Gameplay

We have been discussing elements of gameplay and we feel that the way to make it seem a lot more interesting and keep it fun is to have a significant number of enemies, yet I think that there should still be a really tight limitation on ammo so you have to run, this builds up those tense moments we hope to be creating for players.

Things to scare the player.

Lights = The lights can be switched on but finding switches that are switched off an area they need to pass through will hopefully creating a scary element to the game for the player.

Tight hallways = Things pushed up against the wall that the player maybe has to squeeze through, or even walk through but it will be tight so that they can't just run straight through, it would also restrict their view. I also like the idea of planks of wood across a hole in the floor, where the player has to slowly cross even when being chased by something.

Shadows = Using shadows will be an important part of the game, and I have currently designed the morgue so that there is one way viewing walls, so light and shadows can still effect walls in the room, Even if they cannot be seen.

Enemies = Weird looking enemies that are a lot bigger than the character should be used. These create more of a threat than other people of the same build and height.

Ammunition = Limited ammunition, killing the odd few police men can allow you to pick up their weapons for a couple of extra rounds.

Paranormal Activity = Doors triggered to close at certain times, this would really scare the player especially when they have to take a slightly longer route.

Children = Creepy children... just because they're creepy.

Melee Weapon = Something that plays on the phobias of needles... which I have... A nice big syringe to stab into your enemies.

Double Whammys = A monster jumps out behind... oh no... that was just a book falling off the bookshelf... Damn ghost.... 2 seconds later... Monster really does jump out.

Dark and creepy shaders = We are going for orange and blue lighting but if we can get a slightly desaturated look by the use of shaders it would ensure that our work blends and looks creepy.

That's it for now, but when we have decided on a full idea of how the game works, I will write it all up properly.

Weapon

Handgun 821 Polys

512x512 Diffuse
512x512 Normal
512x512 Specularity

Probably going to drop the textures down to 256x256 except diffuse

Animations

Hey,

I know it's been a while since my last post but I have had a few issues with the rigged character.

1. The arms started deforming oddly.
2. Unity would not open the character.
3. Unity would not play the animations.
4. Decided to re rig the arms of the character.
5. Had diffulty in the animation of the model looking realistic.

Now all of these issues have been fixed I will be adding more animations to the character then I'll make a video demonstration post to show you all what I have been working on.

Handful of assets

We thought that it would be nice to throw in the 3DS Max kettle as it is one of the standard primitives relevant to max... now we just need to think how to throw a monkey in for Paul


A medicine tray that carts medicine and tablets around to patients
Lightswitch on.

Lightswitch off
Curtains (I tried to make it look like someone was hiding behind these

Stretcher

I am going to change the metal texture as it looks terrible
I did some really terrible concept art and I based the stretcher from that.

Morgue Progression

Render with a floor texture

I worked on the hair today but I can't get it too look right. This is about 20 minutes worth of trying.

Main Character Rigged

I have just spent the last two days learning how to rig and then rigging the main character for the game. I have set up some IK constraints to enable fluid deformation of joints and have segmented The bones for the neck and spine to enable a more realistic looking twist. I will spend the next few days knocking out animations for this mesh.

Maps.... more like Atlas

Okay I have pretty much being working on all the different maps needed

Specular Map

Occlusion Map

Normal map

Displacement Map

Diffuse Map

I also found a way of faking ambient occlusion, by adding monochromatic noise to a specular map, it gives a nice kind of occlusion effect.

With and without Specular Map (Normal Map WIP)

Low Specular highlights, subtle and no faked ambient occlusion




Higher Specular Highlights with Fake Ambient Occlusion and harsher colour switches



I think the only maps needed will be Normal Maps Diffuse Maps and Specular Maps. Displacement might be good to get some effects like this that I managed:




That's it for birthday work :)

Specular Map Test

Just spent the last 3 hours learning how to do specular maps. Heres a quick vid to demonstrate what I have so far. This is a 1 polygon model/plain.

Normal mapping

Normal mapping first attempt

1 polygon....

Format

Just spent the most of today and a bit of last night preparing and formatting my PC. I am really impressed with it's performance now, it can handle more than a 1000 poly's which is a great thing, Paul wouldn't have coped :).

Been looking at the complexities of Normal Mapping, expect results soon!

Operating Theatre

I have been woking on the Operating Theatre for the game. Here are a few screen shots of the area. The models have had a temporary texture added just to help with illustration. I will be adding a lot more elements to this area and then fully UV mapping every item. I have also managed to keep all models to a low polygon count with none of the items exceeding 600 polys. and the full area currently has no more than 17000 polys.Wow what a break through for me (Mr. Polygon).

Morgue/Mortuary

Morgue / Mortuary whatever we refer to it as first screenshot of the textured area, I tried to keep the lighting low and giving a glow around where the door frame and open door will be, I hope gives it a (not often visited feel). It is supposed to be a lonely area but I have designed it as a U shaped area.


The middle area is a wall which when you come down the slope (not stairs as they would have to wheel people down this area) will be where the little girl you follow runs into, you will then try to find a way in (unable to as it will be solid brick) and hear knocking in the middle area and maybe some screams which will keep the player wondering what is going on in there. A couple of sounds if used properly will create a full area which is as diverse as the players imagination.

During the next meet up me and Paul will discuss assets needed for these areas and share them out, hopefully in 2 weeks we will have two fully explorable rooms and I am working on texturing Pauls model of the main character, possibly looking at polygon reduction if possible, but due to there not being many characters on the screen we feel and hope that a 20,000 cap on the polygons is appropriate.

Meet Up

Today we met up and pretty much got the engine sorted for our project, this included the characters movement, walking on uneven terrain and the chasing camera, we also made sure it didn't pass through walls, we will be experimenting with a few of the positions for the camera to ensure we get the best possible look, however as Paul mentioned the problem with setting the camera at an offset from the character (to create an over the shoulder look) means that walking down narrow hallways will cause the camera to be raised and we might not get the same effect, however we are going to discuss this further and try to find the best possible solution, as after all, perspective is one of the most important things especially in a horror game.

We have also started discussing HUD and GUI and we think that having a camera playing a hallway with scripted animations and sounds would be good, so that as soon as the game starts it will set some kind of atmosphere, setting the atmosphere will be one of the most important tasks we aim to accomplish.

We have today been focsing on the lead character, with Pauls models of the clothing and body we tried editing it a little, causing us many problems, we tried to open her top a little bit more as it didn't quite seem right being buttoned to the top, a task that takes 10 seconds in real life took almost 2 hours and still wasn't finished, but progress nonetheless. Fortunately it doesn't take 9 months for character development as it does in real life, benefits on both sides.

We have agreed to start mocking up a room each, I will be designing the morgue and Paul will be designing a circular operating theater where students could watch and learn, Paul found a brilliant reference for this especially as well as many other images that could be of use. We will be meeting up again in a few days to throw some more ideas backwards and forwards. Hopefully in the next week there will be a lot of images to show our work.

A start on the exact mechanics of gameplay was discussed, weapons, how they will be used against what enemies, as well as how we are going to bank up (save) our polygons.

Last thing, we are also going to start animating the character, once we get this done, creating the hospital then enemies and the final parts. Throughout I hope to be learning Javascript to a level where I don't have to refer to a book every five minutes, however a lot of questions solved on the Unity Forums have been great and we are going to join up to the community in a hope to give something back to the community, and hopefully have a little more help when we need it.

Change Of Order

We have recently dicovered that we would need Unity Pro to enable us to add video sequences to the game. As we dont currently have access to Unity Pro we have decided to leave the intro video sequence until a later day. We are going to concentrate on modelling assests for the game and getting some vital characters modelled, rigged and animated.

Floor Texture

I started creating a floor texture to be used throughout the hospital, this is a render of it that I did in 3D, I left a 1 pixel gap between the tiles and it has given a greyish like effect, similar to that in the photo, I added noise as it has mild noise on the floor tiles from the image I used.

Roll Back Dolly

I used to do film studies and something we saw in films was a Roll Back Dolly effect, it is kind of used in Gears of War, I would like to experiment with implementing it in the game. This may have to be done by moving the camera through a path keeping the distance between the character whilst widening the field of view.

Girl Proportions

Made the girl a bit thinner and added the head to see about getting proportions correct.

Also been messing around with the daylight system in 3ds max to get some nice effects, renders coming soon :).

Woman W.I.P Update

Ok I have now completed the body and will now make a start on the limbs. We need to start discussing what sort of person this character is so that we can then determine what type of clothes she would wear and if she wears jewellery.

Head Template

Today I modelled a full head that I can hopefully use as a template for any characters here on. I also learnt a couple of techniques I hadn't used before, I'm sure they'll come into use many times throughout this project.

Head is around 6000 polys and 29,000 for animations.

After some research I found that the Playstation can render 275,000,000 poly's a second and the Xbox 360 can render out 500,000,000 poly's second. How true this is I don't know whether it includes textures or just base materials. I think that we need to do some research in this field, as the game should run really smooth to ensure maximum enjoyment.

Source: http://www.ps3vault.com/sony-ps3-275000000-polygons-per-second-vs-xbox-360%E2%80%99s-500000000-2382

Also Render Resolutions for tonnes of games:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=46241

Definately a thought worth pursuing.

Woman Head W.I.P Update

I have now done the head and ears and also adjusted the texture on the tear glands and mouth making them slightly darker.

Young Girl Edit

Edited the model, texture and created a bump map that works quite nicely on the dress.



Just need to align the texture a little more so it tiles better.

Woman Head W.I.P

Just A quick post to let you know I have started the higi poly woman for the animation sequence and here she is.

Little Girl's Body

I kind of used Pauls reference but I tried to get one more straight on, I think that photo also began to scare me a little. I managed to get a draft version of the girls body and clothing, I also spent a fair bit of the day learning the ins and outs of subsurface scattering and then I used it to get a nice blend in on the shadows.

The upper arms needs a bit of tweaking and I think the feet look a little bit out of proportion.

Little girl reference

More Glass Experimentation (Almost There)

After experimentation I have found what I beleave to be the best way to acheive the effect we need for the car glass shattering in the "Crash Sequence".


This effect was created by making the windscreen a particle emitter and modeling a few variations of the glass pieces. I then added collision detection to the car and ground and increased the dampening and fall off on the collidable objects to add more realism. I still need to tweek the thickness of the collision, as in some parts it looks like the glass pieces look like they are hovering slightly.

Camera Issues solved

I have been doing some research into Unity cameras as we innitial thought there may be an issue in 3rd person with the camera going through walls and getting stuck inbetween walls. I have discovered that we can add collision detection the the camera. This will make the camera slide along the wall and solve our concerns.

Quick Render

Today I started on the scene where the crash will take place, this is a render of what it may look like.

The trees are just images on a plane with an alpha map but they look too flat, I think I will consider getting some kind of tree from somewhere.

I also need to tweak with the light a little bit more but the rays from the light look moderately good.

Hospital

An idea for the hospital,I didn't want to base it exactly on a building that was architecturally correct, the building wasn't right so it shouldn't look completely rightfrom the outside, however I do think it needs to look a little more like a hospital.

A few crash tests

I have played around with the explode modifier in blender and have come up with the following results to demonstrate glass breaking/shattering. I am working on modelling more realistic glass and shatter.



I then rendered out a basic crash sequence. The parts where the models pass through each other or permiate the floor are to let me know where to add damage to the cars and/or floor.

Car Crash Test 1

Using Pauls model of the Jaguar today we started messing about with some glass effects, although it should be ignored where it pieces itself back together at the end.

Problems:
The glass stays still at the side windows, it is bound to the car but for some reason upon shattering it breaks the bond, I will look into this.

The glass pieces itself back together at the end, I will just increase the power of the trigger.

Car goes into ground, I will lift it up next time before a 1 hour render.



We discussed today about the black and white filter effect, and I think this might be a considerable part for much of the project as it creates darker areas, grayscale is easier for an engine to render, meaning more detail, it is also easier for us to keep our work consist and of the same saturation, a problem we will run into if it is in colour, I think it will be valuable but a lot of thought will have to be put in before deciding on the final outcome.

Concept Render Of Jaguar

This is a concept render of the car driven by the main character at the time of the crash scene.