Final Evaluation of project

Final Evaluation of project

Once we had been given our assignment to make any final major project we liked, within reason, I soon had an inspiration for a rally car game. I thought a rally car game would be popular with both male and female gamers with a simply enough structure and gameplay to be achievable. My desire was to create a game that players could interact with, and be involved within it’s gameplay and theme. To achieve this I wanted my game to include objects that the gamer could physically control. I felt that the best choice for this would be a steering wheel, and clutch and pedal.

I was approached by Tim and Matt to work with them as a three-man team. I pitched my idea to them, and they agreed that this sounded like an achievable and enjoyable project. We also felt that this project would be beneficial in helping us to gain more skills and experience. This project would involve modeling, art, coding, and game engines to achieve our goal, all of which could teach us new skills allowing us to dive into areas we haven’t explored before. Good teamwork was also an essential requirement if we were to pull this off.

Before going ahead with our concept we researched our ideas to ensure that our goal was realistic. We needed to be certain that we were not stretching our abilities and unable to achieve our ambitions.
We researched by asking fellow students who already had some experience within this area, as well as online forums to see the possibility of making our game.

Deciding which team member was going to tackle each assignment was easy. We are good friends and were well aware of each other’s talents and strengths. It was agreed that I would do the audio and some modelling; Tim would be the GUI artist and also a modeler. Matt’s role was to work within the game engine and script the game mechanics together.
Nobody was a team leader, we had an equal say in how we were going to make our game.

Following our Gantt chart we were able to follow our schedule and progress. Unfortunately it became apparent that due to other course work commitments we were falling behind schedule and it was here that we started to rush our work. This caused the quality of our work to suffer and we realised that we were going to have to make some changes to our original idea.

We discussed our difficulties with our college lecturer. He advised us to create a game trailer and Showreel, which could be pitched as a possible product to a game industry company. There was nothing we needed to change in our original assignments. The end product was the only major change.

With the modifications to our original idea, our workload became easier and more manageable and we found ourselves back on schedule and everything falling into place.
As a team we worked extremely well together. There were no egos here. We always shared our ideas, our highs and our lows. We were able to pull together.

It is disappointing to have been forced to climb down and dilute our original concept, we were enthusiastic about our project and it was a shame not to have seen it through. However, our altered project is still a version of our idea’s that came close to our ambitions.

I’m glad that Tim and Matt chose me as a team member and that they agreed that my ideas for a rally car game were worth creating. They themselves enhanced my ideas with their own input. Working so well together we delivered a project that we could be proud of.

Making the Game Trailer and Showreel

Monday 10th June

The team all worked together to insure that our GDD was up to date and that our Game trailer and showreel was planned out ready to go on Wednesday. We plan to make both Game trailer and showreel in one day. We created a quick storyboard in which lays out the order of scenes for our showings.

(Storyboard for Game Trailer)

(Storyboard/scene order for Showreel)

The plan is to collect all assets in the morning and then go off somewhere working together as a team to create both showreel and game trailer. Tim will be editing the game trailer with help from me and Matt, where as I will also be editing the showreel at the same time, but also with help from Tim and Matt. This plan allows us to make two videos at the same time and at the same quality and standard that we want our videos to be at.

Wednesday 12th June

Today Tim, Matt and me went to the library and just cracked on with getting our game trailer and showreel completed. We stuck to the plan of me working on the showreel, and Tim working on the game trailer, while at the same time helping and assisting each other out here and there. Having a basic storyboard to follow allowed us to get started with the work very quickly. 

I started my showreel by getting all the concept art together, however, there was quite a lot so I had to only show some of the concept art within the showreel. I would use my in game music for the music within out showreel, allowing me to show my created music while at the same time displaying the overall theme to our game and work. 

It took a long time to collect all the footage I needed, as I needed footage from our game and game models. Matt spent ages recording footage from unity, and me and Tim took a while collecting all the model footage as we each recorded and even animated some of our models. 

Piecing all the footage together was some what easy enough, and when it was all finished, it was very rewarding to visually see the amount our team as done together within this project, it made me feel a bit proud.

(Example of editing in Imovie for showreel)

(Follow the link below to watch our showreel)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxSyJMdw3Zc

(Follow the link below to watch out game trailer)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iLyO6EirdI

Summary

The overall showreel video pleased me, and displayed what we wanted to display, however It was a little harder for me to show off my work as I could only really show my concept art and model work, but not so much the sound effects, voice overs and music that I have done. I really couldn't display this in our showreel so I felt a little left out in that area. I tried to display my audio work with the footage of Logic, and a time lapse of us in the sound booth recording our theme tune and voice overs, but that was all I could really do.

Our game trailer that Tim had made was great, and really displayed the theme to our game, seeing the game in a game trailer was amazing, It really made us feel good about the work we have done with the amount of time that we have had in this project. Now having finished the final parts of the actual project, it caste a great sense of achievement over us as we look back at the work we have done.

Eighth and Ninth Week Of Final Major Project

29th May

Today Tim and me assisted Matt in planning and building our race track within unity. I helped out as much as I could. Afterwards I tried my best to type up any document work and insure that my blog is up to date.

3rd June

Matt had managed to create the race track perfectly. I'm generally impressed with the progress that Matt has done in making our game in Unity, although people wont play it now since the change to our end project, the game still needs to be made so we can make videos and gameplay footage for our showreel and game trailer.

Tim and me later imported all of our made models into the game, which took a while to do, as each model imported into unity didn't apply the textures to the models. We had to find each texture file and apply them again to the naked model, it was a task in a half and took sometime to do.

Seeing the models in the game and the progress taken to import them, really gave me a buzz and a since of achievement to see my models within a game engine, this is something I've never done and I feel as if I have learned a lot from watching Matt import the models in Unity. I feel relieved to see all my models working just fine after having a range of problems while making my models.

There was only one problem with the models which I had to quickly fix, this was the planes on the checkpoints, start/finish and banner. They had no back planes, meaning I had to reopen the model and apply back planes to the front planes, as when the camera turned in unity the back of the front plane disappeared this is because there is no information or textures applied to the back of the front planes.  I didn't apply a back plane to the banner as it turns out the banner really doesn't need one, the rest did have back planes added to them because they would be seen by the players of the game and any video footage, this was an easy fix so no problem.

(Example of my checkpoint and banner models)

(Example of my cactus, speaker, rock, and palm tree)

(Example of our level in unity with models spread out)

 (Example of my checkpoint in correct size and placement)

 (Example of checkpoint)

(Example of my desert grass model in unity, it turned out to be okay in the end, the back part doesn't even show in the game so it doesn't matter about it's over size cardboard shape.)

Matt has done a fantastic job in placing our models around the track, as well as constructing the track. I really feel because of the planning and designs we did for our game it has allowed us to create a wonderful and yet at the same time crazy little game.

5th June

Today we collected a lot of game footage needed for our game trailer and showreel from Matt's made level/game within unity. Now that all our models and textures have been applied into our game we're able to collect footage. Collecting the footage took a while, as we needed to select the correct and suitable type of materiel needed to be displayed within our game trailer and showreel. it was a little tricky at time when capturing footage especially as the computer mouse sometimes got in the way of some of the footage.

Summary:
Despite having to make changes to our end project, the game still needs to be somewhat made to a certain level, as we need game footage for our game trailer and showreel. Finally getting the game level and track made and importing all of our models into unity, has given me nothing but pleasure. It's such a relief to see that all my models are working and that our game is at a good level in which we can use for our game trailer and showreel. It's so nice to see everything finally coming together.