Spin Doctor released!

Forgot to mention that our class game Spin Doctor finally got released onto Indie DB!

Pick that shit up from:

http://www.indiedb.com/games/spin-doctor/downloads/spin-doctor

Do iiiit!

Spritesheets

Finally decided to get around to rendering off the spritesheets for Ben.

Poor guy had to dissect on of my GIFs for the images.

Anyway, Ill post them up here for everyone to see, although for those that NEED them they are in the group dropbox.

Was a grind to get these spaced out evenly and after much trails and tribulations; I managed to find an awesome dude who had written a Java script for Photoshop to do it automatically.

Had to jimmy rig it a little and manually change parts of the code depending on image sizes and frame numbers, but it was still much quicker than a manual job.

Ill load them all in below:

Idle 1

Idle 2

Running

Jumping

Climbing

Falling

The Death animation is done, I just need to get it form Gina and sprite sheet it up, then we`re good to go.

Hopefully Ben can work some programming magic with this and make it look awesome.

Next I think Ill get on with some design work, I wonder, does updating my blog with art come under the 3 times a week rule?

Who knows.

Thats all for now. 

Assets Begin

Working on some texturing of assets.

Texture up the platform just to get a feel for how I wanted it to look. Was pretty pleased with it so I think Ill keep it as it is even though it did start as an experiment.

Going to do a few like this, using similar textures and colours which will make up the bulk of the plat forms in my Level of the game, Medical.

Walls are up next though, can worry about pimping out this stuff when we have more assets.

I also made a door. Wanted to go for like, a 1950s Hotel Elevator style thing. I liked the idea of sticking to the original way I was drawing the doors, since it has become standard in our level design docs. Seems nice having this door follow suit.

Lots of brass and stuff. Will be easy as pie to animate if we decide we want Harland to animate into a room, (which I still think he totally should.) since he can raise from the bottom of the elevator and simply step through the sliding doors.

I might whip that up if I have time because I want to see what it will look like.

Thats all for now, these were pretty time intensive, full normal mapped up and stuff as well, would you believe.

Thats all for now.

Level Overview

Level Overview


Going to briefly go over the content of my level including all the rooms and cross sections, the order the player will face them and a variety of challenges they might face.

The order in which the level will progress goes something like this:

- Cross-Section 1
- Wards 1 (Subject to change)
-  Cross-Section 2
- Wards 2
- Cross-Section 3
- Mortuary
- Cross-Section 4
- Psychology
- Sanitarium
-  Cross-Section 5
- Hematology
- Cross-Section 6
- Surgery
- End Game (undecided)

That totals at around 14 rooms for my level, 6 of which are cross section interim parts with 7 rotating rooms; the 8th being an End Game climax / resolution.

The overall feel of the Level is slow paced and puzzle based (which I explained earlier) however there are sections where the tempo is increased and decreased; thus why the rooms are arranged in the above order, to suit pacing needs.

I've yet to actually "design" the Cross section parts of the world, although this will come with time. Ill continue a more indepth walk-through of each individual room below, however perhaps some of the details here will change when I get a chance to finalize my level designs over the weekend, adding and removing sections. (maybe even getting rid of whole rooms altogether.)

Likewise Ill mention my current thoughts on the cross sections linking the rooms, although expect that to change when I do some designs on them. Ahem.

Cross Section 1
The first initial section the player will encounter, coming striaght from the HUB world this corrdior style path will act as a taster for the theme and mood of the Medical Section. I dont want this area to be particulary heavy on gameplay, certainly not in-terms of puzzles, although there could be a few jumps and things to get past. Majority of this area will see the player passing various hellish and horrible Medical themed contraptions, so they know exectly what they are about to embark upon. 


Wards 1
This being the first puzzle to introduce the player to the rotating rooms of the Medical section, it is purposely meant to be easy. The current design sadly includes a pulley trolley (which the player will need to Gauntlet for). I have yet to decide to either simply give the player the Gauntlet at the very start of the level, which I am reluctant to do, or redesign a new level I can include before Ward 1 and combine both Ward levels into one larger room. For now, this acts as a beginner puzzle.

Cross Section 2

Not much to happen in this section, the earlier puzzle was meant to be quick and easy so the player can quite simple run through this section. Perhaps I will remove it altogether since it is essentially pointless to link both Ward 1 & 2 up rather than simply porting straight into either.

Wards 2

Again, this puzzle requires the Gauntlet is in the players possession. I am not 100% how I want the player to come across the device, although I think Wards 1 & 2 will most certainly be the introduction to using it, since it incorporates the moving of objects and swinging of ropes. Pretty simple puzzle, using the movable bed to bounce high enough to reach the rope, although needs to be solved by using rotation. Something the player should be very familiar with by this point. 

Cross Section 3
I feel like I would like to include another rotating room, perhaps named "Wards 3", that challenges the player for a final time using a combination of movable objects and swinging ropes. Ill have to get back to you on this this one, Ill attempt to get that done for next Wednesday. Otherwise this section will link up the Wards and Mortuary rooms. Since its acting as a breaker, it will probably be one of the longer cross sections with a few gameplay elements, perhaps signs that include navigation to the Mortuary. 

Mortuary
This is one of my favorite levels. At the moment, its a little bare, however the inherent "puzzle" remains consistent. If I've time Ill bulk it out a little and add a few traps and things for the player to be killed by in various locations. Again, the focus of the puzzle is to force the player into using rotation in a way they might no suspect. 

Cross Section 4

With the Mortuary being a rather slow puzzle, I intend to have Cross4 be slightly faster in pace, setting the player up for the next 2 levels which are much more speed orientated. Whilst not rotating, there will be timed traps and things to swing from, much like that scene from Indiana Jones, you know the one.

Psychology
Psychology / Psychological, something like that. Not the Sanitaruim bascially. These next two puzzles are closley linked, this first is focsed on rotating the room and one central rope along with it. The player must use this shift of axis to manipulate the same rope and reach the exit. Could have been a little better thought out this one however...

Sanitarium

Linked closely to the previous room, I think it unnecessary to have a Cross section linking these to together, although it can be easily added if need be. The main feature of this room is to again, use rotation to reach the exit in a certain amount of time. (before the door closes after hitting it open via the control panel) Simply running will not get the player to the exit in time and they must use the padded walls of the cells to their advantage. 

Cross Section 5

Cross 5 needs to bring the tempo right down, setting the tone and mood for the next room, my masterpiece, the Hematology department. Probably more Story heavy than gameplay focused.

HematologyI'm still drawing this one up, will report back once I am done. 

Cross Section 6
The last final Cross Section of the level. I sort of want to add something silly in this one, like a rotating section or collapsing floor, just to keep the player on their toes and give them something they arnt expecting. Ill get back to you.

Surgery

This was the first room I really "Designed" and it was inspired by various images I found of surgery rooms aswell as became some concept art for Emel! Which you can also see below. The main point of this room is to use rotation to gain access to the scanner device and blow through the wall to reach the exit. I liked it at the time.

End Game

I feel there needs to be some kind of conclusion to the Medical section, rather than it just ending. I've yet to think of exactly what form this will take, but there needs to be some kind of boss battle, whether it be in the form of a very hard room or something else. Ill work on this part over the weekend and get back to you.

____

That's essentially the entire overview of my level.

Probably 80% of this will end up in the document for hand in.

That's all for now folks`.

Ok, have taken a break form Design to try and bust out some Concept Art for Emel.

I'm a little bit upset I didn't get more time to spend on this one. Ill do my darndest to get another something done before next art lesson, but sadly work likes to get in the way sometimes; which has lead to the lateness of this image.

Ill go through my sketchy sketch phases of making this, since it was a bit of a journey and Id like to give art as much TLC as I give Design, so here it goes from the tippy top:

This was my initial sketches. I did a few others but the Surgery room theme was something that stuck in my mind. Not sure what it was, I think the large scanner and incredibly creepy operating table made the scene for me. 

I also took a lot of inspiration from, believe it or not, Ether. No idea who did the Concept Art for it, but this image I always thought was cool and the layout of the Surgery reminded me of it as well as the overall moodiness of the atmosphere.

Image: http://whitepapergames.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/room_jt.jpg

Maybe Ben can tell you who did the concept art, all I know is its by this company called WhitePaperGames, perhaps you've heard of them?

(That was a joke, Ben, calm down.)

Anyway, I took that image and sketched it up into Photoshop roughly, adding and changing bits here and there. I was going to scan it in, but it was such a rough and crude image there wouldn't be much quality lost just drawing it free hand. 

Wasn't sure where to go from here. Normally I would start painting straight away, but since I wanted to follow some form of technique I started by blocking out basic tonal areas.

I did a terrible job of this and totally missed the point of how and why to do this. But regardless, It did allow me to make judgement on the image as a whole and decide it was terribly, boring. 

I had a quick chat with Emel about it, talking mainly  about the composition of the image and how I could focus the views eye to certain areas by tweaking the sketch a little.

Emel also drew this for me, even though I didnt make it Ill show you the image since it really helped me to under stand the flow of the image a little better.

Not Mine. Not Mine. Not Mine. Not Mine. Not Mine.

The overall image flowed a lot better and was much more pleasing to look it. This is done entirely through composition and the clever placement of objects that complement the over all scene.

I decided then to restart my sketch and this time pay piece of mind to how and why I was drawing things, attempting to frame the image in a pleasing way.

I drew these at work when I was meant to be serving customers their fucking, lemons, or whatever.

Decided early on that I wanted the focal point to be the scanner and table respectively, so my early sketches favored these objects.

Likewise I tried to frame the rest of the surrounding objects so they didn't detract from the main point. 

Least, I tried.

This was my sketch, much like how Emel initially plotted his out.

I think the point came across in the framing and placement of the objects, at least the way I wanted them to. I left this sketch rough as fuck on purpose, since I was more interesting in practicing my "painting" skills than I was my drawing skills. 

I have a few more images of the above image in stages, showing how I made each aspect and coloured them one by one, but I figured no one was interested in that and if you've read this far, you probably just want to see the last image.

Almost there.

I put all the grey tones in and added the detail I wanted, admittedly rushing in some areas and taking my time in others. (where it was probably not needed.)

Once it was done, I felt the whole image was a little, dull. There was no real contrast in light and dark and it just look really, grey. 

Grey and boring. 

This is the final image, (Look its bigger than the others!) for which I simply focused on areas of harsh light and dark. Using essentially black and white, I just forced the shadows and added subtly elements of light from the scanner.

Whilst I think I could have done some things better, I did like the darkness towards the back of the room behind the scanner. A few errors, but I think that work in my favor to center the views eye on the action in the foreground, pushing uninteresting elements to the back of the room and into the darkness.

______


That's all for now.

Like I said I want to get something done before next art lesson but that is depending on time.

Sadly these sorts of images take me much longer to complete than I would like, so even though its one image, its very fucking labor intensive.

That's all for now.

Sweet success.