Maths!

3 ideas, 8 compositions each = 24 final images.

O = Worked out/Almost Finished     X = Needs more thought.

Idea 1 - (Mark)
 
1. Human guy (80%, need to finish background) O
2. Cartoon (Composition finalized, digital version to be made) O
3. Beast 1 (90%, needs more work on guy) O
4. Car 1 (Requires more references, basic sketch at present) X
5. Beast 2 (70% needs finishing touches to everything) O
6. Car 2 (References obtained, needs final sketch finished) X

7. Environment 1 (Jungle) (As shown in Human guy 1) O
8. Environment 2 (Cave + Lake) (As shown in Cartoon, Beast 1, Car 1, Beast 2) O

( 6 O's - 2 X's)


Idea 2 -(Medic)

1. Medic (Composition finalized, digital sketch started) O
2. Beast 1 (Composition finalized, digital sketch started) O
3. Car 1 (Basic references + Backdrop done) X
4. Car 2 (Needs a lot more work) X
5. Beast 2 (None existent at present) X
6. Cartoon (None existent at present) X

7. Town center (as seen in Medic 1) O
8. Bridge (As seen in Car 1) O

( 4 O's - 4 X's)

Idea 3 - (Save the vidya)

1. Cartoon + Car 1 (Villain, composition sketched) O
2. Beast 1 (Minion + Tiny ninjas, composition sketched) O
3. Environment 1 (Cute Planet, composition sketched) O
4. Beast 2 (Minion + Blockead) O
5. Human guy (Hero, needs a lot more design work) X
6. Car 2 (back to square 1 with this) X

7. Environment 2 (another planet?) X
8. In game X

( 4 O's - 4 X's)

So in total, that's 14 pieces I'm happy with and almost finished and happy with the way they are going but 10 I need to work on a lot more. With 1 idea being dropped quite soon it's time to prioritize. I planned on having idea 1 + 2 being stronger efforts with idea 3 standing as a pipe dream but after some re-working it's evolved into a clearer possibility.

Right now I may focus on idea 1 + 3 and see what I have left for Idea 2. 

The story so far.

5 weeks left and I'm currently juggling all the work that's left -

•  Launching and updating my pilot website- www.magicalspacebear.com 
• Working with the Carlisle Youth Zone to make an advert for the place + volunteering there.
• Finishing off the final compositions for my final year project (Half way in!) 
• ...and loads of other bits and bobs!

 So yes..."Magical Space Bear" is up and running and will be fully up to date by the end of the week along with its own blog at http://magicspacebear.blogspot.com/

CYZ advert - 

 I know it sounds mad but I want to keep my Uni projects as much of a secret as I can until the first presentation but here's a little sneak peak!.

At present the first idea has the final 8 compositions sorted out so I'm moving onto getting the compositions for the 2nd idea finalized. Time is of the essence!.

Update 11/07/11 - Idea 1.

What have I been up to these past couple of weeks?. I've been gathering reference material for the main character, environments and creatures for "Idea 1" from taking photos of caterpillars to taking videos of myself prancing round like an idiot (I do enjoy that part of developing an idea!)

My early vision of the main character shows him carrying a large backpack so I've been taking HD video of me walking round, carrying and holding onto bags with the intention of getting some decent quality screen grabs of me in action. Currently my girlfriend is raising some caterpillars so I've taken the chance to take some micro photos so inspiration can be drawn for the creatures in this game. Finally I've started work on gathering images and photos of jungle like environment, along with flowers that catch my eye, to begin work on drawing the environments (Disney's "Tarzan" was a good start!).

Look at it's tiny hairs!

...and the tiny black and yellow blobs!

A rather  idea-provoking photo I felt. Imagine if that rock was the size of a cottage.

Eep!, I wouldn't want to fall into that!.

And Finally, a screen grab of me prancing round

The Good and the Bad

I now have leveled up too 23.

The past week has been great fun with birthdays and good times galore peppered with some work going well. Yesterday I learned a lot more about the terrain tools in the UDK and started to make working switches and triggers for lights (Watch this space for an updated level! soon to have a more awesome water fall and even a bit incorporating the specular stuff I tested a few days ago!) so yes I'll be putting that stuff into my level later today along with uploading pen and paper work at some point to start the character design ball rolling.

Finally, sadly Darren Connor recently passed away, he will be missed.

Lighting and Terrain day

Today I spent learning about the terrain options in the UDK....this is fun!.

  I'm going to learn a bit more about it tonight but I'll be adding this into my little level as soon as I can!. Also earlier in the day I was messing around with some of the ideas for the final project I mentioned, part of the game play will be specular maps you need to be standing in the right place to reveal their messages helping the player along this mysterious journey

I should really get on with designing more things on pen and paper as everything towards this final project is either still in my head or in the computer in the form for these levels....I did how ever think of a neat trailer to make for this game to show off what I'm testing here + a handy way to learn how to make a fly through in UDK!.

New blog site!

Hello this is Ian Howard typing and I welcome you too my blog and congratulate you by stumbling across this blog via crawling through the dark mysterious nooks and crannies of the internet.

I intend this to be a virtual diary tracking all my thoughts and ideas for my final year at the University of Cumbria where I am learning the "Art of Video Game Design".

  The first major project we have to finish for our final year is a personal project involving having 8 final rendered images of various bits and bobs but to get there we need to show in total 3 possible ideas to make these 8 images meaning across summer we need 24 images finished for possible final renders....phew!
  Right now I have a strong contender for my first of the three ideas....but I'm not telling yet! but I will say I have been messing around with the Unreal Development Kit to test some ideas and technology that hopefully with give a rather interesting edge to my work (the secret ingredient are specular maps at the moment!)
 Speaking of UDK, I've been learning about it a lot this week as I've been trying to learn as much as I can about it very quickly and in a week I've managed to make this;

Apart from clearly I need to remember how to change video capture settings I was very happy to learn about post processed effects so I could add things like vision blurring whilst falling and then also becoming hazy in the water, I'll upload some of my early creations so you can see how much this has progressed in just one week.