Game is Done

Well as of April 21st 2011, the finished version of Sol Invictus has been turned in and, with that, the Spring semester is over.

I want to take this opportunity to personally thank each and every person of team Voodoo Magic and team Lemon-Scented Miles for helping to make this game. I think I speak for everyone when I say that we all learned a lot from one another these past few months and we're all the wiser for it.

Let me take the time to thank everyone individually:

Kyle: Thanks for giving this group of juniors a really cool game idea and the initial passion to get us interested in making it. I know your senior year put a lot of stress on you and that you wish you could've put more work into the game, but trust me, we all understand and sympathize with your situation. And at least it payed off since you're now a graduate, so congrats man, you survived!

Matt: Thanks a lot for putting up with my nagging self during those submission deadlines and making those small changes to the game while testing the installer and making sure we passed enough of the TCRs at the same time. And thanks for always trying to make it to every team meeting to work on the game, despite having not-always-reliable transportation. It meant a lot having someone else stick around late on those Fridays to code with me, even if some of those times were spent playing WoW at the same time. But seriously, thanks for sticking with this team and with this game to the end.

Bobby: Thanks a shit-ton for putting so much effort into not just our game, but the artists' game as well, over so short a time. I mean refactoring the physics engine, redesigning and adding to the flight controls, tweaking the camera, getting physics working for the artists... I could go on but my fingers hurt. I wish I was more of a help to you while you were working on the artists' game, but hopefully next semester I'll be in your shoes and be working in Unity with artists, too. Then we'll be even. Anyway, thanks again for all the work you did, not to mention the occasional ride to / from school.

Liz: Thanks a ton for the amazing art that you provided for us, and for doing it so freaking fast. Alongside your other classes workload, too. It was a lot of fun critiquing your work while at the same time you were helping us figure out just how exactly we wanted this game to look. I learned a lot of neat and random art concepts from both you and Steven and I thank you both for all the fun that I had putting your art into our game.

Steven: You were no help whatsoever and your model was poop.....haha just messin' with ya. Seriously though, I have to thank you the most for working so hard modeling, rigging and animating that kickass dragon just to spend so many frustrating weeks at the end simply getting the dragon to face forward and look right. I'll definitely make sure I don't repeat those same mistakes in the future. And thanks so much for suggesting that animation hack idea and spending so much tedious time exporting all those frames during that last week. I'm really glad we at least got the dragon animating in-game, but I'm going to aim to improve my skills (animation pipeline-wise) for my next game. And thanks again for being my first fellow Digipen student on my Xbox Live friends list haha. It's always a blast playing Halo:Reach with you and your friends.

Well, that about sums it up. I wish we could have all gotten together for Red Robin one last time, but hey, it was fun while it lasted. I hope everyone has either a relaxing summer vacation or, like me, at least had a relaxing week off before your summer classes started. I hope we all manage to stay in touch with one another and I'll be the lucky one if I ever get the chance to work with any of you again in the future. Take care, stay safe, and continue kickin' ass.

- Ryan

Menu Things

Here's the new Options menu. At 800x600 and has a area to select which dragon model you want.

Here's the wave text. You wanted them darker... so I thought I'd try just a solid. Hope it's ok.

Then the How to Play button... it was a tight squeeze.

Hope you like it all!!

Final Texture Request

These texture asset requests are optional but would be greatly appreciated if they could be done.

- Increase the resolution of the Options Screen from its current resolution of 320x161 to 800x600.

- Create another button texture that says "How to Play". This one may be required by our instructors as its one of our TCR's, which matter for our grade. It will basically replace our "Controls" button texture.

- Create a texture that says "Wave Start" and another texture that says "Wave Complete" of the same font style as the rest of the buttons, but preferably with a darker outline if possible. If not, no worries. These two textures would be greatly appreciated. Ideal resolution should be slightly smaller than the title "Sol Invictus" in the title screen.

That's it. Steven, I'll email you the .fbx of Tad that I re-centered a little bit closer to the origin for you to play around with removing his legs if you want. Not a big priority. Thanks in advance.

Credits Screen Layout

Here is what our current Credits screen looks like:

That white space on the right side was a mistake on my part when I used Paint.NET to make the screen. The resolution should be at least 800x600 and should be no bigger than 1440x900.

It is a REQUIREMENT that our credits include the Digipen logo and the latest copyright information for both Digipen and any other 3rd party applications that are used in the game, in this case, FMOD, which is the Firelight one.

Here is the desired layout for our final Credits screen:

Lead Producer Ryan Cassell Lead Game Designer Kyle Schwaneke Co-Game Designers Ryan Cassell Matthew Speake Technical Director Matthew Speake Graphics Programmer Kyle Schwaneke Art Pipeline Programmer Ryan Cassell AI Programmer Ryan Cassell Gameplay Programmers Ryan Cassell Matthew Speake UI Programmers Ryan Cassell Matthew Speake Physics Programmer Bobby Simpson Input Programmer Bobby Simpson Debug Programmers Ryan Cassell Kyle Schwaneke XML Programmers Ryan Cassell Matthew Speake Sound Designer Ryan Cassell Audio Programmer Ryan Cassell Lead Artist Steven Hernandez Environment Artist Liz Kirby Character Artists Steven Hernandez Liz Kirby Character Animator Steven Hernandez UI Artist Steven Hernandez Testers Victor Cecci Benjamin Ellinger Cody Laine Charlie Ngo Ben Schofield Marylyn Simpson Peter Simpson William Tan Edward Tran Executive Producer Rachel Rutherford Game Instructor Benjamin Ellinger Technical Instructor Chris Peters President Claude Comair Special Thanks Joseph Ambrowiak Frank Vanden Berghen Jeffrey Cranor Jay Gale Peter Haas Physics Club Team Discotech Team Nitronic Team Lemon-Scented Games Team Rough Morning Games (Format using *bold* and _italic_ text.)

Lead Producer Ryan Cassell Lead Game Designer Kyle Schwaneke Co-Game Designers Ryan Cassell Matthew Speake Technical Director Matthew Speake Graphics Programmer Kyle Schwaneke Art Pipeline Programmer Ryan Cassell AI Programmer Ryan Cassell Gameplay Programmers Ryan Cassell Matthew Speake UI Programmers Ryan Cassell Matthew Speake Physics Programmer Bobby Simpson Input Programmer Bobby Simpson Debug Programmers Ryan Cassell Kyle Schwaneke XML Programmers Ryan Cassell Matthew Speake Sound Designer Ryan Cassell Audio Programmer Ryan Cassell Lead Artist Steven Hernandez Environment Artist Liz Kirby Character Artists Steven Hernandez Liz Kirby Character Animator Steven Hernandez UI Artist Steven Hernandez Testers Victor Cecci Benjamin Ellinger Cody Laine Charlie Ngo Ben Schofield Marylyn Simpson Peter Simpson William Tan Edward Tran Executive Producer Rachel Rutherford Game Instructor Benjamin Ellinger Technical Instructor Chris Peters President Claude Comair Special Thanks Joseph Ambrowiak Frank Vanden Berghen Jeffrey Cranor Jay Gale Peter Haas Physics Club Team Discotech Team Nitronic Team Lemon-Scented Games Team Rough Morning Games     If there's anything any one on the team would like to add or have fixed on this layout, comment in this post before Saturday night. Otherwise, what you see here is what will be in the game, whenever Steven gets around to making it hehe.

New Glide

Here's Sol's new glide. I tried to pull back on the tail swing as well as making it a bit longer. There is a slight hold on the tail when it moves to the left... that's just Quicktime adding an extra frame after the animation. Also, as you can see... the wings are a little weird. Still working on a solution to that.

Hope you like this one better then the last!

Buttons with Menu

The Yes and No are the same image size, so they just need to be placed over the top of the main button.

Here's the options menu.

All the extra buttons and such. Hope you like them!

More Buttons

Some of the missing buttons. I have a few questions about the rest that I'll bring up at the meeting. Hope you like these.

Glide Animation

Here is Sol's gliding animation for flying forward.

Also, in my file Sol is perfectly centered on the Y-axis... So I don't know why he's slightly to the left in game.

Beta Review & Fire Particles

I figured I 'd go ahead and post some pics showing where our game looks right now. This should make it easier for everyone to provide feedback on the game's look even if they haven't been able to play it recently.

The first pic is of our main menu:

 

The next pic is of the giant cloud that we're currently using for our ground plane. It's about 5 times larger than the original cloud model and its main purpose is to make it easier for the players to know where the ground is and to provide a reference point.

  

    The next pic is of our newly implemented flame ring particle effect that Kyle added yesterday. This should help to demonstrate how we plan on using our fire particles.

 

    As you can see, the structure of the flame consists of rings that are increased in scale as they move away from the origin. Kyle tells me that his particle system can support particles with multiple frames of animation. Going from there, we're hoping that our artists can use the base template that will be provided below and create a more stylized flame ring with multiple frames of animation (however many they choose), each frame in their own .png texture file with 64x64 dimensions. As you can see, the images support transparencies, so feel free to fill the interior of the rings with fire as well. We can experiment to see what looks good.


    Here's another pic showing how the flame ring looks when the dragon is moving sideways (in the case of this picture, to the right). The ring trails behind a little to create a more dynamic feel.

Here's the base template for the fire ring particle:

 Later today, I'll post some of the feedback we've been receiving from our playtest sessions, as well as some suggestions as to how to improve the visual consistency of the game as a whole. Hope you guys enjoyed the pics and like where the game is going so far. If you have an opinion regarding anything you see here, leave a comment.

Cloud Test

Here's a Cloud I made quickly. It's about 1250 polys.. which was as low as I could get the sphere so they don't look to boxy. Hope this works! I sent Ryan the Max file.

Portraits

Ta da! If anyone wants their's redone I'm all up for that. These were pretty quick sketches and taking another whack at it won't take long at all, but I hope I captured somewhat of a likeness. [Also if you want me to do matching ones for Steven and I, I'll redo our's, but I figured it's your guy's game, we're just here to tie a bow on it, haha.]

Cursor

Here's a super quick doodle to replace the current one for now! 100x100 and 32-bit.

Buttons

Here are the buttons for Sol Invictus. I tried keep the style that Liz already set with the text. Hope you guys like them! They are PNG's with transparency.

I hope you can place and scale the buttons to look something like this. I think it would work very well set up this way. Enjoy guys~

Sky Quads

Here's a pass at the sky quads. I stuck with the original template all the way, though I'm afraid that the values may be too strong and not fall back as much as they need to, and that the scale may be off. So tell me what you think and I'll try to get it done by Sunday!

Logos

Here are the new Splash screens for the Beta. Hope these work!

Sky "box" Template Texture

Here's the actual texture that we're using to generate the sky in our game. It's 1024x1024, but the actual size doesn't matter and can be any shape, according to Kyle. Feel free to start with a square texture like this one and that should provide a good starting point for the new sky textures. As mentioned before, by all means use the same colors and style that you have already been using for the dragon and the title screen for the sky as well because they look great.


P.S. Kyle was able to figure out the texture unwrapping issue with Sol. Turns out the texture loader needed to load the texture in upside down for it to display properly. In any case, the dragon loads its texture fine now and looks great.

Sol Texture

Here's Sol's texture as of now. Tried to keep it really simple to match the clouds. Let us know of any changes that need to be made.

Sol Wrap

Tweaked the arms a little more. Made his hands bigger and shrunk his forearm a smidgen. Finished the unwrap and applied a quick flood fill of color. Quick viewport grab of Sol currently.

Here's a little peek at the unwrap... in case you were curious.
Also, what size texture map are we going for? 1024x1024? 512? 256?

Sol Update

I extended the wings a little and tried to beef out his arms a little more. I also brought in his cheeks a little. A little to puffy for a Dragon!

Let me know so I can upwrap! Thanks! Hope you like it.

Sol Model

Finished with Sol's model. It was definitely a challenge. I've never done a quadruped... let alone a dragon! But, I hope you guy like it! Let me know if I've got the OK so I can start unwrapping and texturing. Thanks!

Oh, and the wings will have fire as well. I just modeled it with the wings up... which makes it hard to place the polys. I'll attach them once skinned and his wings are laid flat.

Sol is 1801 Polys or 2180 tris.

Title Screen Follow-Up

Hey, guys! Hope I'm not too late and this can still be used to pimp your game at GDC. I'm afraid I might have changed the positioning of the title, and have yet to do the buttons, but I might not be able to get to them in time, so I wanted to at least give you what I have. I also took...a lot.... of creative liberties, though I tried to keep it somewhat cartoony. If anything is a huge issue, I'll try to do a quick fix. Hope you like it!

Here's a text-less version, as well, if you need that.I also have it at double the resolution that I'll send to anyone that would want/need it. [Though my frantic rendering becomes even more apparent at that level, haha.]

Sol Early Preview

Thought I'd show an early view-port grab of Sol. Still extremely early in the process.

Title Screen Logo Request

This is something that I forgot to bring up during the last meeting. I mentioned before but didn't emphasize it to much that it would be really cool if our menu screen could be given a cooler look that's more consistent with our game. Anything would be a great improvement over our current menu's look.

If any of you are interested, we'd love to see some concept art for our main menu, particularly in regards to the font (feel free to try some different styles and the rest of us can offer input as to which ones seem to match our game the most). You're also welcome to offer art for our mouse cursor icon (which is the fireball, currently) if you'd like.

Also, Kyle was wondering if you guys would be willing to make a cool looking title logo screen for our game that he could put up on his personal website to show people at GDC what he's been working on. We can also plan on putting it into the game as well. It can be our game's title screen before the main menu appears. It just needs to have our game's title "Sol Invictus" and maybe our dragon as well. If you guys could work on this as well, that would be really awesome. It doesn't need to be done by GDC, so there's no rush, but anytime before the end of Spring Break would be really cool.

Of course, feel free to work on these things at your earliest convenience. Homework for other classes obviously comes first, as does taking some time for yourselves (this is Spring Break after all). Thanks in advance.

Cloud Monster Thumbs

I honestly had no idea what direction to go with these guys; which in a way is fun because really...they're clouds, they can be any shape they want. Any-who, I was told during the meetings that these creatures would have two forms; a 'storm' form and 'friendly' mode. As for the reason why they have arms, I was going on a guess as every time asked how their mechanics worked they were described as being somewhat humanoid in shape; as least from what I remember.

Color Comps

I couldn't think much outside the box of being fiery and red, so if there's any other kind of color combination you want to see, just say so and I'll quickly dish it out! Feel free to continue critiquing the design, too, though I apologize for it being a bit unrefined at this point.

Sketches Cont.

So the preferred dragon heads and bodies had similar shapes and styles, so I ran with them and focused more on design. These are all very general, but I hope to get more concrete, detailed designs in the next pass once I figure out a direction. Crit away!