Vertical Slice - Log #4

Character

Second iteration of the character now with a head attached! The head has also had a successful art pass this week, looking a lot better than the potato from last week. Complete with new rig.

Music

The sound guys have given us a demo of a soundtrack they are working on. Which we believe fits well within our theme and setting. An audio system from the previous week was tweaked in order to actually work the way it was intended, with the ability to drag all the music assets into an Audio Manager game object, and play different assets on request.

Crank

The character can now put the pole into an artifact. She can then push it and pull it. We are able to link any puzzle prop we want and make it transition from point A to B depending on how much the crank has been pushed. The pushing speed and distance are also all editable from the editor so that all of our team members may effectively use it.

Spicing up the Environment

At David’s request, we needed some more assets to liven up our current level therefore all artists had the goal of making interesting and coherent models.

The Artists

Aidan

The second iteration of the character was rigged this week. I ran into some obstacles due to non-manifold geometry interfering with my UV layout and also forgetting to delete history before rigging. Due to these issues this took most of the week. I also did some art passes for texturing the character’s face.

Connor

During this week, I was less productive due to the flu. But I managed to work on writing some scripts/dialogue for the game, some for narration and some for character interaction. I covered some key scenes throughout the story, and wrote some lines that could be used within the game as clues/hints as to how a puzzle is solved. I also created a few more environmental assets. As I was having connectivity issues, I couldn’t get a clear list of what was needed, so I took it upon myself to make what I thought was necessary.

• Stone Bench

• Stone Table

• Wall Sconce

• Torch/Broken Torch

David

This weeks focus was extending the greybox and creating more assets for the environment. Including modular sets of bricks and tiles, pillars and obelisks that can be used to set dress the environment. I also created a bunch of small rocks and and built a scene to test cohesiveness between our models in the games proper lighting environment.

The Programmers

Hadley

I was on full clean up duty, assisting with various implementations that Jose and Izzy were doing, making sure structure was followed for interactions between the controller, the character’s movements and the animations that are performed. Bug fixing was pretty much the name of the game this week, as we worked through a lot of the player state’s not transitioning correctly, so the player animations would play incorrectly. Really offsetting the whole feel of the character. A lot of time was invested into making sure that the player interacted correctly with the game world as well, since slight differences in height when running would cause the player to transition to the “Falling” state temporarily. This was one, of a long list of many bizarre interactions and bugs that had arisen, that we had simply had enough of. This also led towards the creation of a detailed bug list, that we begun to work through. Some minor tweaks to the audio system as well were completed.

Jose

Aside from my eternal battle against climbing glitches, I decided after speaking to some members of the team to add a Vaulting mechanic. That is, a short jump near small ledges that automatically makes Safa climb it, as opposed to having to jump over it. It is in the early stages, so I don’t have a gif to show yet (she is teleporting). But I’m hoping it’ll be ready to show next week.

I lent a hand on the crank, making safa snap to the proper position when pushing it, making her and the crank properly rotate around the crank center. I set up a script so that in the editor the amount of distance the crank can be pushed and the speed it is pushed in can be edited. The travel progress from the start of the pushing to the end of the pushing is stored from 0 to 1. I used that data to link props from the world, such as the rising cube shown in the gif, to this value. That way, we can lerp the puzzle prop from point A to B smoothly in accordance to the crank’s current push distance.

Izzy

This week’s focus for was handling state machines and implementing the character’s weapon handling. I have implemented a work around involving unity’s IK system. When the character grabs the pole, I made sure that the hand reaches for the handle through IK targets. After the pole grabbing, she is now able to grab the hammer head accordingly, if she is handling the pole. I also made the character push objects around with the use of rigidbodies. Lastly, I made the character be able to crouch, although with this movement, the camera requires some customization as it will move around tight surfaces.

In addition, I also made the character interact with the objects while holding the hammer. The character is now able to smash objects into piece with a hammer swing. I also started implementing putting the pole into the crank so the main character can push and pull. I have handed this over to Jose because it involves object manipulation for the environment puzzles. While Jose does this, I made the character put the pole into a lever for the same purpose of object manipulation for puzzles. I also made some animations for putting the pole to the lever.