Almost missed a post

Yes this is real late.  No I did not get anything done.  Life was too hectic this weekend for me to do much, though next weekend should be easier since I will not have a project due and a test the following week.  Sorry I do not really have much time to type anything, work also changed my shift so I am going in earlier, otherwise I might have tried to describe another aspect of the game.  Well until the end of the week,
~gunnah

Rushed

That about sums up the previous week.  I could go into more but I do no think I have enough time before the next post to explain why I am so rushed from the previous week.  Project, test, overtime.  That is the short end of it.  But I know you really do not care about that, you want to know more about that game I had almost no time to work on, last week I was literally only home to sleep.  While that sounds like I would get nothing done, that is not completely true.  I made one complete sketch and am about two-thirds done with the second.  The first sketch is the layout for the split-level house I am thinking about making.  The second is a larger two-story house.  Hopefully they will be that much easier since I already laid everything out, of course it never works like that for me.  Hopefully I can get something done this weekend, though the project is due during the weekend and the test is next week, so time is really stretched thin.
~gunnah

Work in Progress: Trash Bin - Modeling and Texturing I

Well as much as I had this weekend off, it was fairly rushed.  I was not home a lot of last week so I spent most of the weekend catching up on things that needed to get done.  With that said, I did manage to get a new model for the game, a trash bin.  The bin is just over 100 faces, with the model, unpainted, to the left.  This model should be reusable in numerous areas around the suburbia map, especially behind apartments, municipal buildings and stores.  I was tempted to make it so I could have the one side slightly ajar, but then I have two options, neither of which I really like.  The first is to leave it so the back-facing faces inside the bin are open to the world.  This does not add faces, but does leave for some odd renderings, since each engine treats this slightly different (black or duplicating the correct-facing face) I did not really like this option.  The other was make the bin a hollowed cube which would always render the same and be great if this was just for a rendering in an engine, but would greatly increase the number of faces required.  Of course this would make it easy to make various bins off of one template, but the new number of faces was something I wanted to avoid, plus it would be that much harder to texture.

Now, because I kept the model fairly simple, I was quickly able to finish the UV map and even start on the actual texturing part of the model.  While the left image is in no way the finished model, and I may wish to make several other textures so that I can add several models varying to break up the monotony of the map, I think the model has a fair bit of detail already.  There are a few texturing aspects which I would like to add to this model.  The biggest attention grabber would be some paint streaks coming off of the word trash.  In one corner I would like to add some rust to break up how flat the side paint jobs look.  I would like to add a few dark lines where the two swinging top door meet each other and the box itself.  I would also like to add a series of water stains coming from the top of the bin on both the front and sides.  The back is fairly plain, I am not sure what I can add to break up the paint there or on the spots where the garbage truck would lift the box.

Life Casts Slow

So last week was a poor week to get anything done.  I really have not had an time to think about the game.  Not saying I did not want to, my work schedule was just slightly modified since it was Presidents' Day making it impossible to get anything done, literally I have only been home to sleep.  With that said, hopefully I can get something done this weekend,
~gunnah

Some direction

Well it may be a little while before I get much else done.  Hopefully I can start making small progress in various minor aspects of the game, but that depends more on how life decides to play and it does not always play fair.  Probably the quickest topic I want to discuss is my progress with the Source engine.  In short, not much.  They way the tutorials for the engine recommend setting it up involves setting up the source control early on and I just have not had time to sit through and set up all of the preliminary work (I have been looking to check the engines as quick as possible and this may take a little more time than I was hoping).  So in short I have not done much, but I have read through how to set up the engine and when I get some time I may get around to actually going through and getting it up and running.

Another quick note is that I have added a new column on the 3D art page for small items I want to make.  Some of them were described in the previous post, like the garbage and recycling cans.  I have been looking around and have a few other ides, but I am not sure when I will get around to making a long list of things which should get done (There will never be such a thing as a complete list, but there are numerous things which I would eventually like to make for the suburbia map).

Finally when I was describing the levels I would like to make (I will save you the work of looking, it is in this post) I talked about different maps.  I know I have had tunnel vision on the Suburbia map but that is because at the moment it is the most detailed of the map and the one with which I would like to make the demo.  After a bit of thinking I have thought of the fourth map I wanted but could not think of at that time, a Top-Secret Base. The uniqueness of this map is the overall layout.  The cargo hold I am thinking will be entirely exposed.  The suburbs will be mostly exposed except for a few exceptions (Parking Deck and Mall in the middle of the map). The castle will also be mostly exposed but have a little more enclosure (I am thinking it might be fun to have a map with a different scaling, so on this map the tanks would be scaled models and the castle extend out as though it were the size of a large town).  The Top-Secret Base on the other hand I am thinking will be about half enclosed with a large subterranean area including the central point.

That about covers everything I wanted to get out there, hopefully Friday I have something more to show.
~gunnah

Work in Progress: Ranch-style House (Part II)

 To the right is the completed model for the ranch-style house.  As you can see if is on a similar angle as the post for Part I.  This angle is good for two reasons, the first being I only need two shots to show off most of the house.  As you will notice, the area next to the large window in the recess has a door which is not visible from this angle which is why a third shot is included this week.  The other reason this angle is nice is because the light catches most of the edges on an angle like this where it does not catch it as nicely when the model is viewed straight into the camera.  This is why most of the pictures of the buildings have been on similar angles, besides the fact it makes the models easy to compare to one another.

 While I say the modeling is done, I am only at 855 faces, not that it really needs more than that, but there are several detailing items I would like to add. The first is a small amount of trim on the corner of the house which is a very small change, though one which I think when textured will make a lot of difference.  I also think that three or four lights would improve the look of the overall exterior.  One light against the back of the house by the backdoor, one next to the front door and either one over or two next to the garage door.  There are also a few exterior models I would like, that would really complete the look of the building.  A can for garbage and recycling for the side of the house and an air conditioning unit for the large blank space on the back wall.

To the left is just the third angle which shows the door.  It will probably take me a little while to get around to making all of the changes I would like to on the model.  Life has become very hectic.  The next few months in particular will probably have much smaller 3D art posts in terms of how far done the model is.  Hopefully I will be able to find room to get a decent amount done, but these more divided posts about the same model is much more realistic.  For the moment that is as far into the future as I can see.  I have no clue what I am going to go over the next few posts since I have not really had time over last last week to do much.  So stay tuned and be as surprised at what I post as I am ehat I am working on.  Until Sunday,
~gunnah

A Look at Unity

So I went ahead and looked at another possible engine over the previous week (sorry I missed Friday, long story I may get into another point).  The engine is Unity, which comes in two versions much like UDK: Free and Expensive.  Of course, from what it looked like free was really free, where UDK was one hundred dollars.  Unfortunately though, this is not enough of an incentive to use this engine.

Let us start with the basics.  Unity can be written in JavaScript of C# or some combination (though each language needs to be kept in separate files) and has an environment to view the work inside.  What that means is instead of compiling the entire program each time when only one or two little things were different, you can compile the files specific to the changes and run that.  This should theoretically speed up workflow and enable multiple people to work on a project simultaneously without needing to have access to the continually updated files.  The latter happened to be the circumstances of the person I was watching work in Unity, where he was working on the UI and only needed a skeleton framework for the rest of the game areas.

Now the downsides.  While this engine is a fairly strong possibility, there are a major flaws that I know would drive me crazy before I finish this project.  The compile button does not always do what it says.  The person I was watching needed on some occasions to hit compile six or seven times before the new information he wanted updated would appear in the work area.  Whatever needing to only compile small areas or single files to check the program would save in time is lost when you need to flip back and forth three or four times checking if the file compiled and then going back to hitting the compile button again.  My only other complaint is my JavaScript is weak and I have not done anything in C#, which I could probably learn, but that would add more time to an already very delayed project.

So I know I am not using Unity.  I was hoping to also have my review of the Source engine but it is taking forever to set up and get to where I can change actual code, right now all I seem to have access to is a map-builder.

Again, I apologize I missed Friday, I was cleared for work which I start in the morning, so I went out with a few friends and did not get back until the next day.  Hopefully I have some more modeling done for the next post and the texturing for the Sunday post after that, though who knows how much time life is going to give me now.  Until next post,
~gunnah