Week 11: Ning Zhang’s Final PPJ

In the final week, I made lots of rendered/screenshot images for the final presentation. I checked all the colliders in our scenes and fixed the problematic colliders. Because the mesh colliders didn’t work for us. So I needed to double check every single object and fixed the objects with mesh colliders. Then I added masses for every object which can move in our game. Besides, I play-tested our game and gave some feedback about the controlling scheme, bugs and so on.

1. Checked all the objects and fixed the colliders (1.5 hours)
2. Add masses to each object (1 hour)
3. Screenshot images for final presentation (2.5 hours)
4. Meeting (1 hour)

POSITIVES:

Finally, our game is done and we have a playable game now. Everything is kind of within schedule. We finished all the art assets before week 10. Then we did some revision and also added some extra stuffs to our scene, for example, the Ambient Occlusion, fridge tags… Then I went to help others’ works. I also acted as a play-tester to provide feedback to the programmer. All of these are good to our team.

NEGATIVES:

The game is still not too good to play. I mean the balance, the control scheme, the lighting… all have room to be improved. There are also some little bugs needed to be fixed. However, we only have one fully-functioning programmer. The production time is only around 8 weeks. So It is acceptable for us to have a game like this.

WHAT HAVE I LEARNED?

In this class, I acted as an artist in our group project. My main work focused on building models, rigging character, painting textures, creating different shaders, and some other designing works. I practiced my modeling skills even though the furnitures are all hard-edge models which are kind of easy to build. I also learned a little bit organic modeling which is about the sleepyhead. Unfortunately, we didn’t use my model in the final. But at lease, I provide the basic shape, structure and rough geometry for the real model. Then I reinforced my rigging skills, which made me learned a lot on rigging a human. Also I helped other members to do work. Such as fixing colliders, researching on adding Ambient Occlusion and taking screenshots. They are not extremely easy. For example, if I want to take a screenshot of the “sleepy swatting”,  I need to drag the prefab to our scene, arrange the sleepy is correct place (lighting condition), and make it in swatting pose. Then I can take screenshot. After that, I still need to go to Photoshop to edit the picture a little bit. But anyway, as an artist, I learned a lot from this project.

WHAT WOULD I HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY?

If I had experience on organic modeling, we would save plenty of time though. Because I spent around 10 hours on modeling the sleepyhead and revising it. But the final result seemed still bad. So others had to remodel it. Also, if I was more proficient on rigging a human character, I would go to get more work done in advance. Because I watched several tutorials to warm myself up about the process of rigging a human. It is been a while for me to rig again. And if I acted more actively, I probably would get into design team and help promote our game. But anyway, I got enough time for our project in this quarter. I am kind of satisfied with my work~

Week 10: Ning Zhang’s PPJ

This week, I didn’t do too much because most of the art work are done. I had waited for the revising in the first few days. Then I had the access to our Github and pulled the game down to my computer, then I kind of play-tested our game. I found the controlling of the mosquito is very hard. The room is a little bit small. The lighting condition is not perfect… However, it is already a playable game. In our weekly meeting, we discussed the current statues, Josh fixed the lighting, and we added some task to polish the game.

I researched on Ambient Occlusion. There is a package in Unity named Screen Space Ambient Occlusion(SSAO). we can use it to generate Ambient Occlusion in our game. I tried imported it and the results seemed not so good. So we gave up using AO in our game. Also, I checked all of the colliders and masses of the object in the scene in order to make sure everything is placed well.

1: Research on AO (1 hour)

2: Import AO and adjust the attributes (1 hour)

3: Weekly meeting (2 hours)

4: Check the colliders and masses of the objects (1 hour)

POSITIVE

The game is almost done. Yeah~

NEGATIVE

The control scheme is not so good according to my own opinions. There are also some other imperfectness, such as the lighting conditions, the size of the different objects, the color/textures of the objects…

SOLUTIONS & SUGGESTIONS

I think we can do as much as we can to polish the game within the limited time. Also, me and zheng will work on some other work in the final week to complete the game. They are: add a background to the main screen; do some promotion stuffs, such as a poster or a sticker…

Week 09: Ning Zhang’s PPJ

This week I mainly focused on creating textures for our models. Because we designed to use kind of symbolic shader and textures in class, much more models don’t need textures anymore. We can simply apply solid color to the models and it also have clean/Ikea/cartoony looking. I didn’t do too much work because of the decision made in class about the texture.

I only created the textures for the sleepyhead, including the face, shirt and other parts of the body. Then I revised the textures according to others’ feedback. I also created the texture for the dinning table. Unfortunately we don’t need it. Besides, I built several shaders. They are glass, metal, and “black color with reflectivity”.

1: The textures of the sleepyhead (1 hour)

2:The different shaders (3 hours)

POSITIVE

Most of the textures are done in advance. And the art assets are kind of all done in week 09.

NEGATIVE

There are no work for art team to do. All we need to do is waiting for revising the models and textures…

SOLUTIONS & SUGGESTIONS

Probably we will go to help others to do their work. Like GUI, animating, lighting, sounds… Anyone who need help can call for me to do stuffs. Also, I can help with testing our game and other post-production work.

 

Week 08: Ning Zhang’s PPJ

This week I focused on rigging the sleepy.It is been a while for me to do rigging again. So I needed to get used to it and watch some tutorials before I rigged it. I spent almost 6 hours to rig the sleepy. Since the movements of the sleepy are: idle, walk, left swat, right swat, both hand swat, crouch and crouch walk, I didn’t put complicated rigging system to it. Also, the body are all separate meshes. I need to think out a appropriate way to best rig the sleepy with separate meshes. Then, the first version had lots of problems. I got critiques from Kai-Lin. Then I revised the rigging based on his feedback. Eventually the rigging seemed good enough for animating. Kai-Lin also did a little revision on the rigging after I handed the sleepy to him.

1: Rig the sleepy (6 hours)

2: Revise the rigging (4 hours)

See figures below:

POSITIVE

I reviewed my rigging skills and learned some other new techniques about rigging. Eventually the rigging I built works for our game and I delivered it to the animation/programming group in time so that they can step into next stage.

NEGATIVE

Because of the communication, the first version of rigging seems pretty bad. I just followed my own thoughts to do the rigging. The rigging works but in a different way. So it may cause lots of misunderstandings for animators. But finally, we had it corrected.

SOLUTIONS & SUGGESTIONS

I need to deliver several versions before the final version in order to keep revising it to best serve the purpose. I did it right this week. Also communication is very important, it will fasten production speed and get ideas/opinions/feedbacks pass on fluently. What’s else, it is about learning and problem solving. If you get stuck on something, you need to look for help from other members. You shouldn’t stay there and keep trying to solve it by yourself. Sometimes your problems will be solved by other’s one-sentence-answer.

Week 07: Ning Zhang’s PPJ

This week, I spent most of my time to build the model of Sleepy. It is organic modeling and seems harder than furnitures. Firstly, I built the body, then the head. I made the body and the head be separate meshes. Also I extracted the arms and legs out of the body and made them separate too. Because our game needs the sleepy to wave his legs and arms broadly. So the arms, legs, head are all separate from his main body. After that, I built clothes for him, which are a short and a shirt. To claim on thing, the hair are also separated from the head. During the weekly meeting, I got feedback from Anna and revised the model after.

• Model Sleepy (10 hours) See figures below:
• Revise the model (2 hours)

POSITIVE

At lease I finished the model of the Sleepy. And the faces of the model are not too much. The whole model is combined with separate meshes, which is easy for rigging.

NEGATIVE

The model looks kind of ugly from current version. Maybe after texturing, it will be much better. Also, some of the edges are not laid perfectly, which will result in some problems for rigging. The arms, legs and head are separate. When the sleepy wave his arms or legs, there will be gaps and other visual short-comes.

SOLUTIONS & SUGGESTIONS

I will try my best to polish the model in order to avoid or decrease the flaws visually. In addition,  I could think about the rigging in advance and adjust the model based on the movements the sleepy needs to conduct. Also, Anna helped me to revise the model a little bit so that I can learn from others about modeling techniques, which is good. Combining two modeler’s opinions/knowledge is better than I myself build the model, especially the most important model in our game.

Week 06: Ning Zhang’s PPJ

This week I spent my time on modeling the furnitures. According to the art style we decided, I used the reference images which are from Ikea to build the models. Then we had art team meeting and group meeting on Tuesday. We went through the models finished and talked about the problems we had, then I revised/polished my models based on the feedback from others(mostly producer-anna).

1: Models-Chair, Desk, Loveseat (3 hours) See figures below

2: Weekly meeting (2 hours)

3: Revise models (1 hour)

POSITIVE

It is easy to model the furnitures from Ikea since it is easy to find reference pictures from its official website. We do not need to design and draw them out before modeling.

NEGATIVE

The amount of poly will increase dramatically once I smooth the model because some of the models need soft edges and surfaces. So after smoothing the models, I still need to polish the models manually in order to get as less ploy as I can. Also, the image of the sleepy seems kind of wired when I was modeling it. Because it is hard for designer to draw the front view and side view exactly accurately.

SOLUTIONS & SUGGESTIONS

For the sake of the ploy count, I need extra time to polish the models after smoothing them. For the sleepy, I need to do more communication with designer to get the exact body structure and clothes shape.

Week 05: Ning Zhang’s PPJ

This week I created 3 types of beds with 3 kinds of shaders in order to provide some variation for team to establish our concept art. We decided to use Ikea furnitures but with cartoony textures. We believe this is more doable and more suitable for our game. I followed the structure of the beds from Ikea, and applied toon shader to the models. Also, we had two meeting this week. One is art meeting. We watched and discussed all the models we made and chose one direction to go, which means we have our art style now. Then we settled down everyone’s position and work content in the future. In the other meeting, we went over the timeline for the rest of weeks and set down almost everything for our game foundation. I think we are in good shape to do real production.

1. 3 Beds (Model) with 3 different textures (4.5 hours) See figures below (I chose a few of them)
2. Render images and organized assets (0.5 hour)
3. Two meetings (2 hours)
4. Write PPJ (0.5 hour)

POSITIVE

We settled down art direction and arranged each one’s position in art team. The model of the sleepy seems easier to build since we need to make his arms be separate from his body. Also the head doesn’t seem to have too much detail.

NEGATIVE

Too many models, probably we need more time to create art assets. The design is still under working, so for some art assets, we can not begin to work on.

SOLUTIONS & SUGGESTIONS

The design team can make the decisions for the layout/reference (of models). In addition, We need more time to work on art assets.

Ning Zhang Week 04 Journal

As a member of art team, I researched a little bit about the art style of our game. I found a few pictures showing the different layouts and aesthetics of bedroom before the weekly group meeting. We the whole team hold a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the aspects of the game design, art stuffs, and workflow management. I get myself familiar with the decisions/flesh out made by Game Design Team. We discussed the Octodad, I also prefer having a similar art style with it.

Before the finishing of the environment design (furnitures? house/apartment? ), I pretty don’t have to much to do.

• Task 1: Researched on the Art Style. See Figure 01 (~1 hour)
• Task 2: Weekly Meeting (~1 hour)
• Task 3: Read all the documents and decisions made by the design team, think about them and raise questions (~1 hour)

Figure 01:

Style of Bedroom_Boy

Style of Bedroom_Girl

Style of Bedroom_Kid

Style of Bedroom_Modern

Style of Bedroom_Comfort

POSITIVE

We hammered most of the mechanics.  Meeting went well.

NEGATIVE

We don’t have a solid idea of which art style to go. So I cannot begin to sketch other concept art except for the sleepy man and mosquitoes since Teslim got some of them.

SOLUTIONS & SUGGESTIONS

We need to decide the art solutions and make a list of assets we need to create in terms of the art stuffs. Then we art team can begin to work on it.