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.