Kickin' it into Gear

So the framework on the game is done! Officially that is. We now have everything we need to load everything into the game. That means animations, models, sound, music, and everything else! This is a big step for us as our game is now underway officially. So here we go!

Last week we added .md5 file support which allows us to get animations into our game (i.e. no more static t-pose characters flying around screen) these files were the ones used in doom which is pretty neat. I loved playing doom as a kid... I'm amazed my parents would let me play it when I was so young. It's cool now that I finally understand how these games work and I'm making my own. Really opens my eyes.

DOOM

This step of getting fully animated models into the game is a big one. Our original goal for our game was to have a large variety of enemies that would appear on screen so we have to start working on getting one fully animated model into the game each week. This is going to be a large work load for our animator and artists.

Main character animation plans

As a side note... our lead level designer has decided to leave the course which is both sad and troublesome. He is a great friend who will be missed and a great level designer. This will add some strain on the rest of our team and we won't know until next week if we are getting a new member. There is also a chance our group will be dissolved into other groups... Which I hope does not happen because I am really enjoying this years game. We will miss you Colin.

Fort Fortnight Studios 2013 (Not pictured, Josh Liew)

So this is a bit of a curve ball but I think we got this. We are all close friends and just like doing the work so here we go! Things are finally underway!

To end.... a joke. This is a little relevant to last week's blog talking about work loads. (I'm not sure why he' holding a sword in this picture...)

Time Management

Being the producer of my game development team can sometimes be a challenge. Sometimes people don't want to work or don't feel motivated or even feel like there's to much work to be done. So when dividing work up to give to each member of a team it is important to take this into consideration. This week my programmer is working on getting our frameworks done so we can properly code. This involves a lot of changing our current code and making cuts where the code is either using outdated tech or just sloppy. I thought this would not be a very difficult task but I was very very wrong.

5 days later and now we have a framework (more or less) but there is still a lot of code running through the CPU instead of the GPU. This makes our code slow and causes our game to take almost a full minute to compile. The worst part is our game is not very big with only a few models and hardly any animations. So what to do? My programmer is still ironing out details regarding the framework and my other programming competent artists are busy modelling away and animating. So I have started optimizing our code.

I am by no stretch a good programmer so this is a bit of a challenge for me. So far I am just reading up on how to do this. Converting our old openGL code into newer openGL code and figuring out where I can send data to the GPU for faster processing. This (stating it nicely) is driving me crazy. Taking old code and making it better is by no means a fun time for me but I am doing it. Slowly but surely I am doing it.

But where did this problem start? Why am I doing the job I asked my programmer to do? Well... It's due to time management. I underestimated the amount of work it would take to get our framework up to snuff and therefore I am picking up the extra work the needs to be done. I am by no means complaining that I have to code because I do like making a game and working on it but it was poor planning on my part to put excess work on others. So from here on out I will be rethinking my work divisions for my group.

This has been a bit of a serious blog so here's a programming joke...

A guy walks into a bar and asks for 1.4 root beers.
The bartender says "I'll have to charge you extra, that's a root beer float"
The guy says "In that case, better make it a double."

Week 1 Complete!

The first week of classes is done and I am looking forward to the next 4 months. Though some of them will be very challenging there is no reason they cant be overcome by work ethic and determination. This week has mostly consisted of getting ahead in the reading and making sure the framework for our game is up to par. This has been a lot of finding libraries to use or base our work off of. I have been working really hard this week and I hope to keep it up. Go me!

I purchased all of my text books this week. A lot of my fellow students are surprised I did this as they use digital books and other methods of finding them. I did this because in all honesty, I am getting sick of looking at a computer screen for many hours a day. It is very bad for my eyes and I just prefer the structure of a book. Flipping pages feels more like progress than scrolling through a PDF. So, $500 later and I have some motivation to do well.

I have also been working hard on music for my game. As producer I am also in charge of the audio for the game. This means music and sound effects. (menu sounds, attack sounds, etc.) This has by far been my favorite part of this course so far. I love writing and creating music as I am a musician myself. Over the course of the next month I am working on bringing my drums and guitars to my apartment in Oshawa so I can record the music for the game.

TL:DR: I AM VERY BUSY!

Song For Game: https://soundcloud.com/noahvannest/game-song-1

First Blog!

It's the start of a new semester and with that comes a slew of new classes and new beginnings. A second chance to wake yourself up from your previous slump and get your stuff together. Sounds pretty great when you talk about it but what about doing it? Over the last 4 months and maybe even year and a half I have realized that you can try all you want but it means nothing unless you do. So this is it, I know Dr. Hogue said that everyone types about turning a new leaf in their first blog and then peters off towards the end but this can be solved through organization and goals. 

I guess that's what I'm really trying to get at. The importance of goals. Without goals it is very easy to get lost in your work to be done. Doing this work is key and doing it on time is even more important. This works on a personal level as well as on a team. Being the producer for my game development team means I have to organize peoples time for them and make sure they are all on track. 

My group is Fort Fortnight Studios. We are making an endless runner game hopefully sometime for mobile platforms. Though we have a good start to our game the next 4 months of development time will be spent giving our game a unique feel and interesting aesthetic. (Oh and also adding animations to our models... kind of important) Being a producer has allowed me to see what everyone is doing in the development process. I'm in a unique position because I have my foot in the door of everyone of my team members, overseeing and critiquing. This can allow me to be a better group organizer and help anyone that needs it in the group. 

That being said, I am very excited for this semester! I feel this will be the semester where our games will really come to their own. We can work on giving them our own flair and feel and make them ours. So, to new beginnings! (As cliche as that sounds.)