Test Environment 3rd Update

This past week, I've been busy adding several features to the test environment for the game.

What's new in this build:


modified character control scripts (probably not immediately noticeable)
Rift mode activation - Hold RT to use Rift Mode. a text label in the top middle of the screen will indicate if you are in rift mode or not
Boost Jump (grounded) - Press A on beat while in Rift Mode to use boost jump instead of the standard jump (Jump apex + air time + potential jump distance increased)
basic Boost Jump test platform - Try jump between the platforms with regular jump, then with boost jump to see the difference between the two.
modified timekeeping system - The metronome now sounds on every 4th beat instead of every beat. The detection window on each beat has also been tightened a bit.
music layering - This is still in the build but not really used. To manually add each additional layer of music, tap LB then wait around 3 seconds while the next layer fades in.
Xbox 360 controller support.

The latest build will be available in the team dropbox folder (not online) due to the size increase after adding the audio

Mini Tumbler WIP

21 June 2012

First try on the modelling for the weakest enemy, the mini tumbler. i modeled it as close as i could to the concept art. This robot is approximetly as big as Caruso and able to fold into a ball to travel fast. I started off based on the Concept Art Nell created. As you can see i got the main shape of it, but it's not perfect as the shape doesn't look like a ball.

22 June 2012

Second day of working on the Mini Tumbler, gave it a more spherical look and changed the overall shape.
We did some changes on the design, I added a blade on each of the legs so it makes more sense to damage the player. We also decided that there won't be small crystals engulfed in the head but the top of it should be a big crystal!

After tweaking around it a bit more, now the Mini Tumbler is ready to fold up to a perfect sphere and roll around the Rift world!

UVing is complete at this point also.


http://p3d.in/sqD9m Feel free to see a 3D view

Enemies!

Following the PDF guide Cullan provided, I've made these designs for the potential look of the enemies. I'd say you guys concentrate in the overall shape, and any cracks/organic stuff  we can add later in zBrush/Mudbox. Below, in the silhouette miniature line is depicted the scale ratio between them. 

Merry week!

*EDIT*

After some feedback from the team, I've added the back side of every enemy (except the mini Tumbler which was already modelled):

... and some add ons for the Sentry design as on how it works & moves:

Caruso's Mask very early concept

That's a very early concept art for Caruso's Mask. At the beginning we wanted to have a respirator and some sort of  Venetian  mask aesthetic into it.

The crystal at the forehead would work as a visual indicator for the player's HP (hitpoints) using a color palette, Blue = full HP,
Green = little damage taken
Yellow = half HP reached
Orange = Low HP
Red = HP are critically low

This is how the mask looks like in 3D

We decided we didn't like the look of this mask and continued brainstorming.

Timekeeping System test environment

Here's the early timekeeping system test environment(doesn't look very pretty atm)
I've removed the 'beat' text which would appear when the player presses the action button at the correct time and instead, have the game increment a beatsHit variable, which will track how many beats the player has consectutively hit, and act as the combo meter. Missing a beat resets this to zero.
I've also just sorted something which would stop people from being able to spam the action button and constantly have it confirm the beats


Here's a guide on what the numbers in the top corner refer to:
* Elapsed time in seconds
* Elapsed number of beats
* Number of consecutive beats hit (resets to 0 on a miss)

Controls
left ctrl = action button
wasd/d-pad = move


The test environment build is playable here:
http://jal-design.com/projects/Knightside/Scrap/Timekeeping%20test/WebPlayer/WebPlayer.html

First Test environment on the way!

After tinkering with Unity for a bit, I should finally have something to show within the next couple days for the first test environment build  to demo the following game elements.

Third Person Locomotion system:
At the moment, I'm currently using a prefab character controller in unity. I was planning on using one that I created/modified for a previous unity project, but it turns out the latest versions of unity have a 3rd person character controller (in addition to the original 1st person character controller) already available to use in the standard assets package. I do believe that I will modify this controller or make a new character control script to replace it after the initial tests.

Timekeeping & audio layering system :
The timekeeping system i'm working on will both keep track of the time in beats but will also be used to check if the player is preforming commands in time with the music.

This script will constantly monitor the current time (in seconds and milleseconds) to track how long the game has been running. Using a variable called BPM (which can be changed at any time in the unity editor), the script will play a short, sound/chime for each beat [like a metronome] - The beat/chime is mainly for dev purposes, while there's no music to keep in time with, that can be used temporarily. Or, the metronome could be overlaid on top of the background music if anyone would think that's a good idea.

At the time of each beat, the script will check for user input for a specific button/command. I currently have the window for this input check set at +/-0.25 seconds (This can be changed at any time). If the expected input is recorded during this window, the script will then call a function to display a gui element (at the moment, a simple text label showing the word "beat") and play another sound to confirm that the player has pressed the button in time with the beat. This function will also increment a combo variable which records how many times the player has successfully pressed the button in time with the beat without missing.

Currently, I have 3 audio sources connected to the timekeeper object. Each one of these audio sources can be controlled independently and will represent the individual 'layers' of audio.