Blog

Tucker Abbott – Progress Update – 5/13 – 5/19

Total Time Logged: 17 Hours

This week I created score pop-ups indicating bonuses and points earned per action using Unity’s GUI system. I also performed some simpler tweaks to the controller to make the player invincible when dashing, fix some input bugs we were getting, and make some functions more customizable. I will be filming the gameplay footage Monday morning after the upload of this post, and it will be edited by the Tuesday presentation. On Monday afternoon the removal of all enemies at the end of the game should be implemented, along with the player death explosion.

Next week I plan to make revisions to the gameplay footage if needed,  look at any performance issues we have in the game, fix the proximity mine behavior in-game, and rehearse the presentation.

Team Post – Progress Update – 5/13 – 5/19

As a project, we mainly progressed further with our focus on presentation materials and addition of code that made the game more fun in small ways (addition of score pop-ups, multipliers, and difficulty levels). The presentation is almost near complete (with all materials at least in progress) with the exception of the trailer (waiting for final game footage and planning the shot list).

Next week the trailer will be drafted, other video materials will be completed, and the presentation will be tweaked according to comments received on Tuesday in class. The game will have a freeze on assets and scripts to focus on bug fixing and final tweaks to current scripts.

Big Clamps

MEETINGS

During every day of the week (except weekends) every member was present in the labs for at least an hour or two to discuss the game, work on the game, or get updates on weekly progress. Major meetings are listed below:

Wednesday - All Members – 4 Hours

Discuss weekly tasks and work session

Friday – All Members 3 Hours

Weekly sync up, project merging, and work session

Zachary Wilcox -Progress Update – 5/13 – 519

Total Hours Logged: 13 hours

Damage State: 5 hours

I spent some time looking up damage effects and tutorials to accomplish the look we wanted. Bren and i developed it further and hopefully it can be implemented next week.

Title Screen Video/Composition: 6 hours

I worked on the main menu screen which will be a video of our scene with flowing water and moving grass. This will also be put into the game next week with the title and options overlaid.

Presentation: 2 Hours

Ryan Reed – Progress Update – 5/13 – 5/19

Total Time Logged: 23 hours

Programming

• Difficulty Escalation System – 3 hours
• Score Multiplier – 2 hours
• UI Implementation – 5 hours
• Bug Fixing – 6 hours

During this past week, we made a last big push to bring in the features, fixes, and polish that absolutely needed to be a part of Mechination before the senior show. I spent the majority of my time on programming tasks. I created a more advanced system for increasing the difficulty of the game as the player progresses through zones and phases, as well as a multiplier which increases the amount of points earned for kills as the phases progress. I also translated Zach’s menu mock-ups into Unity for the hangar and main menu utilizing the assets that we had available. Finally, we encountered many bugs as we implemented scripts and assets, and a huge block of my time went into fixing these issues.

Level Edits

• Tree Replacement – 1 hour
• Asset Optimization – 2 hours
• Design Tweaks – 2 hours

Going into last week, we had been disappointed with the quality of the trees in the level. This week we decided on a whim to try using the original tree assets that Bren created, which had surprising results. When we originally removed those trees, we gained a boost of ~40fps, but when we reintroduced them, they had no impact on performance whatsoever (and we even recorded an increase in framerate on some tests). This happy accident has resulted in much prettier foliage for Mechination. In addition to the trees, I also spent time optimizing our assets in the Unity scene, and making some final level design tweaks based on some playtesting feedback (to create better flow and prevent enemies from getting stuck in certain locations).

Presentation

• Environment Video – 0.5 hours
• Discussion/Practice – 1.5 hours

Finally, I assisted Bren in composing the environment flyover video, and as a group we further refined and practiced our presentation.

Next Week

For next week, I plan on implementing small polish and fixing any last minute bugs that may arise. The majority of my reported time will be dedicated to the presentation materials for senior show.

Bren King – Progress Update – 5/12 – 5/19

Total Hours: 28

As Brian stated in his post, we worked a lot this week as a team. We were constantly bouncing ideas off one another about game play mechanics and other design elements. We worked on getting my old trees back into the game which actually improved performance and the overall art style for the game. Other parts I worked on this week were tweaking the explosion particle effects and the portal particle effects, animating the environment fly-through camera in Maya, general optimization and compression of texture files, gameplay testing, design tweaks and so on.

I think the quality of changes that were made this week reflects the great team dynamic that we had going on between some of the members.

On Monday, I plan on bringing the animated camera from Maya into Unity and capture the footage with Camtasia to implement into our presentation. I also plan on doing general edits to the project as they are needed.