Rogue Light: Interstellar Blog Post 2

 Tasks I was assigned in Sprint 4:

• Create spaceship model (Modeling) (1)

• Flame particle system (Art) (1)

• Find a method to test game without building it (Programming) (1)

• Code the game end (Programming) (1)

All tasks assigned for this sprint were completed.

The first task I finished during this sprint was the creation of the spaceship model. For this, I referenced the ship I created in Sprint 1, as well as several different space shuttles. I also created the model to be modular, which was important to have since the ship will (potentially) have upgrades in the future. 

I didn’t struggle much with this task. I think the biggest challenge was translating this model from 2D to 3D, and having to take the game’s view into account. The game view is in sort of a half and half of 2D and 3D - using 3D assets from a straight on, 2D view. In addition to being needed for this fact, I was able to make the ship look more accurate to a real life ship with angled fins (which would make them visible from a straight on 2D view). 

Spaceship Model; to be updated.

My next task was also fairly simple, which was creating a particle effect for the thrusters. For this, I created a custom particle in Photoshop, which I then put into the Unity particle system, and adjusted the settings to create a thruster fire effect. 

My biggest issue was figuring out how to make exactly what I was thinking of. Going back to an old project from 373, I was able to heavily reference the fire effect I used in that project to then create the new thruster effect.

Thruster Particles

Next, I researched and implemented a way to test the game without having to send the project to a build every time we wanted to test the game. The primary issue we had was that we couldn’t test the controls consistently, so we decided to see if there was a way to test the game on a mobile device without sending it to an APK, putting it on a phone, installing the APK, then testing the update for every little change made in the code. Conveniently I happened to stumble upon this option while watching a Unity tutorial. This went pretty smoothly and didn’t run into many issues while setting it up. My only problem is that I wish this feature was better documented.

Finally, my final task that I finished for this sprint, I programmed the game end. Based on the design I made, I created a script that would allow players to reach an end screen (for the moment, it is set so that the log prints a “You Win!” for testing purposes) once they hit 50 million money. In the future, I will add to this code to include other requisites in order to reach the end of the game.

Figuring out how to link the requisites was tricky, as it was taking components from scripts that our lead/programmer had created and I needed to pick through those scripts. 

Tasks I was assigned in Sprint 5:

• Create moon textures (Texturing) (3)

• Create star textures (Texturing) (3)

• Create new higher poly model for stars/planets (Modeling) (1)

• Create particle system for Mythical Comet (1)

All tasks assigned for this sprint were completed. 

For this sprint, I worked on primarily texturing and modeling tasks. The first task I worked on was creating the higher poly model for the stars/planets. One thing we noticed was that many planets and stars were very angular (low poly) at the size we were using them at, so I quickly created a sphere model in Maya with a higher poly count than the one in Unity. I then UVed it in order to do the rest of my texturing tasks.

My issue with this part of the project is probably figuring out where to put the seams of the UV shells. At first, I just tried doing it down the middle, in half, on the line where the players wouldn’t be able to see it, but unfortunately this meant a lot of compression and stretching in major places, so I did another cut down the middle. Later on I discovered the textures I had created had a randomized enough of a pattern that it would be hard to spot the seam anyway.

 

For my second task, I created 15 different textures to be used on different variations of the stars. For half of them, I based it off of this chart to create some realistic textures, then I went and created some more fantasy colors for the rest of them. They all had the same basic pattern, but each has their own unique color. 

Star texture - Blue Fire variation

I think my primary issue with this task was that I was just blocked, inspiration wise. It seems fairly simple from the outside, but given that this is a HUGE part of the game’s overall image and feel, it was something I had to think about a lot more than I originally thought. In the end, I was able to create colors that I feel would fit the feel of this game.

This next task was creating a new material for the moons in this game. I wanted to create something that was easily adjustable in painter so that I could easily create variations of it in Substance Painter. I used Substance Designer to create a basic Moon texture, and then imported that into Painter. Next, I created a couple custom alpha stamps that could be used to create different unique crater patterns on the different variations of the moons.

I didn’t really run into any issues with this task. This material easily covered up the UV seams I was worried about and turned out fairly well.

One of the moons I textured. No visible seams!

My final task, which was assigned last minute as I still had some time left during the sprint, was creating the Mythical Comet particle system. Under the request of the team lead, I just created a quick simple rainbow particle system. The trickiest part of the process was creating the rainbow gradient, but overall this was a very simple task. I didn't run into any issues during this task.

Rainbow Particles for the Mythical comet.

Over these last two sprints, I think I did a good chunk of work. Although I do feel that I could have done more in the 4th sprint, i think I have finally gotten into the groove with the amount of tasks I got in the 5th sprint (with two of my tasks being worth 3 points each). In the future I will continue to work on some of these tasks, like modeling the modular upgrades to the spaceship and updating the win code to fit the new vision of the game.