WEEK 3

For this week we started modelling our characters and the environment of our game. Substantial progress was made and we all learned a few things as we took feedback from each other. Testing and prototyping continued in the engine as the tech team began to create the many abilities our characters were going to use.

Modelling by James Wei, Maya Sorvala, Juan Romero and Uriel Flores
Environment concept art by Maya Sorvala

Modeling Progress

With the model's coming to completion, the art team ran their models by peers and teachers for opinions before beginning the incredibly exciting adventure of retopologizing the models. Once the team's work was approved alongside rewarding pats on the back for their progress, the retopo work began! Maya was able to finish the minotaur without much trouble, however spending almost 7 hours on the mane alone. The process was tedious. Uriel and James worked on creating a visually pleasing low poly for the main character to be rigged. Uriel expertly managed his time to allow him to make excellent textures (the floor, walls, and a few props). Maya was also able to achieve a the rock and archway models for the environment. James got to work on other things as well such as weapon variations and the statue block out. Jaun, with support from the rest of the team, was able to quickly establish a well-thought blockout for the environment.

Technical Progress + VFX

Technical Progress in week 3 took big strides as all of our individual tech elements started to come together. Juan continued work on the Boss AI as well as his other producer responsibilities, while Jacob worked more to flesh out the skill tree, integrate level streaming, and work on the functionality of the Hub level. Level streaming was the workaround to having a full fledged save and load system. While player variables could easily be saved and read in between levels with the Gamestate, Jacob had a difficult time saving over widget information and changes into the save file/gamestate. As such, the best alternative was level streaming. Dani continued to work diligently on VFX and UI elements for the game.

VFX by Daniela Joo

Final Thoughts

Week 3 marked a technically exciting milestone, while the art team continued to work on individual assets and prepared to bring them into engine. We learned much about our technical limitations, which gave us an learning opportunity to explore alternatives to the issues at hand.