Nexus Tablet Sketches

Here are a few quick sketches for the island level. I expected them to have a bit better quality, but these are from my Google Nexus Tablet. I will have to double check if I missed some settings or something.

Update: I can save my sketches from Sketchbook Pro as a PSD. I sent them to photoshop and saved them as png's and they look better. Not sure what the deal is.

The first illustration is supposed to be a crater with a body of water in it followed by a close up of three islands. This was a quick demo as I am still getting used to drawing with a tablet.

Lego Halloween Party

The lecture by Nolan Bushnell got me thinking. I need to be more obnoxious and my team and I need to have some fun. Since it was Halloween I brought some candy! The main event was a Lego level design party! I was having trouble stimulating creativity, but this worked great. The artists all engaged and helped build something together. I look forward to more of these creative activities.

Nolan Bushnell

I just met the founder of Atari, Nolan Bushnell. He came for a lecture on business and he even addressed our questions on the game industry. Some of the things I enjoyed was his thoughts on hiring, studying, and living. Being obnoxious and dedicated is a good thing. Study while standing, eat chocolate, and weed out he toxic people in your group. His lecture was very fun and informative. It was great too meet such a big figure in the game industry.

Wreck It Ralph

I just went and saw Wreck-It-Ralph! It was a wonderful movie. It had familiar Pixar tone, great cameos, and all out fun. There were great one-liners, hilarious product placement, and more fun. FUN is the best word to describe this movie. I really felt like I was little enjoying my childhood all over again, but without my mom telling me that video games are silly. Well I guess they are silly, but there is a lot of culture to it. This culture is developing and this movie shows that the new and the old can mesh well together. That's another thing to take from this movie. Never forget where you came from. Learning from old games will teach you how to make new games. I am very happy this movie was made to at least make me feel valid.

Jedi Academy Intership

I am seriously looking into applying for the Jedi Academy internship. I don't have amazing assets created that I would be proud of yet. I have mostly put my efforts toward being a game lead and art director in both Game Design 1 and 2. I do have confidence I can make something awesome, but I am not sure what to put in there. Should I only go for what I am best at or what I like most? For example, I really like making textures for games. Textures like normal maps, ambient occlusion maps, and light maps to improve efficiency. I also like animating, but I feel like my biggest interest is creating a tone or mood. Games like Amnesia: The Dark Descent comes to mind. It is dark, scary, 3D, and has great sound. My biggest interest is immersing the player into a word through a unified art style. I would say that my skills as a modeler and 2D artist lack. I hope that this does not disqualify me.

Game Mechanics

Game mechanics are a tough thing to understand. Even after playing many games, taking classes, and building games, the mechanics are tough to define. I have recently played Wizorb and Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes. These two games both have what seems to be an rpg element where you walk around towns and talk to people. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past comes to mind when I am playing those games. Ninja Royale feels like that right now. You have a guy who wants to help a city, there will be some parkour, and eventually some sort of boss fight. What Wizorb and M & M have is that the game isn't actually an RPG. They are strategy games. There is a whole other game than just walking around cities, talking to people, and saving the town. The important questions we have to ask are:

What do you have to do to save the town? Why are you being forced to do it that way? Why are you saving the town?

We want to make our game unique. These games did something unique. You think it is going to be another RPG/Hack and Slash. They turn it on its head by creating a new mechanic or new gameplay style. How can we make a game within what looks like another RPG?

The idea I had was to use these spirit wards. In Japanese culture they many ways to ward off evil. I want to take this a step further and create a game out of these wards. I am still fleshing this out, but this could be the reason why the character has to parkour. These spells are in all the usual places so the character has to get creative and go around them. The character can also use these spells to protect himself or others. Anyways I am still working on it.

Avatar Animation in Maya - Getting Started

This tutorial will help you get started animating Xbox avatars in Maya 2013. This tutorial is for users who already know how to manipulate a rig and keyframes in Maya.

To get started, you will need to have Maya 2009 - 2013 (As far as I know) and access to the education catalog in Xbox Live Indie Games:

http://xbox.create.msdn.com/en-US/education/catalog/

Once you have both of those ready, you will want to find a tool called: Avatar Animation Rig. Click that link and it will open up a bunch of options for your to download. Download:

AvatarRig_4_0_Maya_2009.zip

Once downloaded the zip file, unzip it, and you will find: Documentation, Textures, Avatar Rig Maya 2009.ma, and the Microsoft Permissive License. Read the license at your leisure. The documentation folder is good for when you want to export the animation to XNA. For exporting please see my import/export tutorial.

Fire up Maya and open up the .ma file. You may want to create a project file so you can store the textures stored in the Textures folder. Once the .ma is open you will see a full rigged model! The trick to start is to grab the controllers and look at the channel box. If it has a field called IKBlend or IK**** change the value from 0 to 1. The IK's for the legs, arms, and fingers are locked by default.

Once those are changed you can start animating! Good luck and post any questions in the comments.

Normal and Other Maps

I found a great page on normal and other maps:

http://wiki.polycount.com/NormalMap/

This page covers what are normal maps, how to make them, and how they work with other maps like ambient occlusion, etc. It also gives you a few ways on how to make them. You can use all sorts of programs like a free program from Nvidia that works with Photoshop. You can use CrazyBump which is awesome, but it costs money, and I also use Blender.

CrazyBump comes with a free trial and it takes a 2D image and creates normal maps, specular maps, ambient occulsion, and displacement maps. These are crucial in making great looking textures.

With the Nvidia plugin it will only create a normal map, but with a bit of Photoshop skills you can make the other maps. Using Photoshop to fine tune texture maps is highly recommended.

I really like using Blender because I can pretty much make most of the maps I need. It can be a bit cumbersome at first, but for a free program, it's great.

First Scrum Stand Up

We had our first scrum stand up meeting yesterday. These meetings were very useful in Game Design 1 and 2. It would really show who did there work, who did not, and who is having problems. These meetings will minimize risk and reveal future problems. Everyone looks excited and eager to get started on production.

Lighting without Lights

Currently I am working on creating pseudo lighting using texture maps. I am learning texture maps like ambient occlusion maps, light maps, and shadow maps. I am hoping that these maps will help Ninja Royale look great without using too many lights. I am currently making my maps in Blender then I export them to Photoshop and put them together.

5 Indie Games

5 Indie Games:

• Apparatus - Build machines to perform simple task. This game is shows you building a machine, but I take it as building. What if the avatar had only a few things it could build and have to parkour off of that to get to a certain place.
• Sanctum - This is an FPS tower defense game. The character has a tool that can build towers at certain places. I like this because it shows that our character could run around with a tool that can manipulate crates, girders, and even walls. This game could also show a survival mode for the avatar.
• Toki Tori - This is a 2D puzzle game where Toki has only a certain amount of abilities that it can use to cross gaps, teleport, etc. to get to where it is going. This is important because maybe the avatar has only so many uses of its abilities or it shows the inventiveness of each ability. It also has a great color palatte!
• Quantum Conundrum - This is an FPS puzzle solving game. This may not be an “indie” title, but it has an indie feel to it. I think the art style is simple and great. I like how you can pick up objects and have them interact with the environment. I also like how you can switch dimensions. This could be a fun mechanic to try. Like maybe you switch into different types of ninjas, parkour types, or acrobats, but each has their own strengths and weaknesses.
• Rochard - This is a 3D puzzle platformer. This game has a great art style and personality. It is quirky and the physics make sense. The main character has a tool that allows him to control objects to help him through levels.

Now a lot of these games use many ideas that I don’t want in the games, but these are fun indie titles that have some great mechanics like: building, tools that control the environment, puzzle solving, and interesting physics. I would love to make Ninja Royale a game where the ninja has great control of himself and his abilities while being able to control his environment. Controlling his environment could include be solving puzzles like rotating symbols, using a tool that controls certain objects, or even controlling parts of the landscape itself.

Ultimately, I just want the avatar to parkour something it has created or modified. This gives the level a unique personality for each player.

Back From Fall Break!

Now it's time! Ninja Royale has been officially picked to become an XBLIG! As lead artist I am excited to get underway creating new animations, textures, and levels. This is going to become a challenging project as the first order of business is to figure how we can create a strong indie title and appeal to Xbox Live customers. I have to ask myself, "What is an indie game and how will it look and play?" My professors have asked us to find five indie games that are similar to what we want our game to be. My next post will have those five games and why they relate to Ninja Royale.

Avatar Rig Import/Export To XNA

I have been having trouble exporting an animated Avatar Rig for XNA with Maya 2013. It seems that the FBX exporter may need some work or the avatar rig for XNA is causing some problems. Either way I have found a work around for now. (Note: I would just put direct download links items you must download, but I want to avoid any legal nonsense.)

Here is the link for the avatar rig at the App Hub Education Catalog:

http://xbox.create.msdn.com/en-US/education/catalog/?contenttype=6&devarea=0&platform=0&sort=1

You will find the avatar rig and avatar animation pack. Both are very useful in understand how the avatar works in Maya, 3ds Max, or the XSI Soft Mod Tool.

You will need Maya 2013 and the XSI Soft Mod Tool for this tutorial(I have not tried earlier versions of Maya with the avatar). Here is the link for the XSI Soft Mod Tool:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?id=13571257&siteID=123112

Click the download now link at the bottom of the page. You do not need or want SoftImage for this tutorial. You will notice to use the tool commercially you must be a member of the XNA Creator's Club. This is only $99 a year and provides some awesome stuff like debugging your game on an Xbox! Please check out their website for further information:

http://xbox.create.msdn.com/en-us/home/membership

Now that we're through the boring stuff, let's get to the nitty gritty. You will have noticed that either the avatar rig or animation pack will have specific downloads for Maya, 3ds Max, or Soft Mod Tool and the XNA framework. Choose Maya (if you are using that) and make sure its the GS 4.0 framework.

Once you have that downloaded the .zip file you will find some folders. Pay attention to the documentation folder and the .ma file. Load up the .ma in Maya. While that's working open up the documentation folder. Inside is a readme file. Open that one because it contains everything you need to know to export your new avatar animation to a .fbx file. Some of the options for exporting an .fbx has changed in Maya 2013 vs 2010, but it's still pretty similar.

Now that Maya has loaded and you have opened that .ma file grab an arm or leg controller. Move it...Wait. It's not moving. Why isn't it moving? Is it because the people who made this rig thought it was a good idea to turn off the IK's as the default in case you wanted to implement ragdoll physics? Yup. That took me awhile to figure out. So click on an arm, leg, or finger controller. Go to the Channel Box and if it says something like, "IKBlend" change the number to 1. Now the controller will behave like you would expect. You will have to do this for the arms, legs, and fingers.

The Problem:

I have found that if you export the avatar just as it is with any sort of leg animation it will not work in XNA. I am not sure if this is because of the fbx exporter in Maya or the rig. I have look around the internet and I can't seem to figure it out. I have also found that the fbx export 2013.3 is a mess and you should revert to 2013.1.

Here is my solution. Make sure that the avatar a leg and an arm keyframed. Export it as an .fbx in Maya. Use the readme file in the documentation folder from the avatar rig .zip file as guide for fbx options. Then export. Open up XSI Soft Mod Tool. Go to file -> Crosswalk -> import fbx. There will be an import dialogue box. The default settings should be correct other than the fps. Change that if necessary. Now that he avatar has imported play the animation. It should work all dandy. The avatar looks big and crazy because that is just the maximum size the mesh can be. Don't worry, that is fine. 

Now we have to download another file. Go to the avatar rig download and choose XSI Soft Mod Tool with the GS 4.0 frame work from the app hub. All you really need is the documentation on how to export this fbx file. Once it is download open up the readme file. Follow the directions on how to export and the fbx should now work perfected in XNA. You will find some warnings exporting from Maya and Soft Mod Tool, but I have not encountered any problems using this workflow.

PICTURES ARE COMING SOON!

Game Update 5

Ninja Royale has been green lit! This is a happy day after all the hard work that went into the prototype. I am also excited about how we have such a great team! I have a good feeling this is going to be a great experience.

Our group met at the end of class and we traded contact information. I was chosen to be the art director and I had to divide out some tasks. We need to identify, "What is an indie game?" Our game suffered from being too much like mainstream games. We do not have enough time to make the next Splinter Cell or Assassin's Creed. We have to find a unique hook to keep the players interested. Second, I set up the dropbox folder for the artists to import their assets. Finally, I showed them the rig that we will be working with.

Everyone seems really excited, but fall break is next week. I can't EXPECT anyone to do anything, but I think they will. Hopefully we can start prototyping our art style soon.

Game Update 4

We finally got everything ready for our presentation today to the industry panel. It was very exciting and almost too exciting for me. I hardly ever get nervous about a presentation. I have been serving at restaurants for years and I am usually fine. However, our team did very well! We got the one pager done, shot video of the prototype, and prepared a stellar presentation. Creating the animations for this prototype were very fun and I hope this game moves on so we can create some more. This game really has the potential to be a great multiplayer experience. It has personalized avatars, great animations, battling, and capture the flag. As an artist I wish it was easier to set up lighting, normal mapping, UV mapping, and shadows in XNA. It would have allowed me to create a better looking level. Did I mention wall run animations are difficult? That was tough to visualize.

Here is our one pager:

Game Update 3

Looks like Paulo and I were able to make some sweet animations using Maya and the xbox avatar. We were able to create a front flip, back flip, ninja run, pull up and grab, and hopefully the wall run soon. The wall run is a very awkward animation. Imagining someone doing a run cycle sideways and crooked. I had to go out and buy mannequin to better visual how it will look. It's not all that helpful. I will just have to finish it and iterate on it later. Either way we are making some great progress.

We have a simple level built and inside XNA. We went through 3 different physics engines to figure out which one would work best. The physics still need work, but the game is starting to look good. We also had to use Maya, 3dsMax, and the Soft Mod Tool to get the animations working properly. For some reason the leg IK handles are broken when exported from either Maya or 3dsMax. If I delete all the keyframes for the legs the animation works great, but broken if they are animated. So I have to create the animation in Maya export as an .fbx file as defined by certain settings. Then import it into the Soft Mod Tool and export as an .fbx. That is the only way to get it to work properly, annoying, but it works. Yay! The game has avatars with animations, physics, and a level.

Now we need to get all the animations inside XNA, we need textures, and hopefully some sounds. I am going to put textures on all the cubes in the level and maybe have enough time to put sound in.

Game Update 2

I was able to get the avatar rig for Maya to animate and import into XNA! There are specific export settings for the animation, but they are pretty easy to follow. Something else that was weird was that whoever made the rig decided to turn off the IKs. When I went to into the channel box there was an IK setting that was set to 0. If you set it to 1 the controllers will deform the mesh. Supposedly IK handles have issues with ragdoll physics.

I was also able to move primitive objects with different colors pretty easily which will advance us into designing levels. Paulo created a basic indoor Dojo level for when we get a controllable character.

For the prototype were going to make sure the parkour mechanic is nailed down tight. This is the most important part of the game. These are things like jumping, climbing, running, wall running, and flips. Were even hoping to get a rope to make climbing buildings easier.

After all that and our game is green lighted we can think about a bigger level with other objectives than parkouring around.

My most important objectives are the front flip, back flip, and wall running animations.

Game Update 1

This is the first of my "Game Updates". I will start labeling these posts to show important updates. Some of my other labels will include "Assets" and "Research". Look for these as well to find out some of the new assets that are going into the game and cool research.

We use a great project management system called Asana. Look this up if your development team is looking for a clean, browser based approach. Our prototype team consists of Me (Maxwell), Blake Sleight, Adam Durant, and Paulo Alves de Matos (Paul). This team could change once we narrow our eight games down to the final four. Paulo and I are the artists and Blake and Adam are the programmers. Currently we are going to build a simple White Box prototype. This will end up looking like a bunch of cubes and rectangles, but this is necessary for quick prototyping. A game should still be fun at this level and if it's not we will find out fast.

I am responsible for moving the avatar rig from Xbox into a program called the Soft Mod Tool 7.5. This is based on the Autodesk SoftImage program. Note! The rig does not work in SoftImage! You must install the mod I mentioned. Then I will do our custom animations and export into XNA as an .fbx file. It is pretty cool how simple this is once you get the rig from the XNA community and Soft Mod program. Since we will be using the player's avatar and applying to a pre-built rig, this will save development time by like...a lot. Hopefully, this means more time for designing levels, creating weapons, abilities, etc...

I am also responsible for creating some basic shapes to represent buildings. I am still unclear at this level if we should build the models outside or inside XNA. We will have to find out!

Summary:

• Team members have assignments.
• White Box prototyping has commenced.
• Max is creating custom animations for the Xbox avatar.
• Max is creating basic shapes to represent levels.

5 Games Related To Prototype

These are my five games related to Ninja Royale:

Max
1. Batman: Arkham Asylum - Great 3rd person controls including grappling hook, climbing up ledges etc...
2. Prince of Persia - Great fluid animations including wall running, climb up walls, and flips.
3. Counter Strike - Solid mechanics. Great small arena based gameplay. Polished.
4. Torchlight - Great color palette and wide variety of creatures. Fun spells and special effects.
5. Rage - Great lighting, texturing, and shader work. Very immersive. It feels good to fire a shotgun in this game. Great vehicular combat.

I really feel like clear and solid mechanics are the most important part of this game. In out prototype I hope to flesh out an avatar that can clearly use its abilities. Things like running, jumping, wall running, and climbing up ledges are integral to the game feeling polished. These mechanics may seem basic, but this game will provide a challenge to the player using these skills. Maybe running and jumping on a ledge and climbing up isn't as easy as it is in most games. In this game the player will really have to be skillful to get these to work right.

Presentation Day 2

Presentation day 2 for the senior game class was really interesting. I am seeing a lot of different types of game being made from adventure to multiplayer party games. It is really nice to see this variety. I am really hoping that we can make at least one multiplayer game. The xbox indie market really needs a cheap co-op/multiplayer game. The kind of game where you can really have a lot of quick fun doing something simple.

A puzzle platformer/adventure game would be really fun too. I would like to see it short, but polished. I feel like those kinds of games get too art intense and lose either the fun or the mechanics. I am very excited to see what happens!

Voting has begun to narrow the games down to about 10 ish. We will see on Tuesday which games get to move on to the prototyping stage.

First sketchbook art via tablet

This picture is the first drawing I have done on sketchbook via tablet.

Be Creative!

Remember this list!

33 Ways to stay creative.
1. Make lists.
2. Carry a notebook everywhere.
3. Try free writing.
4. Get away from the computer.
5. Be otherworldly.
6. Quit beating yourself up.
7. Take breaks.
8. Sing in the shower.
9. Drink coffee/tea.
10. Know your roots.
11. Listen to new music.
12. Be open.
13. Surround yourself with creative people.
14. Get feedback.
15. Collaborate.
16. Don’t give up.
17. Practice, practice, practice.
18. Allow yourself to make mistakes.
19. Go somewhere new.
20. Watch foreign films.
21. Count your blessings.
22. Get lots of rest.
23. Take risks.
24. Break the rules.
25. Do more of what makes you happy.
26. Don’t force it.
27. Read a page of the dictionary.
28. Create a framework.
29. Stop trying to be someone else’s perfect.
30. Got an idea? Write it down.
31. Clean your workspace.
32. Have fun.
33. Finish something.

Primary and Secondary Emotions

The Fight or Flight Response is the working title for my game about confronting emotion and how the player deals with it. I want this game to be unique, but I want to be smart and use real psychology to back it up. The game has non-violent combat, but the player will combat emotion and that can be tough combat. Something I have been researching are primary and secondary emotions.

Primary emotions are the emotions we feel first when we encounter a serious situation. Things like fear, anger, sadness, and happiness are usually primary emotions. These emotions are instinctive. They can be emotions experienced quickly which makes it difficult to really understand what is really going on.

Secondary emotions are those felt after the intense situation. For example, the player crashes unscathed onto an unknown planet. He is glad he survived almost certain death and without a scratch! After those initial feelings of happiness leave he will be sad that he is alone and without help.

Understanding these concepts will help me better understand the human condition during a traumatic event. This even could help me better write the episodes the character goes through in the underground. For example, the player will choose dialogue options or collect certain items during an episode. Depending on what the player chose, the game will decide how they dealt with the situation. Not everyone will choose the same thing. This will change the outcome of the game.

I am still working with this idea and other psychological issues the player could go through. If you have any suggestions, please comment!

I got my some of my research through this web page:

http://changingminds.org/explanations/emotions/primary_secondary.htm

Presentation day 1

Presentations for day 1 word very exciting. I really liked seeing the variety of different games being made. It was really fun to see how each person presented their game. I didn't think that I was going to go today but it was really need fun to be the last person to present. I was a bit nervous to present at first, but I had a lot of practice during Game Design 1 and 2.

I really liked Thaddeus's and Blake's projects so far. I really like the use of the avatars in-game. I am also a big fan of co-op and multiplayer.

As for my project, I wanted something that was going to be very different from everyone else's. It needed to have a different combat system, different tone (mood), and different objectives. My project is going to be 8-bit, 16-bit, or similar 2D style. I look for inspiration from Terraria (resource gathering/art style), Lone Survivor (art style/mood), and Amnesia (atmosphere/intensity). Bob Kessler and Roger Altizer explained that our game was going to be limited in scope and we only have 2 semesters to do it in.

I limited my game by going for a 2D art style, PermaDeath, and a different combat system. As mentioned the game will feature simple 2D art, however, we will stylize it and make it look our own. 

The PermaDeath feature is something that is old and new. NES game technology was limited and could not provide this feature, but those are some of the best games ever. Day-Z introduced this feature and it makes the game that much more intense. The game does have a simple save so that you can leave your computer and come back, but once you're dead...you're dead. This will help my game created that same intensity that is in Day-Z. People will be very careful how they play the game. Also, since the game is short, I would like people to play through in 30 minutes to an hour. 

This leads into the combat system. The game will feature a non-violent combat system. The game will force the player into emotional episodes where the player will interact by a dialogue or action sequence. The player will have to make serious choices during these episodes that determine the outcome of the game. Since these choices will determine the outcome, once you make a choice, you can't save and go back. Hopefully, the game will be good enough that people will play it at least twice to figure out the different endings.

I am very excited about my game and I have posted my one page pitch:

Here is another Art Asset post

Hello again.

Art Assets Are Awesome!

This is where you will find awesome art assets.

First Post for Senior Project!

This is my first post for the senior project. I am very excited! More to come!!!