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: