Development: Game Interface Design – Creating external links from game – update

I just found some comments on Creative Cow’s forum that say that the external link to the Internet feature never worked in Encore CS4 and it doesn’t work in CS5 either. The best you can do is store html content pages on your encore dvd and link to those (which isn’t live Internet data). Drats.

http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/145/865295
http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/145/868633

 

Development: Game Interface Design – Creating external links from game

I’ve almost finished creating my screens for Tomas. Once I’m done I’ll be able to replicate this format using it as a template to populate with info for all the other game characters that I’ve designed. The problem I’m trying to resolve at the moment is an external link button. Tanya said at the beginnning of major project that it would be great to be able to link externally from the game to wikipedia or something similar so that the player could delve deeper into information around a topic. This is how I am going to achieve my goal of Tangential learning. By providing my gamer audience with more detailed content on my endangered species issue. Here are some screenshots of my problem.

Step 1: – Clicked on link to wikipedia

Step 2: – Got Adobe error page

Step 3: – Problem may be due to running 64bit version of firefox with 32bit version of flash player. I’ll look into this.

 

Development: Game Interface Design – PS3 Controller Update

I managed to get a playstation 3 controller working on my pc running windows xp. I’ve looked into the possibility of getting an equivalent driver for an imac (for exhibition purposes but this may not be so easy). I intend to create my game menu using Adobe Encore and Photoshop and then drive the menu navigation with a ps3 controller to simulate how a gamer would tab through and make selection choices in a playstation game.

It took me a while to figure out how to get this working. I recently updated my OS to run windows 7 64bit so that I could make use of my pc’s 64bit processor (and go above the 4GB ram limit of a windows 32bit OS) as I had been running windows xp pro 32bit. Trying to install 3rd-party unsigned device drivers (for my ps3 controller) on a 64bit system is a lot more complicated than the regular 32bit system. I managed to finally get it working properly. I have almost full functionality of the ps3 controller mapped to my pc. It has DPad functionality, vibration/rumble feature activated, both analog sticks work plus the PS button, L1, L2, R1,R2, Select and Start buttons. The only thing it can’t do is make use of the six-axis motion but I don’t require it for my major project anyway.

After getting this working I realised what I also needed was to be able to control my mouse with the ps3 controller. I installed another file which allowed me to create a custom map set to assign mouse functionality to my controller. I then tested it on my game menu mockup and it worked perfectly.

 

Development: Game Interface Design – Character Profile Buttons

ZBrush 4 has a timeline animation feature.

I was thinking of have clickable character buttons which would animate either when you hover over a character or when you click on it (and before it takes you to a new screen). I’ll post up an example from an existing game but here’s a couple of tests I did in ZBrush.

 

Development: Sub Character – Tai Muliaina

Tai Muliaina
Here’s my character model development and associated feature items that I’ve modelled for Muliaina. I still need to model her feature items but this is the character so far. I’m also attaching her updated profile.

 

Development: Render Workflow from ZBrush to Maya

Before I could consider testing renders in Maya I modelled one character to completion in ZBrush (giving me a model with roughly 70 subtools).

After modeling Tomas Van Buren’s feature items (clothing, gun, gun holster, molotov cocktail etc) in Maya, I sculpted detail, assigned textures and polypainted these items in ZBrush. I then exported various maps, using ZBrush 4’s Multi Map Exporter plugin (to generate displacement, normal, texture, ambient occlusion, cavity and the mesh itself) to be assembled in Maya.

Displacement Maps
The displacement maps I exported from ZBrush were 32-bit (to accomodate for the high resolution of the model). Maya doesn’t handle 32-bit displacement maps very easily so I converted them into .map format. After resolving this issue I came across a few more. My materials I had assigned to each of my subtools in ZBrush could not be exported and used in Maya. I could merge all of my subtools in ZBrush and import it into Maya but then I would only have the option of assigning one material to the whole model once in Maya. I decided to break my ZBrush model into various parts according to what material I wanted to assign them in Maya. I could basically break the model into 5 parts:

1 – Clothing, Ski Mask, Boots, Gun Holster – Lambert material*
2 – Bottle – Anisotropic material**
3 – Gun – Blinn material
4 – Skin – SSS Fast Shader material
5 – Kneepads – Blinn material

* Subtools like the shirt buttons, rivets on the gun holster, boot loops and rings would all be grouped with model parts 1 (so would be assigned to a lambert material).

** I researched into how I would create a shader for the flame but I haven’t found something suitable yet.

Normal Maps
I’ll post up my results soon.

Decimation
I thought about using decimation instead of using Displacement or Normal maps. I managed to reduce the model down to 10 percent with no noticeable downgrade in resolution. I tried decimating it down to 1 percent of the original (7 million) and ZBrush said that it worked but when I opened the file it was unchanged from the original. I’ll have to give it another go.

 

Development: Sub Characters – Brittany Beale and Aishwarya Tata

Brittany Beale
Here’s my character model development and associated feature items that I’ve built/created/modelled for Beale. I’m also attaching her updated profile.

Aishwarya Tata
Here’s my character model development and associated feature items that I’ve built/created/modelled for Tata. I’m also attaching her updated profile.

 

Development: Game Interface Design

Game Menu Functionality
I managed to get a playstation 3 controller working on my pc running windows xp. I’ve looked into the possibility of getting an equivalent driver for an imac (for exhibition purposes but this may not be so easy). I intend to create my game menu using Adobe Encore and Photoshop and then drive the menu navigation with a ps3 controller to simulate how a gamer would tab through and make selection choices in a playstation game.

My intention is to build a portion of a fighting genre video game which relates to the character selection menus and have an interactive component. The viewer will be able to click on and move through certain (working) portions of my game menus and be able to select a set number of characters, view their character profiles. For certain characters, the viewer, will be able to see their chosen character, within an environment, posed in a fighting scene/match versus another of my game characters (Roy said that this is an Allegory).

Wiki Definition of Allegory (excerpt)
Allegory is a figurative mode of representation conveying meaning other than the literal. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation.

 

Development: Environments

Chinese Medicine Store
I’ve blocked in some building placeholders for a street mockup and will consider whether to model the chinese medicine store, the street outside it, or both.

Taiji Maru 3
(to be added)

 

Development: Main Characters – Zhang and Van Buren

Zhang Lian (main character)
Here’s my character model development and associated feature items that I’ve built/created/modelled for Zhang. I’m also attaching her updated profile.

Additional backstory development for Zhang:
From years of research and experimentation with tiger bone products, Zhang has recently perfected a potent tonic which gives her super-human speed for a short period of time. She has told no one of her discovery, keeping her receipe a closely guarded secret. Although sourcing tiger products is getting more difficult due to rarity and the expense, Zhang can’t see herself stopping anytime soon. Zhang keeps a small supply of her tiger tonic in a medicine gourd which she consumes before a fight (much like Asterix).

Reference: Tiger bone article

Tomas Van Buren (main character)
Here’s my character model development and associated feature items that I’ve built/created/modelled for Van Buren. Here’s his updated profile as well.