Class - 2/29

I thought I was over this illness, but I was definitely wrong. Won't make it today.

Charlie #6

This past week I implemented the rigidbody forces gravity code into our current build. I tweaked everything to work with the new gravity. I fixed Trent's reset function sort of allowing the level to reload when gravman exits the screen and such. Also did some other coding stuffs.

This week I plan to help Trent with more coding. Ideally we will fix up all of what we currently are working on (resetting issues, new planets/items) and be able to move forward into new and exciting things. I also need to run some playtests when we cobble together a solid build to show off.

Adam Blog 7

This past week saw the creation of level two, and, as mentioned in previous posts, it was all kinds of special. Thankfully, though I've been able to do a lot of testing on it and have fixed a number of issues as a result.

• The issue of Z shenanigans has been fixed due to work from both myself and Charlie, so we no longer have to worry about GravMan falling through the background or flying at the camera.
• I fixed a number of issues that were interfering with GravMan's trajectories. The first was fixed by turning off downward gravity on the Cube object, so GravMan would only be influenced by planetary gravity and not natural downward gravity. I also moved the background back because GravMan's foot was clipping it.
• With the previous issues fixed, I've been tweaking the gravity power and radius of the planets to make their effects flow more smoothly. It is still a work in progress, but I think that the attraction and escapes have improved. As of now the radius has been changed to 17 and the power to -30.
• I've set up a new scene, one that I call "Scene 20 - Test Scene". This is where I will be performing all of my gravity tests and tweaks.

So level two is progressing fairly well. I'm looking to improve on a number of things in the next week:

• More work on gravity to make the flow feel right
• Possible incorporation of the slingshot planet. I'll be talking to the producers about this.
• New rounds of playtesting

 There are a couple of things that I would like to get done as a team over the next week:

1. Persistent sound: If we could make it so that the GravMan song does not repeat every time the player restarts the level(which will be a lot), it would improve the feel of the game. The professor mentioned how to do this, and I'll be sending him an email about how to go about it.
2. Gravity well indicators: Charlie said this might be as easy as adding a circle around the model, but I would like there to be some indication of how large and possibly how powerful a planet's gravity is.
3. GravMan respawn positioning: When GravMan flies off the screen too far, he respawns at the home planet (thank you whoever got that fully working). The only issue is that he is facing the direction that he was at when he flew off the screen. Meaning that he should be facing the same way as when the level begins. If that could be worked on that would be great.
4. Trampoline: This is something that we have been talking about, and I think that Frank has made a model for it. If we could get an animation for it that would show it bouncing GravMan as he hits it and implement the functionality behind GravMan hitting it  we could start adding it to our levels.
5. Enhanced backgrounds: The new backgrounds that Andy has put out can now be tiled, so we can add those in. Something that I noticed when setting up my shots was that I would use some of the stars on the background as reference points to where I should put the planet. I think adding objects in the background such as distant galaxies or random fun stuff could be used no only to spruce up our game, but to help the player shoot.
6. Playtests: Next Wednesday we have another playtest log due. Find friends, find random people, have them play the game. The more feedback the better.

Anyway, the game is still coming along well. We still have a lot of work to do, so everyone please email me what your schedule looks like for the next week because it would be a good idea for us to meet outside of class.

-Adam

Andy: Update #Something

Created a background. Frank had the idea of altering it for the other levels, so I am going to do that.

Created updated planets with fun things around them (moons, satellites, rings, etc.).

Frank made an some asteroids. Yay Frank! They are in my e-mail, so thank you.

Brian mentioned that GravMan kinda looks like he doesn't have a head, so I'm going to try to alter him by showing his eyes in the visor or something else that will make it more apparent that GravMan is in a bubble suit thing.

Frank - Log Entry 7

Past week:
I did a few versions of the text for the menus then once every one chose one I made the text in maya and added them to the Main Menu. I also changed the instruction screen so it is easy to read as suggested by the Professor. I added Andy's background art to the menu, the instrction scene, and Level 1.

I also created a satellite model and a trampoline model. Also a team member from my capstone class let me use two of her asteroids she used in her Game Mod class. I only added a texture and manipulated a few vertices, Thanks Michelle!

This week:
I will finish the win screen and add any final details to the menus, I am spending too much time on the menu system and need to focus on the actual levels. I will do what is needed of me to further complete our GravMan game. The end draws nigh!

Frank - Log Entry 6

past week:

I edited the menu to look better. Created a gravman animation for the menu.

this week:

Add the 3D text I made in maya to the menu screens. Create some space stuff.

New level and its….specialness

I created this list before reading through Charlie's most recent post, so I know that some of the things I mention have been addressed in some form.

Level 2 Creation Plan: Created level 2 based on the way we set up level one. 2 inventory, 1 home, and 1 goal planet. Scripts were applied as they were in the first level. So basically a duplicate.

Navigation: Added Level 2 to the level select page, and added connections from the goal planet to the win screen.

Level 2 Placement: Placement in the level was set differently, though it was done to make a kind of “continuation” of level one (the end planet was on the lower side of the screen in lvl1, and is set there in lvl 2).

Level Challenges: I added 2 large walls to add difficulty. The simple idea was that of a “funnel shot” where the player needs to swing gravman in to the wedge created by the two walls and hit the planet.

Wall Changes: Walls had to be made rigid and frozen in their XYZ positions to prevent them from drifting every time a planet hit them, though it was hilarious to watch.

Planet Changes: Similar changes needed to be made to the inventory planets, as anytime they would hit the walls they would start drifting off toward the player. So the Z position was frozen. X and Y drift still occur though.

Gravity Situation: Gravity still seems to work in this level fairly well.

The GravMan Situation: GravMan’s interactions with the level have been….interesting to say the least. I would suggest playing through the level a few times to see this because it is kind of difficult so describe.

1.       GravMan seems to have a tendency to go through the walls. I thought he might be going around them somehow, so I froze the Z position.

2.       GravMan goes off the screen a lot, and is respawning back at the home planet. I don’t if that is supposed to be happening as a result of the programmers doing something, but when GravMan reappears at the planet his trajectory is affected. When refired his path goes….wherever.

3.       Even though he is locked in Z, GravMan still seems to be getting some Z drift. Whenever he gets too far he falls behind the background screen. I moved the background and he was definitely getting some Z movement.

4.       This only happened a couple of times, so I can’t exactly say how this happened, but there were a few times that GravMan was off the screen and the game went to the win screen.

So we have a new level. It’s just in a very special state right now. Please take a look at it (especially the programmers so we can try to figure out some of this stuff) and see what you think. I'm putting what I've worked on so far in the GravMan 3.1 folder. I'll keep working on it this weekend.

Charlie Week 6

In response to the list here are how we plan to address many of the issues:

Add Boundaries:

We will throw in a simple location check in the GravMan update function that will thorw him back to the starting position when he flies off the screen.

Remove Drift on Collisions:

There are two solutions. We could simply kill/reset gravman on all collisions, or we could play with the physics materials of the objects in question. My theory is that the default material has too high of a bounciness value(yes, that's how they phrase it in unity).

RigidBodies Failing in Setup Phase:

I honestly don't know how we keep breaking these collisions and I'm not sure how to fix this one while keeping the current collision method intact.

GravMan Facing Towards Movement:

You guys keep bringing this up, but honestly do we need this? I think it adds to the "silliness" of our game if we just have gravman spinning around haphazardly through space.

Gravity Well Indicator:

Super simple solution would be to just make a colored ring of some kind (or a cloud of space debris in orbit to make it cooler) and scale it up in game to be the radius of the well around the planet. We can easily attach such a ring to the existing planets and it doesnt even need to have any physical effects on the game.

Quit Button:

This is a very simple Application.Quit(); line in the code somewhere. Do we want it based on a key press in game like ESC perhaps? someone can also make a button for it in the menu/win/lose screens (I don't get buttons still).

New GravScript for New Objects:

I'm not exactly sure what you meant by this but I think Trent has had the future in mind while reworking the scripts recently so we should be ok.

Decide on a Gravity Style:

It seems we decided on using both styles of gravity and just using them for different styles of planets or something. This is great and all, but it present a handful of problems. The physics based style won't work with our current launch method for gravman. It also is checked slightly differently so I'm not sure how practical using both styles is going to be but I'm willing to try to get them to be friends.

The List version 1

These are some basic things that I ran in to. I'll definitely be adding more as things come up.

Boundaries on the level need to stop GravMan from permenantly flying away.

Remove the drift while setting up planets.

Planet collisions should always be in effect. Don’t know exactly how or why it happens, but if you run the planets in to each other enough, the collisions stop working when placing planets.

GravMan should face the direction that he is facing.

Might fall in to the ‘add things category” but some representation of how far out the gravity well expands would help.

Quit button functionality

Need grav script to be applicable to new objects.

Figure out which gravity system is better between the current one and the one used in GravMan 2.0

-Adam

Adam Blog 6

What I've been doing:
Planning out some possible ideas for levels
Working on touching up what we have now
Running tests with obastacles and how current gravity interactions can solve obstacle puzzles

What I will be doing:
Now that our programmers have gotten the gravity script in a form that can be applied to new objects, I'm going to start testing out the level ideas that I've come up with. So probably a lot of hours spend looking at GravMan swirling around planets.
From this I aim to create feedback for the programmers on how to improve our systems. I'll be creating a list of suggestions or needed system fixes, as suggested by Trent.
Hopefully within the next week we can have a new level.
-Adam

Trent's Weekly Blog 6

Did a buncha scripting and script planning this week.

What I did
!~Changed the gravman script so new planets will be easier to implement. Right now it just searches the two named planets and finds which is closer than sims gravity, I changed it to search for everything Tagged as a Planet then simulate gravity for all of them.
!~Cleaned up some of the older scripts that had a buncha weird comments and unused stuff in them.
!~Close to being able to make new levels a lot easier. Just need to mess with the level controller and planet script to make those add able too. Same was as I did in the script.

What I'm doing
~!Making the level creation simpler as outlined above.
~!Waiting for the list from Adam of small things to fix, so changing what we have now to make it better rather then adding new things, polish what we have before adding so that the new things are more polished too.
~!GravMan colliding with planets interaction, Frank asked for this and I will see what I can do.

Andy's Update Number Something

Working on background and UI still. I'm thinking about making the UI a 3D object in Maya, so I'll be working with that today in class.

Alpha Notes and updates

These are the things that people suggested we do after the alpha presentation:
1.Visible inventory. People wanted to always be able to see what is in their inventory. Trent mentioned that we could have an inventory that auto-hides when GravMan is fired.
2. Gravity well improvements. Possible options:
    a.Dotted lines around the planets showing the range of the gravity well.
    b. Markers on the planets giving a "well size" such as a marking of 1-20 on the planet.
    c. Moons or other things hovering around the planet to give an idea of well size
    d. Different color planets would have different size wells. (more below)
3. Shot aid: It was mentioned that there should be a dotted line showing where GravMan will fly to based on the planet configuration. This line would taper off after a certain amount of distance. Another suggestion was that we give the trajectories of  past GravMan shots that failed, whether it is more than one past is up for discussion.
4. We need to figure out better scales for both the planets and GravMan
5. There was a suggestion that different color planets would have different effects. This is something that we can work with in various capacities. Examples would be color based well size (as mentioned before), color based effects (such as antigravity, rabbit planets, or others)
6. Stronger physics, but that's something we are working on anyway.
7. Enemies, or other moving objects that would require timing skill.
8. We had suggestions for an unlocked GravMan that you can aim. I think that what we have is good, but we should keep this in mind as a possibility.
9. Obstacles: This is where we need to improve what we have in lvl 2 and beyond.

Comment if you have any other suggestions that you think that we should take in to consideration now that we have our Alpha build.

As an update to be aware of, Trent is making a new work build called GravMan 3.0. All new work should be done in this folder.

We should start focusing on getting in new levels. Also, getting the inventory space up and running should also be a priority. Let me know if you have any questions. Keep up the good work, guys.

-Adam

Unity Version Issues

Here's the version of Unity we use,
http://download.unity3d.com/download_unity/UnitySetup-3.4.2.exe.

Others will not work. Adam go download this one so we all have the same version so that you can send the files you work on back up.

Note this is the same version that the in class computers have as of February 15th 2012.

Trent's Weekly Blog 5

Had an issue with my unity on my computer this week so that I couldn't change scripts, which really screws me when I want to be doing programming stuff. This week I mainly made the video for our alpha presentation and made a playtest 2.0 build that works so we can do more playtests if we feel and I fixed some of the bugs inherent with that. There was an issue with perforce where the whole project got screwed up and didn't work so I solved that. I'm also now working on a GravMan 3.0 new clean build so we can start working again. Have to reinstall Unity though, but not the newest version so I had issues there. Hopefully It will we a productive week, we heard a lot of good feedback from the presentation that we can implement.

Adam Blog Entry 5

Not going to be as long as that massive block from last week.
What I did this past week:
Created level select page
Created buttons on multiple scenes
Created connections between scenes
Made small updates to the skybox
Worked GravMan in to the game once we got a model
Did various texture/material work


Things for this week:
Begin designing new levels: We have some designs stored away, and now that we have some gravity I think they can start taking shape.
Begin designing new inventory items: Black holes, repulsors, and....rabbits.
Create an inventory area: I think that this might be able to be done through having an inventory page that has planets in it, and when one of the planets is clicked it would appear on the screen and then can be moved with the controls that we have now. Programmers, feel free to tell me if this is possible.
More playtests: The more info the better

Things are going fairly well. you guys are doing good work.

-Adam

Alpha Build Presentation

Also on Youtube:
http://youtu.be/0rjFhLZiD_g
Note: It's unlisted, so you need the link to watch it.

Alpha Build Presentation

Charlie Week 5(?)

So it's week 5 I guess? Anyway I'm going list format this post.

This past week:

Revised the written code form last week.

Commented all the things!

Fixed bug with the goal not triggering Win when hit.

Added rigid body collisions as a quick fix for things objects phasing though each other annoyingly.

Modified the control scheme to be more approachable.

This next week:

Mouse controls?

Different "space" objects.

Figure out wtf a "prefab" is and how to exploit that knowledge to our advantage.

Look into "negative explosion" gravity now that we're using rigid bodies anyway for collisions.

Use prefabs to create objects while game is in motion.(or something. requires research on my part)

In other news... its my 21st today so hooray for that! :)

Kthx. Go Team QFASA!

Log Entry 5 - Frank

Past Week:

Added theme music to the Menu Scene and the Level Scene. Added Andy's Art to the planets. Found an animation script that will create a nifty animation for a texture, which was used on the menu scene. Did all sorts of crazy that ended up losing the link to materials Trent reverted on perforce and all turned out well.

This Week:

Make the menu system better looking, as of now it looks too old and grainy. Hopefully add a different skybox. Perhaps some sound effects to a few things button clicks, GravMan Launches, etc. Perhaps I can even make some asteroids.

Update and Prep for Monday's Alpha

We've mad e a lot of good progress over the past couple of weeks, and this game is starting to really take shape. For Monday, we need to show the class what we've done. We will need a minute video of gameplay, so if anyone is good with video editing, leave a comment here about it. The computers at the lab have screencap software on them, but getting some on one of our computers shouldn't be that hard.

Things that I think that we should touch on in the video:
1. The fact that we have decent gravity now. This is kind of key to our game, so if we could get that in to the video, it should take a front row in what we show.
2. New art, and our new GravMan model that is now in game.
3. Moveable planets
4. Music

Check out the link that the Prof posted on the site for more information and a sample video that we can use for inspiration.

After the vid, we need to give a two minute presentation about what we have done, and each of us needs to talk. So I guess one of the easiest ways to do this is everyone compile a list of things that they have done, and they can use that to present. In fact, if people want to post up what they want to talk about, we can work from there.

Things to do before Monday:

1. Prep video (All): Again, post here if you think you can handle that. I can probably throw something together, but I'm not exactly great with video software.
2. Collision detection (Programmers): If we could get it so that planets cannot be moved off of the screen that would be great. Additionally, planets should stop GravMan if he collides directly with them, and planets should not be able to be placed on each other.
3. GravMan turning (Programmers): When GravMan is being influenced by gravity, he should always face the direction that he is moving.
4. Music implementation (Art/Design): Put music in our level 1. We can decide if we want music on the menu.
5. Upgrade textures (Art/Design): Andy has been working on some new designs for the planets, and we should get those in to the game.
6. Be ready for presentation (All): Come prepared with things to talk about in our presentation. It is only 2 minutes, but everyone has to talk, and it should be productive. Refer to the assignment about this.
7. Playtest: Remember to keep getting input from other people. It would be good to get a new round of playtests now that we have a more workable and understandable prototype.

We've been making pretty good progress, and with a few more tweaks we can have a well done alpha for presentation. Let me know if you have any issues or if I can help out with whatever you are working on.

-Adam

Andy's Weekly Post 4

I don't think I've been doing these enough to be on my actual 4th update, but someone put 4 and I'm gonna be on top of these blog posts from here on out so I'm starting with 4 anyway.

This week I remade GravMan. Turns out I did only have it saved on the missing computer cause I'm special like that. Anyway, I uploaded him along with 6 differently colored planets and tonight, Frank told me that nothing from me is on perforce except what I showed you guys in class, so I'm going to re-upload them right after this post and that should be all set.

I'm going to start mainly working on a UI and background stuff this upcoming week. We'll see how it turns out and any ideas you guys want to share on the UI specifically would be appreciated.

Trent's Weekly Blog 4

Checking in during class as suggested. This week I have been behind on progress :/ I moved the perforce to a new folder, took notes on the playtests in class, and responded to emails. Not much outside of class. I plan to start working on different programming tasks and helping others implement their stuff this week. First off I wanted to get gravity to work better, sounds like a broken record, but that is the central feature of our game so it should be done well. I have some ideas from what I've seen in class that may help or just continue digging around the internet to find out more.

Adam Blog 3

Sickness is all sorts of fun. Took me out for maybe 3 days. Anyway, did work on lighting the scene and doing some skybox work. Not as much as I'd like to have done, though homework from other happened to be heavy and other bollucks.

Anyway, look forward to getting back in to the groove this week. The progress that we have been making has been pretty good, and I'm happy that the gravity is starting to kick up. Good job all.

-Adam

Log Entry 4 - Frank

Past Week:

Posted a couple questions on the unity forums and tried to implement what they replied with, sadly to no avail. I did learn a few things aabout button scripts.

This Week:

Finish the main menu with an Instruction screen. Also complete thealpha milestone.

Textures

Still working on a net on a planet as the goal planet. Lemme know what you think about that idea. Also, try to learn/work with shaders in maya to get a look for the planets that resembles Gravity Wars, or whatever that game with the rocket launchers is.

Charlie writes some code...

This past week I wrote code which now allows for multiple objects to be around in the scene and controllable. The code is a bit sloppy and needs some commenting/revising. Next step is to make the objects have different effects on gravMan (more scripts). Fix gravity for Alpha milestone. Fix the controls in the menu screen to allow keyboard controls. Other things still need to be done as well, but I don't remember all of it at the moment.

Charlie Week 3 Check In

So... this past final week of January was a bit slower for me up until the Monday work day we had in class. Throughout the week I toyed around with gravity to mostly no avail. Thankfully Trent was able to cobble together a functional gravity model on Sunday just in time for us to throw together a playtest for this current week.

Other advancements since my last post that potentially were not in the playtest build:

1. Reset function so we don't have to relaunch the game after every failed attempt to win.

2. Four directional movement of the planet in the set up phase of the game.

3. Played around with Trent's gravity a bit trying to figure out exactly what he did and how to improve upon it.

Plans for this week:

1. Mouse placement of planets in game.

2. Improved gravity effects still.

3. Multiple planets in the scene with implemented distance checking by gravman.

Playtesting Results

We learned a lot from this play test. After looking through the notes, I found some similarities in the responses that we got from each of our testers. The first was that it was hard to figure out what they were supposed to be doing without any guidance from the game. With no tutorial screen or controls menu, the player was left to their own devices to figure out what they were supposed to be doing. They also were frustrated by the fact that there was no ability to restart a level after firing a shot, or the fact that you HAD to restart the level after firing a shot. These things had to be told to the player.  The menu screen with the moving camera received mixed reviews, and will need to be looked in to as whether it should be kept or not. Many players were unaware of the fact that the green planet was not the target to be hit but the means to hit the actual target (the yellow planet).  From the results that we found, some of the next steps need to be in creating an effective way for the player to learn to play the game.

Things to look in to:

1. Introduction screen: Small screen showing the story of the game, something that can be browsed quickly but gives the player context

2. Reset: An ability to reset a failed level will be added for ease of use.

3. Controls Page: Lets the players know what buttons to press

4. Improved Gravity: Bigger planets will have larger gravitational pull than smaller ones

5.  Collision Meshes: GravMan will no longer fly through planets

6. Tutorial Screen: A screen showing how to use gravity to get GravMan to his destination

7. Sounds: Music and in game sound effects as events happen

8. Scaling improvements: Make GravMan more visible and the planets have better sizing

9. Improved art: Players could not initially tell that the green and yellow spheres were supposed to be planets, so an improvement in this art will be taking place to make it more obvious that these are planets.

10. Art filler: Currently there is just a large space skybox in the background, and more will be added to the scene to spruce up the look and feel (planets, galaxies, stars)