Friday 26 November 2010
1970's gurney reference
I have come across this image of a gurney from the 70's. Good wisual reference.
Monday 22 November 2010
First Hand Information
I have found two people online that both work in the mental health profession. One of them is a sichiatris for the police and the other works on a ward in a mental hospital.
They have both offered their help in giving us research on the way mental hospitals look, feel and sound and are giving me an insight into the types of mental illness that will help push our game to a good level of detail when it comes to mental illness.
This is what I was given by the first of these people and she wishes to remain annonymus she calls herself "Sexyashell"
"let’s start with some depts. there are administrations, I.E. admitting, case managers, billing and coding. Then there is security, then there are wards and the wards are levels of severity. Level 1 is people that can manage their mental illness with medications and they will have a short stay. level 2 are people that have a slightly more severe mental illness and will require a longer stay but could manage their illness with medications but will probably be admitted back into the hospital several times throughout their lives. Level 3 have a more aggressive and more serious form of mental illness. They will probably require a long hospital stay and there may even be a chance that they will never get out because they are not safe for themselves or for the public. They are on heavy kinds and large doses of medications but it only helps a little bit. Then there are level 4, the criminally insane. These people will never get out they are a danger to themselves and to others. They will cause serious harm to people around them; they are on heavy meds, like lithium. They are watched by security, hospital staff at all times if they are not locked in their rooms. There mental illness has caused them to be in a prison in their own head.
Then there is the nurses, doctors, and psychiatric techs and other psych staff. These people all have direct contact with the patients.
The outside of a state mental hospital will be close to looking like a prison. It will have fences and maybe even bob-wire fences around the level 3 and level 4 wards. It may even have a paediatric mental health ward. i hope this helps some if you have any questions please let me know.
Sexyashell
They have both offered their help in giving us research on the way mental hospitals look, feel and sound and are giving me an insight into the types of mental illness that will help push our game to a good level of detail when it comes to mental illness.
This is what I was given by the first of these people and she wishes to remain annonymus she calls herself "Sexyashell"
"let’s start with some depts. there are administrations, I.E. admitting, case managers, billing and coding. Then there is security, then there are wards and the wards are levels of severity. Level 1 is people that can manage their mental illness with medications and they will have a short stay. level 2 are people that have a slightly more severe mental illness and will require a longer stay but could manage their illness with medications but will probably be admitted back into the hospital several times throughout their lives. Level 3 have a more aggressive and more serious form of mental illness. They will probably require a long hospital stay and there may even be a chance that they will never get out because they are not safe for themselves or for the public. They are on heavy kinds and large doses of medications but it only helps a little bit. Then there are level 4, the criminally insane. These people will never get out they are a danger to themselves and to others. They will cause serious harm to people around them; they are on heavy meds, like lithium. They are watched by security, hospital staff at all times if they are not locked in their rooms. There mental illness has caused them to be in a prison in their own head.
Then there is the nurses, doctors, and psychiatric techs and other psych staff. These people all have direct contact with the patients.
The outside of a state mental hospital will be close to looking like a prison. It will have fences and maybe even bob-wire fences around the level 3 and level 4 wards. It may even have a paediatric mental health ward. i hope this helps some if you have any questions please let me know.
Sexyashell
Thursday 18 November 2010
No Internet
Well little of it, I go to download a texture and the internet dies, Pfft karoo, anyways been focusing on my dissertation but have managed to throw this up.
Saturday 13 November 2010
Dead Space
Dead Space is a survival horror set in space, it has quite a linear story but it doesn't ruin the gameplay. It has many new ideas that have not been used in video games such as the zero oxygen, whilst getting chased by a group of aliens and having only a minute to get to the next air lock, it can be really tense. Some of the weapons are quite innovative and I definately like the fact that there is no excess of ammunition, it's either make sure you are hitting your target or enjoy fist fighting alien Mike Tyson.
The game is quite dark and adds a lot of atmosphere especially that there are a lot of corridors and corners, every time there is a hole in the wall you expect a huge alien plant to grab you by the foot, but there are times when this doesn't happen, leaving you not expecting it.
Things I would take from this are the way that the whole ship seems empty and you really feel alone, except for of course the enemies, I also like the way that the game makes tense moments even more tense by taking away oxygen, this could be done with our game with doors that may be stuck and the player will have to bash buttons to get through.
The things I don't like is that even though there is limited ammunition, the enemies are still quite easy to kill, I think enemies in horror games should always be quite difficult to defeat, unless you are going for a more arcade feel, in which Left 4 Dead does this brilliantly.
The game is quite dark and adds a lot of atmosphere especially that there are a lot of corridors and corners, every time there is a hole in the wall you expect a huge alien plant to grab you by the foot, but there are times when this doesn't happen, leaving you not expecting it.
Things I would take from this are the way that the whole ship seems empty and you really feel alone, except for of course the enemies, I also like the way that the game makes tense moments even more tense by taking away oxygen, this could be done with our game with doors that may be stuck and the player will have to bash buttons to get through.
The things I don't like is that even though there is limited ammunition, the enemies are still quite easy to kill, I think enemies in horror games should always be quite difficult to defeat, unless you are going for a more arcade feel, in which Left 4 Dead does this brilliantly.
Friday 12 November 2010
Wednesday 10 November 2010
Cutting windows
Putting some of the windows in, not finished yet just cutting out holes for them to slot in.
Monday 8 November 2010
Sunday 7 November 2010
Thursday 4 November 2010
First Enemy Development/Concept
After A brain storming session, Steve and I came up with a few concept ideas for enemy characters. We have decided that we will be minimalistic on the enemy front, rather than making hords of enemies chasing you down or a hack and slash fest. The enemies will be far and few between. This will add more suspence and help add to the desolate feel of the building giving it a more abandoned, spooky feel and make you feel more lost and alone. We also decided to base the enemies on real life human fears and started naming some of the more obvious fears such as Nyctophobia (Fear of the dark), Trypanophobia (Fear of syringes) and Acrophobia (Fear of falling). With this in mind I started on the first of these Fear Characters "Fearacters" The Dark Man. We decided to make him have a smoke effect emitting from him, engulphing him in a black mist if you will. We will also look into animating a smoke texture over his entire body with areas of intence heat moving around (like embers). 
After a shed load of problems He is almost complete. We managed to acheive the effect we where after but we I rigged and animated the model. The particles no longer worked.
Back to the drawing board. We managed to find out that graphics card are incapable of coping with a particle emitter on an animated mesh. So we eventually found that we could add the particles to the bones of the rig. But in doing this the effect we where after was lost. The particles where too clumped togeater so we changed from smoke to a sort of ash look.
We are happy with the result but need to work on the javascript for the animation of the textures a little more so that is appeares more randomly and has more of a rotation and life span.
After a shed load of problems He is almost complete. We managed to acheive the effect we where after but we I rigged and animated the model. The particles no longer worked.
Back to the drawing board. We managed to find out that graphics card are incapable of coping with a particle emitter on an animated mesh. So we eventually found that we could add the particles to the bones of the rig. But in doing this the effect we where after was lost. The particles where too clumped togeater so we changed from smoke to a sort of ash look.
We are happy with the result but need to work on the javascript for the animation of the textures a little more so that is appeares more randomly and has more of a rotation and life span.
Tuesday 2 November 2010
Lighting Problem
The lighting wasn't appearing realistically because of the way I designed the level. I designed it so that the planes where one sided, opposed to two sided, my method saves polys... but creates a couple of little problems.
The lighting was going through buildings and casting shadows in certain rooms, which while it is a nice little horror effect, it's far from realistic, and these effects could be caused easily anyways, it just made everything look wrong.
The way I tackled this was creating a huge box around the whole level where there would be walls and ceilings, this means that I can replicate all of the walls in the level with less than 50 polys, it would have taken about 4000 if I had done it all two sided.
The box around the level. (It is transparent to show where it covers, it is not transparent in the engine)
The lighting was going through buildings and casting shadows in certain rooms, which while it is a nice little horror effect, it's far from realistic, and these effects could be caused easily anyways, it just made everything look wrong.
The way I tackled this was creating a huge box around the whole level where there would be walls and ceilings, this means that I can replicate all of the walls in the level with less than 50 polys, it would have taken about 4000 if I had done it all two sided.
The box around the level. (It is transparent to show where it covers, it is not transparent in the engine)
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