IGB300 Weekly blog

Research of type of games (references):

Shinobi's Legacy:

1. Shinobi (1987):

2. Ninja Gaiden (1988):

3. Ninja Gaiden 2 - Razor's Edge (2012):

4. Naughty Bear (2010):

Testing mechanics in Unreal (Learning the engine to see if possible to develop game):

Flushing out game ideas, mechanics and story (SL):

Shinobi's Legacy (16+):

(Poison, Wizard, Mountain) Shinobi poisoning game which entails Magic, weapons and Chakra to do assassination missions.

Story: You are assigned missions to complete in order to bring fame and wealth to your clan. Your clan was attacked and destroyed when you were young, so you now fight to find who attacked and to bring vengeance and honour back to your clan. The only ones who know of the history of your clan are the black merchant guild. They are a powerful force in which it would be foolish to combat against. Should you desire for revenge. You must be a Wolf in which it hides its fangs, preparing to strike when it's most Ideal.

Mechanics: Sneaking around maps and gathering knowledge on enemy positions. Use terrain and appropriate timing, as this will help aid in your missions. Should you find yourself going to direct combat, this would be ill advised. As you are trained in stealth and assassination arts, not swordsman ship. You know how to counter and do some attacks, but it is heavily advised to do what you specialize in. Assassinations. Such assassination methods can be: Poison, toxic smoke, back stab, disguise kill, and many more.

Dark Ascension:

Story: You were one of the worst existences that were ever conceived unto this corrupt world. You found that your existence has been deemed evil and void of all good. But you find yourself questioning these beliefs as you begin to peer into the reality and truth of the world. Questioning purpose itself and believe that if one should hold control of their fate. "It should not be the world, it should be I". You now have found yourself given an opportunity to change your fate through the world orbs manipulation. You can use these to go down an even more corrupt and vile path. Or prove those wrong and ascend to role of just and righteous as you cleanse this world of true evil. What path will you choose?

Mechanics: You are playing in a 3rd person point of view. You have a basic understanding of martial arts and slight low level magic abilities (Which you choose affinity at start of game). The player can gain exp from killing enemies and completing missions. The player will use these exp to unlock or upgrade specific skills in their Affinity tree. The trees to choose from are: Demonic, Mortal, and Divine. These skill trees can only be unlocked from interacting with the world orbs. The map the player choose between 3 options. 'Cleanse', 'absorb', and 'leave alone'. Once one of these options are picked, it is irreversible. 'Cleanse' unlocks a point for Divine tree, 'absorb' unlocks a point for Demonic. And 'leave alone' does nothing. The player will unlock the mortal skill tree by sacrificing varying levels amounts of EXP. This causes the player to not be obliged to choose those two options as they can still progress through the game, although with more difficulty attached.

References:

Fable (2004):

Fable 2 (2008):

Skyrim (2011):

War of Steel:

Story: You’re a soldier on a mission. The home world has deemed you the hero they need to help rid the world of Xeno scum. It is our mission as people of planet 'Radi' to protect our people and solar system. You come from a lineage of generals and war heroes. It is your job not to taint that image with failure of any sort. It is your mission to be perfect. Civil. And absolutely the best Radi this sector of the solar has ever seen. GOOD LUCK SOLDIER!

Mechanics: You control a squad of varying number of peoples. These people each carry a role with them. Some roles can be unique or very important to a mission. Your goal of the game is to use this squad and complete your assignment missions. Completing missions provides you credit, used to enhance and improve your squad. These enhancements can consist or private or public. Private targets a role type and public is more abilities that affect the team entirely. These public enhancements can also be an activate based or passive.

We aim for the players to explore and attempt variety of different play styles and combos to complete missions. We also want the player to understand that each role has it's own strengths and weaknesses, just like enemy types. And lastly, we want the player to explore terrain and advantages of the map types. This is to create an engaging and interactive game in which the player will enjoy.

References:

Brother in Arms - Hell's Highway (2008):

Call of duty World at War (2008):

Wolfenstein (2009):

Week 3:

Story Board:

Research on Environment triggers:

Concept art (Colour change):

Art Style:

Mood Board:

Map Design:

Research:

King of the hill:

• Goal of the game:

○ Knock other players out of the battle arena in order to win (Be last standing)

• Events or triggers in the maps:

○ Slide event from water

○ Obstacles placed around map that cause player to ragdoll - Hammars, logs, electric fence, etc.

○ Large quantity of creatures or entities charge across map

When the match round has continued for too long, players knock back will increase as time progresses after a certain amount of time (after 180 sec).

Week 4:

Map Design:

Play testing:

Play test feedback and application

Week 7:

The idea was to try and convey the main message of the game. Team discovered that these logos look more like banners for mini-games, rather than logos. I realized that I incorrectly portraited the images as they don't give a clear image as to what the game is about. Image on the left is too strong in colour and texture and makes it hard to figure out what the goal of the game is. While the image on the right looks more like a wrestler only. Should add more details to the magic component. It clearly shows that it is exaggerated and comedic.

These are assets I made during the 2024 Ubisoft game Jam. When developing these assets, one of my team members requested that I make all the items separate. At first, I was unclear with why as I was used to making objects that were entirely one Object. He explained to me how it'll work in an animation sense. This then helped me figure out how we can design the dolls. Instead of making all the completed doll models, I can work on their main customizable aspects (Eyes, clothing - Hat and body outfit). So, this will help with the development process greatly. See below for example:

This research showed how to balance and implement a power up correctly. It showed that even with an exaggerated game like ours, we need to consider what we are implementing and how it'll affect the overall gameplay.

Level designs:

There will be an over-arching theme given to sets of map. This makes development smoother as we can now aim to simply design maps with similar designs and key event triggers. This causes production to hasten as we now don't need to develop 8 different themes and map interactions. For example, we have a frost theme map. We can now build 6 variant designs of that map with the same stage interactions occurring.

These are a series of maps from a game called Happy war. There maps work off a set of themes with each having a different time of day and design to the map. The morning map and night map have the same underwater theme, but completely different designs and layouts. This is something that we are aiming to do as well. Just without the idea of time of day out.

Issues that occurred:

Week 8:

VFX:

Reference videos:

Week 9:

Asset Development:

Launch Pad:

Log_Trap:

Train:

TNT_Barrel:

Wand:

Cannon:

Elixir_Asset:

Man_Hole:

Week 10:

Rigging character:

Weight Painting character:

Errors that occurred:

Week 11:

Re-Weight painting:

UV-unwrapping:

VFX creation:

Attempting to change 5.4 changes to 5.3:

VFX - Portal:

UV-Unwrapping:

Re-Rigging and weight Painting (I hope this is the last time.):

What went wrong?

UV-Unwrapping (WHY DID TRI APPEAR?!?!?!?):

When UV-Unwrapping. it said it had Tries. now it doesn't. I don't understand MAYA!!!

The Spine....

Semester 2:

Week 1:

Inspiration:

Character model and outfit modeling

Weekly Summary: I have begun working on new character designs. Over the holiday, i was working on a new character design and found that it still didn't suit the overall design we desire. I began on this new design and through development, I consulted with the initial character designer for the form he was looking for when it came to drawing the character. We came out with a more chi-bi looking character with a pot belly. This aesthetic matches the cute doll like that our team envisioned. Overall, the new character design was a success. The team has approved of the characters base design and outfits. Eyeballs are still unsure on the process, but we will figure that out after rigging is complete. Next week, we begin character rigging.

Week 2:

Links:

https://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2025/ENU/?guid=GUID-6CAEA6C2-D4F9-422D-8E0F-522171B47C35

https://www.reddit.com/r/Maya/comments/11sl4eb/complete_character_modeling_and_rigging_tutorials/

Character rigging and skeleton modelling:

Gifs:

Weekly Summary: During this week, I began the process of building the skeleton rig and applying it to the character mesh manually. This is a process I was not taught and had no prior experience in (Manual rigging). I went searching for videos and had no luck as all were based on Quick Rigs. This wasn't helpful as due to my mesh being unique and different from the standard Bipedal characters. It won't match as easily. So I made an attempt at going to social media posts which explain the process. It was useful as I found shortcuts, but due to them using old versions, the layout was different. So, although following steps were difficult, I just had to find what they were referencing. Once that was established, I could progress. it all seems to be working, so now I need to begin the weight painting process.

Week 3:

Weight_Painting

Weekly Summary: When it came to weight painting, I found there was alot of areas that needed to manually be modified. This could be due to the odd geometry of the mesh for the character. Overall, the process was a mixed experience as it was heavily time consuming. I found that there where odd times where I had to figure out how the mesh should be painted and how it should be smoothed to cause easy deformation of the mesh. Now that I've completed the character, I've noticed that I didn't apply constraints on the arms. This is coming back to be a crucial mistake.

Week 4:

Week 5:

What happens next?:

Listening to Xanders Advice. I will quick rig and then go through the character rig and modify it manually (Sorry if name is spelt wrong).

Week 6:

VFX Design:

Fire:

Dash_Mechanic:

Character_Rigging (Auto_Rigging):

Week 8:

Fire Fixing and Tinkering:

Playtesting:

Week 9:

Earth quake:

Lava:

Lava Rock Textures:

Lava Ripple effects:

Lava Colour:

New lava modified in scene:

Week 10:

Flare:

Cloud Trail

Footsteps

Punch Effect:

Poof:

Sprint_Effect: 2hrs

Week 11:

Projectile:

Shock Wave:

Tornado:

Wind: