Tuesday, 30 March 2010

Tuesday 30th March...

It's been 29 days since the last update, but for me this month has just been focusing on building up the Ren'ai and taking care of other tasks.

For the most part the story of the Ren'ai is done, its just a matter of me fine-tuning a few rough areas of dialogue.

I briefly assisted with some of the 3D modelling for the game creating Sebastian's sword and a vase and also briefly assisted with sound for the game. But time is short so I need to keep on with the writing.

Admittedly it's been a bumpy ride due to internal and external conflicts but it matters not, on the day we delivered... Just like always...

Yesturday our team had our 3rd presentation to showcase what happened with the game in the last 3 months.

We were able to showcase very early forms of both the main game and the Ren'ai, it was my duty to introduce the masses to Desparation: Heart of a Maiden

Everything is taking shape, ideas from last time such as the artbook have become reality and once more the band stand united and ready to carry on into the last 14 so weeks.

I have no doubt now that we will get this done and hopefully we can tune up the band one last time and deliver a final finale to put all the negativity and doubts to rest.

Monday, 1 March 2010

Monday 1st March

Not operating at full strength today, I submitted the 1st version of possible text for the Ren'Ai game and it seems there is still much to be done.

Generally a serious overhaul is required and I need to rethink my ideas as I fear I may have misinterpreted some of the details. Furthermore I need to actually create some solid names for the characters

In anycase here is the script from the first attempt.

Act 1 (Introduction to the Family)

Head Maid ???: Ahh, you must be the new maid assigned to work here right?, we have been expecting you…

Head Maid ???: Hurry and bring your things inside and I will show you where you will be staying.

Maid: Oh! Thank You.

Thursday, 25 February 2010

Month in Review

Through nothing more than my own foolishness I forgot I had to keep a diary so I will backtrack to what we did after Jan 15th

Monday Jan 18th

We have been split into groups to work on the Interior and Exterior of the estate respectively

Group 1 (Interior)
Ryan Henson, Billy Clarke, Nathan Goradema and Ryan Hogg.

Group 2 (Exterior)
Kieron White, Tom Mabbott, Joe Burkey, Craig Oatley and Chris Moore.

We began research into gothic double staircases as well as looking at things like interior design and things that could be put into various rooms

Wednesday Jan 20th - Friday Jan 22nd

We learnt how to rotate a camera using a path constraint in animation, this enables us to create a dynamic camera thus making an other static scene more detailed

For programming we learnt more about panda 3d and how we can use it in relation for our project as well as its capabilities.

Monday Jan 25th - Friday Jan 29th

This was my last week before Budapest and basically it was just more research based on the previous week, the major breakthrough of the week was assigning controls to the panda we looked at last week.

Monday Feb 8th - Friday Feb 12th

Deadline week, so mostly we were dusting off assignments

Monday Feb 22nd

First week back after half term in on Mondays session we started creating interior models in 3DS, I was tasked with creating various vases for a few rooms.

Wednesday Feb 24th

Breakthrough day! Today we started using the Biped model on Gin's robot to get it to move identically to Gin's robot's movements.

However today heralded in the creation of a new Desparation idea in the form of creating a Ren'ai Game for Desparation.

The group seemed fond of the idea of adding it to our ever growing list of things to do to make Desparation amazing as well as set the bar for next year.

Already I have an initial idea thanks to some research notes, The "game" would involve Adelia and a charater who was thrown into the unused concept section as soon as the locale for the game moved from the city to the estate. I'm currently contemplating appearances from Sebastian and possibly Alexander to a lesser degree.

Amazing day indeed!

Sunday, 17 January 2010

This Week in Review...

Jan 11 - Jan 15

Monday 11th - After a long break the team came back refreshed and ready to carry on right where we left off, The FMP session mainly was us refreshing our minds with everything as well as exploring new ideas.

The idea was pitched to have a scene in a lounge/dining room after Adelia and Sebastian leave only to have them come back and thus the game starts at that point.

To complement this we looked at interior rooms of various places to gather ideas on what interior ideas we could use. Trump Tower was the one that immediately sprung into my mind since it is very majestic.

Other ideas were thrown about like having a proximity meter at the start between the player and Sebastian and if the player gets too close to Sebastian, he will kill the player.

All these are tentative ideas and more in depth information should come out from next weeks session.

Friday, 18 December 2009

Friday 18th December

The end of the second year term 1.

Over the vacation I will continue working on improving the story and characters. I will also start working on the novel.

After listening to Mark Ronson's track "Ooh We" the idea that we could rap about Desparation for a game trailer that could be released nearer the end of the project dawned on me.

I better start writing up some lyrics so I can pitch this when we get back xD

Wednesday, 16 December 2009

Wednesday 16th December

It's showtime!

The 2nd Pitch of Desperation: Alexander's Plight was today. The pitch was a success and yet something is bugging me and I feel somethings not quite right.

The feedback was marvellous and for the most part everyone worked hard and all the staying behind after hours to work and arriving early seemed to pay off. So why is this feeling nagging at me?

My role was to draw the listeners in with my words all while pitching what I have effectively been doing this term.

Notes I took away from today:

1. Even the most basic concept can be made into something amazing with enough heart
2. I still have much to learn when it comes to presenting
3. I need to be more prepared to stand up to scrutiny and questioning
4. Preparation pays dividends

Anyway that's all for now

Monday, 14 December 2009

Week in Review

Monday + Wednesday

Same as before, new script has been written for the cutscene between Alex + Raphael.
Presentation preparations are underway with the group allocating who will be saying what. I will be commencing the slides on the novel, extras and script.

Just need to sort out the V/O's for the "preview"