Winter Project - Raycasting

I decided to apply the use of raycasts in my project. Raycasts in the way I wish to use it means objects can be interacted with or have the ability to interact with by the player just facing the camera towards it. For example the player could just point the camera at the lantern on the table and it would highlight and display a message that it can be interacted with.

I got it working through a lot of experimentation and the creation of a test level. However my first real setup within the game had two raycasts working from the same point. One that highlighted the object and one that would allow the pickup. This seemed bad for a few reasons. Firstly they both came from the same point and this sort of felt buggy because only one ray seemed to respond at any time. And secondly it made the code messy as two code scripts were basically doing the same job.

To fix this I basically just tapped further into the code and created static bools so the scripts could interact with each other, this was a modified version of code I had created for the cabinet triggers. This worked particularly well and has given me a way too clean up code. And have highlight triggers kept to each object and actually interaction triggers assigned to each object as well.

Winter Project - Player picking up Notes

An important part of the narrative development within a game is the ability to relay the setting and/or reveal the plot to the player. There are many tools too do this with and I don't pretend to know how and when these different ones should be applied. However I decided to try my hand at this at least to a small extent.

I decided to settle on a note system where the player could pick up notes as they advance through the level. Each note would give hints as to the story line and how it could be progressed. I started with a set of prefab scripts that I had located and started digging into the code changing it to suit my needs and so I could understand. To be honest the code itself is not that complex, yet the functionality of it seems to be a bit dodgy. With the notes being particularly hard to actually open. This may be to the fact I have not locked the mouse in unity yet so the camera is having a hard time with the actual ray casts hitting the collider to let the code know the player is looking at the book/note.

Player sees table/props

Player looks at book - book is highlighted

Player presses "e" to read book

Now I just need to alter a few things. First off, actual text related to the story needs to be written and out in places. Secondly some GUItext to inform the player they should press "e" to open and close the book. And lastly perhaps an altered look for the book page itself.

Photoshop - Sasori Fanart

Christmas sketch for a friend. Can you guess who it is? maybe i did my job right if you can. A character from Naruto Shippuuden. To be honest this needs more work still. But hey

Winter Project - Making the player character hold a lantern

Now that I've finished coding the key and door I have a few options/routes to go down in terms of level development and coding.

• Code the closing of doors (maybe not needed but would look nice and would just be a reversal of the quaternion code I used.
• Sound/music (I have some clips in mind to use but perhaps need more development too the level first)
• Picking up of the lantern (gameplay aspect)
• Further modelling/level design (since I have redone my level I haven't actually got a lot of level yet)
• Highlighting of intractable objects (needed due to clarify what is usable)
• Detailing (This is a greybox project so this should be a lesser need

I decided to go forth with the lantern development idea. First I made a simple model in maya and then went searching for a nice fire script. This took a degree of time and once found had to be modified slightly. It is still a bit raw but is usable for now. It however needs some colour adjustment. 

I then created some code to allow the player to pickup the lantern. This is rather simple and does not allow the player to drop it. But I don't think that is needed at this stage. However if the need arises I shall just code it to drop from the players position. 

I remodeled the lantern due to something errors with materials in unity making the lights look rather bad and also to give a little more detail.

I finished coding the highlight aspect and have applied to the lantern, some fine tuning is still required as the highlight texture is a bit iffy. But since I don't know how it would interact with textures yet I shall leave this fine tuning till then.

I will now apply this to each object that can be interacted with. And try and change the opacity of it down a bit but we will see.

Winter Project - Cloth!

I decided I wanted to bring some more interactive and/or immerse elements into my starting area to give a more realistic or at least interesting feel to it. Obviously this has to be done without the use of textures which does limit the amount of environmental feel but still. One of my ideas was to create an interactive cloth section in front of the surgery bed which responds to player movement. In actuality this was not that hard to create at all. Just had to do a few things in certain ways to prevent the cloth only rendering on one side.

I now need to address the pick up of the key along with GUItext to act as onscreen pointers and then have the door react according to if a key is had or not.

Photoshop - Armored Vehicle

I approached this task with the mindset of creating a visually unique and interesting vehicle, one that would stand out. I started out with a page of sketches which i took different ideas from to create of a walker/platform type thing and developed it from there. In hindsight this was a risky thing to attempt as my experience with designing and creating this type of work is very limited. And i should perhaps attempt a simpler design first. Especially in regards to drop shadow.

This is not the final outcome. I still need to shade more and colourize the image, furthermore the dropped shadow is completely wrong and I will have to look into getting help to address my issue with this. 

Autodesk Maya - Winter Project

I wanted to create a better spawning point for my level. Instead of just starting in or near a big hall. Since I've learnt a lot more about modelling I also think I could make a better, more detailed and generally nicer mesh. So I decided to make an underground starting zone where you begin by a locked door and have to climb a spiral staircase out. This will allow me to explore making interiors more and to control the spawn area a bit more. I think I will try and make this area a lot more detailed and try and introduce new elements I have learned into it.

I moved onto creating an actual spawn/starting point for the level now. I thought just waking up in a corridor seemed like a bit of a plot hole and/or too convenient. So after a bit of debating i settled on creating a surgery/experimentation room where the player wakes up on the table.