After weeks of working in the coding missions and making games following tutorials I started feeling more confident in my understanding of code and having a general idea of what I was typing and what some of the code was doing. After arriving at the mission check point we had to try to debug an app that had an end goal of making text pop up saying "congrats" and having the sparks emit from the middle of the screen. I think that these tools can help in developing my own games since it reinforced the ideas from the tutorials by putting the script into the right place to have the sparks come on screen and have text pop on the players screen and have different text when needed. The harder part of the mission checkpoint was making like a kind of your own game that involved a counting system and making it your own thing. It was pretty important because counting in a game can be used in many situations like picking up money and having the values pop up in the corner so I think overall the missions were a very important part in making sure the viewer understands the concepts of the videos they just watched.
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Fourth quarter in game design was definitely the weirdest one. It went by very quickly and the whole quarter was spent watching videos on coding. I feel like the unit was kind of "on the fly" a bit since like it just kept changing and it was pretty stressful tryin to fir 24 hours of videos into like 16 hours and then playing catch up after that. I think that it could've gone a lot better if we had started it instead of the linked in course we would've had more time to work and get into the videos instead of rushing through it. I am much happier with doing this unit then if we were to continue the more advanced coding like how we were trying to make our own game and stuff like that, that was planned for this part of the year. Overall I think that this quarter has been stressful but definitely could have been harder if Mr. B hadn't changed the plans from the linked in course, so I am grateful for that and I am ready to through the year and finish unity strong.
The new unit we have started is a beginner course on unity and coding in unity, much better for actually learning and retaining information. This course takes it a whole lot slower explaining what each piece of code means, for example now I know what a Vector 3 is even though I had seen them in the prior linked in learning course. The format is also well done and professional since the viewer can watch and do it with the person as they do it and explain it. I feel like I am getting a lot better of an understanding from this course, we learned how to code a follow program for the player camera as well as a simple driving code. After watching the final video for the unit we were assigned a "Challenge Problem" where we were given a broken plane game and we were tasked to fix it. The plane would go way to fast have no player controller as well as no camera to follow it. We as the viewer had to go into the code we were given and change it to make it work. The entire first unit is now finished and I am really glad the class went back to do this instead of crawling through coding without knowing what we are doing.
From my last blog post to this blog post we have learned about the development cycle of games and what things like a GDD is. We have done things in class like making story boards and concept art for out fantasy style game making mood boards to see what style and color palate we want to use and things like that. We then made a GDD which is a huge document that focuses on every aspect of the game and is crucial to any games development.
In unity we have started to make a real game, so far its a really simple thing with using assets from the asset store and the pro building tool to make a maze. I will be talking about my experience with it so far. Unity has been simple to work in with a good UI and lots of tutorials on YouTube I was able to understand a lot of it pretty easily. The assignment was to make a horror esc maze game by using assets from the store to get a feel for it, I soon realized how many amazing assets were free on the store that would make the process a lot more simple. I used assets for almost everything having an entire forest scene as my spawn with huge boulders around the map as a boundary for the player. Using a cube we were tasked to make an entire maze, at first it sounded pretty scary but soon I realized how simple it would be. The main thing was to highlight the face of the cube and extrude it out to a nice length and repeat till I had a good looking maze, after that I went in and changed edges to make it down more and have it look like a more broken down cave scene. Using assets for the skybox I had a gorgeous space theme in the game to make it seem unfamiliar to the player. Overall unity seemed pretty simple and I am looking forward to using it more in the future.
I think that the most important or interesting feature we learned so far was the pro builder tool. It reminded me a lot of modeling in 3DS max how you can do axis edges polygons and sides and manipulate them. I think the way we made the maze was really simple but very effective and it looks really good. I think the interface is really easy to understand and is laid out well enough to see everything important at once. The hierarchy tab is really well done and makes it easy to stay organized. I think the most I struggled at was with the vertex snap with the windows, it would keep popping into the wrong spot and it took me a minute to get it right. So far I really enjoy unity and I am really looking forward to seeing more of it and going more into depth with it.
As a class we have just dove into the unity engine so I am talking about my experience with the basics so far. We have just gone over the basics and it reminds me a lot of 3DS max the way its laid out and some of the key binds in it like W being move tool E being rotate and R being to scale. Its kind of similar with the lay out like viewport and the hierarchy tab. I learned how to use the game tab to experiment with the changes you make as you make them. An interesting feature I learned about was the way you can make a flashlight by attaching it into the player section in the hierarchy so the light travels with you. Another feature is using the hierarchy tab to combine elements to make them all together so when you move them it all moves at once. Overall working in the Unity engine has been really fun and I'm looking forward to seeing what else I can do and what I can make.
In unit one of GAD we talked on a few subjects such as, career paths and the skills needed to get a job in the industry, game history and, industry ethics and the importance of ratings system I will be talking about what I have learned and what surprised me and so on. First we learned about career paths. The paths we learned about were Game Designer, Visual Artist, Audio Engineering/composer, Software Developer/Programmer, Writer/Interpreter, game tester and Technical support. Each different path is crucial to the development of a game being wildly different from one another yet they all string together perfectly to make games. Second of all talking about job applications for specific job positions which was very different than what we have done in the past. We were using a web site that is really used to find jobs and learn how to search for positions and see things like requirements for the positions needed soft and hard skills for the part and the wages for the job. The third part of the unit was game history learning about the way games started from ancient times to modern day video games. We did a project on this which we had to choose a game and connect through mechanics and from ancient to board games to video games how they connect to one another. You can see an example of mine below and how the games relate to one another.
When making my first POL (proof of learning) I thought it would be a lot harder than it actually was. I had very clear and well written instructions which I was thankful for, going from units A-E I will talk about each one. Unit A was our first one which we were tasked to update a resume and talk about the importance of criticism. For unit B it was focused more on modeling which we had started on at the beginning of the year, this was very useful because t had helped me remember old tricks that I had forgotten about in modeling. The simulation was extra credit when we first went through the unit so I went back and learned how to use the cloth modifier to make a nice looking table cloth, this was a nice tool to learn and I'm happy I went back to redo it. For unit C we had to talk about textures and mapping which was my favorite unit so far, for example on the barrel scene I felt very accomplished seeing my work and how it changed the scene completely. The next thing we had to talk about was lighting. Going back into lighting now knowing more about it I felt like I could do a lot better on the assignments and want to learn to use better lighting this summer. Unit D was the most recent one so not much happened with remembering how to do old tricks and I felt pretty good about my turntable so not much to say there. Overall making a proof of learning was good fun and helped me remember some tricks I should know.
Lighting in 3ds max is really nice and messing around with it seems really enjoyable and can really change up the mood and atmosphere of a scene. The spot lights are my favorite so far they are the easiest to manipulate with the falloff and the center point. Being able to manipulate the colors of the light to change the mood and atmosphere. The omni light is nice for lighting up smaller areas while the directional is good to focus on something in particular. Lighting can easily change the entire mood of a scene as I saw while using the lighting in my table scene when i made it a light red or a grey like color it changed it completely. Overall using lights is really nice and Im excited to master them soon.
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AuthorMy name is Jared Lowe and i'm a student at Durham School if the Arts in the game design concentration. Categories
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