Week 4 - Even humbler than before

Update of Week 04!

CAMERA ANGLE

We have decided to make the camera angle half top down. We add just enough visibility so you can see a few machines around you, but not too much so you still have to navigate your way through the machines.

LAYOUT

The layout of the factory will be a bunch of conveyor belts wired into and over each other to create a fun environment that's challenging for the player to walk through! We had an initial design and then changed some stuff so it is easier for the player to navigate through.

As you can see, the player will have to navigate through a maze of belts using bridges and navigation skills. This makes the game all the more challenging and competitive!

LIGHTING

For lighting we decided to place spotlights on the ceiling. We debated if the lights should be visible to the player and we decided this would be a nice aesthetic option as long as it doesn't block the players view. We tested this out in Unity and we found that this added a really nice effect and that it wasn't really in the way of the players vision.

Here you can see one of the lamps hanging from the ceiling. This has no technical use, but it gives it a nice feeling and some more depth.

CHARACTERS

We made some basic models for the characters and realized some issues with our plans on animating them. We were planning on using Mixamo for the animation but it turns that it is not really possible to animate characters with floating limbs on there. This means we will have to animate them ourselves.. yay 😅 While the animations would be quite simple, it's gonna be a bit more work to rig/animate compared to Mixamo doing it all for us.  For now though, here's the 2 little guys we made so far:

SOUND INTEGRATION

A close look has been taken at multiple audio tools in the Unity marketplace and has been compared to existing workflows. Plugins won't be used for this project. A personal integration workflow has already been established in such a way that it already is fast to work with. 

SET SOUND IDEOLOGY

A decision has been made on what the soundscape is going to exist out of. An explosive 80's spy movie soundtrack will drive the whymsical party-like gameplay while not making it too chaotic to let the player be focused. Subtle trickery will also be used to convey information to the players of what the other player is doing.

PROTOTYPING UNITY

We've decided to pick Unity for this project instead of Unreal Engine. We started prototyping some basic movement, player input, interactions with objects... the things you would expect. We have already prototyped different sabotage possibilities, but this being a lot, we will continue to prototype some more and know by next week which sabotages will be ready for you to enjoy later in the game.
for this prototype we simulated one sabotage ( light sabotage ) but not detailed just to have a better understanding of the possibilities and input system, Prototype Beta is playable with keyboard and a controller. 

don't let your friend make your factory dark !