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.