WEEK 7 – The Calm before the Storm

Week 7 started off pretty well. We scheduled and attended the first meeting of the week and sorted out quite a bit. What was nice to see was that the entire team knew where our progress currently was at (around 25%) and strived to do their best to ensure we get the deliverable polished and submitted on time!

Whiteboard brainstorming sessions got the best of us this week! It was easier to draw out our confusions and address them together as a team.

Figure 1:

Fig. 1: Just a scatter of tasks, and a vague breakdown of them done on the whiteboard in the Games Lab.

As per figure 1 that was sketched out on the Games Lab Whiteboard, we scattered all our pending tasks and allocated the work to whoever would find it comfortable to work with. Considering how everyone should work on things outside their comfort zones, I just wanted to ensure that the work doesn’t over-burden anyone (especially at this point). We have another 6 weeks to go.

What was pushed aside from the first few weeks would also need to be completed later, such as the completed concept art and intro/outro cut scenes. We would also require a week or two to work on merchandise, posters, trailers and any polishing of assets that might be expected from us. So, all this was laid out on the board that day.

Figure 2:

Fig. 2: Diagram with bulleted list of what needs to be done for Puzzle #2.

According to figure 2, I drew my idea of the second puzzle and spoke with the team on the list of assets required for this specific puzzle. Since, the walls are going to be enormous, our initial idea of having the puzzle placed in the center wouldn’t work. I’m glad we realized this at the week 7 stage.

Brainstorming ideas together lead us to these solutions: -

Hence, we went with the second idea. Below the diagram (as seen in figure 2) is a breakdown of things I will have to work on for this puzzle.

Figure 3:

Fig. 3: Animation based brainstorming, diagrams drawn in the Animation Lab whiteboard.

The gigantic rough sketch of the axe is just a visual depiction of the placement of weights and how the games programmers can figure a way to code it. It is a two-handed axe so if the player holds it with one hand, it shouldn’t be allowed to work.

The mini blob-men diagrams were done by Ahmed showing the key frames for the animations we decided on. Around them are a set of annotations stating how the animation will need to flow and what things need to be accounted for. Lastly, on the right-hand bottom side is a diagram of a barrel and how we intend to make it break.

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That same day, we distributed the animation tasks to the three animators. I was scheduled to work on the following:

• TANK idle animation with shield and sword

• TANK attack animation with shield and sword

• TANK defense animation

• NINJA run cycle

• NINJA attack 1 animation with two daggers

We also needed to figure a way to break the assets without actually breaking them. For that, we experimented with Fracture Voronoi Script and tried implementing the broken assets in the game. It works like a charm! I also feel using these "broken pieces" will help to populate the game environment (after they've been textured).

With these major worries sorted out, we were all set to do our tasks for the week. I still had to complete the texturing of the TANK. Hence, that was my top-most priority!

On the left are screenshots of my first completed draft of the TANK textures done on Substance painter. It took me around 8 hours (at a stretch) to complete these.

Amos had made the Normal maps for this, which meant he made the details on the armor, skirt and scarf on ZBrush.

For the texturing, I mainly used Smart materials but also filled in the tones and variations (for the arms) on a separate paint layer. Because the original scarf texture that I did last week didn't match the normal maps made by Amos, I had no choice but to redo them.

Thankfully, the symmetry option allowed me to work faster as details done on one side reflected on the other as well. It made my life a whole lot easier. Thank you, Substance Painter!

Here's a creepy video of the eyes of our character following the camera rotation (gave me nightmares that day, but it was worth it):

Final Renders of the TANK Textures:

Swipe to see four rendered images of the TANK.

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Animation-wise, we are using Mixamo for references. It has been a tedious experience but we've got to wait for approvals. We didn't need to reschedule another meeting since a lot of us had already updated each other with our progresses.

Therefore, this week has been rather calm, even though the work was tedious. A lot has happened till the mid-term week, and I hope we can pace things up for the upcoming weeks. After the animations are approved, it will be smooth sailing from there!