Week 4 8/2-8/8

In this week, my agenda is creating the HUD(head-up display) for our game. This was one of my hardest task so far. There were three things I had keep in mind when creating the HUD. They are: space, theme, and most importantly, originality. Below show the FOV(field of view), for our game.

My first step when making the HUD is creating an outline of what the HUD will be like. I created my outline in Photoshop. I had to keep mind my space and originality of the HUD. It was all about trials and error, so all I did was just create many images that I feel are neat that would fit together and a good amount of distances apart. Below show my outline I created.

This outline I felt decent. The spaces between the UI(user-interface) wasn't bad neither the amount of UI on the screen.This HUD would also fit a third person view. My next step would be improving this outline. I like the color blue and all, but I feel like it is too commonly use in games. I decided to change the theme color to black, and while at it, I added an SP bar because our group plan for the future would be allowing our character to use skill.

 I thought I would be done after this change from above, but when I import this HUD into UDK(Unreal Development Kit).as a test run, I saw the transparency with the bottom right hand UI was giving me some trouble. This area I intend to use to show the weapon and money. The problem with this UI area is the fact that black the shadow from the light does not fit well or rather, fit too well.I like the color theme being black so I decided to keep it black while giving some adjustment to this area. I manage to think of a new trick.

Having the weapon icon a plain color to show which weapon my character is using is a common trick with most game when weapon UI, and the color white also fit well with my black color theme. With this I am done with my outline of the HUD, or so I thought...

Image A

Image B

 When I show my group the HUD outline with the black theme color my group think it was good, however, they feel like rather than being black it should have a more wood texture style to match our Wild West theme. I then change my HUD from before to the HUD shown in Image A. I felt it was better to have kept the theme color black but it was me against three other member. In the end, I settle it with just combining both trait of the HUD together and it turn out as appear in Image B. I finish this outline off by adding text and cross hair.

Week 3 7/26-8/1

In this week I manage to get my character model from week 1 and enemy model from week 2 bone and rigged. I had use the skin modifier to rigged the models because UDK seem to support it. I started out my character model first since it was the most important model. I ran to some troubles when trying to rigged my character. One trouble I ran in was the mirror. When I was done rigging the left side, I would mirror the left side to the right side to get the same rigged affect. It did not work out so well, so I stop trying to mirror and just rigged both side of the character. Another trouble I had was the character motion. It wasn't as smooth as it should, but then I learned I had to add more poly to get smoother movement. Thus, taking what I learn from rigging my character model I had a better attempt when rigging the enemy model. I turn both model to my partner who will work on the animation of the models.

Before

After

Before

After

As continuation of the gunsmith from last week, I manage to get the gunsmith model and texture. It was much harder compare to the character model considering the fact that his head wasn't so round. Other than that, it was fairly average. I have yet to determine whether or not the gunsmith will need to be rigged yet, but for now it will be a static mesh. However, I do plan on re-texturing in the future.

One last thing I did in this week is making a rough town model in 3ds Max. I plan on getting together with my partner that is in charge of level design, and organize how the building should be place and designate which building will be what.

Week 2 7/19-7/25

In this week I manage to complete one enemy model and a revolver. With my first enemy model I plan on making the enemy to be somewhat humanoid while at the same time applied addition feature such as a tail to make it seem more alien-like. I also plan on making another enemy type, except it will be a smaller unit compare to my humanoid. I have yet to determine whether I want the next enemy model to be similar to a dog or a monkey. As for the revolver, I searched for a picture from Google for wild west revolver and pick out a picture that would match the revolver in the wild west. I also made sure to reference the picture of course. Another thing I did when working with the revolver is applied the image I use to make the revolver as texture to my revolver model. I had to do quite a bit of work in Photoshop to get a good match.Another model I tried making is a gunsmith. It is not done, but I plan on finishing next week.

Another thing I did during this week was the main menu page. I manage to find an outline on what I wanted the main menu page to look like. Pretty much all the outline will be done in Photoshop first, and then I put it into Flash. One good feature I made in our Main menu page to make it stand out is creating a page animation to move to next page.

Week 1 7/8-7/17

                In this week I made a horse model for our game. I decided not to work with any animation until our group have a better view on what the game will be about. The only thing I do know about the game is that it will be a wild west sci-fi game. I decided to make the horse black. This is my first time I made a horse model, but I do plan on making another better version of a horse model in the future.

                Another model I made this week is a character model base on my partner as reference. In the end, I decided this make this character model the main character. This is my first time I texture a model with photos. It turns out really well, and I am planning on doing more of this in the future.

                 One of the last thing I plan on doing this week is get started on creating a main menu page for our game. I do have some menu pages I had work for practices. I plan on using some of these menus ideas.