Post 89 - HELLO AGAIN

Post 89

I heard people still occasionally checkout this blog, so I have decided to add additional posts. I will try to make these posts fit in with the original material. This will more then likely include my own art, animation and game design. 

Obviously I wont be posting every single day, but I wanted to start using this again, because as tedious as it seems, its a hell of a motivational tool. 

Whenever we did coding back in Infotech you would find yourself at odds with a seemingly impossible challenge, but "no" wasn't a answer. You needed to blog about your failures and improve on them the next day. 

Whereas now, I have no blog to push me through slumps and challenges, I just sit down, say "F#$! it" and go draw, play video games, hangout with friends, ect... Then I meander around until I inevitably forget about my project and lose any and all inspiration with it. 

And that's not something you want. 

Post 88 - Light Attacks & Dancing

Post 88

Today Justin came by and helped me, help Ian with learning some code. Then Mr Bilesky wanted us to show a grade 9 student what we have done with our game so far. So Justin, Ian and I spent some time showing David all our blogs and explaining to him what he has to do to be an independent student. After around 35 minutes David left to work on his own stuff, and I started to play around with my animations again.

I started by changing up the player light attack so he doesn't swing so close to the ground. This makes it look less powerful and more like a quick small attack.
But the majority of my time went into talking with David about what he can do, and what he wants to do as a new independent student. 

    

Then within the last minutes of class Justin requested something a little less serious. A dancing animation. Next class I will be doing some more serious animations like the heavy attack or a Running animation for the player.

Post 87 - Already Making Mistakes

Post 87

Mistakes

My plan for today was to finish up the "Lifter" enemy. But last night I had some free time and did some major work on it. Now this isn't exactly a problem. But. I didn't have enough time this morning to upload my progress to my Dropbox, so if I worked on it now, I would be doing the same thing I did last night. And I would do the bone structure of the "Lifter" but because of the new sprites I changed last night it has a different size and dimension, so when I actually switch to my new sprites it wouldn't fit.
Now I need to find something else to do.

I think I will work on improving the basic attack animation for the player, and making a new attack animation for his heavy attack.

Attacks

I started by looking at the light attack, and did some very, very minor changes which don't really effect too much, so they aren't going to be getting a spotlight in this post. However I did some major changes to the heavy attack. I started by deleting the old version where he does a two handed over head strike. As shown by the GIF.
I then started to use the Light Attack Animation as a sort of template for my new Attack.
What i'm wanting from this heavy attack is something that looks the same as the light attack right up until its too late, for the enemy that is.

Ninja Skills?

Currently this animation is in a experimental phase.
Right now the character swings his blade backwards to bash the enemy with the reinforced spike side. Honestly not the most practical attack, but whatever, its a video game. But the attack seems too fast and too fluid, it looks less like a heavy attack and more like the main character is a trained Ninja from an over the top Hollywood movie. So next class I will be redoing this completely.
But what I was aiming for is like somewhere between a bash attack and an upper cut, but with a machete.

Post 86 - More Animations, And A New Enemy?

POST 86

More Animations

Recently I went back and changed the default Idle animation for the Dragger. 

(The Zombie in our game)

Previously I was doing hand drawn animations, frame by frame. But then we discovered a new way to create animations. The way the new system works is like Pivot, but with more complicated images, bones and lots of other little settings and stuff that nobody really cares about.

So back to the changes with the Idle Animation. 

I took the old animation, changed the way he was standing ever so slightly and gave him some little hand twitchy-ness. This makes the animation look a little more alive then it was in its previous state.

New Enemy

I also started to develop a new enemy type, the "heavy" so to speak. This enemy is what I will be setting up next class. The character itself is still very unfinished. The skeleton mesh in this picture is practically a carbon copy of the normal Dragger, which doesn't really fit well. Because of the big size difference, so I will work on setting up a new skeleton for the "Lifter" as Justin calls it. 

Tomorrow I will set up my first animations for the "Lifter". Along with his proper Bone structure.

Post 85 - A New Player

A NEW PLAYER

Today is going to be a smaller post, only because its so soon after the last one. Recently I started to create the new player sprite (Sprites). This didn't come without its fair share of complications, like crappy clothing design, and weird clipping issues. However I found myself a middle ground, a jump suit. Which makes more sense in a post apocalyptic setting, its easy to put on, easy to clean, versatile, and keeps you clean from all spewing liquids, i'm referring to blood and guts.

But don't just think I decided to make the Player wear a jumpsuit because it was easier for me! Because that's not the case, previously I had tested the idea of a jumpsuit, but it just didn't work. But now that I have given it another chance, I would say its my favorite so far.

I also added a nice hiking bag type thing. This looks pretty good and has some function in my animations as well, but I will get into that in a second. Here are some pictures and GIF's.  

Toxic Fumes

As you can see from the image above, we now have a gas mask. Justin and I talked about implementing some kind of toxic air in the past, but now we might actually do it. Maybe it will be an airborne virus like in the last of us, or just plain old radioactive dusty air. Either way its going to be something you don't want to breathe in.
Now back to the backpack having a function in our player animations.
*Drum roll*
He can pull items out of it. Honestly not that impressive, but its a personal milestone, and i'm in love with the results, so without further ado, here is the player pulling out a gas mask and putting it on his noggin.

Absolutely fantastic, in my opinion anyways.
If you can see in this horrible quality, the right arm goes behind the body and pulls the mask back to the front layer. A very cool animation technique.

Sadly all good things must come to an end.
And all bad things must come to an end.
That is why this blog post is now over.
Goodbye.

Post 84 - Animation & New Assets

ANIMATION & NEW ASSETS

Recently I started to create the new Dragger Sprite (The main enemy type in the game). This new version has around 3 times the pixels and detail then the previous. We are making this change because our new animation program allows us to go the extra mile with detail. Along with the brand new looks are some spiffy new animations. These animations are extremely better then the ones I did by hand, so a special thanks to Ty for showing me this program. Soon I will begin to work on redoing the character sprite, for maybe the fourth time? Honestly I have redone it so many times I have no idea anymore, but maybe this will be the last time.

On a personal note, I absolutely love these new sprites. But.
*Pause for dramatic effect*
Creating a sprite in several different moving rotating parts is very tedious.
So don't expect thousands of variations in design.

DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING

This is first Animation, for when the the enemy is... well idle. Hopefully that makes sense, because it should.
Just look at that flawless nothing, umm... nothingness?
Yeah nothingness.
Just look at how he breathes with pixel perfect accuracy.
"It's a fully dynamic breathing system that adapts to the game environment.
100% Super complicated Breathing Physics
ALL DYNAMIC!"

       - Honest Developers, 2016

Its actually none of those, its exactly the opposite and is extremely static. The text above is strictly a joke. Don't take it serious. Or do. Its up to you, I don't control your life.

KILLING, AND BEING KILLED

This is a dying animation, it is just as static as the idle animation. Sorry to disappoint.
Its more or less going to be our games generic death animation, I might add more types of dying animations.
I would want them to change depending on what weapon type the player was using, or the direction they are killed from. Or both.
This animation is good practice though, soon I will be making the player characters death animation, which will be fun to make. I think anyways. It actually might be awful.
Really who knows.
Not me, that's for certain.

WALKING FAST

And finally the last animation. A very, very important asset to the game.
Walking!  I guess it is more of a brisk, or maybe swift walk, doesn't really matter what you call it though.
*Clears throat*

AND FINALLY THE LAST ANIMATION!!!
Swiftly walking!
Not really better, but whatever. At least we aren't lying to ourselves anymore.
But in all seriousness this animation is extremely important to making our game actually feel like a game.
I think this is where I will end the blog post for now. So goodbye.
Come back again next time.
Even though nobody reads these, well, not all of them. And if they have read some, they wont be coming back to read more.
Its a sad truth. 


A sad truth that only deserves mini text.  
  

Class 83 - The last class

Today was our last day of the class. I started the day by taking the Improved zombie sprite and splitting it into multiple images, these images being every single separate moving part in those animated GIF's, which are my demonstration of our new animating program.
This program takes the annoying long process of picture by picture work and shreds it into thousands of pieces, then incinerates those pieces with the strength of ten supernovas.
The GIF's on the side are not even close to being final form, they are works in progress.
I started learning the new mechanics of this animating system today.
Some of those mechanics being the bone system. The bone system allows me to create a skeleton with bones that are connected to each other, think pivot (If you know what pivot is). It allows for the different sliced up parts of the image to bend separately from the other bones. This creates a sort of 2D rag-doll, or puppet. And of course I am the marionette, moving the joints throughout the time line, then the program works its magic and makes the parts move smoothly between the positions. This creates a very good animation, within minutes. VERY, VERY EFFECTIVE.
Learning about our new program took up around 80% of the class. But it was totally worth every second.

The next thing I plan on doing is completely remaking all the sprites for the third time, But I will be making them in a higher resolution. And in separate parts for animating.

 (Would recommend this program to be taught in some way to the other classes, or maybe just recommended to other people making games)

- Start of forgotten material
I also implemented a new animated picture into our main menu, I did all the sprite work and animation work at my house last night, so sorry it doesn't get a proper blog spotlight - in fact I almost completely forgot to blog it and added all this in post.

 - End of forgotten material. 

Another thing I did today was grab all my stuff, all my files, all my pictures, all my work, and put it into my USB. This was a sad moment, because that's when it hit me. This is our last day in InfoTech.
But, Justin, Howard, and I have all agreed that we will continue our work on our game out of class. This gives us more freedom in a sense. Maybe? Actually not really... We already had tons of freedom. The only rule was to blog daily... Which isn't going to happen anymore. But this is not going to be my last blog post, it will be the last blog post labeled with the words "Class #"
So in that sense, Goodbye.

And a special thanks to Mr. Bilesky for allowing us to work as independent students!
Overall I think we learned a great deal about Game Development, but most of all, it has made me want to learn more! So thank you!