Week 06 Update

Since we pushed so hard to get a finished game last week, I kind of took it easy to focus on my other classes that I had pushed aside. I hope Scott and Zack won't be too upset with me. They know I'll put in my share of the load. The rest won't last long because we all really want to take off with this. I didn't see them on Friday, so I guess they've added what they wanted on last Saturday. Zack shrunk the level to more resemble a prison, and Scott created more assets and puzzles.
I'm losing my confidence in my ability to create an interactive inventory UI. A job that would be simple in AS3 or even Torque (TGE) is significantly more difficult. I can't even close a scene that's been opened without having to hit the auto-binded ESC key.
Fortunately, a sequence of video tutorials (in Russian) helped a lot. The hardest thing is going to be dynamically changing the inventory UI to reflect the collection. An invisible GUI can be used with the key binds to bring up the inventory GUI. (The [I] key seems appropriate. However, this"playGUI" freezes the game action, even when "Pause Game" is unchecked.

Week 6 Update

This week I did some play testing with some fellow classmates. This led to a few changes that needed to be made. First of all I made the cells smaller. Their large size was making it too open to feel like a cell and also it will be easier to fill our level. Second we need to add messages to doors that are unlocked by the fuse.

Other than those few changes we need to fill our level so that the cells feel like they were actual cells. Also I want to add animation to the toilet lids so they open and close like intended.

Progress Report

This week Zack finished making the level smaller and now I can finish the lighting and the rest of the models for our game will be unwrapped and textured as soon as the lighting gets done. I know I won't be in class on Sat. the 20th, but I will keep my team posted on my status.

Week 5 Update

We rocked out on Friday, and not only got in the manikin pieces, but some of the extra interactions for v.2, already. I was able to rig the Kismet for it. It isn't hard for someone who knows how to set and check Booleans. I don't think my paper was that great, but the main goal is for a great game, anyway, right? This game is looking really cool. I hope I can get the User Interface to work for the final. For Saturday, we have to establish a new high concept document. I don't see how it's going to end up any different, unless we say, "we'll take all the cool things that we wanted to do and actually do them, now."

Progress Report

Well, we did it! We have a working game with a lot of assets, a great mechanics system, and an awesome level layout! Just a little fine-tuning with the pickups, lights, and textures, but other than that, we are looking good on our progress. I have a couple more ideas for the next 5 weeks that can improve on our game and we can go over that in class after we present the demo of our game.

Once again, nice job guys!

Week 5 Update

We got some serious work done this week. We were able to get working items into the game and also a whole lot of assets. The animation on the bed and door works great and we were able to adjust the triggers so that they works without a struggle. I modeled two different kinds of lights, a toilet, a sink, a fuse box with necessary parts, and railings.

We want to move some of the items around more strategically so that a player couldn't pick up all the items right away. We moved the fuse into the cell with the loose bars and made it so that a player can proceed further after replacing the fuse. We also got a working lighter into the game as well.

We still still need to adjust some lights and add background music. Sound effects for various things will have to wait for the following weeks.

Good Job

I checked everything out on dropbox and it all looks good. The textures you used are just fine and the GDD looks just fine too. We will get the rest of the stuff in tomorrow I'm hoping so we can be ready for Sat.

Week 4.5 (Matt)

It looks like the Kismet sequences are going fine. All we need, now, are the manikin-piece assets and the double doors to trigger the prison exit. This week, I'm focusing on the documents and presentation, since they are due Saturday. Although I quickly glanced at UI key binds, I won't continue making the UI my main focus until next week.

Progress Reports

This week has been a lot of modeling for me and I realized that those were a lot of models to do so I had to change up my milestone a little bit. I decided to finish the models with working collisions and UVW Maps so we could at least test the pickup items and see the scale on the models in the engine. So far all the models are working nicely and the collisions are working, as well as the level layout and our original plan still working for us. We can now pickup items to Trigger a door or matinee to happen which is a really big step.

The UI seems to be a little more difficult than we expected because we still need to use Flash for the HUD and GUI system. Together, we are still trying to figure out how the UDK system works with Flash through tutorials that we have been watching.

I got a hint from Mr Castaldi, (aka, "CC"), to use Scaleform to configure the UI. Except, that was even way more convoluted in engine code than the regular stuff was supposed to be. After wrestling with Scaleform and its tutorials from CodeMonkey~ (from Australia?) all day Friday, I slipped in the regular stuff that I did before without altering the GD engine, popped in the Kismet commands to open and close. The UI scene didn't close, but it totally came up. So much for having to mod the engine! At least now I know how, though.
Also, I was working with Zack on getting the inventory mechanic to work (sans the UI). Scott was pulling up good relevant information on the topic as we worked. First, we opened the cell door by touching it. Then, it opened via 'activation' ([E] key). However, the detection was really sensitive. We needed to turn the 'mustAim' property off the trigger. We plopped a barrel in the cell for an inventory key placeholder, picked it up via touch, then 'activate' and created a conditional on the door trigger that requires getting the barrel, first.
I was really overwhelmed this week because I thought my tasks were impossible. I believe we were all thinking, "We are going to totally have to remake this game, now, because we don't know what we're doing." But, I had the attitude, "I'm going to dive right in there, give it my best shot, and see what happens." I guess it worked because now, we're all back on track and should have a game ready for Saturday. It won't be a spectacular game, but it will be a game made within our time limit.

Week4 Update

We have a working key/door with UI messages! With having little experience with the kismet system this was a real hurdle. We have textures for most of the walls and the environment is looking more like a cell block than ever. We still have work to do pumping out more assets but lots of assets will be reused since all the cells will have the same basic things.

I tried making some decals because I have never used them before. I want to throw some interesting blood splatter and trails and using decals will work great. While trying to test the decal system out I was having problems importing the decal so there are some bugs to work out still.

The big hurdle from here out is getting a UI in place. So far a text based UI might be more efficient for the 5 week mark. It could be a possible thing to work on for the next 5 weeks.

It seems that, unlike in UT3, the only way to get images to show in UDK is to alter the config files. I only know how to change things in the engine. Perhaps I could get a text-based UI by Saturday, but having one with images looks very bad, right now.

Wait, the finished game is due Saturday, November 13?
I'll have to get the UI ready by Saturday. (Ugh).
Scott will have to get most of the assets, so Zack can place them and I can get them to interact.