Plan for Next Week:
- Work on modeling characters
- Animate them
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This week wasn't as productive as I would've liked it to have been. On Tuesday or Wednesday, a student from Duke University came into the class to talk with all of the Advanced Studies students for a Semester long project involving photography. I got no work done on that day since I talked with the student for the entire class period. I also decided to explore Adobe Illustrator to get a better understanding on the tools that I can use in the program for future digital artwork that I want to do in my free time. All of the other time went into working in 3DS Max. I was able to complete this bow and arrow for the archer class fairly quickly and I am working on completing my knight unit still. Next week I will hopefully have the entire week to finish that unit and start the next one.
Plan for Next Week:
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This week was very challenging for me since I haven't used 3DS Max or any other 3D modeling software in several months, so I had to get used to modeling again. At this point in time, I would say that I have enough on an understanding of the program again that I could start making my units this time. I was able to make this sword here after the first day of just exploring 3DS Max. I started working on my knight unit as well but it isn't close to being done so I decided on showing the weapon I made at least. Next week will have a lot more work done than this week since I was using most of it to get back into the groove of 3D modeling. On the bright side, one of my classmates has shown me some models of a tower that is outfitted with some cannons that I will be using in my game as a part of the castle or as a normal defensive structure. I suggested to him to finish up the castle and get back to me when he has completed it and I will update on this in later posts. Here's to next week and more modeling!
Plan for Next Week:
Welcome to my first game review! I will be doing these every couple of months or so on newly released games or games that I have played in the past. This review will be on the free to play game Warframe developed by Digital Extremes (DE). The game is a cooperative third person shooter where the players control an ancient alien race known as the Tenno who have just awakened from a centuries long cyrosleep to find themselves in a war against various factions. I have played this game from time to time and I have seen the long progression of this games development. Early on, there wasn't much of a story to follow which lead to me losing interest in the game. As of the past one to two years, DE has been creating quests that have flushed out a lot of the confusing story and made the game more engaging by making me want to learn more about the universe I was playing in. However, most of the game will be about collecting resources, mods. and building better weapons or warframes (the various sets of armor that come with different abilities and stats that the player can control) to progress in the game further.
This process of gathering loot can be a painstakingly long process or a quick and easy process depending on what you are looking for and how bad your luck is with random number generators. If you are hunting for a rare mod for your gun, sometimes it will take you a couple of days to get it, or you will get lucky and get it on your first run through a mission. If you want to build a weapon in this game, it will take a fair amount of time to make. Most weapons require you to gather resources and their blueprint in order to craft the weapon. However, in order to use the weapon, you have to wait a certain amount of time (usually 12-24 hours real time) before the crafting process is complete. All of these various process work together to provide a lot of content to new players, so much so that it might scare them off if they aren't brought into the game by a friend to help them out early on. However, running mission after mission in order to get one item can feel like a grind which has been an issue for some players (me included) that leads to them quitting indefinitely or for a prolonged period of time. The social aspect of the game is a lot better as of now than it was a couple years ago. They have added a lot of hub type areas on the mission select screen that allows you to connect with many players in one location to chat and trade. There are multiple global text channels that are used to set up trades, recruit players to clans, find a group of people to run a certain mission, and to just chat. Clans are also a part of the game which allow a massive amount of players to connect and help each other out. Each clan has its own dojo that can be built using a lot of resources and time, making it a group effort to make a massive dojo. In these dojos there are areas to trade with fellow clan mates, dueling areas to challenge clan mates to a fight, and research centers that allow for players and clans to get access to exclusive weapons and warframes that are unavailable otherwise. All of these things sets up great player interaction. However, if you don't participate in any of these social gatherings, there really isn't any social interaction at all. If you run a mission and get matched with random people, more often than not they will not type or use voice chat to communicate with you. Warframe's micro-transactions (how else will they make money?) are, for the most part, cosmetic only and don't provide the player any advantage in the game, unless you count looking amazing an advantage. The game has a paid currency called platinum that can be used for almost anything in the game. It can be used to instantly complete the building process of an item, unlock cosmetics, purchase xp and resource boosters, buying weapons and warframes without building them, and it can be traded with other players. If players choose to buy weapons or boosters, they only provide a small boost in the progression of the game and don't really make it a pay to win game. Also, the fact that it is a tradable currency makes it accessible to the entire player base regardless of your monetary budget. In the end, Warframe is great for a free to play game title that provides hours of gameplay if the player can get through the repetitive nature of the game, and if the player can make a connection with people in the game in order to keep them playing. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give it a solid 7.5/10. This week, I decided to work on designing a UI, or user interface, for my game since I was already working on 2D art, and I will need a UI later on, so it is better to have an idea on what it will look like rather than having to start from scratch. Anyway, this UI will be somewhat familiar to those of you who have played Starcraft 2 since I based the UI off of it. I simply moved the command menu to the left instead of the right, I moved the mini map to the right from the left, I got rid of the unit portrait that is normally next to the command menu, and I separated the UI to make it seem less cluttered on the screen. I chose to take references from Starcraft 2 because the game itself has the same tempo or speed I am looking for in my game, so the UI would most likely work with my game as well. Also, a game like Sid Meier's Civilization, which is in the RTS category, wouldn't have the right kind of UI since it is a turn-based game whereas mine will not. With the UI concept done, I plan on working on 3D modeling my units and potentially getting them ready for animation.
Plan for Next Week:
My plan this week was to get some concept art done for the buildings in my game. I was only able to get a part of the main building in the game done, the castle. This will be the main objective in the RTS to destroy when it is all finished. With the shortened week at school and me getting sick at the end of the week (Friday), this was all that I could finish within that time frame at school. I am not happy about the lack of work I did this week, however it is concept art so it isn't too important to get it completely finished if you have a general idea of what it is supposed to look like. Also, I will be cooperating with another student who is working on getting a certification in 3DS Max this year so that I can give him something to model and he will be able to help me get my project done at a faster rate. He has already started on modeling a castle and I am waiting to see whether or not it needs changes to fit the correct art style. This week has taught me that I should be working more outside of school when I get the time so that my plans don't fall short.
PS. I decided to use my phone as a "scanner" since I can't get the one at home to work today. Also, this is the second time I have to write this since importing this picture messed up the post. Plan for Next Week:
This week, I have began the very long process of developing my very own video game using my own skills and assets. I decided that I should start this process by working on some concept art to get an idea of how I want the game to look. In my head, I was thinking about a more cartoon-like art style since I haven't seen that many RTS games that use that kind of an art style (at least of the RTS game that I know about). This week, I was able to come up with said concept art for two units that will be available for the human faction in my game. I took a little inspiration from Nintendo's Mii characters where they have very simple arms/legs and added more detail when it came to the armor aspects of the units. I am happy with how they turned out on the paper and I plan to use this general design for the rest of the units in the game. Next week, I will most likely continue the process of concept art, except it will be more building and environment focused. I am thinking about drawing a castle/town hall and a farm building to get an idea on what I am looking for building wise, and if I get to it, maybe draw up a few tree designs for the forest setting that I will set the game in.
Next Week's Plans:
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AuthorMy name is Timothy Czerniejewski and this is my blog for my Game Art Design interests. Archives
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