BA2a - Week 12 Summary

I worked more on the design for the water character, giving it a heal sprite and a bubble attack if I need it.

Also created an enemy, a skeleton that is based on candles. I decided on this because I wanted something to oppose the watery-ness of the playable character.

 Also drew a background for the main walking around area of the game. Its a lava area, focusing on where the candle enemy would live.

I wanted to give it a pre-rendered background, but I decided that it shouldn't be my main focus as this is more about the mechanics of the game. So to get the same kind of feel  that I wanted from this part of the prototype, I made the background horizontal under the player character. 

I also made a battle manager to have in the battle scene. At first I had all of this in the battle level blueprint, but there were elements that wouldn't work so I copied it into the battle manager instead.

Also managed to get some of the elements of the UI working, such as enemy and player character health.

Enemy Blueprint below.

Player Character Blueprint.

Battle Level Blueprint

Starting Level Blueprint

BA2a - Week 11 Summary

I started working on the mechanics for my Turn-Based game, firstly working on how it changing from one camera to another when on a box trigger.  

I thought that the most logical way would be to make it load a different level when the character walked into the trigger box. 

I made this UI for the battle screen, with two attacks and a pass turn button, with a health and mana bar. This isn't set in stone as I don't yet know what I'm gonna do in terms of skills.

I also started working on the pixel character design for my game, making an idle animation and a water smack one for the first attack I have in the buttons. I currently have the character walking in the first 'level' before the attack screen.

Also set up the two cameras for the area before the battle and during.

Also above the battle level blueprint. 

Games Industry Roles

We were given a task to find 5 industry roles and 3 Professional Portfolios, thinking about what job i would apply for when leaving university -

Industry Roles

2D Games Artist - Would need skills in making in-game assets such as tilesets, weapons, buildings, characters, creatures etc., and animating those assets for the games or advertisement. Would probably need to be good at drawing a range of items, creatures and characters.

Pixel Artist - Similarly to 2D games artist but in specializing specifically in pixels. Would be making tilesets and characters and sprite sheets for animations. Would also be using concept art and creating pixel versions of the characters/creatures/items etc.

Concept Artist - Making clear and high level drawings to convey what the scenery/characters/creatures from the game/film etc will look like. Need high level drawing skills and be able to use any drawing software such as Photoshop proficiently, and be able to work at a good pace.

Character/Creature Artist - Create and design characters / creatures for games from concept art. Skilled at 3D Modelling software like Zbrush. Have to have good knowledge of anatomy of humans and animals etc.

Environment Artist - Need to do things like modelling and texturing environments, and being able to work from concept art. Skilled in Maya and Photoshop.

Professional Porfolios

Tom Zhao - http://www.tomzhao.com/

Concept artist at thatgamecompany, his portfolio comes up immediately with some of his work at the very top, and you can see his 'quick portfolio' of work. The white on black makes it easy to see the links at the top of the page, and its all very simple and easy to understand.


Alex Holowka - http://infiniteammo.com/

Coder, currently working on Night In The Woods, blog is has his recent work on the front page, photos link to the games websites. Not very clear information about him on the website, even in the about it only has videos.

Camilo Vanegas - https://vimeo.com/camilovanegas

3D artist/animator, portfolio is on vimeo so all videos, page starts with an animation of a tiger that they've made, easy to navigate.

BA2a - Indie Dev brief

This week we were given a new brief in our specialisms, to make a prototype for a game. We essentially were allowed to try anything. I've decided that I want to try to make a RPG Turn-Based combat system in UE4, similar to Final Fantasy games where you walk into a monster and then the side view appears with the HUD and health/stamina bars etc.

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_system

I want it to be a 2.5D pixel style game where you walk into the monster and the battle screen appears, rather than random encounters.