January 1 - January 21
In the beginning, there were sketches. Sketches drawn from the finest students this side of Uranus. Each bright-eyed, bushy-tailed student brought in sketches of non-existent creatures that would get the little elves in the brain working. As a group, we decided what each creature from each biome would look like, and how it would fare in our strange, new world.
Tyson, our master of sketch, created the new concept drawings that we would use to realize such creatures. We started at the very beginning, which is a very good place to start. The beginning was the desert, and our creatures were called Jebediah, Gerald, and Sanchez.
Tyson did some revising and reworking of the Sanchez model on the 21st. He added a small horn from the comments he got in class. Other possibilities are adding some sort of frill. He tried to make the legs somewhat stilted. The model still looks somewhat cartoony, although that will not be noticeable after it gets a realistic texture and is placed in its habitat. The next step is animating a test of this Sanchez. This movement video was shown in class to show typical lizard movement.
Jebediah is a towering, monstrous, flightless bird, with legs the size of tree trunks. He is our desert carnivore, using is monstrous head and sharp beak the attack unknowing prey. Our desert omnivore (and also the player creature) is Gerald - medium omnivore mammal, camouflage over speed, potentially with little lure thing, fur, not as fast but capable of striking quickly, sharp teeth to strike with mouth, maybe minimal claws. Last, we have our herbivore –a tiny, but not so tiny-hearted, lizard named Sanchez. Sanchez has long legs for speed, and a small horn on is head.
January 21 - January 28
The modelers and texture artists went straight to work. On Friday, the 27th, the models for Gerald and Sanchez were completed. (Still image of Gerald). You can see Sanchez after he'd been unwrapped here. When the player gets dropped into the swamp environment, he/she gets to control the mid-level predator, which is also the omnivore, (eats plants and little lizards Sanchez), and also happens to be a mammal.
Aside from the creatures getting modeled and animated, they must also be textured. Essentially, a flat "skin" must be created for them in Photoshop, which is then placed into Maya (the software used to crate these creatures), and then wrapped around the creature.
Kathryn did some texture research and found a variety of textures (desert, swamp, forest, miscellaneous). These can be mixed and switched, especially since some textures look like they could be for more than 1 biome.
January 29 - February 4
On the 30th, Jebediah's model and texture were completed. (See flat texture here). Jebediah is the bird, which in the desert environment, happens to be the predator. Originally Gabe had a few different color variations, but eventually the class decided that the blue bird was the most attractive.
On February 3, Sanchez' texture was completed. Textures are made in photoshop as flat objects which are then wrapped around the creature's model in Maya.
The Desert environment in Torque was sculpted from January 30th through February 9th. This involves making a landscape with mountains, etc. The topography of the terrain can be adjusted from within Torque.You basically go in and create mountains, etc, and then texture them. We had to create invisible walls (see the red?) in order to prevent our characters from falling of the face of the world.
Creating the desert environment also involves texturing it. Here are some textures Kathryn came up with (1, 2, 3, 4). Additionally, here are some plant sketches (1, 2, 3, 4) she drew out.
February 5 - February 11
On February 6th, Gerald's texture was completed. (See a still image of the texture). As a reminder, Gerald is the mid-level predator mammal, with the dangly lure on his head. We are envisioning him squatting behind rocks and dangling his lure to attract little Sanchez lizards and attack them. Because his lure looks like the plants that generally grow around rocks, this creates confusion for the lizards, which think that the lure is yet another plant they can eat.
During this time, we made final decisions on the creatures for all 3 biomes. Desert: Carnivore, Herbivore, Omnivore. Forest: Carnivore, Herbivore, Omnivore. Swamp: Carnivore, Herbivore, Omnivore.
Swamp plant sketches were discussed and decided upon. (1, 2, 3). Also, here are some more desert screen shots (1, 2, 3).
February 12 - February 18
During this week, the desert creatures' animations were completed and exported for Torque use. Watch Sanchez idle (stand still and hang out), as well as walk. Now programming can step in and figure out how to make the creatures interact within the swamp environment in the Torque engine. Meanwhile, the world team worked on placing desert plants in the Torque environment..
February 19 - February 25
This week, the desert rocks were placed in Torque. Additionally, the desert creatures were placed, water textures were created, water blocks were placed, and the sky box was textured. The sky box (which is essentially creating and texturing the sky) made the desert world look amazingly realistic and engaging.
February 26 - March 4
Desert textures painted, desert plants (one delicious, one of mid-level healthiness, and one poisonous) created and textured (palmroot tree texture), desert rocks were created and textured. From Feb 24th to the 27th, the final desert tweaks were made, and and desert world was completed.
Our midterm went very well. Although the game's functionality wasn't quite as refined as we were hoping for it to be, the critics did had positive comments on the creatures and desert environment we showed. Whoo!
March 5 - March 11
The sleep-deprived students of capstone had a well-deserved Spring Break of vacations, sleeping, eating, and doing more work.
March 12 - March 18
On return, the refreshed capstones went balls-to-the-wall on the swamp level. Our creatures for the swamp were named Petunia, Clarence, and Philbert.
Petunia, our swamp carnivore, is a large lizard, with deathly-sharp teeth and a very long tail who lives in the water. He sneaks up on his prey through the water and chomps them to bits with its large, pointy teeth.
Clarence, our omnivore and player creature, is a medium-sized bird, with a long rat-like tail and plumage that almost looks like tie-dye. Clarence hovers over the water to scope and attack his prey, snatching up with his semi-pointy beak (he also munches on tasty plants).
Philbert, the swamp herbivore, is primarily water-based (Aw, isn't he cute?). His otter-like body allows him the swim in the water. He has tufts of hair on his head and tail that look like the swamp poisonous plant, which he uses for camouflage. When he swims, all you can see are the tufts of hair.
During this week, the swamp landscape was sculpted and textured, water added and textured, and sky box textured.
Last but not least, this week the swamp creature animation were started .
March 19 - March 25
This week we textured the swamp plants. In all the environments we have a delicious plant, a semi-delicious plant, and a poisonous plant.
Jens also created the swamp sky box. The sky box is placed in the Torque environment and is textured to look like a sky appropriate for the environment. It can be static, or better yet, it can have slowly-moving clouds scroll across the sky as the player is playing.
March 26 - April 1
We continued to work on swamp tree texturing through the 28th. Additionally, the swamp plants placed in the Torque swamp environment.
April 2 - April 8
During the 2nd semester, the five teamsthe 1st semester were consolidated into four teams: Interface, Sound, Programming, and World. The developers' journal section provides an in-depth look into the progress of each of these teams over the course of the second semester.
Swamp trees were placed through the 4th. On April 4th, Swamp creature animations were finished.
Right after the Swamp was completed, we went harder than balls-to-the-wall to get the forest going. Again, the modelers began the forest creatures early, so they were almost done by the time we began creating the forest. Our creatures here are Bubba, name, and name. Bubba, our forest carnivore, is a large, very hairy (with hair even coming out of his ears), buffalo-like creature, who can blend in with the environment. So and so, our forest omnivore and player creature, is a lizard-like creature who has semi-sharp teeth. Anna, our forest herbivore, is a pudgy, small bird, with a small rat-like tail, who basically just hops around and relies on his speed for defense mechanisms.
April 9 - April 15
On the 7th, forest creatures were modeled and textured. The forest landscape was sculpted, textured and painted, water blocks added and textured, and sky box textured.
April 16 - April 22
On the 18th- forest creatures' animations are completed, forest plants and trees completed and textured. On the 18th throught he 28th, the forest trees and plants were placed, the forest environment was tweaked, and competed.