gschumsky
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Posts posted by gschumsky
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I'll be there, but I won't be able to get away during the day... perhaps we could all hook up for dinner?
Yeah, I know you guys will be there...will you guys be in about the same location as last year?
I get to meet with Take Two at 1:00!
Dinner would be great.
So, anyone else?
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I didnt even think of making the entrance go to another interior level like a fade in. That's pretty clever. I think it should work.
Not really. You need to go pick up a GameBoy DS with the Mario game, or PS2 and pretty much any of the games for that (except Star Wars, but those are one HUGE level)....all the transistions are fade in's fade outs. Especially when they constantly have to load the levels.
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For the Tin Castle, I'm thinking we'll probably need an outer courtyard with a drawbridge, the throne room, a "secret passage" that leads straight from the courtyard to the throne room, Scarecrow's "laboratory" and/or "study", a store room, a barracks, a couple of towers, a bunch of hallways, two or three empty rooms in case we want to add something later, , some kind of framed area on the back wall of the coutyard that holds a map/puzzle, and maybe a couple of catapults that have giant cup cakes on them. Greg might add/remove stuff from this list though.
I was thinking there would be some tin guards walking the battlements too, which would mean we need walkways behind the battlements, but we haven't really talked about that.
First, use the model from the movie (must save some sort of time), and I like Holmes thoughts. Nice.
The idea of the back wall of the courtyard with the map...I'm thinking we should find a way to incorporate the map into each new scene/level, no matter where our travelers go. Not only as a cool piece of continuity, tying the land of Oz together, but we could also use it as our control interface (pausing, saving, going to levels that have been unlocked..stuff like that).
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I am and will be there on May 10, so if anyone wants to hook up for lunch...
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We will need someone to start doing some simple tests inside the Torque world soon. Once we have a character or two exported with a selection of motion sequences we need to get working on the controls and testing the interaction. Are you going to be doing the coding, Greg?
I am not, though we have had some people chime in who did want to. I believe Dennis was one.
'Sides, I'm more of a "vision" guy then a coder.
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The building will not be seperate exterior and interior in a game. It is just one entity. The building is a complete building, you see the exterior from outside then you walk in it and see the interior. We will not be able to use hash models as buildings at all.
If I get the plans to the castle I will be happy to build it in world studio. I haven't really done anything finished in the program yet but would love to.
Actually, I was thinking different. Any interiors would be basically a different level per se, so we'd do a fade to black then fade in, whether going inside out or outside in...
If this were a FPS game, then I'd say "make it all one big model!!", but this isn't, so we're not, and we don't have to worry about that. Makes it simpler for all of us...
So, I say if we can use the Hash models, then use the Hash models.
k?
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Does someone want to make a little environment to test our models in? It's a great pity that we can't just create everything in A:M. Has anyone here used Quark before? Is Quark the app that will be used? I think that Torque has a terrain generator, doesn't it? We could start with some rolling hills and the castle. That should be enough of a challenge for someone to cut their teeth on.
QuArk is mainly used (from my understanding) for interiors. Torque does come with a pretty nice terrain modeler (again, from my understanding). As far as building exteriors, we can export those from AM and then do any necessary adjustments. They should be pretty low patch count to begin with, and since they don't move, I don't think we're limited on the polys, but that's something else we'll need to test.
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I have been more bussy than usual last weeks, but as I told before I want to help on the characters modelling-animating-exporting part. I have both TGE and the show tool pro, and some experience with them, so I would only need a copy of the exporter.
Oh, wait, do we need AM 13 or it is good enought with AM 12? Maybe I would need to upgrade first. I haven´t yet because I have been working mainly with 2D last months...
Gustavo Muñoz
We're working in AM13. If and when you upgrade let me know and I'll get you what you need.
Greg
If you get me these tools and paul gets me up to date I will start working.
I'll ping you guys tonight after I get these into the necessary packages for you. Paul, do you need both?
Greg
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Okay, I now have 3 copies of the showtool pro and the exporter (well, 2 since one is going to Paul Forwood).
So, anyone who wants to help Paul on the R&D for models from AM to Torque, this is all you basically need. Let me know, and I'll get them to you one way or another, first come, first served.
Let's get this process back up and running. I'd really like to have this, as well as the Torque models out of the way once we get the game play close to wrapping.
Then it'll be time for the animators to step in, as well as the world builders.
Just let me know if you need both or only one of the programs.
Greg
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Hi Micah, I'm glad you asked
1.Take a look here
http://wiki.hash.com/twogame/show/Gameplay
and find a level that doesn't have anything written for it yet.
2. If the TWO script has something about the level you chose, open your copy of the TWO script to the section you are working on and do a quick read-through of the script - writing down any good ideas you get from there.
3. Open your copy of the Tin Woodman of Oz book to the section you are working on. Go through it in small chunks - two or three paragraphs at a time. After each chunk, stop and think "Is there something here that I can make into an adventure?". It's much easier to take out detail than to add it in, so write down any excuse for an adventure - large or small.
4. Now take your adventure idea and pretend you are actually playing the game. You are navigating through the OZ game with your mouse and watching the scenery on the screen go by. What clue do you see on the screen that there is an adventure here? - WRITE IT DOWN - What does it look like? - WRITE IT DOWN - If it is a challenge, then imagine all the crazy ways you could get through it, get around it, or solve it. - WRITE THEM DOWN- If there is dialog, imagine yourself saying "hello, who are you?" or whatever. Then imagine what the NPC would say. - WRITE IT DOWN -
5. Go through the whole level section this way. If you write things down as you are going chunk-by-chunk through the book, by the time you are finished reading the section, 80% of your work is already done.
Nice advice Holmes...couldn't have said it better myself.
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Nice job Holmes, and the same to everyone that has contributed up to this point. This is going to be a lot of fun to make and play, and I really appreciate everyone's efforts.
And thanks Martin for the help with the Wiki, as well as supporting this as well.
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Whoohoo!!!
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Well that's good news.
I'll ping Steve or Martin to get our area set up on the Hash server for the wiki and the dotProject game stuff. Then I'll need Rodney and Holmes to help maintain those (if that's okay with you guys).
Greg
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Well, typically we use project software, like MS project. Unfortuantely, it's not Windows and Mac friendly. But we could use any project management program, that does spit out html, and post that page up on someone's (Hash's maybe) web server. The only drawback is only one person can update it...which I should be doing anyway, unless someone wants to take on the specific role of PM (and that would be good too).
I think the book is great as our production bible, with the different assets, artwork, level ideas, etc., and what needs to be assigned (i.e. assets), to what section of the game. The outline Robert made is great as far as a a rough to eventuallly more defined overview. But the book is great as the main resource to go to and add to as we make progress in producing this game.
And no, I don't recall any off the shelf software for making an interactive production book/journal/bible. But that's my experience.
OK, I'm back
I think the TWO script is really a very sweet love story. I was just a little shocked when I discovered just how much it diverged from the original. I thought, "Sheesh, if you want to write your own story, why don't you just write your own story and call it something else instead of messing with a classic?" But I don't really mind what it is called, it's still a very sweet story.The game may be better served by the original book story because there are so many completely different situations and continuity is not important. For the movie, however, a "journey around the wilderness" with no character development and dozens of unconnected events wasn't cutting it. People watch movies for sweet love stories and engaging characters. I'm not guaranteeing that we achieved that with our story but I think it's at least an "8." With a little help from the animation and visuals, it could be a "10," (but I know how difficult that would be).
I had mentioned this in the past in another thread somewhat as well. That's one main reason I wanted you guys to read the actual book (that and the harassment from Sutton..
). I think there is a lot more we can do with the game if we use stuff from the book, and from the movie. Yes, cutscenes are important, and the one's we can tie in from the movie will be of great help, but we'll have to make some new one's specifically for the game. Also, we need to think of bonuses such as being able to visit the library of Oz, which can be more of a multimedia experience. But by all means, please use anything you can glean from the book to make the game really stand out. The last thing I want this to be is "Hollywooded", or an adaption of an adaption.
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Nice job. After they basically escape the castle, go back to labeling, Level 7 and so on so we have a breakout of each level that can be tasked.
With Level 6, Yoop's castle, that was a lot more detail then needed, but good, since we'll basically be doing the same to the other level details.
Thanks for your great effort.
Now people can look at it and think of what might be missing. Then you or I can add that in (we'll just edit the first post).
After that we'll break each scene into it's own thread.
Greg
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I have decided that I would prefer to keep the belt buckel, it stands out and especially at 256 pixels, so I will revert to an earlier model and rework the jaw area and remove the eye brows, etc.
What about eye motion and blinks? Are they going to be important in the game? Personally I think that blinks are very important when it comes to keeping the feeling that your character is alive. The same goes for jaw movement, but to a lesser extent. It really depends on the size of the game character on screen. If he is rendered at 256 pixels high his face will be large enough to display emotion. This would enhance the the whole experience and I think that you should consider keeping enough geometry to convey 'in-game' emotion from the characters.
Alright. If you can get nice detail and keep them under 1000 patches (or 2000 poly's), then go for it. I was thinking 128 because at that size, detail can be faked with decals and bump maps (does torque do displacement maps?). A bump or displacement can do a lot to add detail, even on a 256 pixel model, while keeping poly count down.
Eye movement and yes, some opening/closing of the mouth is good, and tends to be used for idle sequences. It adds life to the character. So, 256 pixel at 2000 poly's. Remember to try and use mapping to your advantage (esp. on hands).
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Will Sutton - If you read this, I have a request.:-) Could you possibly render your Tinman in the rigging pose, but with his fists clenched as if carrying something, and send me images of the front and back? I will tweak them into useable decals or at least decent test decals. This is so that we can make certain that this model will be capable of conveying the full character of the larger Tinman. The mapping is going to be very important in bringing a simple mesh to life and ensuring that he is as close as possible to the movie character. As you are doing the Tinman maps I would be better off working with your material than I would experimenting with my own. ;-)Good request. Remember it's all decals.
So, who has a registered copy of AMXdtsPlus? ;-)You will. Even though you don't plan on working on the game all the way through (yeah right
), it's worth it for you to have it, especially with all the stuff you've done so far. I'll ping Steve.This is important now as we need to start testing the mapping and animation features in Torque. We need a registered owner to do the exporting, with sequence data and mapping data, so that we can find it's strengths and weaknesses and use it to best effect. Any registered owners want to get involved?I'll go through the list and see if there's anyone ready to jusmp onboard to help.
Also, who has Torque and is anyone experimenting with environment building in Quark yet? Most important, does anyone have Torque yet? I see activity in the development of game scenarios but is anything else happening? Is anyone testing the rest of the pipeline?I'm happy to get you a copy of that as well, considering all you're doing now. Dennis Boruso was set to get it, and there are a few others who have expressed interest in this aspect (Zach for one). I'll ping them too. I also seem to remember someone doing some Quark testing.
Greg
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You're welcome, and good job there.
As far as losing more patches, eyebrows can go (since that will be redecaled on). With the jaw movement, let's dump that as well. Any "speaking" the characters will do in the game will be text based for questions/directions/responses, and possibly a VO for NPC's when a question is triggered. Other voice stuff will be mostly for effect when character's are being chased, hit, or other action type stuff.
And any major speaking will be cutscenes, either from the movie or new ones using the movie models.
G
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Here is an example of Tin Woodman at various sizes:
[attachmentid=15810]
The image above is not the 1141 patch version but looks much the same.
So, what are thoughts on the size of the game models? I know that screen resolution must also be considered.
Well, seeing this on a display set to 1152x864, the 128 pixel tin looks really nice. Once we add on the textures (I think the route of decaling on the rendered images from the movie models is brilliant), I thinnk we're good to go.
Nice job Paul
edit: If (and I mean IF) we can get the models to look good at 256 pixels and keep the patch count down (I don't want our stuff to look blocky, and that's avoided by using smaller models), then I might think about going that route. But, to be honest, I think the 128 size is wonderful, and once we add the decals, they should look pretty darn nice. There are plenty of commercial games using this size, and I think for our audience, this should work well. Bibleman had
I'm impressed.
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I think you're correct on that. Also, keep in mind we're not going to be right next to the characters, but always a certain distance away. If we were making this for a console and using a mega-thousand dollar engine, then we could go for a lot more detail.
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Just a rough overview of each level in sequence, using this as an example:
Level One:
Pick your character (woot, TM, SC)
If woot: Open in woots village for training exercises, various tasks, get to the Tin castle (crazy turky wagon ride).
If TM: Open in Tin castle yard for TM training..how to use axe for chopping wood, creating barriers, etc.
If SC: Training in Scare-crowing (or whatever he does best), some mental puzzles, etc.
(btw, it would be fun if SC had some formal kung-fu training...maybe call it Tohaydo (Toh-Hay-doh)..similar to Aikido (no attacking, only defending).
Level Two:
Tin castle and first journey (or whatever you guys have decided on)
Level Three:
Got it?
Greg
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As far as the script and the book, I think we should go from the book on this since it's not in the film. We can create new cutscenes for the game that aren't in the movie (thus adding more value to the game), for any scene we pull from the book. I don't want this to be another "game adapted from the movie". It's bad enough adapting a book into a movie, and keeping the feel of the book. The team has done a pretty good job on that, and realisticly, aside from something like the Lord of the Rings (the full version is 3 hours long), it's very hard to turn a book into a film. Stuff has to be cut to save film time. Martin and co. did their best and it shows. The problem with a number of games based on films is there is nothing new, nothing that makes the game it's own entity. It's just a rehash of the movie. We're kind of guilty of that in our Bibleman game, but tried to make the different levels a bit more fun and exciting than the video so it was better than the video it was based on. Had we had more time (we had less than 6 months), and money (as in we had little to work with), then we could have made the game a whole lot better, added all the cool stuff I wanted to have in it, and so on. Lots more depth. Not to say it's not a good game. But it could have been so much better.
We have the opportunity to do that here with this game.
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Looks like your the one for the job Robert.
Simple layout so we have an overview that can be added to, deleted from. I'll make you, Holmes and Rodney moderators on that thread..( I think I can. This whole moderator thing is new to me...), so you can all make edits when needed.
Greg
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Okay, find a great place to put it in.
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Cool. Nice Number of folks going.
Maybe me and ken can network our c-pap machines
Is that a ResMed c-pap machine??
(I ask because they're my client)
Anyone going to E3?
in Game Development
Posted
Not going to the CGDC this year? That is a very cool little get-together (and great Fellowship as well). If you make it, I'll be there as usual (May is going to be a very busy month!).
Greg