Final Post

Over the course of this ... half year? I guess. I have learned a lot. We have gone over quite a few things and I have discovered a few new skills within  myself. I'm honestly happy that I have taken this course because it has opened my eyes to the gaming world and its difficulties. I've only scratched the surface as well! It has been a really great experience overall. Though here is what I learned. 

Ok now this bit might disappoint my teacher, but I must say when it comes to coding I feel like I haven't learned half as much as she wanted. I don't know learning languages has never been a strong suite of mine, coding or otherwise. Anyways I still understand the basics like I should so I'm at least happy with that. Also I'm decent at reading code just not at writing it so at least I can tell what is going on when someone shows me something. Furthermore I have also learned that coding is a lot more complex and simple than I originally thought. It's not necessarily hard per say, but instead a lot of busy work and effort. You have to write a lot of lines to get things to work properly. That's about it with coding though. 

Now we come to the next thing I didn't really have too much trouble with, Unity. A lot of the coders in my class complained about Unity, it seems like it can be very frustrating. Since my focus was on the art I never really had that problem. I only had issues with some files changing colors, but if I saved it as a PNG then everything is fine. Also it's has a lot of cool features, but since I just followed tutorials the only thing I really learned was the interface. I will have to look at Unity a bit more to learn the ins and outs though. I'm still pretty happy with what I have learned though. 

Now this is where I learned the most, ART! Digital art is a wonderful, terrible, frustrating and rewarding world. It's all those things and more. I think the most important thing I learned from crash testing Photoshop and Fireworks was that layers are the most important thing EVER! The more layers you have the easier everything becomes. It's almost silly how much easier it becomes. Also I learned that our school's WACOM tablets might need an upgrade because they only go up to windows 7. If we plan to get windows 10 or 8 we might need to look into that. Also I learned that for now I prefer a slow mouse to a drawing tablet. I was able to get things done faster and they looked better. So that's that. I also think I learned a lot about the hotkeys in PS. It really speeds your work along. I had never really used hotkeys too much until then. Another important thing I learned was that making realistic art is difficult, if you have only a few days to work on it. Even weeks didn't feel like enough. I also learned that a good assets list is a god send. If I ever plan on making a game that will be the first thing I make sure is complete. The amount of changes my partner made to the game made two weeks of work a waste of time. If I had that I would have been done. Oh well though, you can't change the past. So yeah that was my art experience. 

In general I think the overall lesson that is to be taken from this is that making a solid game is hard. It requires a dedicated team that spends hours to make sure everything is done right. It takes a lot of effort basically. No part of the team is really easy either. Sure some parts are easier than others when your game focuses on different bits, but it's still not easy. Electronic Game Dev was a lot of fun. The teacher was great, the class was fun and the students were usually a pleasure to be around. I may have had my complaints, but all around it was a solid experience that has opened my eyes to the gaming world around me. That is all. Have a great everyone!

Week 6 Day 2

Jesse needed me to work on some more buttons so I went and did those. It took a lot longer than I thought it was going to. Like the whole class. I was kinda surprised. the last buttons I did didn't take half as long. Whatever though, I figure that it was mostly because I was trying to do too much. I hope to do a few of the tourists next week, but we'll see how that goes.

Week 7 Day 2

Ok so today I got almost everything I needed done. I managed to finish all of the planets like I planned, but I only was able to outline one other tourist. I am happy with my work though because we really did need those planets. Now this means that I most likely won't have the tourists done on time, but as long as the planets are working we should be fine. So right now most of the pressure is on Jesse. It seems like he doesn't think he will be able to finish and honestly I wish he would have listened to my advice which is to focus on mechanics not on how pretty it looks. He has barely coded a game it's more like an app for his version of splendor to count how many counters the player has and a bunch of random cards. It's like a half game at the moment. Anyways it should work as a demo so I'm not really worried. All in all I learned on thing, making games is difficult and it takes a lot of time. It's no wonder that game makers are constantly making game series rather than unique IPs all the time. If we have a working day on friday I plan to finish as many of the tourists as possible. That's my plan anyways.

Week 7 Day 1

Today I planned to work on one of the tourists. I honestly didn't like the results. In fact I was down right disappointed. Otherwise I didn't get too much more done. I got the tourists scanned so I have basic outlines for all of em. It takes a long time to work on the tourists. I think I will work on one later tonight to make em look right. Next class I plan to finish the remaining planets and finish the digital outlines of all of the other tourists. Depending on how that goes we should be in good shape when it comes to assets. Hopefull I can finish everything in time.

Week 6 Day 1

Today I got our new background. The old one looked terrible. I went through about 4 before I got one that I liked. I'm quite pleased with the result. I also spent a majority of the time sketching out the tourists. I have all but, the final one. the last one is going to be a female of some sort. Jesse gave me a list of required assets that he needs done. Otherwise everything is fine. I should get it done in time. I wish he could set up game play soon cause that is going to be the biggest problem. I feel like he spent too much time on appearance. Jesse told me he wanted me to do a credit of some sort, so I went and did that. I think it turned out alright.

Week 5 Day 2

Today I was asked to make some of the planets that are needed. I did some of them but, not as many as expected. I started to work on the tourists instead because it's probably going to take more effort to draw people rather than planets. So after working on that for a bit I pretty much ended up finishing the first one. I can use this one tourist and just switch out colors and be fine. I might to two other models so that way it looks more diverse. One model might get boring. Last night I discovered something that saddens me slightly. My computer is a windows 8 and the drawing tablet that the school is letting me borrow only has compatible drivers for windows 7 and back. This means that I cannot use it on my computer to it's fullest power. I'm thinking of getting my own drawing tablet but, that won't help me later due to the fact that I won't have the class anymore. The point of getting it is because I now have a budding interest in digital drawing thanks to this class. I'm really pleased with this. The more I learn from online tutorials the more I'm getting into it. I still do better drawings on paper, but I'm making progress regardless. Anyways, work isn't going to bad for this project, I'm mostly worried that jesse won't be finished coding by the time we need to do testing. Cause we really need to do that in the digital version not just with the physical prototype. Also I still don't know how I'm going to pull off mining planets. I mean it really just doesn't click for me. I'm probably going to use textures for them rather than using a custom paint job. I don't know I'll figure it out. tomorrow will probably be better.

Week 5 Day 1

Ok so today was another planets day. I have to make combos of all the planets that I had made so that means that in total I have to make 10 based off of the original 5. Also I have to make "mine planets" Jesse told me to make them more, "plentiful". I honestly don't know what to do about that considering I have a planet that is litterally just water. How do you make water look like it has more water? Sometimes I just look at jesse and think "why you do dis?" Anyways I also made some people that are need over the weekend but, I'm worried that they aren't up to par. I decided that if they are going to be on the gameboard that I need to give them backgrounds. I plan to finish the rest of the planets during study hall tomorrow and the tourists should be done soon. I have to finish the ships as well but, we'll see where that goes. Otherwise I think the art should be done soon. I also should be working on sounds, but that should be easy. I honestly feel like I made good progress today hopefully I can keep this pace.

Week 4 day 2

I was sick on Tuesday so I missed that last blog post, but I'm here today. Today Jesse told me to work on the planets because it was of vital importance. So I went and did those. It was pretty easy. I was able to use textures on some of them and others were custom made. The copper planet was the hardest due to the fact that it's not really flat like the other planets. It kinda ended up the same though. Also I noticed a big thing with using a 2d rectangle on a sphere and that is that the ends must match or a noticeable seam pops up. For the most part you just need to make sure that it looks seamless then everything is fine.
Now on to what I need to do. Jesse wants me to do a background so that is my next goal. I'm probably going to also work on some of the sounds. I'm not quite sure what he wants so I'm going to get things that look (sound ha) at least helpful in general. Otherwise I'm going to go back to where most of the work is which is the ships. Hopefully I can manage to get all of them done in time or we will stick with just one ship which I have finished in class last week I'm pretty sure. I feel like I'm finally making progress so let us go ONWARD!

Week Three Day 1 Splendor In Space

Alright yesterday and today I started working on the different ships. I almost finished the first one but, the other day I managed to add some color to the ships. Honestly everything is going pretty good. Jesse is finally working on the code and objects in Unity and things are starting to come together. The real good part about asset designing is that I have two friends that went to college for it. They don't know about Fireworks, but it's apparently really similar. So I got some help when it comes to figuring this program out. I was kinda flustered at first trying to work on things though. I wish my class had a lesson on using fireworks and it's basics because I feel like the project might get hindered if you don't know what you're doing. Anyways this has been a productive day and most likely a productive week.

Week 6 The Review for the Test

Oh man I wasn't expecting a test for some reason. Especially on paper! Anyways we went over the different bits that are bound to be in the test. I think the most worrying part is going to be the coding. Plus we voted for it to be after break so I'm starting to feel the pressure. I'm not sure what to expect though because the teacher and Jesse, the student that I mentioned last post, are claiming the test from Mont Co to be easy. So I don't know how to feel. Though recently we have been working with code a bit more and I think I'm starting to at least get the skeleton basics down. I don't feel like this will be enough for us to do anything yet though. We'll see how this works out. For now I feel as if I might have to start learning the basic of java coding outside of class so I don't fall even further behind. We'll see how everything works out. I just hope we can get to our projects soon.

Week 5 Coding Time

This week I saw how weak I really was when it came to code. The whole class seems to have a semblance of what they are doing while I feel almost completely useless. Jared, one of the students in our class has Java down to the point where he can teach the class along side our teacher. I never realized that Jared was this smart. Otherwise I gotta say I am learning. We learned about the different statement though I do remember learning about them in what I believe to be STEM. Though I don't remember learning about the little diagrams which mind you my entire class (excluding me) thinks is hilarious. Regarding my game progress I must say I glad I at least got it done. Jesse, my classmate, is going beyond the regular game with different shot types and difficulty and such. His version of the game is kinda interesting. I don't think I can manage to do the code that he has figured out though. I realize also that it's not that I don't know about the different code commands but, rather how the code itself is formatted and how it works together. I feel good knowing that I can at least read it. Anyways that was this week. Hopefully I can do better.

First Marking Period Overview

Ok so my first impressions of electronic game design is that it's not that great. I would really like to start working on assets and textures but, for the most part we've been focusing on coding. I noticed that for some reason when it comes to languages, coding or otherwise, the only one I'm really good at is the one I'm typing right now. Now it's not like i'm not learning either because a classmate showed me some of his code and I was able to understand what it did. I just couldn't write it out for some reason. I think it's mostly because I still don't understand the format. I understand vars usually go first but, I don't get functions and I guess statements. Either way I feel really overwhelmed in this class. I like the environment and the teacher but, what we're learning is a different story. I feel like I can take notes well and do what I need to do when it comes to bare bones basics but, I need to do more learning with code. Anyways, that how I feel about this class so far when it comes to what we learned. I'm pretty worried about our upcoming test but, hopefully it won't be too hard. we'll see.

Now I will go on to a more positive note. I feel like I'm starting to understand Unity pretty well. I understand how to use a lot of the tools in Unity like for example lighting and backgrounds. I also feel like I can come in really strong on these assets for my group's up coming project. I also feel comfortable with quality testing because I can find little issues pretty easily. This marking period has been interesting and has given me a new respect for Game Devs. IT's kinda really hard to make a game though they probably have a more streamlined system. Anyways, yeah I'm really excited to work on the project I just hope that my group's coder manages to come in everyday so our project doesn't get held up 'cause as I said before, coding isn't really my strong suite. Anyways this is how it's been so far. I only hope I can put in a better effort next year. 

Week 4 A new Java

So it turns out we can't use actual Java Script instead we are using Unity's version called Unity script so this should be fun. It turns out that for the most part it's more specific, I guess?  Nothing happened for the most part this week cause we lost a lot of days to the snow. It was pretty bad. So I messed around with some java script videos and tried to learn them. It was kinda interesting. I couldn't really follow most of it even though they seemed pretty thorough. I think I need to watch more beginner friendly tutorials I'm not quite sure what to do at this point yet. Well I guess we will learn more in class anyways.

Week Three: It's 2D man!

This week I learned a small bit about coding in Java and we started messing around with a 2D program in Unity. It turns out that our skill wasn't really to the difficulty yet, so we ended up dropping it. Regardless, we spend much of our time learning code. I have absorbed a decent deal and I'm feeling less incompetent as the time goes by. I'm really excited to start our actual game, but it seems we have a ways to go. It also seems like Jesse is being a little too nonchalant about this project. I begin to worry. I feel like otherwise that things might start going good.

Week Two What I Can Do

Hey, my name is Griffin. I'm writing this because we need to find out who has what skills in different fields. Let me start out by saying that I have almost no coding skill. I know very basic code but, it's not practiced and cannot be applied very well. I do think on the other hand that I can learn if given lesson on coding. My lack of coding in probably my biggest weakness. On the other hand, I think that I can do art pretty well. I have done full body model characters and have done pixel art in the past. I think I could also do some cool effects if given a program to work with. Another thing I'm decent at doing is (this could be seen as a burden) asking questions or for opinions/criticism from the creator. I want to make it look like what's in the creator's head so I will often ask "is this what you were thinking about?". I'm also confident in my ability as a writer so I could write dialogue or come up with different situations, so if that is needed I could always do that. Also when it comes to adding new ideas to fix problems, I can generally think of decent fixes that add to the overall experience. Another weakness now that I think about it would be making me a secondary role. I don't like leading in particular but, when put in a secondary role I feel as if I'm not needed and tend to fade off in effort. If I was going to be put into a project I would have to either be put in a shared work effort or in a a leading role. Also I would like to say that if I'm expected to be an effective member of a team my team will need to be engaging. When I say engaging I mean that they need to talk and fling ideas around. I often like to keep to myself so it would be really cool if we could either have meetings or check ins. I have almost no talent in music but, people have told me that I can find a beat pretty well. So if you need a secondary music person that is a secondary role that I could fill if needed. All in all I can do a little bit of anything other than coding, so if you think I would be useful check me out.

First Week

What I've learned in unity in the first week.

Alright, so the first thing I learned is that unity makes a lot more than just flash games or even just console games. It can be used to make apps and all sorts of other games. After we started the tutorial I found out that unity is really helpful when it comes to finding certain terms. like if someone wants to find for example what you can do with float you can highlight the word float and find out some common uses for it. Also I found out how to add very basic physics to a 3d object. Other than that I have learned a little bit about the UI of Unity and it's actually pretty smooth. I also learned about the placement of things and how the camera works with different things. I haven't learned how to make it FP for POV but, I did learn how to make the basics of a third person view point. I plan to learn more in the future but, for now I haven't learned anything world changing yet. I believe that this will happen in the next few days when we move onto the next tutorial. Our teacher also is going to start teaching us some java so that should be cool. It will be nice to see how all of this applies to the actual making of the game that we end up choosing and the game that I plan to make on the side. That is what i've learned in the past few days of class. I will be back next week with more.