exhibition.

FMP Unincorperated Aspects of the Game 1

With time and software limitations I have had to leave out a few of the core things I would have liked to include in my game for the FMP project, I wanted to add things like runes and cards which would be special use items that would enhance or allow the player to get past certain obstacles in their way. In the end I am glad that I thought about them and they are a definite possibility in the future for making or remaking the game that I have done so far but as of now I think they will just have to be included in the art book for the game and documented here. The runes were a fun part of the lore of the game, the world in which the game is set, symbols or runes of a certain type are known to enhance what they symbolise, for example a sword with a rune of power engraved upon it would be stronger than one without, in real life these things are thought of as superstition like dreamcatchers or lucky cats but I thought that I could make these things a big part of the culture and the driving force behind the way this imaginary world works.

FMP Worldbuilding Extra Notes

These images are of imaginary history or stories that I had my friends and some family write, the purpose of this was to get a diverse range of storytelling from professional and not so professional writers alike, I knew that if I had written everything myself, not only would it not be as good as I think it is now, but also that it would have been too much an amount of work to complete to a good standard and would not have things that I myself would not expect to be in there. I have found that including more people to something makes for a more rich and diverse experience and lore writing is no different, especially when it comes to fantasy worlds where nearly anything imaginable is possible. Credit goes to David Ryan (image 1 and 2), Jess Watson (Image 3 and 4), Jaimie Schofield (image 5 and 6) and I wrote most of the place names in the last image which is not exactly storytelling but was an important aspect of creating an entire region of a world to contextualise the the game space and story accompanying it.

FMP Photography and Reference

So for one of the chapters in my FMP book outcome, I will be talking about reference and how it helps with inspiration as well as where I got some of my more developed ideas from. The stones in these pictures were gathered on a day out and I thought that the differences and uniqueness of each one mirrors in a way the idea of different types of runestones in fantasy lore. I used these as a base for designing my own runes which I wanted to be part of my game but which also play a big role in the lore of my world which the game space is set in.

FMP Character Modelling Tutorial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5wOI9aVTug


After I had done a fair amount of level design and world building, I decided to finally model and animate the character design that I had decided upon earlier in the project. Since it has been a while since I animated, modelled or rigged a character I used this tutorial to help me get going again and also try to keep up good practice. The video is one of a series of 10 which I have also gone through to help me with the modelling process. Below is a screenshot of an early stage at which my character model was at, I decided after this point to create a video showing how I modelled the mesh and think that it will help me point out my weaknesses and areas of improvement in the future, which I will elaborate on in a later post as this is a very early stage of development.