I feel like this blog would have been more effective had I made posts on an exact schedule, as in making a post even on weekends when we weren't assigned one. However, when I did blog, even if irregularly, I think it definitely helped reinforce the things that I had learned during the week, and in some cases forced me to learn more through readings. This blog certainly isn't for other people to learn things since I don't really have an audience, so it's sole purpose truly is to reflect on things. I think for conceptual things, especially concepts about the game industry as a whole, this blog has been extremely helpful.
In some cases, blog posts aren't enough, but I think that this website/portfolio as a whole are very effective. Having to create new artwork for portfolio checks has forced me to keep my art skills sharp even while we were working on coding projects where all graphic assets are already finished. Even if portfolio checks aren't assigned (like over the summer, unless Mr. B has a surprise for us), having a website gives me a place to put finished projects and motivates me to make more things so that I have better work displayed here. I think that if next year and over the summer I put in a little bit more work with this site, I think I can make this blog incredibly useful for myself and hopefully create a really nice portfolio.
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As the title suggests, next year we may jump from Unity to using Unreal Engine 4. Overall, I'm very for this idea, even if it might mean having to work over the summer to learn a new engine and programming language. While Unity uses C#, UE4 uses C++. I don't know what the differences between the two are, but I think it would still be worth it to learn a new coding language. The main difference between coding in Unity vs coding in UE4 though is that UE4 also has the option to use a more graphic-based interface to code. I think this is awesome because it means we can easily code the basic stuff, and then go into the actual script for complex stuff. I think this will get rid of a lot of tedious work when coding and make it go by faster.
UE4 in general seems awesome! The graphics are amazing and I'm really interested to see where it goes, especially because of it's advances in VR which I talked about in depth here. For those who don't want to read, they've made a bunch of new technological advances to make their VR run smoothly and still have amazing graphics (which is all important, because if it doesn't run smoothly it can make the user nauseous). I'm still amazed that the engine is free because it seems really complex. Even though my computer is pretty slow, I've seen first hand from the game Obduction by Cyan (even though I haven't even gotten to the coolest parts) that you can do AMAZING things with UE4. I know it will take a long time to learn and might be frustrating, but I think overall, switching to Unreal Engine 4 would be a good investment, especially for people planning on staying in the game industry in the future. So Make School - a programming school based in California - is running a contest of sorts for people to create apps. I learned about it pretty late in the process and I'm still a beginner in all coding, I really doubt I will win anything, especially when there's people in their 20s submitting, but I still wanted to submit. After all, it's good experience, perhaps a few people will see my game after all, and there is a raffle prize so who knows? You're allowed to submit projects that you had started before the competition actually did, making me wish I had looked into app design earlier. The game I'm making is a simple app called Color Car. It's a simple scrolling avoid-the-objects game. "It's the future and self driving cars are about, but due to people being sucked into their virtual worlds, the roads are a mess! Lucky for you, the world is also digitized, and by changing the frequency of light (color) that your car is on, you can go straight through the obstacles!" I originally intended for it to be a simple web game due to the need to be able to press many different buttons, but as of now I've modified the controls to make it work on mobile by making the car self-driving, and you just change the colors to go through obstacles. I'm doing what I can from memory and referencing the tutorials I have already completed for the rest. The touchscreen controls are really throwing me off right now though, so I need to work on that. Otherwise it is coming along pretty smoothly so far, though I'd like to add much more than I'll probably have time for to fit in the deadline. There's not much else to say about it as of now, so here's some of the artwork so far. I've had some perspective issues with it so far, but since it's not a very realistic game, I think it's better in this case to have icons that are easy to understand instead of super realistic ones. However, I will keep it in mind as something I need to improve on: I'll make another post later once I've made some more progress and hopefully I'll have the link to where you can upvote it and play it!
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AuthorHi, I'm Abi, a DSA student who likes games, drawing, writing, and acting. Archives
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