Vehicle: 1972 Winnebago Brave

Here are some final beauty shots of my vehicle project this semester, a 1972 Winnebago Brave, modeled in Maya 2015. Later on in the semester this vehicle will be implemented into a racing game being constructed by all of the sophomore classes.

(Click on the images to view them in full resolution)

In these shots the model has been implemented into Unreal Engine 4, with 6 different materials applied, 3 being tiling 'generic' materials for the metal and rubber, one 1:1 painted texture for the body, a simple cloudy texture for the windows, and a customizable license plate, which I plan in the future, when we begin implementing the cars into our race game, to make a randomly selected material chosen each time the vehicle spawns.

Concept Work: Song of the Ten Thousand Year Tapestry

I've been thinking about what I want to do for thesis, and since I had a little bit of free time I thought I'd whip up some early stuff so I remember what the ideas were. Admittedly it's quite early to be thinking about, but I would like to build up ideas while I have the time to think.

Song of the Ten Thousand Year Tapestry is a fairytale adventure set in the Dark Ages. A tailor's son tries to save his family treasure, a magic self-weaving tapestry that depicts his family's past, present, and future, from an evil king (a fairytale version of William the Bastard) seeking to abuse it for his own purposes.

Historically, I was heavily influenced by the Bayeux Tapestry depiction of the Battle of Hastings as well as the kingdoms of the Normans and the Anglo-Saxons. In media I drew influences from the movie Dragonheart, and games like the Banner Saga, Legend of Zelda (Both the early concept art of Katsuya Terada and the cel-shaded world of Windwaker), and Broken Age. In a way, this idea is a blending together of many of my favorite things, put into one of my favorite (but criminally under-explored) historical periods, the early Dark Ages of the 8th-10th centuries, a period where the Normans, Byzantines, Vikings, and Saxons all thrived and created much of what would become the classic Middle Ages.

While very Zelda-esque in appearance, 10KT would play much more like a classic adventure game, focusing on the problem-solving, critical thinking, and using the environment over swordplay and violence. Being a simple tailor, you are massively outclassed by the Norman knights who obstruct your path and can only very rarely try to fight them directly. You will soon throw away your sword altogether in favor of a magic needle.

While I am still working out the details on how specifically I would want it to look, there are a few elements I have set. There is very little red, that color being reserved exclusively for the bright Tapestry and important elements relating to it. Environments and characters have exaggerated proportion and a saturated, painted illustration appearance, with duller colors being associated with dangerous things like the Normans, mundane weaponry, and certain architectural elements. Friendlier characters are brighter, cooler shades.

I hope to explore this concept further as the semester goes on, as well as into the summer, along with other possibilities for thesis. I can certainly say right now that I am very excited about this and, if I learn the sufficient skills, I plan to experiment with it in Unreal to further refine my designs.

Fort Mexizona Story Board

Here is a quick, simple story board of my racetrack design for Fort Mexizona, walking you through all 4 laps of the race and highlighting any important stunt details.

The majority of the stunts are helicopter and/or explosion based. This is an important element of the design process.

Racing Level Concept: Fort Mexizona

 

My racing level was adapted from one of my earlier ideas in the last semester, Fort Mexizona, a nuclear armed military base in the vague southwestern United States region. In the distant future of 1999, World War 3 is on the horizon, and it's only a matter of time before those nukes start flying free! But perhaps the catalyst will not be some world power, but a band of misfit street racers with no regard for anything but speed...

Much of the level is rocky terrain and dirt roads, bristling with military buildings, barbed wire, guard towers, and other various military/Arizona decor. There is a brief section where you leave the road to drive on top of a stationary train on a suspended bridge, and as the race progresses the military base starts to actively attack the racers and the track itself in an attempt to stop them.

The track contains numerous stunts, and there is an ambient atmosphere of chaos as artillery fires, helicopters maneuver around, and planes bomb the road. There is seldom a time when something is not firing or exploding near the racers. On the 2nd lap, bombers begin attacking the spiral section of the track. Tanks create impassable barricades on the 3rd lap, forcing the players into the railroad/minefield route for the last 2 laps of the race. On the 4th and final lap, a squadron of attack helicopters destroys the railroad out from under the racers in a massive fireball.

Array Lights Video Demo

In Programming we've been starting to cover arrays, in this case using them to create a highly adjustable system of moving lights.

Admittedly I've had some difficulties fully comprehending this, although with what we walked through in class I was able to tinker a bit and make this spaceship taking off. Hopefully as the semester progresses I'll be able to understand it better but for now, flashing lights are cool.

Level Design: Crusher Castle

My level design was heavily influenced by the Koopa castles and assorted fortresses in Super Mario World. Also I really like castles.

- Takes place in vague Mario time (modern?)
- Castle is supposedly haunted (mostly just bats, actually), but also is full of loot.
- The only occupants left here are bats.
- Classic medieval architecture, stonework with rickety old wooden balconies and supports.
- The castle has been abandoned for some time, and is generally falling into disrepair.
- The player is here because potential riches are a surprisingly effective motivator in the face of certain peril.

Level Analysis: Cave Story+

 The game begins with a brief scene of dialogue, and then cuts right to the opening level. You begin in a safe room, with two devices and a door. A very quick check reveals that the floppy disk saves your game, and the heart monitor restores your health. While neither of these are necessary from the very beginning of the game, it establishes what will later become very important elements of the game's "safe zones."

 Exiting the room takes you to the first cave. On your right, the way is obstructed by odd-looking blocks and a bouncy little blob monster, neither of which can be interacted with or destroyed at this stage. You have no weapons!

The right side accounted for, going left reveals bright red spikes and bats that fly in vertical patterns. Just out of sight is a small box with a heart in it. The bats and spikes are both easily bypassed by jumping, a familiar and simple mechanic that comes naturally to most gamers.

 After jumping past the bats and spikes, you can reach the heart box. By interacting with it, you find out it is a "Life Capsule", which increases your health capacity and familiarizes you with this item. The reward of additional health is also rather straightforward, but makes these items very desirable.

 Continuing down the tunnel and to the right, we see more bats and water. The bats are again easily dodged, but we also learn the mechanics of water in the game: It slows you down, and brings up an "Air" timer. While there's no real risk of drowning unless you made a concerted effort toward it, this is a helpful little tidbit to keep in your memory for the future.

 At the end is a large lion's head in a dead-end. Being different from everything else, we naturally assume it is some kind of entrance or other interactive thing.

 Inside it turns out to be somebody's house, and the somebody is asleep. At the end of the room is a chest. Talking to the sleeping person yields no useful results, as apparently this is a very heavy sleeper.

 Bypassing the sleeping person to rifle through his belongings, on the other hand, gets us a sweet new gun, the Polar Star. The game only using 2 buttons, Z to jump and X to interact, makes figuring out how to shoot a pretty quick process.

Returning to the dead end, we have no option but to backtrack, shooting a lot of bats along the way. Exacting revenge on those cursed bats gives us hearts, which restore lost health (which was probably from the bats)

 And little triangle things, which increase your weapon's power. While the first cave doesn't contain enough triangles to learn this immediately, they appeal to our kleptomania and thus you want to collect them anyway for the future.

 The gun is also good for shooting those weird rocks from earlier, opening up the right path that was initially unassailable.

 Here we learn another lesson about the game: Pay attention, because some of the doors will try to straight up kick your ass unless you kill them first. Approaching this door causes an eye to open, and if you touch the door it damages you. Unfortunately for the door, guns do not require touching what you shoot at.

After killing a door (trust me that's not the weirdest thing you do in this game by a long shot) we can go through, and begin our adventure in the world of Cave Story!


As a tutorial level, while not providing any kind of direct dialogue to tell you what to do, this level takes a more natural approach, letting you learn the core mechanics of the game such as exploration, returning to previous areas to try new things, shooting guns, and finding collectibles, while not being incredibly overwhelming right off the bat.


Here is a simple map of the level: