Monday, September 24, 2012
Grades for EXP1
Hey guys,
If you want your grade and feedback for EXP1, send me an email (at stephen.b.davey@gmail.com) saying who you are, and I'll email you back with how you did.
Experiment 2: Week 3
Hey guys, once you've made your posts for this week's task, add a comment to this post with links to those blog posts. Just make one comment each that has several links, one link per post you've made for this week.
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
As for this week's requirements:
- Upload images of 3 sketches of your chosen house, showing how their structural systems might fail over time without maintenance. (Most horizontal wooden surfaces should be caved in, concrete should be cracked and full of holes and what's known as "concrete cancer", roofs should be missing tiles / panels, glass should be mostly broken, steel should be rusted, aluminium should be slightly rusted, wood should be mostly rotten, etc)
- Name 2 natural disasters your house has been through (for some suggestions: earthquake, cyclone, hail storm, tsunami, hurricane, fire, blizzard, flood, lightning strike, volcanic eruption) and what damage your natural disasters would cause to it (eg, fires would leave most of the house's timber scorched black or completely burnt, floods would leave water marks and cause rot, an earthquake would cause major structural damage, etc). To give you some creative freedom, I won't restrict you to realistic natural disasters. You could equally do something like a zombie apocalypse, alien attack, meteor strike, robots taking over the world a la Terminator style, or other crazy but creatively freeing thing. Feel free to take inspiration from videogames and movies for this. As always, the aim for the end result is something that creates a really cool, immersive environment.
- Upload 3 reference images that show the kind of decay you want to model in your building (eg, from www.thehiat.org, or another source you think has good examples of buildings in decay)
- Discuss your ideas for decay with another student (or me) and post comments and suggestions given to you to your blog. Things to consider: What parts of the building will break? What will grow / spread across the building's remaining surfaces (moss, mould, cracks, stains)? What would be cool to make the process of decay interactive (refer to the end of this post for ideas)? What evidence of the building being lived in will you carefully reveal to the viewer? Will you leave evidence of what disaster caused the building to be abandoned (eg, newspaper about nuclear war, used up fire extinguisher left on the ground, sandbags piled up to try stop flood water getting in, etc)?
- Post images of your progress in developing the house in its state of decay.
Some examples of things that'd be good to add for interactivity:
- Things falling apart as you walk through the building (eg, a floor falling away when you step on it)
- Textures showing how materials age over time (your Crysis environment doesn't have to be realistic - so this option could be used towards a kind of timelapse showing your house decaying rapidly over 100 years, for example)
- Sounds of the building creaking and groaning that play as you walk through (eg, wooden floor boards, doors / shutters flapping loosely in the wind, papers being blown around by wind)
- Animating things moving around loosely in the wind (shutters, doors, ceiling fans) - Animals that now inhabit the building's remains (rats, crows, etc)
Don't forget that plants would very likely grow into and through the building in only a few years. After 100 years, you'd be lucky if there weren't one or many trees growing up through the building. Grass should be everywhere on the bottom floor, particularly near cracks and joins in surfaces.
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
As for this week's requirements:
- Upload images of 3 sketches of your chosen house, showing how their structural systems might fail over time without maintenance. (Most horizontal wooden surfaces should be caved in, concrete should be cracked and full of holes and what's known as "concrete cancer", roofs should be missing tiles / panels, glass should be mostly broken, steel should be rusted, aluminium should be slightly rusted, wood should be mostly rotten, etc)
- Name 2 natural disasters your house has been through (for some suggestions: earthquake, cyclone, hail storm, tsunami, hurricane, fire, blizzard, flood, lightning strike, volcanic eruption) and what damage your natural disasters would cause to it (eg, fires would leave most of the house's timber scorched black or completely burnt, floods would leave water marks and cause rot, an earthquake would cause major structural damage, etc). To give you some creative freedom, I won't restrict you to realistic natural disasters. You could equally do something like a zombie apocalypse, alien attack, meteor strike, robots taking over the world a la Terminator style, or other crazy but creatively freeing thing. Feel free to take inspiration from videogames and movies for this. As always, the aim for the end result is something that creates a really cool, immersive environment.
- Upload 3 reference images that show the kind of decay you want to model in your building (eg, from www.thehiat.org, or another source you think has good examples of buildings in decay)
- Discuss your ideas for decay with another student (or me) and post comments and suggestions given to you to your blog. Things to consider: What parts of the building will break? What will grow / spread across the building's remaining surfaces (moss, mould, cracks, stains)? What would be cool to make the process of decay interactive (refer to the end of this post for ideas)? What evidence of the building being lived in will you carefully reveal to the viewer? Will you leave evidence of what disaster caused the building to be abandoned (eg, newspaper about nuclear war, used up fire extinguisher left on the ground, sandbags piled up to try stop flood water getting in, etc)?
- Post images of your progress in developing the house in its state of decay.
Some examples of things that'd be good to add for interactivity:
- Things falling apart as you walk through the building (eg, a floor falling away when you step on it)
- Textures showing how materials age over time (your Crysis environment doesn't have to be realistic - so this option could be used towards a kind of timelapse showing your house decaying rapidly over 100 years, for example)
- Sounds of the building creaking and groaning that play as you walk through (eg, wooden floor boards, doors / shutters flapping loosely in the wind, papers being blown around by wind)
- Animating things moving around loosely in the wind (shutters, doors, ceiling fans) - Animals that now inhabit the building's remains (rats, crows, etc)
Don't forget that plants would very likely grow into and through the building in only a few years. After 100 years, you'd be lucky if there weren't one or many trees growing up through the building. Grass should be everywhere on the bottom floor, particularly near cracks and joins in surfaces.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Experiment 2: Week 2
Hey guys, once you've made your posts for this week's task, add a comment to this post with links to those blog posts. Just make one comment each that has several links, one link per post you've made for this week.
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
As for this week's requirements:
- Choose three materials to use on your imported 3DSMax model (eg, concrete, marble, tiles, sandstone, bricks, etc)
- Screenshots of your three materials in Crysis with only diffuse texture maps
- Images of your diffuse, bump, and spec (aka specular) texture maps on your blog
- Screenshots of your three materials updated in Crysis so they have bump and specular texture maps
- A clear statement of which house you're proceeding with for EXP2
- Screenshots showing your progress from having your chosen house modelled as a pristine, newly made object in Crysis to a decayed, corroded, broken form.
- Research about your three chosen materials, and (briefly) answer the following questions on each:
What is the process of making the material: _______________________
How long will the material last: _______________________
What makes the material corrode: _______________________
What are the material's structural pros and cons: _______________________
What is the material typically used for: _______________________
What are the material's environmental impacts: _______________________
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
As for this week's requirements:
- Choose three materials to use on your imported 3DSMax model (eg, concrete, marble, tiles, sandstone, bricks, etc)
- Screenshots of your three materials in Crysis with only diffuse texture maps
- Images of your diffuse, bump, and spec (aka specular) texture maps on your blog
- Screenshots of your three materials updated in Crysis so they have bump and specular texture maps
- A clear statement of which house you're proceeding with for EXP2
- Screenshots showing your progress from having your chosen house modelled as a pristine, newly made object in Crysis to a decayed, corroded, broken form.
- Research about your three chosen materials, and (briefly) answer the following questions on each:
What is the process of making the material: _______________________
How long will the material last: _______________________
What makes the material corrode: _______________________
What are the material's structural pros and cons: _______________________
What is the material typically used for: _______________________
What are the material's environmental impacts: _______________________
Monday, September 10, 2012
Experiment 2: Week 1
First off, some notes for experiment 2
The building you model should NOT be pristine. Think of what can happen to an area over a few hundred years. There are two kinds of things that would happen - slow long-term damage (corrosion, erosion, creep, fatigue, plant root penetration, termite damage, mould, rot) and quick short-term damage (storms, hail, tsunamis, earthquakes, fires, gas explosions, blizzards, perhaps even a meteorite).
The difference between these two is that long-term damage doesn't usually change the shape of an object - it just discolours it, or wraps it in a new surface (mould, vines, rust, and other growths). Short-term damage on the other hand makes a huge change to the shape of even very sturdy objects, like building cores, making them crumble, start tilting, or even crash to the ground.
As for the weekly tasks...
Once you've made your posts for this week's task, add a comment to this post with links to those blog posts. Just make one comment each that has several links, one link per post you've made for this week.
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
For a checklist of what to have up on your blogs:
- Download the 3 buildings outlined in the lecture and install them to your Crysis installation as directed in the weekly tasks (screenshot the buildings in Crysis to show you've done this)
- A few screenshots of some 3DSMax models imported into Crysis (if there were any issues with the import, make a note of them below the relevant screenshot)
- 30 words posted about each of the 3 houses to show you've thought about how they might decay over 100 years. I don't need to know who the houses were made by, or who owned them. Just say how structural elements would decay, and what parts you think would break the most.
The building you model should NOT be pristine. Think of what can happen to an area over a few hundred years. There are two kinds of things that would happen - slow long-term damage (corrosion, erosion, creep, fatigue, plant root penetration, termite damage, mould, rot) and quick short-term damage (storms, hail, tsunamis, earthquakes, fires, gas explosions, blizzards, perhaps even a meteorite).
The difference between these two is that long-term damage doesn't usually change the shape of an object - it just discolours it, or wraps it in a new surface (mould, vines, rust, and other growths). Short-term damage on the other hand makes a huge change to the shape of even very sturdy objects, like building cores, making them crumble, start tilting, or even crash to the ground.
As for the weekly tasks...
Once you've made your posts for this week's task, add a comment to this post with links to those blog posts. Just make one comment each that has several links, one link per post you've made for this week.
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
For a checklist of what to have up on your blogs:
- Download the 3 buildings outlined in the lecture and install them to your Crysis installation as directed in the weekly tasks (screenshot the buildings in Crysis to show you've done this)
- A few screenshots of some 3DSMax models imported into Crysis (if there were any issues with the import, make a note of them below the relevant screenshot)
- 30 words posted about each of the 3 houses to show you've thought about how they might decay over 100 years. I don't need to know who the houses were made by, or who owned them. Just say how structural elements would decay, and what parts you think would break the most.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Week 6
Hey guys, once you've made your posts for the week 6 task, add a comment to this post with links to those blog posts. Just make one comment each that has several links, one link per post you've made for this week. This coming week is the week your video trailers should be ready. So email me with any design-related concerns you have - the aim is to make a beautiful, intriguing cinematic trailer that grabs the user's attention. Use music, sound effects, and so forth to make the video more than just a simple Fraps recording. Move the camera smoothly, think about how your view is framed at all times, and make it interesting - this usually means building suspense or anticipation, then reaching a crescendo near the end of the video.
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
For a checklist of what to have up on your blogs:
1) Images of 2 marking schedules filled out for your work so far by 2 other students, and uploaded to your blog. (The marking schedule can be found here in PDF format.)
2) Flowgraphs incorporated into your island as an integral and important part of the experience. You should use flowgraphs to mould how the user experiences your island, changing things as they move through it so the experience is more interactive than just moving through a landscape of objects that never move, light that never changes, weather that never varies, etc. Use the flowgraphs to reveal your letter and number combination in interesting, interactive ways! Triggers are your friend.
3) User interface cleaned as per course blog post, found here.
4) Refine your island, making it a realistic, fleshed-out environment with little details that make it look and feel professional.
5) Upload your trailer to Youtube. Important: the length of the trailer is limited to 120 seconds!
6) Upload your zipped FreeSDK folder (the whole installation + your level) and provide a link from your blog.
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
For a checklist of what to have up on your blogs:
1) Images of 2 marking schedules filled out for your work so far by 2 other students, and uploaded to your blog. (The marking schedule can be found here in PDF format.)
2) Flowgraphs incorporated into your island as an integral and important part of the experience. You should use flowgraphs to mould how the user experiences your island, changing things as they move through it so the experience is more interactive than just moving through a landscape of objects that never move, light that never changes, weather that never varies, etc. Use the flowgraphs to reveal your letter and number combination in interesting, interactive ways! Triggers are your friend.
3) User interface cleaned as per course blog post, found here.
4) Refine your island, making it a realistic, fleshed-out environment with little details that make it look and feel professional.
5) Upload your trailer to Youtube. Important: the length of the trailer is limited to 120 seconds!
6) Upload your zipped FreeSDK folder (the whole installation + your level) and provide a link from your blog.
General Advice for Level Composition
Hi guys, here's come tips on how to make a good level in Crysis. I've noticed many of you have several problems you can easily fix and improve on. Following is a list of problems I've seen, and suggested ways to fix / improve them.
Problem: Vegetation (trees, shrubs, rocks, etc) placed are all the same angle and size, which can easily look very repetitive and cheap.
When placing vegetation, there are settings to randomly vary its size and rotation. This stops it looking repetitive.
Problem: Vegetation (trees, shrubs, rocks, etc) are being placed where they shouldn't.
You can control the angle the ground needs to be, and the elevation (height above 0.0 metres) the ground needs to have for given vegetation to be placed on it. You can use this to, for example, stop trees being placed on sheer cliff faces, or rocks getting placed along what should be a clear, flat beach.
Problem: The island has large areas without any features (trees, lakes, rocks, shrubs, etc).
Make a huge vegetation brush and just paint like mad across ugly empty areas on your terrain, making sure to vary the size and rotation of the trees. The only people who should have empty areas are people who decided to make a desert, or people with large surfaces of water (eg, for an archipelago or a huge lake). Fixing this takes a few seconds, so there's no excuse for not doing it.
Problem: I have a large area I want to be empty (eg, a desert or huge beach), but the terrain texture looks repetitive and ugly.
You need to add things that break this repetition. The main way is by adding features that aren't repetitive. Some options are:
- Apply many decals all over the place to add features.
- Paint small shrubs as vegetation (making sure to randomly vary size and rotation).
- Tricky but effective option: Make a terrain texture that has larger tile size than the repetitive one, and give it low opacity (eg, something like 0.05). Paint it over the other repetitive texture so they blend together.
Problem: I want to use Windows Movie Maker for my trailer.
Please don't. It doesn't give you much control over what your video looks like, and the default title screens and style options looked ok when Windows Movie Maker came out over 5 years ago, but now they're overused and cheesy.
I'd suggest using Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere, or Adobe AfterEffects for your videos. AfterEffects can have some really slick-looking effects you can add to your video to make its style suit the atmosphere and emotions you're trying to convey.
Problem: I put my picturesque sceneries really far from each other. What can I do to make the user travel faster between them?
You could try placing a vehicle. I'd recommend a 4 wheel drive or a speedboat, since helicopters are too free-roaming.
If this doesn't cover the ground fast enough, you can use a flowgraph Jules put together during this week's class, and attach it to an area or proximity trigger. The flowgraph is shown below. The instructions that go with the flowgraph are:
- you can start game mode at any location
- there are 2 triggers
- when you enter trigger.A, it will take you to a location you entered in the flowgraph (not the trigger.B)
- to add more triggers, just copy can paste the graph and change the locations.
The full size version of the image can be found here.
Problem: I don't know how to control where the user goes in the map.
This can be controlled in several artistic ways. There is a kind of formula you can apply to controlling where the player goes, and how they feel a sense of suspense build.
I could write 2000 words, or I could save you the headache and link you to some videos :) They're pretty interesting and get in to some good level design (and architectural design!) ideas that you, frankly, won't hear from many people teaching at the FBE.
Halfelife 2: Episode 2: Lost Coast Developer Commentary:
Portal 2 Developer Commentary:
There are some developer commentaries for Halflife 2: Episode One and Halflife 2: Episode Two, but I didn't have time during the lessons to find decent YouTube versions of them. If you're keen, you can look them up yourself :)
Problem: Vegetation (trees, shrubs, rocks, etc) placed are all the same angle and size, which can easily look very repetitive and cheap.
When placing vegetation, there are settings to randomly vary its size and rotation. This stops it looking repetitive.
Problem: Vegetation (trees, shrubs, rocks, etc) are being placed where they shouldn't.
You can control the angle the ground needs to be, and the elevation (height above 0.0 metres) the ground needs to have for given vegetation to be placed on it. You can use this to, for example, stop trees being placed on sheer cliff faces, or rocks getting placed along what should be a clear, flat beach.
Problem: The island has large areas without any features (trees, lakes, rocks, shrubs, etc).
Make a huge vegetation brush and just paint like mad across ugly empty areas on your terrain, making sure to vary the size and rotation of the trees. The only people who should have empty areas are people who decided to make a desert, or people with large surfaces of water (eg, for an archipelago or a huge lake). Fixing this takes a few seconds, so there's no excuse for not doing it.
Problem: I have a large area I want to be empty (eg, a desert or huge beach), but the terrain texture looks repetitive and ugly.
You need to add things that break this repetition. The main way is by adding features that aren't repetitive. Some options are:
- Apply many decals all over the place to add features.
- Paint small shrubs as vegetation (making sure to randomly vary size and rotation).
- Tricky but effective option: Make a terrain texture that has larger tile size than the repetitive one, and give it low opacity (eg, something like 0.05). Paint it over the other repetitive texture so they blend together.
Problem: I want to use Windows Movie Maker for my trailer.
Please don't. It doesn't give you much control over what your video looks like, and the default title screens and style options looked ok when Windows Movie Maker came out over 5 years ago, but now they're overused and cheesy.
I'd suggest using Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere, or Adobe AfterEffects for your videos. AfterEffects can have some really slick-looking effects you can add to your video to make its style suit the atmosphere and emotions you're trying to convey.
Problem: I put my picturesque sceneries really far from each other. What can I do to make the user travel faster between them?
You could try placing a vehicle. I'd recommend a 4 wheel drive or a speedboat, since helicopters are too free-roaming.
If this doesn't cover the ground fast enough, you can use a flowgraph Jules put together during this week's class, and attach it to an area or proximity trigger. The flowgraph is shown below. The instructions that go with the flowgraph are:
- you can start game mode at any location
- there are 2 triggers
- when you enter trigger.A, it will take you to a location you entered in the flowgraph (not the trigger.B)
- to add more triggers, just copy can paste the graph and change the locations.
The full size version of the image can be found here.
Problem: I don't know how to control where the user goes in the map.
This can be controlled in several artistic ways. There is a kind of formula you can apply to controlling where the player goes, and how they feel a sense of suspense build.
I could write 2000 words, or I could save you the headache and link you to some videos :) They're pretty interesting and get in to some good level design (and architectural design!) ideas that you, frankly, won't hear from many people teaching at the FBE.
Halfelife 2: Episode 2: Lost Coast Developer Commentary:
Portal 2 Developer Commentary:
There are some developer commentaries for Halflife 2: Episode One and Halflife 2: Episode Two, but I didn't have time during the lessons to find decent YouTube versions of them. If you're keen, you can look them up yourself :)
Monday, August 20, 2012
How to hide the HUD, console output, and player weapons in Sandbox
Hey guys, here's a video quickly showing how to hide the HUD (the energy, health, and ammo in-game overlays).
I've also asked Ben to make a post (which you should soon find at here) with an image that shows you a flowgraph you can use to remove weapons and hide the console output in-game. You need to create a basic entity and attach a flowgraph to it for it to work. Props to him for sharing that! Together, these two things will make your videos seem much more professional. Students with unnecessary HUD elements showing in their videos is a pet peeve of mine!
I've also asked Ben to make a post (which you should soon find at here) with an image that shows you a flowgraph you can use to remove weapons and hide the console output in-game. You need to create a basic entity and attach a flowgraph to it for it to work. Props to him for sharing that! Together, these two things will make your videos seem much more professional. Students with unnecessary HUD elements showing in their videos is a pet peeve of mine!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)