GDW Update!

GDW Update

  Well, it's been a busy couple of weeks and I haven't had the time to blog about our GDW progress, but better late then never.  I rigged our main character a 2 weeks ago, before our rigging tutorial in animation.

  

  I actually rigged the character with a skeleton from scratch, instead of using a pre-made skeleton rig.  I set each joint individually and then made the root node joint right at the hips.  I implemented inverse kinematics (IK) on the legs and arms, and then spent a good chunk of time properly painting the weights for the influences.  I was looking for a robotic motion in animation, so there was a sharp drop off in influences from each joint.  They were very strong right around the joints, but had lost a influence very quickly the farther you moved down the arm.  After that, I animated a basic running animation with our main character.

  I used the basic up and down motion based on where the feet were positioned, and added in head bobbing to further accentuate the movement.  I was quite pleased with how it turned out, however I see myself tweaking the animation during next semester.  We now just need to implement the running animation into our game, which should be done before Friday.  Stay tuned!

GDW Update: Levels!

GDW: Levels

  Well, the levels are finished!  I worked all last weekend and got our five levels done for our game.  What we plan to do is have the layout of the level as one entity, and then load in the different objects in the environment individually, rather than have them all included within the level entity.  Below, you can see the five finished level.

Our first level is the Science Facility:

The second level is the R&D facility:

Third Level is the Bunker:

Fourth Level is the Warehouse:

Finally, our fifth and last level are the Fields:

  We plan to eventually have all sorts of different environmental objects inhabiting our game, but they will be all be implemented in the second semester.  We only have a couple as of now.

 All of the above levels have been exported to .OBJ files, and we have successfully loaded them within our game.  Our modeller also has the majority of the models done, so once I get them exported to .OBJ files, they will be implemented as well.  We are well on our way to getting the prototype ready for the deadline, and hopefully will have some extra things to show off as well.

Computer Animation

 

   Since MIGS just happened this last week, there wasn't a Computer Animation lecture.  However, I did get a homework question done and got myself that much closer to being able to write the final.  That is all there really is to report on this front, so hopefully I'll have something more exciting to talk about next week!

After Midterm and GDW level layout

GDW

  Well, after our last meeting on Friday, we decided we needed to pick up the pace, and get some of the key mechanics done for our game.  We wanted to get the engine done ASAP, and then get a level layout ready, as well as our main character modeled.  I was tasked to get our level layout done and built.  I modeled the R&D facility, and tried to stay focused on our philosophy of our game.  Just to recap, we wanted to emphasize speed and melee fighting with our game.  I tried to make the R&D facility linear in the goal, but have branching rooms to add a little bit of variety.  I really didn't want it to be just a straight hallway from one point to another.  I also added in a large manufacturing room, and a couple of rooms for research.  Below are the pics for the finished level design.

This screenshot shows the entire R&D facility level.

Here is one of the separate rooms, which is intended to be a research lab which will have lab tables and science equipment.

Finally, this is the manufacturing area of the R&D facility, with the goal room at the end.  Here, we will have manufacturing equipment and a boss battle.

  One thing we will be keeping an eye on, is the width of the hallways.  I hope they are wide enough for enemy encounters, but if not, will have to be widened.  This is something we will figure out when we get to the point of play testing our prototype.  

  We plan to get the engine done shortly, and be able to load in the level and our robot for movement/collision detection.  Stay tuned to find out what's next!

Computer Animation

  The last class, we went over forward kinematics, and their relationships with each other through trees.  Professor Hogue then taught us the kinematic algorithm with the superscript, big T, subscript approach and how to do the inverse of it.  I found this incredibly informative, but am still unsure on how to implement this exactly in code.  I suppose you would just implement each individual object (like weapons, torches, HUD information) as nodes and then have the previous node point to whatever object you choose to currently have active (at least, this is what I understand from the theory of it).  Hopefully the coding won't be too hard, but I won't know until I try.  

  Anyways, I'm looking forward to what we are going to learn next class!