UV's and such like....Oh dear

After last week's showcase of my progress on the 3D model of my main character for my game project Outer Eden I have made progress in order to keep to my date of completion which is the 14th December 2012. Such progress has been made on the issue I encountered because of making my armour using Autodesk's 3D Studio Max as I created additional polygons they weren't being registered when it came to painting. Enough of all this rambling I can safely say that I managed to sort out my UV's, with no issues well unless you count taking a lot of time to do. Below displays my character's finished UV's.

Now for my 3D character model I have to paint it and I have around 3 weeks until the 14th which is great if I don't say so myself.

In terms of developments on my GDD (Game design document I would be inclined to say that so far I am making steady progress as after looking at a few examples of existing game design documents online I have constructed a final structure that breaks it up into 11 sections and these are as named below:

1. Game Overview
2. Story Setting and Character
3. Gameplay and Mechanics
4. Levels
5. Interface
6. Audio
7. Artificial Intelligence
8. Game Art
9. Technical
10. Management
11.  Appendices

I almost forgot, in my section 3 gameplay and mechanics I put together a radar design as the gameplay  as the radar in game as a massive impact on how the game itself plays rather like grand theft auto with the mission objective system where an icon is placed on the mini map to present that there is something to head towards in order to progress in the game. Below is my radar design created in Adobe Photoshop. Its design has been inspired by the games theme through the use of colour representation and the rest is for you to decide on whether you like it or not.

From looking at the above I can announce that sections 1,2 and 3 have been completed leaving me with around 3 weeks to get the rest completed as my milestone like the 3D character is the 14th December 2012. 

I feel like I am on track, but that doesn't mean the next few weeks will be easy.

Nest weeks task's

• Paint Character 
• Sections 4, 5, 6 and 7 completed
• Level design 
• HUD design

Body of a model

Last week I felt my post title was a bit boring to be honest so this week I've gone for a different scope as I did promise to have some modelling complete for you this week and I haven't failed to deliver. Images of main protagonist 'Zak Knight's (Spero) Armour; modeled in Autodesk 3D studio Max. Model has been re-done since first screen shot on my first post as sculpting armour didn't seem to give me the results I desired. Too many smooth surfaces and not enough rigid indents, etc.

Front Perspective

Back Perspective

Overall I am satisfied with my work. unfortunately I later discovered that because I constructed all of  the armour structure in max, by adding additional polygons. Causing it tamper with the UV map, so over the next week whilst further developing my game design document I will be pelt mapping my character model. On a positive note because each section of armour was created as separate elements it won't be as intense to sort out, but it has been estimated to take me four hours. 

Next weeks tasks:

• Pelt Map character 
• Continue to develop game design document according to plan

Game Overview

After weeks of preparation my journey had finally begun as this week I started to write up my game design document. This task was greeted by initialization my games concept, which was supposed to be a high concept briefly highlighting key areas included within the concept. However, it turned out to be a some what extended blurb, but I feel it covers all bases, when considering it as an introduction to my game design document. It points out genre, characters, plot and further elements.


My first section, Game overview. Is exactly as named. An opening segment that presents readers with a range of listed elements that will be embedded into the final game concept such as enemies, number of levels,   Target audience, Collectables, Objectives, Visual style and Project scope. All of which act as a root directory for further details to for further publication within the finished game design document, which needs to be completed for the 14th of December 2012. At this stage I feel satisfied that I'm on target to get it completed by that milestone.

Next week I'm going to focus on further production on character, as that needs to be sculpted and painted by the 14th aswel.

Game City

Yet another week has passed me and I am disappointed to say I haven't really hit my targets outlined in my last post, but I am pleased to highlight that it hasn't been a complete disaster as for one week only Game City open up some sort of festival aimed to attract the public community located on the Old Market Square in Nottingham.

Due to this I have attended various lectures from individuals already dabbling in the games industry, in order to further inspire and increase my existing knowledge. One specific area I feel has really stood out at me is story development as Outer Eden is a concept reliant on  the story element. However, by just mentioning story doesn't really hit the nail on the head, so what I have understood is that I need to come up with a logical ending in order to construct a more believable journey for consumers to enjoy. This will aid me when trying to write out the rest of my story.

Another step has been taken with my game design document in the action of showing my plan to my Tutor Robert Hoare and he has assisted me with tweaking, so I can now started working on it without any problems in the future.

That is pretty much all I have for you this week.

I can promise that my game design document will be started on next week as there aren't any events taking place for me to be distracted by

Tasks to complete:

• Game design Documented started
• Character Sculpting