What Have I Been Up To???

Ok I've been super bad at posting on this blog.  Which is a shame, I really ought to use it to my advantage.  I've been hard at work doing various Tripleslash Studios work trying to get Magnetic by Nature out there.  So if you don't know, we released Magnetic by Nature: Awakening on the XBLIG market and raised some money on kickstarter and got some more money at the Utah Game Wars Competition for Best Developed Game to turn the game into something bigger, badder, and wicked awesome.  So we have been working on that for over 6 months and it is looking and feeling great!  We will be releasing toward the end of 2013 on whatever platforms we can get it to.

Most recently I've been working on the end point flowers doing new ones for each zone and throwing in an idol animation and "on-touch" animation.  I'll try to get some pictures posted.

I recently got a full time job doing web design, graphic design, photo, and video for a real estate company in Midvale, UT called Realtypath.  You can check them out at www.utahhomes.org.

I've been stretching myself to learn about web design.  I've already done three websites for the company. Feel free to take a look -  I started with www.sellmyutahhome.com.  It was my first REAL website.  I learned a lot in the process.  I've been getting a little better and faster as time goes on. I still have a lot to learn.

For the next two websites I tried to draw inspiration from interior home design.  On www.saltlakecityhomesandrealestate.com I imagined a dark hard wood floor with a white leather couch resting gently on it.  I then took a color scheme that felt family oriented.  Almost like the kids left out some crayons on the floor. My intent was to create something fun but elegant.  I had some troubles getting the top navigation menu to stationary as the rest of the page scrolled.  But it was fun figuring it all out.

Most recently on www.searchhomesforsaleinutah.com I wanted to work with an Italian home theme.  I picked a granite background with a bit of a stucco texture. The color scheme then utilizes a burnt off-white and a deep red to show off the classy yet traditional flare of Italy.  The Turquoise adds a pop of color you might find in window drapes or painted wooden rocking chairs on the front porch.

I've had a lot of fun with these websites and know that I still have a lot to learn.  Who knew I'd enjoy web design so much?  

Progress for GDC

I've been wildly busy and need to update some progress.  We've been doing tons of work making coherent levels(artwise).  We have been working on doodads (background art) and have made four different zones.  In particular, I have had to put more time into my Lead Designer role.  Since producing levels has been a high priority, I have spent a lot of time coming up with requirements and suggestions for level design and have play tested, critiqued, fixed, and organized levels to fit the proper progression of difficulty.  I will be spearheading the actual decorating of these levels as well.  For now, we have assigned artists to decorate the first 15 levels we have for GDC.  These aren't final by any means, but provide something to show.  I also plan on doing some concept art.  We may include some story/narrative through the means of still images cut up throughout the game.  We will only consider this an option if other, more crucial assignments are fulfilled.  Here are a few art stuffs I've been working on.  One is a lotus flower (which we have since decided to go with a slightly different look) and the next are the plasma beam end caps (the final one is intentionally small...)

Level Design

Hey there.  Just me checking in again.  I haven't updated this here blog for a little while because I was in Asia for the past month on other business.  While there, I focused heavily on level design.  We have a pretty rockin' level editor that all the artists and programmers are starting to design on.  I kept most of my designs on paper for now (since I had limited access to the editor in Asia).  I'll update the next post with some pictures of potential level designs. 

My next task is to work on the collectable flower.  I've been sketching up some ideas and will run them by our Art Lead in hopes to get a final design vectorized.  Then I'll let her give me my next assignment!  I will also have some animations to work on.  We are currently creating a list of animations needed and we will distribute those amongst the artists to be completed. 

In between that, I'm also going through all of the level designs done on the editor by others on the team and will try rate them from easier puzzles to harder puzzles so we can start laying out connections for good game flow. 

Well that's it for now!  I'll get some pictures updated and hopefully get some cool animations going.  Til' next time!

Alpha!

Ok, so clearly I've been busy and haven't had a free second to post... which is no excuse.  So what have we been doing?  Well I got the Game Design Document all finished.  (Minus spelling errors).  I have it posted on gitwiki for my team so we can all stay on the main vision of the game.  As artists, we have been working on getting the alpha level ready.  It is finally done and we got to show it off at the EAE open house.  It went really well and people gave us some really great feedback.  It took some effort to get the art assets into the level, and it was a bit of a learning curve that I can't pretend to admit I'm completely over yet, but it is done, I this brings me joy. 

So how did my semester go?  Well it went amazingly well!  You scroll through my posts to see everything I have done for the game (well not everything...).  Next semester I plan to contribute to more aspects of the game.  We spent the most time doing environments and character design, but I also want to contribute in modeling, animating, lighting, UI, etc.  So now that we have a nice process for getting art into the game, we will be able to move at a much quicker pace.  We did a very good job to adhering to our scrum process and for the most part got everything done according to the time limits we gave ourselves.  Every once in a while we would have hold-ups and have to pastpone a few things, but we are all very proud of what we have accomplished so far.

We have a smooth art pipeline that we are all familiar with and plan to follow.  We want to make sure we are always doing things in a way that it can easily work with what the programmers require of us.

I learned a lot this semester.  I was VERY unfamiliar with the gray area where art meets programming.  I had no idea what format the programmers needed assets in or how animation would make it into the game.  I knew very little about sprite sheets and tiling.  Through our pipeline, I have been able to learn much more about this gray area.  I am learning how to better communicate with programmers to get the job done in the most efficient and effective way possible.  I also learned a lot of art gets thrown away.  I need to make sure to not grow attached to art that may never see the light of day.  It can be disappointing to spend time making art that gets the ax, but it is worth it to get to a coherent final product. 

We ran into the most trouble getting the art into the actual game.  Very few of us knew how to do that.  After closely working with the programmers, however, we were able to get it all in.  We still have a lot to learn, but with the established pipeline we are much better off than we were at the beginning of the semester.  Great semester, awesome current direction, we are going to blow this game out of the water.

Current progress

Ok, so I have been madly working on the game design document.  I am SO close to having it completed.  Just got a couple things to finish up.  We are hoping to connect it to a wiki so it can be easily viewed by the team and by others following our progress (assuming they actually exist).

The artists have been working on getting some solid levels done.  We have one picked out that we are cutting up so we can use it for the alpha level.  It is going to be awesome.  I've been put in charge of getting a logo for the game.  I've been sketching out some ideas... it is a little tricky since we don't have an official title for the game yet, but I'll figure something out.  It's a good time to do this because all the other artists have some pretty specific roles for the alpha (Evan and Becky are working on cutting up the level.  Cory is our technical artist and will be taking their work and bridging the gap with it into the engineering world.  Kyle is doing a walk and jump cycle for the hero. And Diana is working on animating the laser).  I'm available to help any of them that need extra assistance and while they are working, I am working on the logo, menus, and website skinning.

Things seem to be going well and I'm pretty confident we are going to have a wicked awesome alpha level.  We will inevitably run into some more bumps on the road, but things are going pretty smooth right now!  Hope that lasts! (Ya I'm not THAT naive...)

More Polish

Ok, so I got the value pass done.  Basically it represents an idea of where color/texture is going to go.  I gave him a yin-yang feel to reflect the bi-polarity of magnets.  I added value to the top of his head to highlight the horse-shoe-magnet-based design.  I think he is super cool and darn cute.  I was going for more of a cute, likeable character.  I felt it is important for the player to connect with the robot.  If he was too big/powerful, it wouldn't really match the narrative and style we are going for.  Here is the value pass:

 

I also worked on a couple more backgrounds.  I did three,  but one of them is seriously awful.  Hahaha.  Beyond repair.  So that one isn't going to make the cuts.  No human eyes should ever have to look upon it.  I did two with the same level design to play around with different backgrounds.  The foreground needs more attention.  I would like to add further detail to the gray "boxes" in the front.  The magnets also need to be made a little more visible/obvious....but this is about exploration, so I'm not too worried.  Here they are:

 

More to come! Stay tuned!

 

Rendered Character

Since we are all getting a character developed to a nice good ol' fashion silhouette in vector, here is mine.  I'll be doing a value pass then a color pass next.  But here is the final silhouette.  Personally, I think he is beyond awesome.  I'm really happy with how this is turning out.