Final Project Evaluation   

   in a summary the project is a simple game created in unity 3d using some imported models from cinema 4d, creating a playable and to some degree challenging game.

over the duration of the unity i have not only increased the current rate of existing skills and knowledge associated with the topic but also some newer skills too, Firstly my understanding of using and manipulating  programs like unity 3d has widely increased and very quickly considering that this project is the first time i have used any software like  unity 3d my understanding of programming and coding although i had a basic knowledge of it as i begun the project has also somewhat increased and although i have not mastered them i do now i understand elements like ray casting, collision detection , tagging , function On triggers , public and private variables and various ways in which they can be used for the game which i have experimented with.

My understanding of the unity software has improved as previously mentioned i had no past experience with it i at first had problems getting to grips with the layout , the navigation and using the tools and equipment provided  by  the software however this was quickly resolved and i was able to effectively able to navigate and understand the relevant information.

from a games design perspective i have learned a lot about the actual design process how things can change rapidly from there original designs or even adding one element can surprisingly add new opportunities for other elements, i began this project with a good idea of how games are designed and small knowledge of how they actually are made for example  what problems are common as well as knowing how to experiment with out going completely off  track of  the  original intent ,i believe this experience has changed that i now better  understand what methods for creating and designing will work and which ones will not.
I believe i have also improved my capabilities to make a game involving and challenging and learning to take basic elements of a game and make them better suited for a working game as well as a further understanding of balancing the game play and adjusting it so that is better suited for those who are unfamiliar or under-expiranced in games or just this specific type of game,
my overall  knowledge of visual design has improved also learning how certain visual aspects like visual connection (i.e. shape or colour) can help a player understand the context and function of everything in the game as well as how certain styles and layouts of a level or particular  features of an objects design can communicate certain messages to the player like danger, motivation,mood  or importance.

The hole purpose behind this topic and my particular choosing of what i intended to create was solely to gain a larger understanding of the conceptual , design and creation elements of video game design and to gain an actual re actionable experience with all of these processes to help with future study of this subject.
I believe this experience will help my future projects and studies of game design as i can analyse what did and did not work and identify what/what not to do in future projects as well as further understand my own advantages and limitations in terms of game creation.
i also understand this as an assessment of how i deal with multiple tasks and a self defined self directed study and work ,again allowing me to understand where i need improvement in these fields.



Threw out this project there have been many successful and unsuccessful aspects, my most unsuccessful and my personal most unsatisfactory element of the experience was the very beginning of the project my actions and attitude towards the creation of the game was not very productive towards my long term understanding of the topic as i simply attempted to create a product in the simplest way however this removed the learning aspect , quickly thow i realised this was impractical and began to take the time to understand everything i had all ready done as-well as what i intended to do.
in terms of the game itself there are quite a few flaws however some are minor and can be fixed
the most notable errors i had were during the process which have all now been resolved the most prominent of these was a fault in the games sciprting which caused it to crash as the player began the game however as i said this error has been resolved a few minor flaws which still persist are errors with player movement  and one of the player involved shooting functions causing the associated projectile to spawn in strange positions or act differently whilst the player is in motion.

My personal achievements come from just being able to learn and understand some more advanced functions of scripting and understanding some of the more technical aspects of game design helping my understanding of what problems  i might face in the future but also giving me enough knowledge and experience to in the immediate future to experiment with.
i am also pleased with my progress with creatively being able to improvise or change aspects of the  design or the physical game usually largely benefiting the game , these decisions over the course of the experience have helped me to understand how to  balance games for players making it much more entertaining for players but also how create a more immersive game and how best to communicate with your audience threw visual and auditory  mediums.

in the future i believe i can improve my faults by dedicating a little more time to understanding scripting further i also regret not looking into other forms of scripting languages other than java script
as i feel experimenting and researching what the other languages would be capable of or how they might be easier or more convenient to use  in certain situations  

Final Project Research

Final Project Research   

During my time on the course i have assembeld a number of ideas for both art styles and styles if game play for my own video game that i wish to create during my career however for my final project i whanted to createsomething simple, uniqe but not too complex in terms of both art and gameplay.

my first inital idea was create a 3rd person dungion crawler focused on puzzles with a gothic/medevil theme however i decided against it feeling it might not be as intresting artistically

and the third person prespective might not be as easy to program however my final idea came down to a first person game with a few small puzzle themes and a science fiction art style.

                                                       Art

The main insperation for the art style is a game created by irrational games called system shock 2 a first person shooter RPG which artistic themes center around cyberpunk illustrations and digital age looking technoloagys some of which have a organic twist or under tone hinting at a slight insperation from the surrerial art works of HR giger however for my ownart works i decided to have lighter enviroments with a clinical white and blue feel however still keeping to the digital cross organic feel

, SS2 also featured along with many other games in this genere unatrual human abilaties mainly connected with phycic abilaties for my gmae however i whanted these abilaties to be the only tools at the disposial so designing each of these abilaties so that there functions are clear is neccearry.

a screen shot from system shock 2

the concepts for the enemies also uses the same themes although most of them will be lifeless looking robots but still reflect the theme of the enviroment that they inhabit, the majority of actions preformed by the player will be generated from a gunlet which the player has however there will be a few tools/weapons which the player can recive and use these will mainly be tools and eqipment that relate to what ever they might help to function in the levels for example the player might use a handheld computer to hack into a door and open it threw a console this will allow the player to identifiy what tools to use ,where and when.

                       origins and effects of scifi illustrations and art 




science fiction art first came into modern media in the early 1920s and 30s when various wrighters and poets became more invested into scifi wrighting thanks to pulp magazines what followed were various illiustratiors who would create landscapes and scenses for these storys this would continue up until  the early 40s when the advent of comic books into mainsream media where scifi became a big theme for this mediam,
 however it wasnt until the end of the second world war that media specifically comic books now in what is recoreded as the silver age of comics where it became heavily focused on science fiction as well as now scifi branching out into various sub catigiories,
by the 1960s wrighters like frank herbert and william gibson began to change the tone in which scifi is wrote as well of course the style of art work becoming proggressivly less posative about the future and slowly becoming darker and focusing less on future development and more on todays social and political issuess becoming exacerbated aswell as becoming more operatic focusing more on charecter development than what technolagys inhabit the future this again effcting what the art work centers around and what themes they communicate.
by the 1980s scifi now became a popular genere to the point where large number of films and television seris were centerd entirely around the genere and its respective sub generes the most famous of its time being star trek this is where both the genere and the artists inspired by it once again returend to the optimistic technolagy based fiction as in the real world the advent of various technolagys the most noteable the dawn of the computer which would become the dawn of the digital age which effects still influence the 21st centry,
at the peek of the digital age artists became inspired by the proggress of inventions like the internet as well as the beginig of video games which not only gave new light to scifi artists but also new jobs becuse films now using CGI aswell as video games focusing around scifi themes gave the oppurtunity for not just this but all generes  of art a broader range and an expanding market for the imagination  and creativity.

Scifi Art in gameing and sub genres 

     
 in video games science ficton is one of the most common for settings and asthetics it can range from a large number of enviroments and designs for objects and creatures that inhabit the game , in my opinion the most successfull of these are often reinforced by a very uniqe artistic design that makes them stand out of ocurse many borrow from films or previous illustrative works but the best look individual and uniqe.

Halo4


 take the screenshot (above)  from the xbox franchise halo for example , the halo franchise has a devirse artistic style to it with geological enviroments and mysterious arictecture being paid attention to in excelent detail as well as a good sence of atmosphere like lighting and ambience all connected together to create a uniqe , intresting and other  worldly senese.

DeadSpace2

 
one example of a sub genere is the scifi-horror genere mixing the technonlagys  and settings of science fiction and fusing them with the topics , susspence and physcological imagery of the horroe franchise when done correctly this mixture of ideas can be potent not only are players in an unkown enviroment which they would normally feel unsafe and uncumtorbal but various effects and scenes can also communicate suspense and mystery usally ustalsing instinctive paranoia,
many games use the same methods and styles that older horror films to convey similar effects but so that it also involves the player into the context  , this method can ethier be succsesfull for some but fail to suck other players in, the most recent game to use this style is Viseral Studios Dead space seris 
they have aken both the artistic styles and  film/animation styles most noteabley the  john carpenters "The thing" and the "Aliens" franchise, but as much as it takes from these films it gives back plenty of its own uniqe imagery.

one of my inspiration for both design and gameplay is valves portal series in terms of graphical style it has been designed to look clinical but it also does this to allow more important aspects of the game to stand out like the portals are rendered in bright colours so that the player can see them very easily from a distance or threw clutter also objects the play can use or must avoid also stand out with this design however the art style is still very effective giving the sense that the player is isolated  in and endless number of testing facilities that have been abandoned for a long time.



                                                     history of the surreial art movment 




surreialst art is primarly based around the un expected and the non sensisical depicting unexplainable imagry many of the artists claim there works to have deeper meanings however any meaning behind these works is mostly just a matter of perspective.
the surrialist movment began around the 1920s originating in paris  as a side effect of the first world war and has since spread into litueratre , philosaphy , film and music as well as spreading internationally into msny countrys and lunguages,

Notable Artists 

Salvador Dali: Perhaps the most popular and well known figure in the surreal movement he was a Spanish painter born in 1904 is most notable for his stunning and imaginative paintings the most famous peace is titled "the presitence of time" or popularly nicknamed "the melting clocks"  Dalis inspirations consist mainly of the works of the the renaissance artists as well as oriental and Arabic designs  however his works do not stop at painting they extend to photography, film making , fashion architecture  and even sculpting.

Robert Rauschenberg: born in 1925 hes an american artist whos work is considerd to have significantly added the transition from abstract expressionism to pop-art with his use of unusual materials ,his  works extend from photography to painting , sculpting , printmaking , paper-making and various coll-abs.

in his abstract production 

    

Final Project Blog

Final Project Blog 

During the first few weeks of the final project i hve managed to model a small portion of the games level and familiarizing my self with the layout and modeling abilities of unity at first i attempted to import various models for the scene like a set of  stair cases from cinema 4d into unity however i decided against that and created a few ramps which would allow easier access for the players , ive finalized the art style for the environment from the two choices the first was a med evil themed dungeon to fit with  the old dungeon crawler games in the early 90s or a surreal science fiction style inspired by the PC game system shock 2 i decided too go with the latter as it seemed a more interesting choice
, in these few weeks ive also began to create primitive first person controls and interactions using java scripts attached to the main camera allowing the player to control and navigate with it establishing at first person style.
I am using Cinema 4d to create models for use in game.

ive now began to work on other game mechanics for example i have now successfully established a shooting script and a respective projectile again using JavaScript, i believe i have  increased
my understanding of the scripting language so far in particular java script i can now understand and use  the proper punctuation and language for scripting as well as a better understanding of the use for variables, tags , references  and functions.
A functioning door has also now been established which requires the player to collide with a switch object in the level which destroys the door allowing accesses however i intend to add a animation insted of destroying the door later in the creation process.

i have briefly touched upon unity's animation engine and i have learned the basics like navgation, layout  and event taging , i will try to use this for  a later point in the project.


 as the project has continued i have finalized ideas for the visual aspect  of the game  i have also modeled more of the   actual level attempting to coincide it with the design i have also now setup a shooting script and some more advanced first person controls including full rotation of the camera via the mouse which is now allowing for easier and smoother navigation for the player , the shoot script that i have created is a basic function of creating  and transforming an  object in this case a small sphere complete with a fireball texture and fire animation the only fault so far is that i am having an issue with object recycling where by the objects do not die away however this small error  will be fixed shortly,
i have also created a cross hair to aid the player as basic 2d GUI texture thats fixed to the center of the screen  this has given me a chance to understand how HUBs can be created  as well as there uses
and i intend to experiment with a HUB  further into the project.


the project continues with an attempt to create a main objective for the player my first idea was to have the players retrieve a number of objects which would allow them to progress into another part of the level this would come with a GUI to indicate and allow the players to track there progress
i attempted to create a restriction for the area which the players are trying to reach as well as creating properties for a basic object which once the player collided with it would not only destroy the object but , add to the GUI texture as well as send the appropriate message to the array which all these objects  information is being kept track of once all of the conditions were met in this case all the objects being destroyed and there respective scripts being false would remove the area restriction,
i had a few problems creating this however so i decided to try a similar idea which involved a door and at least 5 corresponding switches  all of which have to be triggered in a fair time limit given the size of the current level as well as the speed of the player and knowledge the player might have of the layout i decided a 3 minute limit would give newer players enough time to locate and activate the switches, i am currently looking into creating a time limit counter as a GUI to alert the player.

i have briefly experimented with an AI script that was acquired from a separate source  i was able to modify it slightly to be part of my game however any attempts to get it to attack the player were unsuccessful however i was able to get the AI to follow a simple way point , i have since scrapped the enemy concept and i have tried to create a simpler enemy for the game i am trying to create a sentry gun  ( a static enemy that will attempt to kill the player at a certain range) using a script that i have acquired
however this time i disassembled the script and built it from the ground up and learning what each chunks function is and then modifying the finished script to my own needs , it works by tracking a tagged  object ( in this case  ray cast the player) and uses a to communicate with 2 external scripts the first also attached to the sentry gun which is a weapon script ( in this case a machine gun script) and a Player damage script attached to the player if the ray-cast is targeting the player tag then it will send the information from the machine gun script to the players damage script, however the object has to transform in order to align the ray-cast so shoot its target.

now that both the sentry guns and the main objectives have been established i have re organized there positions and edited the current level a little to provide more of a challenge for the player setting up obstacles and traps like one of the objectives being only accessible from certain platforms or parts of the level giving a disadvantage to the player against the turrets, i have from here tested the game to see if the obstacles were fair enough given the time limit of collecting objectives as well as taking in to consideration the fact that players will not be knowledgeable about the levels layout and the nature of the obstacles after a bit of testing i increased the time limit slightly to make it a bit more balanced.

i have been experimenting with sound and importing some models from cinema 4d, i managed to successfully import two models in cinema 4d which were both half's of the sentry gun model the reason being they need to both support separate scripts but work together for example the bottom half would need to support its own collider and also be static which the top half could not as it is required to rotate, as for sound i have successfully implemented a soundtrack for the game which is just a looped mp3 track in a Audio re verb zone which now provides some atmosphere for the game however i  have not yet successfully added other sounds that were intended such as footsteps, or a player being hit indication.

after testing it with a co league i discovered a few faults with the game specifically in movement and jumping like the player getting caught on the ceiling however after a few adjustments these faults were corrected