Senior Team Project

Senior Team Project
CCC410 – CC: Game Development – Machina
Fall 2010 – First Semester, Senior Year.
Designer: Justin Loomis
Producer: Justin Loomis
Programmer: Willem Kupper
Artist: Me

Just like the production classes, we form a team and create a game. The cool thing about this class is that it technically goes on for the whole year. The first semester centers on preproduction, the next semester centers on production. CORE was also able to implement itself into our class, which many people objected to, but it thankfully didn’t get too intrusive.

As for the game itself, we decided to use unity since our programmer was more comfortable with it. Since I was comfortable working with any engine as well, we rarely came into contact with major problems. Any problem we did come across we were able to resolve.

Our game is basically a top down shooter that would have had a unique Outer Space Victorian Steampunk aesthetic. I say would have only because I was concentrating more on churning out placeholder assets so Willem would have something to work with. I didn’t have time to really create Victorian themed assets because of the time spent on my Air Traffic Control room environment; however I did create quite a thorough art guide on what I wanted the art direction to go in.

As a team, we were able to create a working game that we were all pretty proud of. Unfortunately, our game didn’t make green light along with 9 other teams out of a total of 15. That means only 5 went forward. We were all pretty bummed out, but we’re happy with our new positions within the other teams. I’m now part of team Jealous Giraffe taking the position of artist for a UDK game.

Air Traffic Control Room

Air Traffic Control Room
EGD355 – Environmental Art: Assignment 2, Final Project
Fall 2010 – First Semester, Senior Year.

This was the second and last project of this class. We had until the end of the semester to make the best environment we can using everything we’ve learned so far. Since I had already done a modern type environment (the courtyard), I wanted to go in a futuristic route. All I knew was that I wanted to create a cylindrical room with some sort of central computer unit.

Not really having a clue what I wanted to actually make it, I decided on creating an air-traffic control room. Instead of there being windows, there would be monitors scattered around the room.

After a few quick sketches, I blocked it out to get the general shape and room. Then I started working on the high poly assets. This was the first assignment where I created high quality high polygon models to bake on a low polygon models. It takes a hell of a long time to do this, but it pays off really well.

Also, I got into some trouble with lighting. Some of my curved meshes wouldn’t calculate light correctly. However I did get some pretty awesome help from some guy (or girl?) named obihb on the UDK forums. He was able to help me figure out how to fix my lighting by reversing my UV channels on my mesh. Not sure if it’s the right way to fix it, but hey, it works.

The project never got finished, but it will be since I’m aiming to have it as my main portfolio piece.

European Courtyard

European Courtyard
EGD355 – Environmental Art: Assignment 1
Fall 2010 – First Semester, Senior Year.

This project involved creating a small courtyard with both an outdoor space as well as a small interior space. We just had to create meshes with a basic color assigned to them, no textures were involved. I decided to go with a European Victorian style theme.

This assignment helped us to understand blocking something out in a level editor (UDK), export it into a 3d program (Maya), and import the more detailed meshes back into the level editor.

Due to unforeseen events, I was out of a Saturday, Sunday, and Monday – days that I have plenty of time to work on my 3D assignments. This caused me to not finish in time. I still really want to finish the project too; it would make a great portfolio piece.