Parasitic Release

Parasitic Release

After 4-5 months of production, our game has reached its final form. The amazing work of our programmers, modelers, level designers, and leads all led to this moment. I'm still in awe of being able to work with such a great and talented team of people. 

Our programmers have made it all possible with their awesome coding skills. Chase had done some incredible work implementing a lot of the art assets from audio to animation to particle effects. Jeremy's work on the UI and fog system really creates the game's atmosphere, his vocals also star in our game as the enemies' damage sounds. Ryan's slope system still amazes me, it looks fantastic and is very easy to pick up and use. It's really cool to be able to use it with some of the terrains of my first level. 

While we worked individually most of the time, I'm really grateful for the support of my fellow level designers who are both efficient and responsive. Joe is definitely the mood maker of us three, he's very supportive and tries his best to help everyone out. Xander definitely is the most experienced out of us because he is most experienced in both level design and turn-based strategy games, his feedback was very useful during the annotation phase of our levels. A big thanks again to them for helping me out and being there!  

Of course, the art and feel of the game would not be possible without our modelers, Brandon and Devin. Brandon was our environmental modeler, creating the high-quality low polys of what's visible in the game's environment. Level designers are able to give a list of assets we want in our levels and he creates them in a way where they all feel the same, which helps with the game's immersion and looks. Devin's work of our character and enemy models really sells the game. The players are able to differentiate the characters from not only each other but from enemies as well. 

Each and every one of us had worked in such a smooth and friendly environment thanks to our producer and game designer, Dylan and Alex. They are constantly and consistently giving feedback, keeping up an active Trello board, and helping everyone out. It's thanks to them our game had a smooth production due to the concept and idea being fleshed out thanks to Alex and having an active work environment thanks to Dylan. I could not have asked for better people to lead us. 

 

I'm really thankful to have been a part of this amazing team of people. This is my first time working on such a grand project of this scale where it really feels like you are developing a game in a work environment. And we did make an incredible game! Thanks to the hard work of our team Parasitic is published and ready to play! 

Get it here: Parasitic

377 Mobile Development - Blog Post 3

Team Titan Sprint 6 - 7

This progress blog post about Titanic Arena's final two sprints, Sprint 6 and 7. Both of these sprints were focused on making and implementing art assets. Other than that, we kept making improvements to our game based on player feedback in our playtests. We are home stretch in our development and the goal for Sprint 7, our current sprint, is to polish and finalize our game. 

A Closer Look at Each Sprint: 

Sprint 6

Cards Assigned to Me: 12

1. As a team, we want the APK to be ready by the playtest (1)
2. As a player, I would like to be able to unlock dash (1)
3. As a player, I want to be able to unlock the spearman character in the upgrade shop (1)
4. As a player, I would like to know how to defeat each boss (1)
5. As a player, I want to be able to unlock the rogue character in the upgrade shop (1)
6. As a player, I want to be able to unlock the flailer character in the upgrade shop (1)
7. As a player, I would like to see what each character is visually in the shop (.5)
8. As a player, I want to know what the second shop does and is for via a panel or through controls (.5)
9. As a developer, I would like to see the blood of enemies fly out when they are hit via particle effect or UI element (1)
10. As a developer, I would like to see the blood of player characters fly out when they are hit via particle effect or UI element (1)
11. As a player, I would like to visually see my health go up (1)
12. As a player, I would like a dynamic game over screen so I am enticed to play again. (1)

Incompleted Cards: 1

1. As a player, I would like a dynamic game over screen so I am enticed to play again. (1)

Half of the cards I was assigned to this sprint were art assets while the other half were cards about our final feature. This feature was decided by us as a team as a substitute for the cards about saving the game (after quitting the application) and creating individual player stats for each class because I couldn't figure out how to implement a proper save feature in the game and we weren't sure how to tackle the individual player stats feature. Instead, a character shop and unlocking feature would incite player replayability and add more incentive to use the shop other than to just buff the two upgrades available in the shop. The art assets I finished for this sprint were particle effects that give feedback for the player to know when they have taken damage or dealt damage to the enemies. I also added UI elements for the boss fights since each boss is unique and has different strategies or methods to defeat them. I also added a UI to the second shop or the character shop so the players know what the shop purchases do exactly. 

Second shop for unlocking classes or characters

Boss infobox 

Sprint 7

Cards Assigned to Me: 12

1. As a Player, I would like to be able to choose to play an endless mode. (3)
2. As a team, we want our game to be ready to be published in the Google Play Store (1)
3. As a player, I would like a dynamic game over screen so I am enticed to play again. (1) [From Sprint 6]
4. As a player, I want the control page to be clear and concise. There might need to be multiple pages for this to work. (1) [Feedback]
5. As a Player, I would like a dynamic background for each of the levels (1)
6. As a player, I want a feature graphic for the game that makes me want to download the said game (1)
7. As a player, I want a dynamic poster for the game that makes me want to download the game (1)
8. As a player, I would like to know when I can select a character (1)
9. As a player, I want an enticing icon for the game that makes me want to download said game (1)
10. As a player, I want the control page to work flawlessly and is visually helpful. (.5)
11. As a player, I would like a moment of pause before the boss spawns so I can read the textbox (1)
12. As a player, I want the rotation of the game to be locked (.5)

Completed Cards: 

1. As a Player, I would like to be able to choose to play an endless mode. (3)
2. As a player, I would like a dynamic game over screen so I am enticed to play again. (1) [From Sprint 6]

Our current and final sprint's focus is purely art assets and getting elements for our Google Play page ready. This included getting screenshots of the game, making graphics and posters, and even a gameplay video or trailer. More internally, I need to make sure our control page is as concise and coherent as possible since it's been our game's major flaw for the past few sprints as many players could not get through the character select screen. I need to also work on the feedback for our game's UI elements that were suggested by playtesters. So far I finished our game's dynamic game over screen, making it more appealing and graphic and as a team, we completed one of our epics which was to make the game "endless", this meant our game does not have a game over, similar to Temple Run, a famous mobile endless runner. 

Game-Over screen

Total Card Count (as of now):

Cards Assigned to Me: 56

Completed Cards: 46

Cards Left: 10

Total Point Count (as of now):

Points Assigned to Me: 60.5

Completed Points: 51.5

Points in Progress: 9

Since we are very close to the end of development, I can really see the total number of cards I've done and the hours I've worked. I try to be accurate when assigning points, there are very few 3 point cards and no 7-point cards at all. This is due to most larger cards being split up into more cards and often I used .5 for UI elements that changeable through the inspector or settings and do not require adding assets such as scripts or game objects. Seeing an overall total of the work I've done is very cool, it seems about accurate to have done roughly 2 months' worth of development work for our game over this semester. I'm thankful for my team to be great at their roles and being able to smoothly develop our game with only a few bumps here and there. I think our game is amazing and has many great features to offer. Thank you Adam for being a superb programmer and cheers to Austin for implementing the levels and helping with everything else. Great work team! 

Issues/Problems Encountered 

Problem #1: Save Feature and Individual Player Stats 

One of the problems I encountered during multiple sprints was making a save feature for our game. So far we have an in-game save feature that carries the upgrades and shop purchases over the screens but when the player quits the game, the game does not save. Saving a game is pretty difficult and I've spent multiple sprints tackling it. I've tried multiple tutorials online for saving games but none of them have bear fruit. I assume this is due to the save and serializing not being able to save the scripts with player data since those scripts are using Player Prefs.

Attempts at serializing and saving the game

Solution #1: New Feature Substitution 

 Regardless, since this feature is taking too long and we've reached our last two sprints we decided that we'll substitute the save game on quit feature with a new feature. This feature will incite the game's replayability and encourage the player to use the shop more. Originally, the player can choose a number of classes and characters to play as but with this new feature, they only start with the warrior class and need to unlock/purchase the remaining character classes on the second page of the shop. 

Scripting for locking and unlocking characters/classes

Parasitic Sprint 6 Blog Post

Parasitic Level Design Post#6

I prioritized finalizing the level I was working on Sprint 6. So most of the cards assigned to me this sprint are the final pieces I need to add to my level as well as the rollover playtesting cards. Since I was almost done with all my cards near the end of the sprint I was also assigned to look for audio. The cards assigned to me are: 

• "As a level designer, I need to hook up the unique win condition in each of my levels. (1)"
• "As a level designer, I need to play through my level to test for discrepancies or errors. (1)" [Sprint 4]
• "As a level designer, I need to populate the Dead Forest level with current assets to get the tone of the level established. (1)"
• "As a level designer, I need to set up the lighting in the level to match the theme. (1)"
• "As a level designer, I need to playtest my level to check for discrepancies so the level flows smoothly. (1)" [Sprint 5]
• "As a player, I want to hear a swoosh and glass shatter as I throw a health potion to one of my teammates as an archer. (1) (Ability 2) (3 Different Clips)"
• "As a player, I want to hear flames as my bow lights up to show my upgraded attack. (1) (Ability 1) (3 Different Clips)"
• "As a player, I want to hear the swift pullback and let go of a bow and arrow when I attack as the archer. (1) (Attack) (3 Different Clips)"

The two cards I worked on coincidently during the beginning of this Sprint were populating my level and added mood-fitting lighting to the level. Populating my level took a while since I wanted to make sure the trees were not too big compared to the player models which would break immersion and I also had to make sure the branches weren't too close to each other so the players can actually see what was going on on the ground level. I also used the small leaf assets to make piles of levels that cover the floor of the level. There were three types of leaf piles. The yellow Ginko leaves would do a better job at drawing the player's attention and I used them to hint at secret locations or branching pathways that might or might not reward the player. 

Ginko Leaf Piles (Treasure/Secret Area Indicators)

The next piles are maple leaves that were used to cover empty space between trees, they indicate areas that players could not move towards/enter. 

Maple Leaf Piles (No Entry/Off-Limit Indicators)

The last and biggest piles are normal, plain leaves. These are not very visible but they path the way for the player. The reason I used this was to hint where the paths are in the level but since they are not obviously visible, the player would need to look closer and pay attention to find this "cheat". 

Normal Leaf Pile (Outline of paths)

These details took pretty long since I also had to move other assets around them. The whole scene probably has a total tri count of 10+M considering one camera frame is 1-2M tris. I was a bit scared of this since I wasn't sure if having this many assets would lag the level or not. Luckily Alex said that as long as the frames didn't drop below 60 or when playtesting things don't lag, it would be okay. While the assets took a while, I'm really happy with how the level turned out. There's a lot of details in the level that probably isn't even noticeable or many players would just brush off but I'd be very happy if someone were to notice the leaves placed gently on the rocks and the crates in the level. 

Tris of the starting area in the level

I also tweaked the lighting for this level. My first "draft" was a grey-blue that seemed like a bright evening or a foggy sunrise for the level. 

But it was a bit too bright for a "dead forest" level most likely set in the evening or late at night. So I went back and changed the key light intensity from 1 to .3 as advised. The dark lighting does really give a scary and unsettling vibe to the level since the player would feel cramped and lost. 

After finishing these cards, I did playtesting for the level to make sure the assets do not block the player or hinder the flow of the level. Since this was before adding the level's objectives/win-conditions, the level was pretty difficult. Since this is Level 4, more enemies were of a more advanced and higher tier, meaning they do more damage and had more HP. Players also took a bit longer to level up and get points to unlock abilities. It would take a couple of plays to defeat all the 45 total enemies in the level and win. The player characters had a better chance of survival if they stayed together since the level was more maze-like. Unlike my first level with plenty of open space, if the players split up in this level, it would be difficult to regroup. 

After making sure the player can actually win the level and that the flow and difficulty felt smooth, I added the win-condition to the level. For my level, I made the win-condition for the player was to defeat the boss at the end of the maze, the brood enemy. This was really easy thanks to our amazing programmers, Chase explained it to the level designers in a quick and easy-to-understand way as well. I'm really grateful that we have an amazing team. 

Win-condition/Objective feature added

At this time, my only card left was to playtest so I asked the leads to give me more cards to work on. Dylan asked me to do some of the audio, specifically the sound effects for the Archer abilities. I finished up a few more playtests which made me feel that my level was at a great level of flow and difficulty after some tweaks. I'm currently looking for audio clips that best fit the Archer's abilities. 

So the cards that will roll over from this sprint are: 

• "As a player, I want to hear a swoosh and glass shatter as I throw a health potion to one of my teammates as an archer. (1) (Ability 2) (3 Different Clips)"
• "As a player, I want to hear flames as my bow lights up to show my upgraded attack. (1) (Ability 1) (3 Different Clips)"
• "As a player, I want to hear the swift pullback and let go of a bow and arrow when I attack as the archer. (1) (Attack) (3 Different Clips)"

We have almost reached the finish line! The next sprint is our seventh and last sprint. I'm amazed at how awesome our game has become and at all the people who worked very hard on it. I can't wait to see how it will be finalized. So until then!

Parasitic Sprint 5 Blog Post

Parasitic Level Design Post#5

My tasks in Sprint 5 focused on fleshing out my second level: "Level 4 - Dead Forest". The cards assigned to me this sprint are mostly rollovers from the last sprint with only a playtest card being newly assigned: 

• "As a level designer, I need to block out a large Dead Forest level that starts with our heros having to maneuver a maze before finding the exit that leads to an arena for a mini boss battle. (3)"
• "As a level designer, I need to play through my level to test for discrepancies or errors. (1)" [Sprint 4]
• "As a level designer, I need to populate the Dead Forest level with current assets to get the tone of the level established. (1)"
• "As a level designer, I need to create clear boundaries for the player to restrict going off path. (1)"
• "As a level designer, I need to populate the Dead Forest level with current assets to get the tone of the level established"
• "As a level designer, I need to playtest my level to check for discrepancies so the level flows smoothly. (1)" [Sprint 5]

For this sprint, I finished the block out for my level. This took a while since I also had to edit each tile to correspond to my annotated map. 

Block Out

Tile Map

Currently, I am populating the level with the newly added assets I requested in the asset list from the last sprint. Some problems I've encountered from this is figuring how to place the trees properly for a "forest" level but spaced far apart so that the player can move and see the other assets (such as enemies, buff tiles, and pickups) in the level. I also went back and removed the colorized trees and mainly used the leaf-less trees so the level corresponds to the theme of a "dead forest" 

After I implemented most of the assets, I realized I needed the terrain as well. So I played with the terrain editor in Unity, moved it to blender, edited it so it's low poly and colorized, and added it back into Unity. Now I can add assets around the terrain as well so the level and the terrain feel more intersected/fused and not just two separate pieces, which helps with immersion. Here are progress pictures of what I have so far:

Reached 271 trees and still need more for the terrain

Terrain

The cards I have left are: 

• "As a level designer, I need to populate the Dead Forest level with current assets to get the tone of the level established"
• "As a level designer, I need to create clear boundaries for the player to restrict going off path."
• "As a level designer, I need to playtest my level to check for discrepancies so the level flows smoothly." [x2]

I'm concurrently working on "As a level designer, I need to populate the Dead Forest level with current assets to get the tone of the level established" and "As a level designer, I need to create clear boundaries for the player to restrict going off path." For the next sprint, I'll be finishing up my forest level and moving on to playtesting it before it gets implemented into the build. Ciao for now.

377 Mobile Development - Blog Post 2

Team Titan Sprint 4 - 5

This progress blog post about Titanic Arena will not be as long as the previous one since it will only cover two sprints, Sprint 4 and 5. Sprint 4 was already briefly covered in the last blog and we are currently on Sprint 5. But I will near the end cover what will be worked on for the remaining sprints and then some. But back to Sprint 4 and 5, both were fairly large sprints, Sprint 4 especially as we developed most of the game's major and minor features in that period. Sprint 5 is currently about polishing said features and starting the art development process. 

A Closer Look at Each Sprint: 

Sprint 4

Cards Assigned to Me: 12

1. As a player, I would like basic upgrades that increase my health and speed (3) [From Sprint 3]
2. As a Player, I would like to earn gold for weapons and upgrades for each hit (1) [From Sprint 3]
3. As a player, I want the game modes to be improved and balanced based on feedback (1)
4. As a team, we want the APK to be ready by the playtest (1)
5. As a designer, I want to improve the UI so the font could be readable on mobile (1)
6. As a player, I want to be able to upgrade my character after boss waves (1)
7. As a Player, I would like to have a shop to spend gold on weapons and upgrades. (1)
8. As a designer, I need a button from the menu that leads the player to the shop (1)
9. As a designer, I need a button from the shop that the player can tap on that leads them back to the main menu (1)
10. As a player, I would like the controls to be bigger on-screen so I can use them (1)
11. As a player, I want the controls and games to work seamlessly on mobile and emulator (1)
12. As a player, I want to be able to save my game and return to it after I quit the game (3)

Incompleted Cards: 1

1. As a player, I want to be able to save my game and return to it after I quit the game (3)

Our team got a lot of work done this sprint and for me, this was the most cards I got assigned and finished in a sprint. I'm incredibly proud and in awe of my amazing team and how much we improved in getting done each sprint. In the first two sprints, I was assigned 4 cards, the third sprint and at the beginning of the fourth sprint I was assigned 8 cards but at the end of Sprint 4, I completed 11 cards. Some are cards that had to do with improving the game based on feedback and working on UI. My main project was to work on one of our game's major features, the upgrade system. I'm pretty proud that I got it to work and that the player's stats save throughout the scenes but it's not finished yet. The save and quit aspect of the upgrade system will be worked on in Sprint 5. 

Upgrade Shop Feature

Sprint 5

Cards Assigned to Me: 12

1. As a developer, I would like to make sure the UI is visible and clear to the player [Feedback] (1)
2. As a player, I would like the upgrade shop to be obvious so I know where they are. It should be added to the game over screen and more visually appealing on the main menu [Feedback] (1)
3. As a developer, I need to make sure the joystick does not go off-screen [Feedback] (.5)
4. As a Player, I want a main menu that draws me in and makes a good impression of the game (1)
5. As a team, we want the APK to be ready by the playtest (1)
6. As a player, I would like a dynamic model for the default player character that draws me into the game (1)
7. As a player, I would like the upgrades to have an impactful difference [Feedback] (1)
8. As a player, I want my warrior character to have individual stats (.5)
9. As a player, I want my swinging character to have individual stats (.5)
10. As a player, I want my rogue character to have individual stats (.5)
11. As a player, I would like to be able to upgrade my attack (1)
12. As a player, I want to be able to save my game and return to it after I quit the game (3) [From Sprint 4]

Completed Cards: 

1. As a developer, I would like to make sure the UI is visible and clear to the player [Feedback] (1)
2. As a player, I would like the upgrade shop to be obvious so I know where they are. It should be added to the game over screen and more visually appealing on the main menu [Feedback] (1)
3. As a developer, I need to make sure the joystick does not go off-screen [Feedback] (.5)

Sprint 5's focus will be on working on making art assets, polishing and finalizing our features, and improving the game based on feedback. So far it's been a slow start, none of us are really "artsy" people so we're all trying to figure out how to approach the graphic assets. I've been assigned to finishing up the save and upgrade features which I still need to research more into. I'm not entirely sure if saving and loading a game after quitting works the same on mobile as it does on a computer and I haven't done something like it before as well so it has been a rather tough feature to properly implement. I've gotten some of the UI elements out of the way to get some work done as I try to implement the save feature into our game. We're still in Sprint 5 and have a few days left so hopefully we can get a good size chunk of the work done!

Shop Icon

Total Card Count (as of now):

Cards Assigned to Me: 38

Completed Cards: 29

Cards in Progress: 9

Total Point Count (as of now):

Points Assigned to Me: 24

Completed Points: 33.5

Points in Progress: 9.5

There is a point value now which shows the number of workdays I've been assigned to, the amount I've completed, and the days left in do. I'm a bit amazed at the pretty accurate representation of work I've done, which more or less is equivalent to a month of work. I do feel I might have gotten more done by it's nice to have a numerical visual of how much work I've been doing. Of course, it's not 100% accurate but it feels about right.

Issues/Problems Encountered 

Problem #1: Upgrade Conflicts 

One of the problems I encountered during Sprint 4 was that the upgrades and player stats persisting over scenes worked for my Unity project but not Adam's or Austin's. It was a bit frustrating to work with and it's unsure if that's a Unity Collab problem (which we do have before with some of Adam's work) or my scripting/coding problem. 

Solution #1: Adam adding to code and disabling the Attack upgrade for now

With Adam's help, we got it mostly working again by assigning different values for upgrades and the base stats. The upgrades were nerfed a bit during that process but we'll be looking at improving that in Sprint 5 and with my assigned card, "As a player, I would like the upgrades to have an impactful difference [Feedback] (1)". The attack upgrades had to be disabled through that since it caused things on my other teammate's end to not work properly. Somehow the attacks worked on my end but Adam and Austin could not attack due to the attack value being reset to 0 and because the attack started at 0, they couldn't earn gold to upgrade the attack. This upgrade will hopefully be added back in when we improve the upgrades overall. 

Parasitic Sprint 4 Blog Post

Parasitic Level Design Post#4

My tasks in Sprint 4 revolved around finishing my first level and starting a new one. The cards assigned to me this sprint are: 

• "As a level designer, I need to add enemies from the project into my scene based off of the annotated map"
• "As a level designer, I need an asset list for the Dead Forest level that shares the asset theme from the meadow level but this time more decayed"
• "As a level designer, I need to annotate a large Dead Forest level that starts with our heros having to maneuver a maze before finding the exit that leads to an arena for a mini boss battle"
• "As a level designer, I need to block out a large Dead Forest level that starts with our heros having to maneuver a maze before finding the exit that leads to an arena for a mini boss battle"
• "As a level designer, I need to populate the Dead Forest level with current assets to get the tone of the level established"
• "As a level designer, I need to create clear boundaries for the player to restrict going off path."
• "As a level designer, I need to playtest my level to check for discrepancies so the level flows smoothly."

 The first two cards I finished for this sprint was the card for the asset list and the annotated map for the new level. I did these two cards first because we were still waiting on some enemies and assets from the programmers and the artists. I got both cards done fairly fast. The asset list was fairly simple since the level's theme was a "dead forest", I mainly just needed different variations of dead trees or leaf-less trees and maybe more foliage. Though we do have several nature assets that I used for my first level and those can be used for this new level as well. The annotated map went through one iteration before it was approved. My first draft of it was too simple and some of the feedback I got about it was that it needed to be more maze-like and I should also add a legend for the different buff tiles. 

Initial Concept of Level

I quickly went back into photoshop to make it more complex and added in a few more tiles. The way this version works is similar to my first level where the player has three paths of varying difficulty where they can travel through. But unlike my previous level, the paths aren't as straightforward and direct and the difficulty varies a lot more. I also did a fog of war version of it to show how it would look like for the player and where the pockets of enemies would be at. 

Final Concept of Level

Fog of War Version

After those two cards, I went back to my first level and finished implementing the remaining enemies as well as adding the buff tile assets around the level and finally, playtesting-playtesting-playtesting. It took roughly 30 minutes to finish the level and around 100 round each time. My level was surprisingly difficult if you play too aggressively. The way the level is designed is that there technically are three pathways with three pockets of enemies each. The three characters the player controls should stick together because defeating one pocket of enemies alone is very difficult especially if those pockets housed any of the harder enemies such as the charger and stalker. It was decided that the charger enemy will be removed from the level.

100 rounds to win

The cards I have left are: 

• "As a level designer, I need to block out a large Dead Forest level that starts with our heros having to maneuver a maze before finding the exit that leads to an arena for a mini boss battle"
• "As a level designer, I need to populate the Dead Forest level with current assets to get the tone of the level established"
• "As a level designer, I need to create clear boundaries for the player to restrict going off path."
• "As a level designer, I need to playtest my level to check for discrepancies so the level flows smoothly."

The card I'm currently working on is blocking out the level. Next, I'll be working on populating the level based on the annotated map. I feel that I'm making steady progress and I hope to finish this new level by the end of the next sprint. So until then, ciao!

Game Scene - Weekly Progress (Final Update)

 Game Scene - Weekly Progress

Final Post (Dec. 13)

Models and Textures: 

1. Tree 

Model and UV

Texture

2. Shrine 

Texture

3. Crystal, Circle Floor, Modular Floor Piece

Texture

4. Archway/Broken Archway

Texture

5. Rocks

Texture

6. Well & Glowing Circle Archway

Texture

7. Crystal Mound and Crystal Pillar/Support Beam

Model and UV

Model and UV

Texture

8. Statue 

Texture

9. Obelisk, Chest, Lights 

Texture

10. Crystal Centerpiece 

Texture

Particle Systems: 

1. Glowing Mist Particle 

2. Dust Particle 

The final day of this assignment is upon us. In total, I have textured 10 scenes or about 20 different objects. I also modeled two or three of those objects. For our Unity scene requirements, I worked on the two different types of particle systems that are required in our scene. 

The only problems I encountered in Maya were mistakes I made myself. These mistakes were pretty novice things such as forgetting to change the measurements from centimeters to meters or forgetting to UV before duplicating an object twenty plus times. I could easily solve this by scaling up the model by 100 or aligning and snapping the UVs together.  

Some of the problems I encountered are mostly revolved around Substance Painter. By problems, I mean that Substance Painter began to crash a lot within our final week of this project. This problem could be due to the lack of storage space on my "C:"- drive which is strange because the cache space and the installation for the Substance Painter program should be in my "D:" - drive. It could also be that my graphics card driver is out of date. Regardless the only solution I have for this issue is to save as often as I can and hope that Substance does not crash. Aside from that, I also had issues with using opacity and emissive sliders on the same layer. The solution for that was rather simple, I used two different layers, or rather the base texture would use opacity and I would add a paint layer and paint on emissive details. 

Overall, I felt this project went smoothly for me. However, we did push a lot of the Unity scene work on the last day. Unfortunately, Unity Collab only allows for three-person teams so the only help I could provide is working on a separate Unity project and giving advice and tech support. It was stressful to watch my team panic through the final hours but at least we got it done despite missing a few aspects. 

I learned that time management is important for large group projects like these and it's especially important to not cram work on the last day despite it seeming like the last element, it's actually the most important. But for my work, I feel very proud of my texturing and all the new tricks I learned. The UV tools such as the align and snap tools are god-send and the 3D gradient in Substance is really fun to play with. I'm glad the particles look pretty good and I hope for future projects these skills will come in handy. Until next time! 

Week 8 (Dec. 9)

The last week is upon us. And for this last week, I modeled and textured a crystal mound and pillar as well as transferring the circle arch model into the well scene so they can be on the same UV sheet. The crystal model wasn't too difficult, just a lot of duplication and moving the different polygon cylinders around so they seem to be in a gem/rock formation. The one thing I forgot to do is UV the main crystals first before duplicating them. But thanks to that I learned so UV tricks, including snapping UV and aligning them. Thus I could easily align the 20 crystal UV faces together in groups of pentagons, hexagons, and octagons. After I beveled them so they would have a smoother look instead of a sharper one. After that, I slanted the top faces so the crystal looked more like the reference photos. The crystal pillar was easily done after I finished the crystal mound. That is because I used the crystal mound as a base for the crystal pillar and then just stuck a large crystal into the center. Then I could duplicate the mound and use it as a top lid for the pillar. 

Reference

Reference

Crystal Mound

Crystal Pillar

After getting our lead's approval, I moved it to Substance Painter and used the previous crystal and pillar textures as a base. The nice thing about this is that textures can be used in-between models so they all have a similar feel and can blend into each other in our environment and scene. Of course, I also added details and layers as well as playing with the layers and colors to make each model differs from the other. 

Textured

After I worked on transferring the circle arch textures to be in the same scene as the well. Our modelers decided to combine the well and circle arch models to save space on a UV sheet thus I would need to re-add the textures of the circle arch. Thanks again to Substance Painter's "create smart-material" it's easy to move textures. However, the painted details did not get moved so smoothly and I had to add them again. For some reason, Substance Painter kept crashing as I did the textures. I had to constantly save because I was terrified it might crash again. I finished the well model textures thankfully. 

Reference

Well Textured

However as I was exporting the textures, I realized I made a mistake in mixing up specular with emissive. I had to go back and redo the emissive by swap it with the specular parts. But then the opacity stopped working! I'm now stuck at this problem where the opacity of my textures isn't working properly... 

Opacity stops working

Oh thank god, it works again

I didn't find any solutions online so I just tried to redo the textures and created a new shader instance. Apparently creating a new shader instance worked! For some reason, the one I used previously was "outdated" and I had to create a new shader and reselect the alpha-blending. I breathed a sigh of relief and quickly exported the textures before any other problems occur. 

I updated Substance Painter to the newest version so hopefully no more crashes. And just four or so more models to go! We'll have to pick it up to make it in time for Sunday... 

Obligatory photo of Trello

Week 7 (Dec. 2)

Since we're coming back from a break, it's been a bit slow. The only card I was assigned to and finished was texturing the circular archway. This archway is an alternate archway compared to last week's gradient archway. The circular archway has a gradient as well but there isn't a broken version like the other archway. This is because this archway is less prominent and leads to the final room. The reference I used is:

I tried my best to follow the reference as close as possible but it is a bit difficult due to the lack of a proper light source. From the looks of it, there is a dark to light gradient going up the sides of the arch. There are also inner pillars that seem to be transparent and emissive. The circle itself seems to have three layers: a non-emissive material outer layer, a detailed emissive inner layer, and a ring of light inside of that. However, the model only has two layers for the ring, thus the outer layer has the same gradient material as the sides and the inner layer has emissive details. Some problems I encountered during texturing has the stencil being dull. I had to copy the layer two or three times to make the emissive brighter. Hopefully, it translates well in Unity. 

My next textures should be the obelisk that Matthew recently finished and the statue model that Austin is currently working on. There should be two or so more models after that and then we'll be focusing on putting everything into Unity. The next week will be our final week, so until then! Also here's a picture of the Trello board:

Week 6 (Nov. 18)

Longer week means a longer update since last week was shorter. I finished the circular piece, the uplifted floor piece, and the crystal piece that was created by Austin. After that, I textured the rock wall assets that William did. Currently, I am working on the archway models made by Matthew. 

The floor and crystal pieces took a bit longer to finish due to UV issues. In particular, the uplifted floor piece's UVs were a bit small, making the alpha and height detail textures blurry in comparison to the other pieces. Austin went back into Maya to upscale the UVs. Once he uploaded the updated Maya files, I could easily add back the textures using Substance Painter's smart materials. Luckily the alpha scaled up with the UVs as well so I didn't have to repaint the alpha. I did redo the height details so they fit better on the new UVs. The crystal textures did not take too long to make. Though unfortunately, my original plan for the crystal textures flopped. As stated last week I wanted to use opacity shaders to make my crystals a bit transparent or opaque. I then could use specular shaders to make it look like materials inside the crystal is what causes it to glow. However, the transparent shaders are a bit intense. The lines of the model pieces intersecting are too obvious and even making the opacity levels slow makes the sides of the crystal seem almost invisible. Thus I gave up on that plan and played with cloud layers and metallic levels instead to make a shiny colorful crystal. 

My next assignment was the rock wall. I used a concrete base for the color but the default colors were too cold which Matthew pointed out. I changed the colors to be warmer with a soft shade of red-ish peach. For the crystal parts of the wall, I reused the crystal textures from the previous piece and added more details such as the hammered filter. 

What I am currently working on and finishing up is the Archway textures. I made them similar to the shrine textures I did a while back. This was important since a gradient generator was needed. Luckily Substance has a great gradient tool that was a lot easier to use than I thought. I adjusted the colors to make the black-blue top and bottom parts more of a navy blue and the interior arch is now a white-ish color. 

Reference

Finished Textures

The archway textures are the only card I have left in the in-progress list. After finishing the textures for this, the next models I might be working on are the statues or the glowing archway. But that's all I have for now, until next time! 

Week 5 (Nov. 8)

This update is for a shorter week since our next meet up is on a holiday. So far we fixed up the previous models and UVs. I mentioned last week that I was working on the circular piece. However, the UVs for that were not completed because there are several other models on the UV sheet. So I went back to the group and Austin added his crystal piece to the UV sheet and reorganized the UVs. Once I got the Maya file, I went in and did the ID and low-poly FBX exports for transferring them over to Substance. 

Circular Piece Reference

Uplifted Floor Piece Reference

With a fresh Substance file with the new FBXs and mesh maps, I first worked on the circular piece. Of course, I saved my progress from last week as a smart material so I can easily reuse them but also I tweaked the materials and added further details.

Circular Piece Texture and Layers

UVs

Once I finished up those textures, I did the uplifted floor piece next. The UVs for this piece was smaller since it doesn't need to be that detailed. I did my best to replicate the fancy pattern though the side details are a lot hard to do since the UV sheet is too small for those details to be visible. 

Uplifted Floor Piece Textures and Layers

UVs

The next thing and last piece from this group I need to work on is the crystal. I still need a Trello card and references for that from the team but once that's settled I'll start on it. What I do plan to do with the crystal piece is make it a little bit opaque and use specular to make it "glow". 

Finally, here is a progress shot of the Trello Board as of now.

Trello Progress

Week 4 (Nov. 4)

For this week, I finished up texturing the Shrine model. The textures for this model were split into 4-5 different parts. The upper part of the model (the roof and arch) are in a dark-blue marble material. I used a jade material as a base and added details and grunge maps so it matches the reference picture. The references I used for texturing the shrine's roof and arches are: 

The next step is the columns which have a gradient from the dark blue to white to a purple-ish color and finally a lighter green. I used a lot of 3D gradient generators to try and achieve a more seamless look. 

Lastly, the shrine interior which I textured in two areas. The outer ring which was a darker purple and the inner center piece which was brighter and more wavy. I couldn't get it exact so I put my own spin to it and tried to replicate the details through another method. I'm still pretty glad it turned out well despite me having troubles with the purple emissions. 

The Trello card I finished this week is "As a player, I would like the shrine model with a roof to be textured like the reference images.".  Currently I'm in-progress with making textures for the circular floor piece. 

Progress

My next assignments are to finish the circular piece and then move on to the uplifted floor piece. After I'll be texturing the archway. Until next time! 

Week 3 (Oct. 28)

This week I worked on modeling, UV-ing, and texturing a tree asset. This tree asset will be in two of the rooms in our scene, the greenhouse/nature room (the first room) and the statue + key room. The pictures I referenced for the tree are the two below: 

Modeling the tree was fairly easier than I expected because our team found a really good tutorial on Youtube. I UV-ed it with the 3D cut and sew tool and moved on to texturing when I got both the model and the UV approved with the modelers. 

I ran into some problems between the UV to the texturing phase. The first being the weird shading I had when I imported the model into Substance Painter. Then the second problem being the tree model breaking when I tried to fix the UVs in Maya. 

Thankfully Tony helped me out with a tip on the UV via adding an edge loop around the bottom to fix the shading a bit and to fix some of the UVs. I also learned that the model-breaking problem could be fixed by exporting the model to another scene. The reason why it broke is still elusive but some of the theories we came up with include: the size scaling of the scene from centimeters to meters might have caused a break somewhere or the curves did not react properly with the main model (since exporting the model didn't include the curves, it worked in a new scene). 

Now that the modeling issue is mainly fixed, I moved onto texturing the tree. From the reference pictures, the model's textures seemed pretty basic; wood material with some height maps for the lines. I did basically that but used two base wood materials, one for a lighter shade and one for a darker shade. Then I had two dirt materials, one using a grunge map and the other a generator. For details, I added bumps or mud spots near the stump and the roots of the tree. I also tried to add moss with color and height detail, but I noticed it looked a bit off so I turned the opacity for that down just so it shows as subtle detail rather than green bumps on a yellow-ish tree. 

The three cards I was assigned to and finished for this sprint were: "As a player, I would like a tree base model so that the room may have life in it.", "As a player, I would like UVs for the tree.", and "As a player, I would like a tree textured like the reference images." For the next sprint, I am most likely going to focus more on texturing assets as my team members start finishing up their models and UVs. Until then!

Week 1-2 (Oct. 20)

Our final project is to get into teams of 4-5 and developed a game scene from a selected list of games. Our team decided to work on a scene inspired by the game Destiny 2. We concluded that we would make a lost sector type of game scene with the objective of finding a key and opening a treasure chest. The major theme of this level is a crystallized cave with small pieces of nature tucked within it. Below are reference screenshots that were taken by our lead Matthew: 

Reference: Greenhouse/Nature room

Reference: Final treasure room

Reference: Entrance/Hallway

So far our asset list is comprised of: 

• Broken and Non-Broken Archway 
• Special Circle-like Archway
• Baryon Bough Tree(s)
• Circular Floor piece
• Crystals 
• Crystal Mound
• Giant Centerpiece Crystal
• Crystal Walls
• Ceiling Support Crystal
• Lost Sector Chest
• Small props
• Lanterns, Scrolls, Different Types of Pottery, Chalice
• Obelisk
• Statue (human-sized)
• Uplifted Floor Piece
• Well

Some of the assets and the references 

These assets were chosen to convey our theme of a crystal cave for our lost sector game scene. There's a lot of assets that are crystals and natural elements, specifically trees. We'll also be added a statue and obelisk as well as pottery to hint at civilization, the fact that people have come through here before the player. That is also a good reason why there is a treasure chest here and why the game scene is a "lost sector".

 

For this sprint, our tasks revolved around concepting, gathering references, and setting up Unity's collab. The two major cards, "As a designer, I would like an annotated map so I may identify key points of the scene." and "As a designer, I would like a blocked out Unity scene to gauge the scope of the project." were assigned to everyone on the team because we all worked together to come up with our concept. The only individual cards assigned this sprint went to Matthew (to set up the backlog and create the asset list) and William (to set up Unity). 

Short first sprint

Matthew, Austin, and Willam will be the ones on the team with access to Unity's collab. Together they made a blocked out scene in Unity that had the basic layout of our game scene as well as core props and pieces. After I used the screenshot they took of the topdown view of the block-out and annotated it in Photoshop. 

Annotated Map

From here on out, we'll be going into modeling, texturing, and setting up the scene in Unity. Specifically for the next sprint, we'll be focusing on modeling out the major assets of the first room which is nature-themed. I'm excited to see what we'll come up with and how this final project will go! Ciao for now.