Oh boy, has a lot happened since last month. Also, it has already been a month?! That’s really insane. Anyway, last post I mentioned that I was working on abilities and movement in general. I have been continuing with that a lot, and even have done a good amount of art and modeling. There have been a lot of bugs with the jumping and the frame/tick rate, which was a pain to deal with. Well, on to specifics:
Art
Starting with art this time! I recently got my hands on Substance Painter and ZBrush, so you best believe I have been using it. I absolutely love both, and I’ve put in a good amount of practice into them. Below are some things that I did:
The short-flamberge is going to be in my game, on the character, as a broken weapon that was used to defeat the evil that took place before the game. It’s a design that I’ve basically wanted to make for a very long time (with minor tweaks, of course).
Here are some heads sculpts I did:
While I’m only showing these three most recent heads (of seven heads I’ve done in ZBrush, and of eight head sculpts I’ve done ever), there is a very clear progression and improvement shown. The pictures go from last made to most recent, and I am making some great improvements over these three (mostly seen in the anatomy itself). I am absolutely enjoying learning more about this application.
I’ve also been trying different ways to sculpt. The two most recent were me sculpting a rough skull first, then adding some details from there. The nose and ears are separate objects that I sculpted on, and the rest is essentially built up in a similar way to actual sculpting (from what I know). I know it is early in my 3D modeling career, but this particular technique will probably be used for quite a while.
Design/Code
This is where the most work went, and most of the frustrations. I will try to be quick with this part, since it is so much.
- The jump wasn’t getting called every time I pressed the jump button
- Many things were tried, but the thing that seemed to work (for now) was increasing the amount of time that fixed time was being called
- The glide was having a similar problem, and seemed to be fixed along with the jump
- The dash was changed completely. It is now a blink/teleport ability. Players aim (when mid-air, time slows) and a crosshair indicates where they will blink to if it is in range. There is also a particle effect to aid in conveyance
- A playtesting level was made
- Player slows down on different levels of inclines
- Character no longer continues to run or turn against walls
- Coyote-time was added for extra forgiveness on jumping off of ledges
- Scope was increased along with the story, then promptly decreased significantly
- Went from two different timelines to essentially a walking simulator
Going off of the last point, I will mainly say that my entire game idea started off as a walking simulator. After all, I wanted to showcase my art skills paired with slight story-telling. It progressed to a rather complicated adventure platform, which was way out of scope for me. I aim to keep some platforming elements and my story, but go strongly back towards the “walking simulator” style of game that is more doable for me.
Well, that’s the rather shorthand version of everything that has happened since the last post!
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Perry Devlin Capstone 