For the past half year, I have not really touched any bit of scripting in game design. As someone who has been primarily pursuing art both in and out of class, it makes sense that I wouldn't do much coding, but as someone whose second choice of career would be programming, it does not make sense at all.
And I can genuinely say I miss it. My current work in CTE advanced studies is - while pretty fun to me - pretty time consuming but simple work. I mostly simplify polys of models Julia has made. There's no art in that. But I do enough art outside of class to still be creatively fulfilled. However, though poly simplification often is like a puzzle, it's an easy one. I am not fulfilled with challenges involving logic. Obviously I can not expect this fulfillment to come from class at this point though. That would mean asking people who are currently way less rusty than me to sacrifice the quality - or at least speed at which said quality is made - of the game for me to just have fun. Then, though I would have enough logic-based work to be happy, the lack of progress/working game would make me unhappy. So, this means it's time for independent, outside of school coding time. I haven't decided what I want to do for sure yet, but I think I'm down to three options
Basically, I'm hoping to get back into coding, and though I don't have an exact plan for how to do that just yet, I want to get there by Christmas so that I can start working on a project to sharpen my skills again.
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If you've read ANY of my Advanced Studies Progress Posts, you probably know how many times I've had to redo work from last year that was not working in the game. Some of it looked bad, some of it needed to be simplified, and some of it was just acting weird in Unity so I had to at least re-export the file. Of course, there is some frustration in it, but there's also a chance to improve, and I kind of love that, so as portfolio deadlines for colleges rapidly approach, I'm taking the redo approach to some of my art as well. This idea was mostly spurred by going to the Nasher Museum portfolio day and realizing, Hey, I can do better now, but this idea is still really cute. One of the critiques I got on this piece was that there was a lot of empty space, so in redrawing it, I wanted to make the composition a bit more interesting, so I brought the figures closer, and plan to add more details in the empty spaces. Another comment was that Bigfoot's pose could be more interesting, so I am following his suggestion on making the positioning a little more interesting. So far I have also opted to make the trees a little more stylistic so that they're both more interesting to look at and lead the focus to the figures.
I think in general I should continue to redraw art as I improve. It allows me to see my progress, repolish old ideas, and get cool new art out of it too. A lot of the time, when I'm simplifying the amount of vertices and polys an object has, that object starts having issues with shading. After simplifying so many object though, I've started to realize the pattern of when it happens, and I made a little diagram that helps explain it. (If you're colorblind, it's probably useless to you, sorry.) Basically, getting rid of vertices still attached to an edge that you have not gotten rid of is risky business. Even just getting rid of vertices that line up with other vertices where there COULD be an edge but there isn't has given me issues before. Basically, not freaking out immediately over bad shading, and instead continuing to simplify the object might be your best bet on solving this problem, because once all parts are simplified the same, it usually goes away.
Of course, it doesn't always work, especially with more complex objects, but it's good to know not to freak out immediately if the shading gets funky in the process. This August, I broke my arm. More specifically, my wrist on my dominant hand while I was roller skating with some friends and I fell. As someone pursuing animation, you can see where this would cause problems. This was at a really inopportune time for me too because I was planning on creating a comic with over 200 panels by mid September for a contest I had no chance of winning, but that I still wanted to meet the deadline for. That idea was immediately crushed (although I do hope to come back to it once college apps are over and I actually have free time again). Speaking of college apps, I am trying to get into art programs for college, and breaking my arm horrified me because I had just come back from an art intensive and I was ready to make amazing stuff for portfolios. This injury didn't allow me to make much art, and what I did make looked something like this: Just this picture took me almost an hour, I was using a brush stabilizer to make my lines more smooth, and I was really trying just to make something, so I wasn't really employing a lot of design principles. With more time and more planning, I might have been able to make something slightly better, but it would have taken a lot of effort and still not produced work that I was really happy with. So what did I do instead? I took a break. My life became consumed by D&D (which did force me to do a little bit of drawing in terms of making maps and such, but overall, I was not making visual art nearly as much as I normally do.) I could have been working in 3Ds Max a bit more if I wanted to still make art, but I think at that point, I really needed the break. 3D art would just remind me that I couldn't draw 2D art, because at the time, I wanted to do a mixed media project that combines both (which is currently in the works. Stay tuned...) So D&D, world-building and designing my own game, as well as listening to other people's content became my main hobby, and since it was summer and with a broken arm I couldn't do much else, it became most of my life.
And it was great. It took away any feelings of being burnt out and got me excited to create again once I could use my wrist. I listened to The Adventure Zone, a popular D&D actual play podcast and it made me laugh and cry so much, and that really motivated me to keep working on storytelling because it reminded me of how powerful that can really be. I think having this break was tough for me, and did set me back a little while in terms of artistic improvement and assembling a portfolio, but in the end, it's something I've very grateful for because it helped me refocus. I seem to have a bit of a problem, although I am getting better. (Slowly.)
I am bad at committing to long-term projects. It's not that I don't have ideas for long-term projects, or don't want to do them, it's almost the opposite. I have too many ideas and want to do all of them, meaning none of them ever get finished. This has been an issue I've had for many years and I know it's a pretty common one. Especially with wanting to do animations, I'll often start something, work on it for a little bit, then get a new idea, work on that, and forget about the original one. The cycle continues again and again. This happens even when I have grand plans for something, and I think I've finally figured out why. The first main reason is that I need to study technique a lot more. A lot of times, I would be so close to finishing a sketch, but then I got to the hands and no matter what I did they turned out wonky, and especially a few years ago, that would always drive me away. I've gotten a bit better at trying to face challenges rather than running from them, but if I was to study anatomy more, do more figure drawing, and just practice a bit more, I think I would be able to overcome challenges much more easily, and I wouldn't get frustrated with a project as fast. At the same time though, I'm not going to wait on developing a perfect art style to create bigger projects. Even if my art gets way better later, it's worth it to be working on big projects now to get experience, have fun and make something I'm proud of, and at least capture the idea, even if I want to recreate it better later when I am more skilled. It just means, as I'm doing these projects, I should do exercises to improve too. The second main reason is trying to plan before I've gotten a feeling for the work. I realized this one from my two most successful creative commitments this summer. For me, diving in without a ton of planning and just starting somewhere is incredibly important, at least right now while I'm inexperienced. Creating a calendar schedule for producing an animatic is pointless if I've never tried making an animatic before and have no idea what that time frame should be, or what I actually need to do to accomplish my goals. Instead, it's better to dive in (especially in digital art where there's an undo button), get a feel for what's going on, get excited about what's going on, and to THEN create a schedule. With the two projects I did this with, I actually committed! The first got cut short because of a broken arm making it hard to stick with my schedule, but the second is something that I'm still working on and have made a ton of progress in and I'm loving how it's turning out. It can be hard to commit to one idea when there are so many good ones out there, but it is really worth it to get the outcome that can only come from long periods of hard work. This post is supposed to reflect on the process of design a game in VR. I don't have a lot to say about the actual designing of the game since most of the work I did was more about 3D modeling, so this will actually mostly reflect on that. Let's just say, this has been one of the most stressful projects of my life, I'm freaking out a little bit. Deadlines are very difficult to hit, and learning as you go only slows down the process. However, I feel like I have learned a lot and created decent work.
You can go to my selected works page, or even my VR DSA page in order to see what work I have actually done, but basically it was a lot of modeling of objects around the room. One of the main things I learned is every model needs to be as low-poly as possible. You'd be amazed at how many objects really are in a room, and how much lag it can cause. Moving into modelling the whole school, I definitely need to work on making lower-poly models, and learn a lot more about how textures and bump maps work. Though I have not seen the finished product yet, I am very proud of what we were able to accomplish in terms to making a VR model for the first time. I hope that the process will be a bit smoother next year because of all that we have learned as a group and with better scheduling and organization. So my brother just logged into our shared youtube account for the first time in nearly a year. This account was never something serious in the least, it was a place for us to make terrible edits of media to make bad jokes (known as YouTube Poops). Super cringey, super bad editing skills, nothing really original to speak of (but still within fair use I believe). Still, creating these terrible cringey videos, which now have thousands of views (who knows how?) was one of the best things I ever did.
Goofing around in artistic fields is pretty much the best way to improve at first. Of course later on you would want to do more structured and strategic learning, like actually focusing on specific techniques and everything. However, to start, just goofing around is great. When we first got our video editing software, my brother and my cousin and I had tried to make "more serious" videos before, and I got very perfectionistic, controlling, and frustrated. After taking a break, my brother proposed the idea of making these types of edit videos instead, and it was a great change. If something looked bad, it was okay. The videos were never meant to be perfect, just fun. And this got me over my fear of mistakes or not always making something flawless. Now, I've returned to actual original content making with videos - though I wouldn't say it's more serious - and my editing skills have definitely improved. I edit videos that my brother and his friend make together, and it's much more enjoyable, and since I learned so much about the software when making those goofy videos before, plus the editing education I got from class, I now feel a lot more qualified to edit videos. Yes, maybe I don't have any videos I would be proud to show on a portfolio, but I now have the skills that I need in order to start making work that would be higher quality. This idea applies to more areas of art than just videos though. Personally, I experience burnout and loss of motivation quite a bit right now in my life, and making art that is more silly or just plain weird usually helps me since it breaks me out of the monotony of constantly trying to produce perfection that others will view. Also, it can help you get over that frustration in first learning since if your art is supposed to be silly, you're less worried about whether or not it's very good. A lot of people stop drawing because they feel that they aren't as good as those around them, or aren't improving fast enough, and I think I may have done the same with video editing had it not been for goofing around with my brother. Again though, making completely silly art all the time is highly unlikely to ever make you great, but it is a good first step. After that I do agree that more formal tutorials and training are what help you hone your skills, so after starting with goofy stuff, it is good to transition into actual learning. I think I want to try to find a bit more of a balance where I learn to incorporate smaller silly elements into my work while still making something original and artful. This could be things like practicing character poses but putting the characters into silly costumes, or adding a dog into a piece, but overall I just want to find the balance between fun and still learning important skills. This is an older game, but I played it for the first time recently, and since it's slated to get a sequel this year, I decided, why not. Full disclosure, I have not yet completed the game, but I feel that I've played enough of it to make an initial review - but maybe if I have time this summer I will follow this up with a post reflecting on the end. Rad. That's the one word I would use to describe this game. The music is this really cool loop that, even after playing the game for quite a while, I never got tired of, and I would totally recommend listening to for fun. The characters have a little dialogue at the beginning, and it's very simple, but also adds a lot of charm to the game because the characters are very lovable and give off a very Spongebob and Squidward but if they were bffs kind of vibe. The art is not what I would consider very good, but considering the console the game is for - the sega genesis - it's not terrible. Despite my claims that it's not great art, I absolutely love it. Yes it's kind of bad, but it seems like that's the look they were going for and they executed it really well. Just look, and read the text next to the health bars: This game doesn't take itself too seriously artistically and that results in some great, goofy dialogue, some fun music, and a really unique visual style.
As for the gameplay itself, you're aliens stranded on Earth trying to get home. This Earth is set up in layers, and you have to explore the map to find an elevator to get up a level. You can also be killed by drowning or hazards, or just have your progress slowed by being pushed off of the edge of a level down to a lower one. Along the way you can find friendly NPCs as well as power ups that are shaped like presents, and telephones that will reveal some of the map. The game is, at least because of the chaos, challenging, but also really unique and pretty enjoyable. When you first play the game, you aren't given any sort of tutorial, but this is actually something beautiful. It fits completely with the story of being stuck on a planet that you know nothing about. You aren't exactly sure who or what is a hazard or a helper, you really have to explore to see. Even the powerups have unknown abilities, and you have to use one in order to figure out what that kind of present does, which can be good - healing you completely or letting you fly - or terrible - a lightning cloud that kills you instantly. Once you've tried a present of that kind, it becomes labelled from then on, so it really feels like you're in a new world just trying to make sense of everything. For the most part, the game is also very forgiving to allow for this sort of experimentation, which is very nice. Overall, I think I appreciate this game more than most people since especially nowadays we want games that are a little more intuitive. It also really lacks much substance in its storyline, so I could see that as another criticism. However, I really love it for just being such a goofball of a game and having such a unique feeling to it. It's really inspired me to try to make more art that is less serious while still being honest and reflecting real life feelings like confusion, even in such a silly way. It's been a while since I made a post about, or have even thought about VR, but next year (and for the rest of this year) that is going to be our main focus. I wanted to review what I have learned so far about VR/ things to remember, while also looking into any other tips that I can find.
First I'm going to recap what I learned at ECGC last year, which I made a blog post about a while ago. That post focused a lot on the specific features Unreal Engine 4 had, and unfortunately, our computers at school are probably unable to use this engine. However, my interview with Hurley did give me some more general tips for VR. For starters, keeping your frame rate high so as not to cause nausea. This shouldn't be a huge problem for us, but is something to keep in mind. On the same track of not making your player feel sick, we need to be careful in how we do movement. Sudden, uncontrolled movements, especially with non-steady accelerations can really make a player nauseous. The last thing Hurley said is very different about working in VR is the fact that there are two, oddly shaped screens, and your design now has to accommodate that, usually by using special meshes or slightly different rendering. Now to the new stuff. This article talks about getting into VR by experiencing it and just playing around. It also mentions giving the player a horizon line to look at to keep them from feeling sick, making sure everything is scaled correctly so that your player doesn't feel lost or claustrophobic, and it goes on in detail about designing a UI. It emphasizes not having your player have to do crazy things (ie look down to an uncomfortable angle) just to do basic interactions. Most of the interactions should be easy to achieve without putting stress on the player's spine or neck. The Unity website has some other things to say about VR as well. Basically, it's simple to set up a VR project in Unity. You have to do some extra set up at the beginning, but then it's just a matter of changing the product settings to enable VR. While earlier I said we probably didn't need to worry about frame rate that much, the website pointed out that since it has to render everything for both eyes, frame rate will likely decrease. It also says that if you have a VR camera in the scene, you can't move it alone. It has to be the child of another game object, and then you move the parents and the VR camera will come with it. It also unfortunately will not set up different cameras for different eyes, so you have to do that part yourself., but the website does give an example of how to do so. It suggests not using visual effects since they are often unrealistic and costly to rendering time. Overall, I'm glad that there don't seem to be many differences between VR in Unity and VR anywhere else, but since I haven't done VR anywhere else, I'm sure it's still going to take a lot of learning. |
AuthorHi, I'm Abi, a DSA student who likes games, drawing, writing, and acting. Archives
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