Synapse: The End and the Beginning

Been some time since my last post here, things got pretty hectic for a while. Short summary of what has happened:

Spent several weeks working on the Synapse game with my group. Design writing, keyframing & breakdown-ing our traditional 2D animations and QA for my fellow artists tweens and timings were some of the things I worked on during this time.
Realised there were some major flaws in our design, talked about pivot options (Thursday the 28^th of April) but decided to […]

RIP Synapse, Hello Spark: Big Game Project Post #6

Our previous project, Synapse, has now fallen apart. We felt we could not continue developing it as there was so little about it that worked fundamentally. We where told by the teachers previously that it was a bad idea to pivot the project (reworking it into something else using the biggest amount of assets we had already made) and thus kept going. We finally reached the point where we simply could not go on. The project was doomed, and we […]

Over hill textures – Symbiosis

Week 6 I made tiling textures for the ground. Here are some of the tests I made.
Click to view slideshow.
I found that small patterns were better that large ones because they didn’t look like they were tiled. The color in them also had to have a high enough contrast to convey a texture. If the colors were too similar they became bland and flat.
Down below are the 5 tiles that will be used within the game. They will be […]

Big Game Project – Static Sound Player

I have continued making and implementing sound effects. Implementing them is tedious because every sound effect needs coding, and version control is annoying since changes to Unity prefabs can’t be merged and I have to change something in at least one C# file and one Unity prefab for every single sound I implement.
Anyway, all the structures for the audio are starting to come together and implementing a new sound doesn’t always create problems anymore. Today I’ve worked on another helpful […]

BGP Week 5 – Rocks

I came down with a cold this week. Fever, headache, the works, that took most of the weekdays to get through. What I did manage to get done was a few meshes for rocks to be used to add to the environment and in some cases as a part of the gameplay, where they can be moved.
I made a few models each in two different types of rocks – one a rounded, softer looking type meant to be more colourful, […]

Archery target

So today I have constructed a archery target. This asset will be used in the beginning of the game during the tutorial when Alva (our main character) learns how to use the bow. The bow is a vital part of our game since almost all game progression and mechanics revolves around it. It is a tool for destruction but also for transportation.
In order to come across large gaps in the level, Alva is equipped with a rope that she attaches […]

Big Game: Week 6

During this week, we started focusing on getting the vegetation included in the environment. To create all the trees, bushes and grass; we used SpeedTree. It’s a super useful program when you want to create trees and such very quickly. My job was to create all the textures needed, while another artist in the group created the actual objects in SpeedTree.
Here’s how it turned out:




And here’s the textures:






Also finished up […]

Så, vad har hänt?

Har inte skrivit på ett tag, men det har hänt en hel del med spelet. Efter att ha gjort om själva linjesystemet med tillhörande checkpoints och liknande ungefär 5-6 gånger, så hade vi tillslut en hyfsat färdig pre-alpha. Tyvärr var den färdig efter alphan och vi tog spelet till speltestning. Där fick vi det bekräftat det som vi hade trott, spelet var inte alls kul att spela och designen var helt enkelt för dålig. Mer om vad vi gjorde för […]

Stone textures and PP-presentations Week 5

Stone textures! I wanted to make the rocks a bit more interesting than ordinary stone so I made small rounded spaces, as if sand had smoothed and worn points along the edges of the stone. It looks a little bit like meteorite, or space rocks.
The rock needed to be as round as possible to fit into the game mechanics. One of them is supposed to be used as a ramp in steep corners of the level.
In case somebody couldn’t get […]

Sam & Nicole part 6

Last week was once again a week of working on both this and that. I can start with sharing probably our final background, Kungsträdgården. Beta is closing in on us and we have decided we won’t hav time to implement more functional areas to visit in the game. So here it is!

I’ve started editing the trailer as well. It will be available at this blog and our facebook page next week.
Other than writing dialogue into xml […]

Symbiosis DevDiary #5

The start of Symbiosis’s fifth week of development mark the end of my modelling tasks. After the light-mapping we decided upon not working any further with making new assets, but instead building the game with those we already had. This made me available for other tasks, which mainly consisted of creating shaders.
Shaders
Even though I bought the Unity plug-in Shader Forge a while back I have never worked with shaders before. What we knew we needed for the game at the […]

Big Game Project, Week 5.

This is a late post. Again. My spontaneous bout of stomach illness last week has apparently compromised my immune system because I am now combating a sinus infection/flu hybrid. It is unpleasant.
The week went by abnormally fast, either to my joy or dismay have yet to prove itself.
Sounds are coming along great, as well as music too. I’ve taken liberal help from Alex(ander?) in the staff to help create the music, considering my lackluster composing skills. The rest of the […]