From Beginning To...

Low Poly Low poly is a mesh that uses fewer polygons than other applications. It optimises performance, but will have an effect on graphics. Nowadays, it is often chosen for the aesthetic rather than the optimisation factor. This is the aesthetic I plan on using in my own game design. Normal Mapping Normal mapping is something I have come across several times in Unity, but I never actually understood what it is or how it works. Basically, it fakes the lights of bumps and dents. It adds details without adding more polygons. I read the part about how it works, but it really just reminded me of my Physics class back in Leaving Cert. That was the grade I got to discount... Shader Flat Shading may come in handy for my Game Design Image Source:  WikiMedia I've been interested in adding shaders into my game, but never really knew where to start. The basic function of it is to add light, dark and colour to a rendered object. There are a lot of mathematical figures inc...

So in an effort to increase my tech knowledge, I looked into a very useful skill: Using an online meme generator. The result...? I'm better at stealing memes than making OC - a truth I will have to live with for the rest of my days.

  This week, I have continued on to the prototyping stage of my game design. It was a daunting task at first - I honestly didn't know where to begin. But as I've learned from other tasks this year, it's all about breaking the big tasks down into smaller ones. I began by sketching some of my level designs. Level Designs for the villages in Inferno Lair   I decided to get started in Unity, as I had a feeling it would be more of a challenge than just opening the software and everything going swimmingly... I was right.   I immediately forgot how to do all of the things I learned in the Jimmy Vegas tutorials, so had to spend some time brushing up on my skills. I started by creating my terrain, and just as I thought I had it perfect, I realised I had created it far too big. When I started bringing in assets I realised that they were miniature compared to my giant landscape. However, I rallied and made some decent progress from there. An early iteratio...

  This week in Unity, I am continuing to follow Jimmy Vegas' Cobalt Series. I picked up from where I left off last time, with my axe in hand.   The first thing I did with Jimmy was to change the skybox. I hadn’t given too much thought to this, but as soon as he mentioned changing it, I knew it needed to be done. I used the New Dawn skybox, and used an orange colour overlay on it to give the lighting a sunrise feel. Jimmy went over some other things that can be done using intensity and the directional light. I saw him put the Lighting Source on the player character, so that the world lights up when the character gets close. This would be a good feature in a dark horror or survival game where the player needs a torch to see.   Next, I added a wind zone to my world. This adds an element of movement to the trees in the world. There were variables to change here such as turbulence and main wind, but i found that keeping these low down was the best way for a more realistic ...

  An article that I read this week is " Building a Princess Saving App ", by Daniel Cook. It is a transcript of a talk aimed at Interaction Designers, but contains a lot of useful information and draws comparisons between game and app design. Fun is one of the core concepts of Game Design Source: Article   The author writes that game players learn new skills, and they have fun doing so. He uses the iconic video game staple of "Rescuing Princesses", to compare games and apps. While this theme is usually associated with video games, Cook attempts to make a princess rescuing application. He creates three different types of application: Basic Web App Simple Web 2.0 App Complex Web App   The learning curve on the basic and complex web apps are slow, but there is much more learning involved. The positive thing about this is that there are many more features than the other applications, but learning them all can be daunting, frustrating and time consuming. ...