This week in ISM I focused mainly on producing a remade style sheet. For one, I added elements to help convey the oppressed and dangerous feelings of a Soviet village. This will better help the player understand the story of the game much better. Another part was that I subtracted some pictures I did not need to focus on and instead added more applicable pictures. My recent meeting with Mr. Jermyn has also molded my thoughts and ideas upon the level I am trying to create.

My idea now is an abandoned Soviet-era village in the Siberian plains that has a monstrous wolf or bear-like creature that resides in the mountains near the village. The player’s mission is to follow the path from one end of the village to the other to reach the mountain range to defeat the creature, which turns out to be a villain that the player must defeat. However, my focus is on the villain’s aftermath on the village and what an abandoned village lost in time would appear to be like. This is a very interesting and creatively challenging project I am taking on that requires a load of thinking and critical analysis over everything the player will experience.

This week in ISM was one of brainstorming and discovery. For one, I finished my rough draft of the Style Sheet for my game. It is basically composed of different images that the game will base itself around and take inspiration from. For my game, I have chosen to model my level after an oppressed village in Russia during the era of the USSR, due to the fact that this will require me to convey a certain atmosphere that needs to resonate with the audience. This brings up interesting objects to take into account, such as the addition of decals as well as the design of the actual level.

Decals are Unreal Engine’s way of portraying textures onto objects, but unlike any other textures, they are like a projection instead of actually being a part of the object. This allows for more freedom of placement and more leniency of how the texture behaves. This excites me to begin work on these parts, but first I must set my attention towards completing the block out of the level. With band and the solo contest wrapped up, I can now direct most of my attention towards producing my game level. I am looking forward to what I can produce and make in these coming months.

I met once again with my mentor this week to discuss the possible ways I can go regarding my final product. It makes me very excited to be able to try out both level design and basic combative game play. By using Unreal Game Engine, I also don’t need to be as proficient in code as many believe, which is a definite positive for someone who knows next to nothing when it comes to coding languages. Unreal allows people to build upon their game in a very simple and easy to understand way. An engine used by many game developers and big businesses, it is something I should most likely get familiar with for my own benefit in the future.

I need to stay diligent with my project, for even though May seems like a faraway month, I know that it will come up quite soon. I also need to be able to balance this large project with completing my Eagle Scout project, my band activity, and also all five of my Advanced Placement classes. It seems as though I am quite overworked and stretched out, but on the contrary, I like to be busy. I just need to find a healthy and effective way to juggle all of my activities and excel at my final product for ISM.

This week I had my first mentor visit with Mr. Jermyn at Gearbox Software. To say the least, I was very excited and looking forward to it. At the meeting we discussed my plans for the final product, as well as my own personal interest in the industry. Regarding the product, we have settled on forming a block-out of my level, which is basically a rough model describing in a visual way how the level is meant to be laid out and seen. I am currently in the idea making phase, where I am currently looking for ideas on the level is going to be based around. I am also considering the overall theme of the villain’s area and the story behind it all.

This proves that my project is very much a synthesis based product in that it requires a great deal of creative thinking and planning in order to be pulled off. However, this is where my ability to craft a level and narrative behind it can ultimately shine. I will need to carve out time out of my normal homework schedule to be able to think properly for what I want my level and villain to be like. Even though I know this is teaching me about time management skills, it is still difficult to juggle everything high school has to offer. With help from my mentor and my peers, I am positive I will succeed in the end.

This week in ISM was one of getting logistical things done. For one, I am submitting my product proposal, which I plan to make a model of my game I have in mind, from the concept art to the modeling of the objects in the game. Unfortunately, due to time restraints, I will be unable to make the game fully playable, but I do plan to make it be able to fly around and show the entire space to an audience. I also need to be able to utilize and create textures, so research is needed to find out what texture creation software is the best.

I am glad that I am enrolled in the Digital Graphics and Animation class which has taught me the basics of how to use Maya, a 3D creation software studio. I am also thankful for my computer being built with the intent of animation and game design in mind, since it can easily handle the huge processes Maya entails. The project will take a very long time, but it is a way for me to demonstrate all that I have learned as well as how much my skills in 3D modeling and texturing have come. As long as I balance my time between this class and the rest of school, I will be successful.

This week in ISM was all about practicing modeling and texturing on Maya program from Autodesk. I have found many free tutorials online to learn from, so I have been learning the basics of the program. I have found that there are many different ways to do one function on Maya, such as creating a simple cube, so Maya is extremely malleable and able to be set through many different preferences. The main problem with that however is that sometimes basic options and functions are complicated to access. The other one is of course how often Maya crashes or fails, so one has to save their work constantly to avoid data loss.

None the less, I am slowly learning about Maya and what it takes to become a modeler and texture artist. I have found that the entire process is not difficult, but it is very time consuming, which is a problem when you are a student with five AP classes. What I have learned throughout life is that with the things you love, you make time to do them. Therefore, I shall attempt to be on top of my schedule to allow myself to keep using Maya. If I have any hope of completing my product, I need to continuously grow my skills on whatever programs necessary to make the game.

This week was one of preparation. For one, I gathered all the materials necessary to create a functional and effective display board for the upcoming Research Showcase at The Star this Wednesday. One of my mistakes was purchasing a white board, which I’ve learned is quite challenging to make professional and creative looking. None the less, I decided to go on and make it be the best I can. I am quite pleased with the results, as it doesn’t appear to be the most visually appealing nor the most creative, but it is clean and very professional, so it looks good. As someone who is choosing video game design as their possible career of interest, I have the whole rest of my career to demonstrate my creativity!

I also coded a fully functional calculator using C# as the language. It was quite challenging and foreign to me, as I have never seen nor worked with a computer language. It was somewhat exciting though, in that I was available to create something new with a computer that I have never suspected of being able to. I do plan on furthering my understanding of coding, so I must continue practicing on my own time.

For this week in ISM, I decided to practice my drawing abilities and to research what 3D modeling software is the best to use for me. Drawing is an important art skill to have, even if I plan to pursue something on the 3D scale. Concept art and sketching is a critical part to getting one’s ideas across about the video game they are attempting to build, so developing my skills at basic drawing will be beneficial in the future.

The other part of interest that I did this week was researching what 3D modeling software I practice with. The two options I had are Blender and the student edition of Autodesk Maya. I compared the two and found that Blender is easier to learn, but Maya is much more powerful and has more abilities. I also found that my computer’s graphics card can handle the massive program, so I am now going to download it and learn tutorials for Maya. Due to my enrollment in Digital Graphics and Animation, I am already familiar with the interface. I also have plenty of space (2 TB) to store the massive files within. This will hopefully allow me to include objects that I create into my game that I plan to make.

A new year has dawned upon the world, and that means more possibilities to be opened. Over the winter break, I was hard at work completing my game design document for my original work project. I wrote many subjects regarding the game I have in mind to produce, such as character backstories and mechanics within the game. I never realized how many parts a game designer has to consider when creating a game, or even writing down their ideas for the game. It has caused me to better appreciate all of the hard work and talent that goes into game production, which is often unseen and forgotten.

The original work turned out well as I finished it successfully with no major issues. It tested my abilities to think creatively and how to put my ideas onto paper for people to understand. This game design document will hopefully serve as a basic framework I can produce the game from. I intentionally left some sections open to changes so that the document can be more flexible as the game is produced since many original elements will most likely change. The nature of game production is ever changing, so the game design document needed to be able to change as the game becomes a reality.

This week was one of both reflection over my research speech and preparation for my original work. I watched my performance on my research speech and the main object of improvement are my transitions between each point. The transition between my last research subject and my conclusion is especially weak, so that is a definite area of improvement. The other part I saw during my reflection was how lifeless I was when delivering the speech. While I did speak clearly and with a loud voice, I felt like I could have spoken with more fire or passion. To improve upon this, I could potentially practice reciting my speech to get more familiar with it, and then add some flair to it by including fascinating and fun parts of video game design that I have learned.

The other part of this week was to become prepared for the original work. I have realized that making a game or even creating a playable prototype is implausible to undertake with less than a month left to complete my work. Therefore, I have decided to write up a video game design document, which is very essential to the video game development process. It describes what goes into the game and it serves as the basic framework for the video game to be produced from. I am going to include all of my ideas for the game as well as the specifications and basically all that I am planning to include in the game. I shall get started immediately on actually writing and typing it out, but I shall not cease to research and learn more about video game design.