3D Prototype

After our talk with procedural 3d modeling expert and alumni, Venny, we were tasked to create a 3d piece using these techniques. I opted to attempt to make the house that will be explored in my game idea. Before starting on this 3d prototype of my game world I did some research on abandoned places and old buildings. I looked at various eras of building and after some searching settled on edwardian architecture, specifically the style of edwardian manors. These buildings typically have red brickwork, framed porches, and mock tudor cladding at the top of the building.

I put a simple moodboard together for these aesthetics.

I also knew that I wanted it to look abandoned in the present and unkempt in the past flashbacks. Inspired by peer review talks with about abandoned places, I spent a day cycling to and exploring some abandoned places around the winchester area, after finding some promising locations on a UK urban exploration forum.

These buildings were largely too broken down to match the look I want for my gameworlds main building, although this level of degradation could be applicable to less lived in parts of the world, i.e. a barn or shed detached from the main house. This exploration was very helpful in exploring how nature reclaims un maintained places, and in investigating colour pallets of these abandoned places on an overcast winter day, which is how I envision the gameworlds weather and colour pallet in the present time.

First 3d Prototype

The first piece was created in only a few days to demonstrate use of procedural modelling methods. Starting with the reference images I had found, I drew a sketch of the basic structure I was aiming for, as well as jotting down some basic ideas that I wanted to incorporate, at the atmosphere I was aiming for.

I used various displacement modifiers for the trees and much subtler ones to displace the hard surfaces of the building, giving each surface a rougher more detailed texture while maintaining a low poly look.

I wasn't overly content with the model in this state, I felt that some of the features that I thought I wanted in the design, such as the church like windows, ended up looking out of place, and the overall design of the building was too flat and repetitive. I did however use this as valuable practice on texturing and combined with the additional talks with Venny, a guest speaker and professional 3d modeller, I felt it would be worth while to start from scratch and make a version 2.

I again started with inspiration images and sketches. This time I decided to focus more heavily on a single reference image for the form of the building.

I chose this, an Edwardian manor in south west England. I was interested in its subtle asymmetry, abundance of windows, and traditional chimneys.

From this I sketched a floor plan and front view of the building.

While I didn't end up using the internal floor plan, having a plan to work from these orthographic view points was greatly helpful in getting the main structure of the building right.

I was much happier with the result of this piece, and again learned several new techniques and skills. In particular, I learned a lot about texturing and UV unwrapping. I used bump maps to give the brick and roof textures depth, and noise texture displacement to give them a rough feel, resulting in a much more detailed, 3d look to the otherwise flat surface. I feel its a huge improvement on the previous versions.

I also developed a method of creating ivy, using the grease pencil to draw the paths of the branches onto the building, giving a huge amount of control on the shape of the ivy, then using a particle system to distribute leaves across it.

I created two versions of the scene, one in the past and one in the present. For the present one I added more ivy, a new, overcast sky, and darkened most of the textures in the scenes, giving it a more weathered look.

From these renders I used photoshop and Premiere to create an animation showing the process of opening a window into a memory of the house. Showing how it might look and how it would be activated by the player. I also did some colour correction to get the tone at atmosphere closer to what I wanted.

Self Development: Beginner Scripting

Planning :

Over the last few weeks I've been working through the Unity Learn beginner scripting tutorial [https://learn.unity.com/project/beginner-gameplay-scripting?uv=2019.3], I plan to finish the tutorial this week and attempt to use the skills to make a basic white box prototype of one of my game ideas.

Google 2 session :

I worked through some more of the Unity Learn tutorial, pausing after the instantiate tutorial to experiment with the functions. I created a projectile firing script as shown in the tutorial, and due to a misplaced "down" in the phrase GetKeyDown I accidently made more of a projectile fountain, I found the physics of this interesting so I experimented with it further.

I then modified the destroy script, that removed the projectiles, so that it would leave ones that had been caught on screen and only delete them if they fell too far off the platform I created

Finally I made a script for camera movement, which I'm quite proud of, it allows for movement in 3 axis using Unity's input manager, and has a sprint function which increases the speed your camera moves.

While all of these scripts are still very basic I feel that they show that I've improved significantly. I'm very happy with my work and ability to understand and grasp these scripts considering how out of my depth I felt at the beginning of the year.

quick demonstration of these scripts in action

Update: 18 / 11 / 2020

I decided to try to make a script that would create a ring of objects around a central point, placing each object with a delay, then steadily decreasing the objects scale to 0 before deleting it. I hope to create something that ends up looking something akin to a loading icon.

I quickly found that creating objects in a circular pattern around a point wasn't very straight forward. I found some code that created objects randomly in a circle around a point, and adapted it to fit my needs. I also dissected the code and commented each lines function. I found this to be a helpful exercise in understanding code, and found myself learning a significant amount about how angles are processed in unity.

Using this I made a script that creates objects in a circular pattern, next to instantiate them in a sequence.

Update: 23 / 11 / 2020

I went back to the beginner scripting tutorial and finished that last few bits, then returned to my loading icon esque unity project. The next thing I wanted to do was have the spheres shrink to 0 scale over time, I at first was a stuck on how to have a number decrease to 0 over a set period of time, but after putting some thought into the problem I realized I was over complicating it for myself, and it would be much easier to simply subtract a specified number per unit of time.

Next I wanted to have the spheres start at 0 scale and very quickly scale up to 1 when it spawns.

Group Feedback and Ideation

06/11/2020

Group feedback with Philip and Kiera:

Since I was still fairly undecided on how to move forward I described both of my ideas detailed in the gameplay loops post to my peers, after talking about the pros and cons of both I decided to pursue the second idea, using flashbacks to childhood to solve puzzles and progress through your childhood home. We thought this idea seemed more original and had more potential for interesting gameplay while maintaining the ability to tell a provocative story. The first idea, about exploring someone's past through their old computer, was felt to have much more limited gameplay opportunity and to be overwhelmingly narrative focused, although both ideas were thought to be good interpretations of memory in interactive media.

After deciding on the idea to discuss further we talked about the players motivation, which until now was fairly unconsidered. Our ideas for creating a narrative reason for the main character to return to the house included:

- The characters parents passed away and they are now clearing out the house of the parents possessions

- The parents have split up and need help moving out of the old house, this would also give more significance to showing the parents relationship in the childhood flashbacks.

We also talked of the importance of connecting this initial motivator to the gameplay loops, perhaps after unlocking each area you clear the clutter and clean the area, or after returning from a flashback you find it cleared.

We also talked about how to make the gameplay satisfying, and agreed that repetition should be avoided. I want the player to be able to see the differences and similarities between the past and present versions of the house, in order to generate the nostalgic feeling I am looking for, but this shouldn't be forced. We decided it would probably be best if your position in the present was maintained in the past and vice versa. So when a puzzle is solved in the past you will automatically be at its ending point in the present, but will also be able to retrace your steps and see your solution in the present. This gameplay will need some prototyping and iteration to see what really works best, creating repetition in certain parts may be essential to creating the feeling of nostalgia.

27.11.2020

New ideas:

Could return to multiple different times within the past to see the story of your childhood unfold.

How to trigger flashbacks;

• An item that triggers the flashback in the present and corresponding item in past.

• Could make for very linear puzzles.

• A central location / set of locations that allow you to travel between past and present.

• May become frustrating having to travel to and from these locations.

• A keyboard / controller button that shifts you between time periods.

• May be the most satisfying for the puzzle gameplay, but harder to weave into a proper narrative, and could make it easy for players to miss important story aspects shown in the past.

How to transition between the time periods

• Put on a pair of glasses, through the lenses you see the past

• Could make for very smooth and satisfying animations

• A movie like flash / fade between times

• Would be quick and the player could continue moving during the animation, making it satisfying to use as it would be quick and easy, avoiding any disruption to the flow of the gameplay