Unit 66, 67 and 68 part one

Unit 66, 67 and 68 part one

Applications of 3D:

3D modelling has been in almost everything you see on a screen. Whether it watching a TV program or playing a video game. A very good example of uses of 3d modelling in a film would be the recreation of a younger Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Terminator Genisys film. It took them 12 months to create the scenes (approx 30 mins of screen time) with modelled Arnold Schwarzenegger. However in games many of them use programs like Maya or 3D studio max to create their models and environments.  One of most useful things with programs like maya is that you can use it to plan the construction of a building or even completely remake it. In addition to creating static images you can also create animations for them which is useful for for making educational videos more interesting.

                                                     old vs young arnold is terminator genisys (google)
                                                                   



                                                Modelling

                    I have taken a few screenshots from World of Warcraft as a example of modelling in a game



These screenshots show one of my characters and is one of the of the many examples of modelling inside of a game. Normally on a game such as World of Warcraft each piece of Armour is individually modeled and then resized to fit your character's race. This would be because if you got a piece of armor on a smaller race such as a dwarf it'll have to be resized to fit a human. Aside from character models each building would of had to modeled as well.

This is a very large structure in world of Warcraft. (google)

Another example of modelling in a game would be making building whether it is as large structure like the one above or a small abandoned house. The building whether accessible or not would have a purpose, whether it is for scenery or if you have to interact with it in some way.  You'll have to model certain buildings to fit a specific zone. The building above is set in a very icy/ snowy area and the spikes along the walls and building are supposed to look intimidating and the purpose of them i believe is to warm you that the area is very dangerous (which it is). However below is a 2 images which equally fit the area they are in.

This is another dangerous area set in a desert (google)

 

This is another dangerous area set in a swamp the fog amplifies the feeling of  dirtiness it is what you's expect in a swamp                                                                                                         (google)




The areas in all games will have to vary otherwise players will lose interest in the game. In addition to this you have to chose where you place areas correctly. What i mean by this is that i would not be wise to have a snowy area right next to a desert area however having a tropical forest or a rocky area would suit being next to a desert like area. a good example of good placement of environments are the two images below us. Both of which are zones right next to each other.

A Tropical area which is located in the middle of 2 large desert zones. (like an oasis could be) (google)

One of the large desert areas which surround the tropical area. (google)








Animation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9EsvzcVZv4
This is a short video showing some very basic animations on world of warcraft such as movement (running and walking) swimming, basic combat and falling. (Each race in world of warcraft has unique animations i'm only showing one race)



The animations in a game brings out the life of a character or event and without them your character wouldn't look like it was moving. it'd just be a moving mesh.  Animations are also used for many other things such as in a environment. You could display a sandstorm or moving fog along with a vast array other options.

You can create in game cut scenes through animations using in game graphics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOmRJ-HD5x4
The uses of in game cinematic's could be used to create drama, fear, apprehension and sadness. 


Polygons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pz4DFnXS-4
This us a short video of me showing the polygons and messing around a little. (no sound)

The polygons in Maya are a Cube, Sphere, Ring, a flat square, square based pyramid, a tube (hollow) and a tube which isn't hollow.
There are two common ways to model. These are Box modelling and extrusion modelling.
Box modelling is using a basic polygon to create a rough copy of your final design.
Extrusion modelling is where you create a 2D shape which is the basic outline of your 3D object
When using software like Maya you'll be able to edit a existing shape to create almost anything and if you add more polygons to the existing shape you could turn something as simple as a cube into almost anything


Geometric theory
When creating something on Maya you need to have at least some knowledge on 3D shapes such as knowledge on vertices(a angled point on a shape) edges and faces(the part of the shape which is normally separated by a edge) ETC. In a program like Maya you would use primitive polygons. the ones in Maya are Cube, Sphere, Ring, a flat square, square based pyramid, a tube (hollow) and a tube which isn't hollow. There different meshes which could help you when modelling a object.


Constraints
Obviously the more complex structures you create and the larger they are the file size needed to store them is increased significantly increased. With the file size increased the time to render and when you add it to a game you may need a higher spec PC to use it properly. If you're using 3d studio max you're file will be stored as a 3ds file. whereas if you're using Maya they'll be saved as a mb file.
.
Displaying 3D Animation
Here is a example video of animating a object in Maya (this is not my own video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8fj52htMek

The API's are used for communicating with the graphics card and software the game you're playing uses. The two most well known API's are Directx and OpenGL. The differences between these would be that Directx is Microsoft developed which means it'd only be used on PC's with windows installed on it and the Xbox consoles. OpenGL may have uses on other games consoles and PC's which don't use Windows.
When the API communicates to the graphics card everything you see on screen is because of this.

This is the graphics pipeline which shows the process of  communication to the graphics card and bringing it onto your screen(microsoft website)


There are also many rendering engines (which are used to bring the images to your screen) and each one is better suited to some situations better than others. The v-ray render engine is better for high resolution images, backgrounds and environments whereas the Redshift engine (a very new engine) looks like it could potentially be used for gaming.
The two main rendering techniques are radiosity and ray tracing and each way is suited to different tasks. Radiosity involves a lot of work with lighting and reflections. Ray tracing is where you trace a line of light and then it simulates the shadows/ reflections with the object. 





Ray tracing (wikipedia)

                                               

new killer klown game

Names
Amor Mortis (love of death)
The laughing dead
(more later)



I focused on using padlet to some up some of my major ideas
https://padlet.com/sindragosa1998/e7bcuwokffsd


Genre
Survival
Shooter
arena
horror Environments
A open field (possible farm or slaughter house)or a urban environment
A town
(possibly more)
plot
You believe that you are the last human on the planet you have to fight the clowns and clear out areas full of clowns. upon defeating the clowns more clowns will for you until you have beaten then. It will then be up to you to find any (secrets) or progress to the next stage
Gameplay
I would like to build a game where your objective is too get to a important location. There will be several locations for you to discover. Whilst you fight a range of different clowns which will do different attacks. I want to also create a slow moving but extremely deadly clown modelled off of Dani filth (see below).

Dani filth, somebody i could potentially model into a enemy.

Weapons (user and clown)
For yourself i would like to go with a few classic weapons. like a double barrelled shotgun or a single shot rifle. Due to the locations i might set it, most people in the countryside (i'd imagine) wouldn't have automatic weapons. As for a melee weapon (if i add them) a woodsman's axe or possible pitchfork.
The weapons for the clowns i plan on twisting the stereotypical clown image of fun into something almost sadistic in nature. Possible explosive pies or razor filled pies, Melee clowns using large hammers and suicidal clowns running into you with explosive pies. The one what you're supposed try and avoid will use some kind of special weapon like a long scythe or if i'm going to take inspiration for the weapon directly from the film it could have some kind of special gun.

I plan on having on having some adult content on the game such as some violent images but nothing to graphic. I want to make the game either 16+ or a 18+ depending on what the results from the questionnaire i get.

Game questionnaire

Gamer questionnaire

Upon completing the questionnaire it recommended  mainly shooter games to me. I do not play many shooter games with the exception of occasionally playing battlefield 4. I am quite surprised (even a little disappointed) that there are so much. The most recommended game was mass effect and i do enjoy the look of the game due to it's rich story line which is important for me.


One of the main things I do not agree with is the placement of Call of Duty and Fifa being placed so high in the recommendations. Especially with Fifa because as far as I know there isn't a story within the game. Call of duty is not really a game for me because I do not like the idea of constantly joining online matches with one goal which would be to progress to the next rank. (for me it's to repetitive). However I may buy it for the story mode.

Aside from these i am pleased with the rest of the recommendations. My Favourite genre currently MMORPG and there are 2 which appears rather high up in the recommendations and these are World of Warcraft (which i already play) and star wars the old republic. In addition to these the elder scrolls series and the fallout series (both of which i play) appear on the list amongst may other games I play or desire to play.

This graph shows what qualities i hope to find in a game.

When playing a game i tend to be a competitive player because i always aim to get the best weapons but my main focus is usually enjoying the objectives and admiring the scenery. In any RPG game it is important having some kind voice acting or some kind of interaction with your character. It is harder to achieve in a MMORPG which is why i believe it is important to have a way for other players to interact with each other.


If i could sum up what kind of things i look for in games briefly it'd be...

A good and interesting story
Interactivity between players and/or NPC's
Some kind of achievement systen
Unique areas, weapons and enemies

Game Engines :Unit 70

Game Engines

The definition:

A game engine is what powers what you see inside a game. Whether it is a building you see or an enemy what you face. One of the major things a game engine will do is rendering. Rendering controls what you see on an image (such as a rock texture). The rendering engine also controls lighting and shading. Aside from these a game engine is in charge of sounds, physics and AI however these are split into different areas within the actual game engine itself.

                        A screen shot of Vampyr which is being released on the unreal engine 4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtviMtk0OXg

This is a video of a simulator called BeamNG it has one of the best physics engines out so far.

The difference between open and closed game engines

Many game engines are available to download and use to make your own games for example the unreal engine. However there are also many where they’re impossible to use unless you are an employee. A famous example for this would the Creation engine which is used to make Elder scrolls: Skyrim and fallout 4

The unreal engine 4 is a recently developed engine and it promises to bring some very nice visual effects into new games. This engine has a very large emphasis on lighting effects. The upcoming game “vampyr” shows this. As you can see in the image (first page) this looks to be a deeply atmospheric game and the lighting greatly adds to the effects. I believe that this specific game engine may be used for photorealistic games to greater effect than what could be achieved in an exaggerated or any other style. (This is my opinion). I feel this way because I believe that with a photorealistic game it tests the capabilities of the game engine more. A few games what will be released using this engine will be Dead Island 2, Gears of war 4. This game engine works well with Maya as you can import your models very easily into it.

This is a screenshot of the new unreal tournament game using the unreal engine 4

The Rage engine is a closed game engine only Rockstar employees can use this. It was used to make the grand theft auto games (from grand theft auto 4 onwards) and Red Dead Redemption. This engine has been used on the Xbox 360, Xbox one, PS3, PS4, Nintendo wii and PC.  This game engine is primarily used for photo realistic games. Rockstar use a separate engine for some other parts of their games. For example for their character animations they use the open source “bullet” engine

A screenshot of Grand theft auto 5 on the PC

Bioware has been in use since 1995 and has been used to create a multitude of games since then including the effect series (except mass effect Andromeda) and the dragon age series (additionally Star wars the old republic and the baldur’s gate series).  Since 2007 EA own this engine. This made Bioware a subsidiary company (a company owned by another company). Many of the games combine the art styles of photorealistic and exaggerated. Typically this game engine is used in RPG games

Dragon age inquisition screenshot

CryEngine is a game engine created by Crytek and it has been used to create games such as Crysis, the first far cry game and a modified version of CryEngine has been used to create the game Star citizen. In 2015 Cryengine was licenced to amazon ad in February 2016 amazon released the Amazon lumberyard (it’s a reworked Cryengine). The cryengine has mainly been used to create photo realistic games. The first crisis game (released in 2007) was one of best looking games (in terms of graphics) out at that time and was still considered a good looking game at the end of the xbox 360, and pa3 generation of consoles.

A screenshot of the first crysis games

(gamemaker)

Gamemaker has been in use since 1999 and has been widely used to introduce people into creating games. Since this is mainly designed for novices, you don’t need any skill or experience with programming. In order to make more complex coding there are also many tutorials to guide you into using the coding effectively. Gamemaker is primarily used for making 2d pixelated games, however it is possible to make a 3d game.

This is a screenshot of a game made in Gamermaker

Unity is an open source game engine. It has seen use on PC, consoles, Mobile and web games. One of the reasons Unity is so popular is because of its ability to be used on many gaming platforms. Unity has been used since 2006 and the majority of mobile games now use unity because of its availability which greatly adds to its popularity since at this current moment mobile games is the most popular gaming platform. Unity earns its money by having you have to buy some of the features but the majority of the features are free to use.

This is a screenshot of a game made in Unity

This game engine was used for the creation of Witcher 2 and Witcher 3. This particular game engine was designed specifically for these games by the CD projekt red. The witcher games are photo realistic. When playing the games you would be able to tell that the objects in the game render at a further distance than most other games. One of the things I enjoy most with game engine is the hair animations and facial expressions in the witcher games.

A screenshot of witcher 3

10 Questions

In the platform game, name one thing you learned during its development.  

I Learned how to use game maker since the platform game was my 1st i had made and this allowed me to get used to using it.


In the maze game name one thing you learned during this assignment


In the maze game it allowed me to experiment with some new ideas. Creating the game was not the challenge. I had to recreate the game to a semi working standard because i had lost all of the internal files inside the game but this taught me how to work under pressure and to a deadline (which i met)


Did you learn any maths during this experience?



I did not learn any new math skills however it did refresh my memory.


Do you think you gained any maths when you did any puzzles for the maze game? 



No i did not gain any new math skills because they were all things i came up with by myself so i had to know the answers and formula to them.



How do you rate your maths?


7/10 because at this moment maths is just becoming really easy for me and if i had the chance to redo my maths GCSE i could comfortably get a B.


How hard did you find the maths during these assignments


I found the mouths really easy because the majority of the problems i had faced mainly included decimals and coordinates. 


Do you think your opinion’s towards maths has changed


My opinion has not changed towards it because it is still the most dull subject in my opinion.

wayne's space invaders assignment

kurt bremner




Sprites and Sounds in my game  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utMt9q4nr_A

Objects in my game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfj2l9WS50g

Gameplay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyN1CHndYi4

Be able to create sound assets for a computer game following practice

PLAN:

My game theme: a space invaders style game with jets and other aircraft.

Sounds i would like to make for the game:

title song
game song
starting noise
death noise
enemy destroy noise 

maybe a voice over saying begin and each level.

I would like to make 2 types of similar but different music.

One for the 1st level i want to be fast and maybe a little bit aggressive in its tempo and the 2nd level i want to make the music a bit more precise and slower due to the presence of projectiles in that level.

My game is similar to space invaders in the way that it plays. (you have to use left and right arrow keys to move and you have to shoot approaching enemies whilst avoiding projectiles) But visually it does not look retro as you use jets and fight against other jets (i'm aiming for a retro style game with current day themes).


Unfortunately due to a error in game maker i had to convert one of the sounds to a WAV file (it was a originally mp3).

Screenshot of my title screen song

Screenshot of title screen song

Screenshot of title screen song

Bullet sound





The effects i added for the sound when i play the game has been edited. (i forgot to screenshot this) but the effects i put into the song were reverb and a echo effect. I used these i thought it made the game sound a little more retro.

Death Sound

Studio reverb effect for my title screen song

Delay effect for title screen song
i had to remove this because it did not match the overall feeling i was trying to create within my game.

Distortion effect for title screen song

Mastering Effect for the bullet sound

Death sound echo effect

Death sound amplify



Game start noise.

i forgot to add a screenshot of the process of me editing it. I added a echo and reverb effect along with normalizing it. To create it i growled into my microphone at home. I was aiming for more of aggressive start because you get put straight into the action and i believe a growl symbolizes danger and apprehension of a fight. To get this I added it to YouTube then used a YouTube converter to get it in a mp3 file. All of my sounds are in mp3 because it adds to a retro effect. In addition to this all of my sounds are lossy compressed which also adds to the feeling of it being retro.

Enemy death noise echo.

Game song 3 (2nd level)

game song 3 (2nd level)

song 3 mastering effect

Adding reverb to the sound of the jet(start of level)

echo effect explosion

reverb effect for explosion




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k36q8LKkZew


All of These sounds were created and edited by me.


For the start game sound the really deep sounding one I had to upload it to YouTube and use a YouTube converter on it to get it in a mp3 format. I'm not sure of the the legality issues in using these but since i'm using it on my own sound I can't see why I wouldn't be allowed to use this. This method was also used in getting the starting jet sound in a mp3 format.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7qnbSHUFKA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmaCPBiTGd8



When I created and edited the sound the were at 16 bitrate. I did not want to create it and a 8 bit rate sound because i wanted the sound to feel like it was a mix between 8 bit retro games and a few of the 16 bit games later produced. I believe in my game that I replicated the feel to some degree in few of my songs and sounds because despite the fact that some of the sounds were more fluid than what 8 bit sounds and songs were. (I believe they sounded bouncy and a bit chunky which would've been due to the limited access to powerful hardware and software). Luckily for me i have access to more sound recording and editing program than what they ever did. In addition to recording the sounds in the mp3 format i also saved them in a lossy compressed form so i reduce the memory and crispness of the sound like what the sound developers in a game created from the 80's may use. (they didn't have a choice what kind of compression they'd have to use in a game back then because the sound would take up too much memory and processing power and render the game unplayable).


The deep growl what i created was taking from inspiration from main villains in world of warcraft since they always have a overwhelmingly deep voice with a lot of echo effects applied to them. They would use these voices to generate a feeling like the villain is powerful and dangerous and it commands your attention to them. I have gone for a similar kind of feel to that a later on inside the game you find that the voice you hear at the start of the game is in fact the last boss. By using this kind of informationiIgathered from world of Warcraft I have started to believe that this kind of voice for a villain is extremely effective and uses and created ideas of symbolism (the deep voice generates the idea of apprehension as you are about to see or fight a boss) and iconography because I have started to believe that a boss needs to have voice you may not expect or commands your attention to it.

The mood Iwas aiming for was a up beat action/shooter game which is why I did not create any of the sounds to be peaceful and relaxing.

The voices in this game are entirely voiced by me a nobody else. Additionally all sounds were recorded at a bit rate of 44100

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyB5H7_zNuo
The voice for the last boss in the expansion wrath of the Lich King


The Lich King



I started creating the sounds for the game from scratch so the sounds I believe get better as they progress. Whilst editing them I made a few mistakes such as with title screen music I saved over the original copy with the edited copy. You may of been able to tell that it sounded rubbish (this is my opinion) due to the overpowering echo effects I added. If I had the choice to edit it again from scratch I would still keep the echo effects but reduce them to a much smaller level. I believe that you can tell how much better i got at using the software (adobe audation) as it progresses as they start to sound in my opinion better because i more adept at using the program. My favorite sound was the the music I made on level 2.





The programs i used in this project were Soundation, Adobe Audition and freesound.org 



 I used a Compact Zoom Microphone to record the sounds for the "go" sound.