An Introduction to Void
The work on this blog has been created by Caryn Read, Robert Strachan, Andrew Winyard and Catherine Woolley who are attending the University of Wales, Newport studying Computer Games Design.
The pre-production phase of Void has been almost completed, any posts from now on will be focused on the production of the game. There will be updates with images of models and screenshots while the game is in production.
29 May 2009
University of Wales, Newport Graduate Show featuring Void
It was the opening night of the graduate shows at The University of Wales Newport on Friday the 29th of May, which was including the Computer Games Design degree show as well.
For those that were unable to attend here are a couple of photos, there is also a link below to see all the photos that had been taken. (The pictures below are more Void related though)
A Flickr set of all the photos of the graduate show can be found here. Although sadly we didn't get any photos of the food that we had made, either way it was a very successful degree show, we learnt a lot from it.
11 May 2009
Void Lighting Tests
The level itself is not the final build, and many assets are arranged solely to see how light will behave on them at various angles, most notably the orange pads.
These screenshots are taken from Unreal's InEditor Game. The Editor's game mode doesn't access the scripting files that allow our character to be used, so that is why it's first-person.
These screenshots are taken from the game itself, hence why our character is now there.
This is a lighting/material problem we found as a result of the light testing. It has since been rectified.
These are screenshots of the Emerald Cavern. The lighting wasn't my job for this level, so these are only examples of fog testing.
1 May 2009
Floating Character Model
In total he comes to 7636 tris.
It was modelled and textured by Rob, using Maya, Zbrush and Photoshop.
30 April 2009
Heavy State Animations
Some notes on the animations:
The heavy state doesn't have a jump function, but because it bounces off of the starfish bounce-pads, it needs a land animation. The brief wiggle before the land is used by the unreal engine for the 'air-time' between jumping and landing. that's why it doesn't flow smoothly like it should.
As with the neutral state, there is no option to change the backwards speed compared to the forwards speed in Unreal Engine; both must be the same. Hence why are character is running backwards (a feat that is awkward for any biped).
29 April 2009
Emerald Cavern Starfish Rigged
Below is a video briefly showing the controls of the rig with a flat texture applied to it, although the actual texture is almost finished.
As you can see his rig is quite simple, I wish I could of had less controls on it, but it seemed the best way to give Caryn the most control over it. I wanted to allow her to translate the bones as well as rotate, but Unreal wasn't having it, but I feel I figured out a good way to control the squash in it's belly for when the Heavy character falls on it, which isn't in this video, but I worked around it by using rotation on bones around the belly, which gives a similar effect.
26 April 2009
Character Changes Working With Our Characters
Also the glowing on the characters is due to the lighting which needs sorting.
Now the only thing we have to do to have this perfect is tweak the animations, and the characters speeds to make them work well together. Get the jumps working, make them cast shadows, and perhaps change the camera.
23 April 2009
Floating Character Rig
He is very different in bone structure to the other models, as his movements are less complex and more flowing and elegant.
I would like to point out that the texture is currently not finished, and is a very old version of the previous textures we were having.
15 April 2009
Heavy Character Rig
Below is a video showing the controls of the rig with its texture applied.
As you can see his rig is quite similar to the neutral character, with the slight changes being a fat control on his tummy and no face control. Caryn is now busy animating him so expect some animations on here soon.
14 April 2009
Heavy Character Model
In total he comes to 8240 tris.
It was modelled and textured by Rob, using Maya, Zbrush and Photoshop.
11 April 2009
Character Changing Working
It is currently using the unreal defaults, but we are getting our characters in at this present time with her help. Although as you should be able to see with the run through that each character that the test changes to has their own speed and abilities.
The first character can run very fast and jump, where as the second character cannot jump and is much slower, and then the third character is even slower and cannot jump either.
It is just amazing what she has given us, as without her we may have been in a bit of a sticky situation.
29 March 2009
Neutral Character Animations
Well, unless they need to be changed at a later date of course.
There is an idle, a walk, a run, a backwards run and a jump. The jump has no pre-empt or reaction on the land because of the way Unreal does its jump function.
And here is a video of some of the animations working in UT3 engine, though sadly not as a playable character just yet.
26 March 2009
Emerald Cavern Whiteboxing
Some of the stacks of platforms will be changing slightly from the pre-production, but will make more sense when playing.
The level is currently quite jerky in movement (climbing stacks etc) as we are currently creating various mutators for Unreal to change the Unreal defaults, so we can portray the movement we want.
Anemone Sea tests
If you notice the further away that the pads are, they slightly change colour. In this video it is a greenish yellow colour, but it will be changing to suit the lighting and shadow colours we want.
The textures are currently not completely finished as they are preliminery textures.
The character is in as a pick up, thanks to Andy finding out how to do so, this is why he doesn't cast a shadow or look like he's actually jumping much.
There will be a version of the final Anemone Sea room coming up on the blog soon, showing how it is actually looking.
Neutral Character Rig
Although we did have a few problems getting it into the engine as you can see from the video below.
This then meant that the rig had to be started again, and tests were run every step that the rig was changed, but it is now finished.
Caryn is busy animating it as we speak, so we can soon have the character in engine with the finalised animations on it as the player character.
Below is a video showing the controls of the rig with its texture applied to it.
There is ikFK control on the arms, just my recording software seemed to not include the channel box, while also managing to chop a bit off the top.
23 March 2009
Neutral Character Model
In total he comes to 8240 tris.
It was modeled and textured by Rob, using Maya, Zbrush and Photoshop.
19 January 2009
Design Document
Void
Void is a third person action exploration game that integrates three unique environments each with their own physical character state.
Characters
There are three different states to the character (neutral, heavy and floating), each one allowing the player to progress through the spaces.
Environments
Anemone Sea
This space is designed to optimise game-play for the characters neutral state to advance through the area. It is populated with orange pads that sit on top of a bed of sea anemones, which undulate similar to the waves of the sea.
Emerald Cavern
The state change the character obtains within this space increases its size and weight allowing it to push heavy rocks and take advantage of its weight to drop from a height onto bounce-pads that propel the character to a pre-defined location. This area is constructed from rocks and crystals giving it a more solid feel. The space provides contrast between the dark open expanse of the cavern and the emerald illumination produced by the crystal plates.
Shimmering Towers
It uses the floating state change which involves the player manoeuvring in-between pillars projected by air currents that will force the character up or down. The avatar slowly descends downwards towards an underlying mist which hides a sea of anemones.
The Reef
The final space it is a culmination of the previous three environments, layering the mechanics of each physical state and interlaying them into a single playable space. In turn optimising the environment to produce a spectacle of contrast, scale, colour and pacing. This allows us to create a diverse meaningful play that can increase the difficulty curve of the game due to the multilayered facets of the environment interactions that have been previously established.
You can also download this as a .pdf which also had the Void logo on it here