This week was pretty boring honestly, because our project has suddenly become a waiting game. I did get the plants that go in the atrium from last week imported, but that was Monday. Since then, we have been in the process of moving all project assets to a new project file because an update caused all of our scripts to be outdated. This has halted pretty much all production for now, but also, I'm pretty much done with modeling anyway, and it's just time to get the scripting together (which has to be now completely redone). However, I did try to work on designing the invitations/posters for our showcase at the end of the year. I need to ask Mr. B for more specifics, but I started playing around with layout towards the end of the week. We had a portfolio review earlier in the week which also took up some of my time. Overall though, I would like this upcoming week to be more productive, so I think I'm going to follow some basic VRTK tutorials so that maybe I can help get this scripting done. It might not work at all, but hey, it's not terrible knowledge to have regardless, and it gives me something to do in an effort to help the project. Goals For Next Week:
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This post actually comes with me asking for some advice. If you want to comment any below, please do!
I recently committed to NC State with the intended major of Art + Design, hopefully so that I can concentrate in animation. Of course I am stoked! It's going to be amazing to be going to college - especially NC State with how nice the Design School is - for something that I love. However, I know a lot of students, and especially students in artistic majors, experience burnout. I'm currently feeling the highschool burnout that people term Senioritis, so burnout has been on my mind a lot lately and I want to do my best to avoid it from here on out. So, I'm going to post some of the plans that I have to attempt to avoid burnout, but if you have any suggestions, again, feel free to comment them below. First, I'm going to try to make lots of friends outside of my major, and maybe take some classes outside of my major too. I think that if I am constantly surrounded only by people talking about art, I will get tired of it. I've always been someone who has enjoyed more interdisciplinary stuff, and luckily NC State is a great place for this. There are so many other majors like ecology and engineering that I'm also really interested in, so taking courses on them, or at least talking to others who do, could keep things fresh and keep me inspired. Secondly, I really am going to try to be way better about time management. I think that's the biggest source of my burnout right now: it feels like I have no time because I am not managing it well. To be fair, I am having 3 hours of rehearsal after school and I am in the throes of AP review, but I could definitely be keeping my schedule a little tighter and that would help me find more free time. I'm not sure if Trello is going to still be my method for this since now I am not time managing for a team, but it might still be helpful for me to just have my own personal boards. I know I will use some sort of planner if I want this to work. Finally, I will try to have some hobbies that help me recharge. It's a little weird to think art may not be my hobby any more, but maybe just drawing silly stuff or fanart still will be. Otherwise I'm thinking singing/playing an instrument and potentially coding simple games. I know a lot of people say having a hobby helps, and though, yeah, it is another activity that you have to make or leave time for, it's worth it to not be low energy and unable to create efficiently later. That's about all I have for today, but I bet I will find better strategies for myself as I actually get to college and see what's manageable. I'm really excited to be pursuing my passion, and I'm going to do everything I can to avoid bust. It's Game Review Time! Long story short, after the two breaks that we've had lately, I wanted a way to disconnect from reality, so I returned to a game that I used to play: Awesomenauts, a 2D multiplayer online battle arena by Ronimo. My brother and I got this game during a steam sale a few years back, but it has since become free to play, which is really exciting because it means more players which means quicker match ups to be able to play. It's a really fun game that's pretty easy to learn, and I just really enjoy the way that it looks. Basically though it's "2D League of Legends" (credit to Sam for such a good summary), so there isn't a ton to talk about gameplay-wise, so I'm just gonna talk about some of the characters I like and how the games sort of play out. [All pictures included come from the game's official website] The Basic Game Structure So basically, each team has 3 players who are trying to defend their own base, and the destroy the other team's base. However, there are also turrets, which act as a strong defense (the big mech machine gun looking thing above) and droids (the two little guys on the left with buzz saw arms) who function as meat shields when fighting against the turrets. It's pretty simple over all, but there's a variety of different characters who all play a little differently, and there's a lot of strategy that goes into it. It also really requires full engagement on the part of all 3 team members, or it really will be a struggle to have a fighting chance (basically it's really frustrating when someone goes inactive). One thing I really love about this game is that it's not about the kills. While yes, these stats are recorded, and it is helpful to kill others and not die, there's so much more to the game than attacking other people. A lot of it comes down to defending and attacking other turrets, and following waves of droids in order to be able to do so effectively. I'm not very good at any PvP game, but I've gotten a lot better at this one than at any other and even gotten a kill streak a few times, because I can actually use other strategy and skills to still help out my team, especially using characters that fulfill a more defensive or support role. Which brings me to... The Characters Awesomenauts has over 20 characters, and they all feel really unique, which I think is really impressive. A few of them do play a little similarly, but the character designs are all so vastly different, and they do have slight differences move-wise that set them apart. They all have their own theme music and voices too. The characters fall into a few different categories, some of them being fighter, tank, support, harasser, and assassin. I haven't unlocked all of the characters, so I'm only going to talk about a few of them who I've had fun with lately (2 of which are starter characters, but they're honestly still my favorites).
So, that's about all I have to say about Awesomenauts! I can foresee myself wasting hours on it over the summer, and I encourage you to try it out if you want! It's free to play and matches usually are less than 20 minutes long, and it's just such a charming game.
I simplified and textured these models that Julia created to go into the atrium. They're still about 4,000 polys each, which is NOT ideal but I do not feel like I am able to simplify them any further without seriously sacrificing the quality of the models, so I'm going to put them in the game as they are. I also finished some other simple models (just some display cases containing random objects to go in the atrium) which pretty much finishes my work for the year (once I import them of course). Once Julia gets done modeling the downstairs, I'll obviously have to help import and texture all of that as well, but we are really getting very close, which is good because we only have 35 days (including non school days) to get this project done. I hope we make it.
Mr. B also just told me that we need invitations for our showcase, so I'll likely be designing those since I don't have much else work that I can do. Goals for This Week:
This week was one that I thought would be pretty quick and easy, but of course, I was wrong. We only have a few more assets needed (maybe 6?) so I modeled and textured two of them very simply at the beginning of this week: the bookshelf and teacher desk. They're both low poly and I used a free to use texture that doesn't require attribution, so it was a very quick process. However, one of the other objects needed was a potted tree for the atrium. Julia modeled this and it looks fantastic! BUT it is 20,000 polys... so I'm back to simplifying, baby! I've been taken advantage of the feature that allows me to merge overlapping vertices. However, the trees still have quite a few polys, so I could see this taking me up to two weeks depending on how willing I am to sacrifice the quality of the tree. Once I get that done though, Julia should be done with the downstairs of the building and all of the 3D Modeling should be (for the most part) done. We're getting so close, and I'm really excited to have a finished game. I feel like we're going to succeed (don't worry I knocked on wood...), which is always a good feeling. Goals For Next Week:
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AuthorHi, I'm Abi, a DSA student who likes games, drawing, writing, and acting. Archives
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