blender assignment 05

I decided to use a simple object for my texture map, so I made a basic cylinder and textured it with an image I found on cgtextures.com. After texturing the object I was able to add outlines for a "toon" rendering effect, that will hopefully come in handy for our game.

Here are the steps for adding outlines to the object:

1. in the materials panel, under the "Shaders" tab, set the shaders to "Toon"
   
   
   
2. next, go to the "Scene" button, under the "Output" tab turn the "Edges" button on
   
   
   
3. finally, click the "Edge Settings" and adjust the edge intensity (Eint) *note: the higher you set this value, the more edges blender will try to outline, so be sure to test your settings by rendering a preview

Larin!

blender assignment 04

I made a basic landscape and a little balloon to fly around to test out the basic IPO curves. They seem to be pretty standard as far as keyframing timelines go... I adjusted the balloon's locations and rotations to make it move. I also wanted to have a character to jump into the balloon, to initiate the flying, but I hit ctrl+Q (quit) instead of ctrl+W (save), and lost some of my work. So, for now this is just the animation of the balloon, but I will  post a revision soon. :)

video

blender assignment 03

Due to the complexity of the objects in my project for assignment 2, I decided to start over. I came up with the idea to make a "combination lock" style toy.

The toy consists of a an inner chamber and three rotating cylinders, all contained in an outer chamber. The inner chamber contains a small ball, and one circular opening (slightly larger diameter than that of the ball). Holes (with diameters equivalent to the opening of inner chamber) are placed halfway between the radius and the outer edge of the rotating cylinders. The outer chamber has one opening at the end and three windows centered above the rotating cylinders. The user  turns the cylinders by pressing up (Q, W, E) or down (A, S, D). I also added decorative gears on the side that turn with the cylinders (these gears use the same sensors for the cylinders, and customized the actuators so that the larger gears turn slower than the smaller ones).


The player's goal is to get the ball out by lining up the holes in the correct positions and tilting the machine to the side.*


*I wanted to make controls that allow the user to tilt the whole machine to let the ball out, but I have not yet figured out how to make controls for the hole machine. I also tried to figure out the UV mapping features, so I could put numbers or letters (viewable through the windows) on the cylinders, but I could not figure out how to export a copy of the unrolled map to Photoshop.

Larin!

blender assignment 02

So, I watched the tutorial videos at first, and tried to create a similar simulation in Blender. When I tested it, some of the dominoes would bounce back and forth; I have yet to determine why.

Despite this bizarre error, I decided to try to make a more creative attempt at the assignment. I made a steep terrain with trees at the bottom, and rocks floating at the top. I used the boolean tools to make various shapes and sculpted them to make the objects.

I set up the scene, and hit the preview button… Unfortunately, the results were not as interesting as I'd hoped. My terrain was to rough for the trees to stand on, and consequently, many of them fell down right away. Also, the rocks were too heavy and didn't bounce off the terrain quite enough. Still, it was interesting to mess with the physics in an environment. I definitely need to spend more time trying to understand this feature, but I don't think it was a terrible start.

Unfortunately, I don't have an animation to post. I had way too many vertices in my project, and it couldn't render. So I'll have to keep it much simpler next time. :)

Larin!

Blender Assignment 01

This is my first attempt at using Blender. It was, at first, excruciating and painful. I tried to figure out the curves to make a tree, as I saw someone do in a time-lapse video, but I was unsuccessful. The poor quality of the video made it hard to see exactly what the person did, so I decided to save curves for another day...

I abandoned the tree, and resolved to build a "simple" character out of a few cylinders and a sphere. It looked like it was going well, but in reality, the functions I used to join/cut the pieces were not executed properly (by me). FUCK. This thing was a mess. I ended up with all these weird pieces, and I had no knowledge of where it went wrong... At this point I was three hours into the program and pissed, so I took a short break.

I didn't want to go back, but if there is anything I have learned, is that you can't let new software keep you down. That is because, the assignment will always still be due. So, it's better to just figure something out.

The next couple of hours went remarkably better. I decided to go back to the tree idea, but since I couldn't make the curves, I decided to use extrusion.  First, I started with a cylinder at the base, and extruded different "regions" to build a basic tree structure (moving, scaling, and rotating as I went).

After I had my basic shape, subdivided all the faces a couple of times, and used the SCULPT tool to refine and make everything more organic. I also experimented with the particle tool to make "hair" hoping to get a leaf-fro sort of thing, but I didn't like the result. In the process of rendering the scene, I found out how to make changes to the backdrop.

So there it is, six hours of work and painful learning later, a tree with three branches... I don't know how everyone else is feeling; but for me, tiny triumphs make it worthwhile to keep trying to learn new things. I wanted to make a tree, and what I made kind of looks like a tree.

At the end of it all, I have a slightly better understanding of how to build/refine shapes in Blender, though, even some of the most basic techniques still baffle me. I also came to the realization that, like many programs (like Adobe programs, for example), Blender has an extensive number of key commands that make the work easier/more efficient.

Here are some links to other resources I found useful:
wiki//blendertuts  - a list of tutorials for Blender (some of the links are broken, etc. but the list is LONG)
wiki//blenderbook - a free blender textbook

Larin!

Tutorials

Here is a link to some Blender tutorials, found on DarkScarab.com. These are located in the site's tutorials archive. The tutorials page only has tutorials for Blender 2.5, so if you want to learn the new interface, you can start there. Otherwise, go to the archive.

:)

Larin!

Assignment 2: Soul Fighters

Soul Fighters is a turn-based fighting game, and can be played in 1-player mode (player vs. CPU) or 2-player mode (player vs. player). There are two characters to choose from: Taki (female character) or Mitzurugi (male character). There are thirty turns in each game. At the beginning of a turn, both players pick three moves for their characters to execute by choosing from a control panel. Players can choose from the following: move left or right, high/middle/low attack, defense, and counter-attack; a total of 11 options. After both players confirm their three moves, the characters execute the moves on screen, and the turn ends. The game is over when one player runs out of HP or when there are no more turns; in which case, the player with the most HP wins.

 

Is the game fun? Why/Why not?

The game is not particularly fun. The game-play is very repetitive and not very engaging or challenging. In fact, in 1-player mode, the same attack move can be used on an opponent over and over, every single turn and he will eventually die. Actually, for me, this technique was more efficient than actually trying to plan out a strategic combination of moves.

In addition to being repetitive, the game-play was also slightly awkward due to the turn-based battle system. Part of the fun of fighting games is the fast-paced exchange of moves in the heat of battle. This component is all but completely removed from the battle in Soul Fighters. As described above, players have to choose three moves from a panel, confirm their moves, all click again on the "show turn" screen, all before they see their characters make a move.

The game was also not fun because there is only one level of difficulty, games only last one match, and there are only two characters to choose from (each character can only be played by one player at a time, and is assigned to one side of the screen which never changes). This made for little variation in the gaming experience, causing the replay value of Soul Fighters to be extremely low.

 

What are the goals of the game?

The goal of the game is to beat the opposing player. More damage is dealt to an opponent by attacking and defending with the right moves, based on his/her selected moves for that turn. Players can win by draining their opponents HP to zero (K.O.), or by having more HP than their opponent at the end of 30 turns. After a winner is declared, the game is over and the player is returned to the title screen.

After this goal is accomplished I suppose one could play to win in the fewest number of turns, which I found out is about 3 or 4, if maximum damage is dealt every turn. After this point there aren't any other goals established by the game.

What is the game theme?

The game's theme is player-vs.-player anime-style Asian fighting. This is supported chiefly by Soul Fighter's artwork, environment, character models, music and more. The stage for the game is set by an opening sequence where Taki stands silhouetted it the moonlight on a rainy night. She disappears, and the screen cuts to Mitsurugi swing his sword by a waterfall in the jungle. The credits fly, to quickly to read, in an Asian-brush-strokes-style typeface. This is pretty much all of the explanation Soul Fighters offers to the player, and considering the depth of the content of the game (or lack thereof), I'd say that it's fairly adequate.

One element I thought was not cohesive with the theme was the control panel. The symbols used to represent different the different moves are medieval looking, and not in keeping with the oriental theme of everything else. Also not in keeping with the theme, the title screen is a textured backdrop that looks like a wet animal hide, with the words "SOUL FIGHTER," written in thick, wavy red letters, in the middle of the screen. The red letters resemble blood, and made me think the game would be gory, which it is not. Slight discrepancies such as these, as well as a total lack of story, make Soul Fighters's theme thin, and disengaging.

What experience(s) does the designer wish to the player enjoy? Does the designer succeed?  Why/Why not?

It seems the designer wanted the player to enjoy a new twist on old fighting games. However, the repetitive, awkward game-play, paired with a weak, generic theme is the downfall of the game. In addition, the experience is made boring by the game's inability to evolve in difficulty, environment, etc. Overall, it was apparent that this game was not well thought out, and put together hastily or by an amateur.  I wouldn't recommend it to any of my friends... except maybe as a not-so-funny joke.

inspirations!

Here are some links to pages where I found some cool game design inspiration (as far as environment and character design/modeling). The Behance Network has many awesome designs in a wide range of categories.
steampunk character
kids video game environment
cool/strange 3D characters
interesting character designs
monster of rock
drug free zone

I'm not sure how complex our games can be, but I thought it would be cool to share this resource with the class.

Larin!

Assignment 1 Video and Pictures

Me as a cyclops thanks to photobooth. The link below connects to my video on youtube which attempts to caution viewers and educate them on the apocalypse. video!