Nate Multimedia Blog

For this week, I had to continue doing work on my alpha build of the game. Work is going along well, the character is moving and the controls are working well and the levels final design is complete, all that needs to be done is to add a 3rd person camera, skybox, textures and some gems to collect. Here is a screenshot of the game so far and the character model all the textures need to be added to add more life but other than that, Im happy with it so far.

For this week I had to work on more unity tutorials which will help towards the final game I am currently working on. I found these two unity turtoials from Jimmy Vegas, like the last time and these two videos are a part of the Platformer series Vegas does. First Tutorial- Scenes and Death In this tutorial it shows how to work on implementing a death mechanic, scenes into the game but also rotating the skybox aswell. I found this tutorial useful, it was at first a little tricky to get used to and took one or two more repeats of some steps to get the point, it still is useful and helpful to the final game. Second Tutorial- Animation and Platforms In the second tutorial, it goes through how to implement animations to the player chracter which is useful. It adds more life to the player character and adds more poslish too. The tutorial also helps show how to add platforms as they are needed in a platformer game. Its just as simple as creating some 3-D shapes and implementing them i

This week, I took time out of working on the game to do some reading, I read through this interesting link.  Link to article I found the article to be quite useful and it does give alot of useful points and helps people know what to say and how to give respectful yet useful criticism.

After last weeks update on my game, I feel the progress is decent, yet I have felt it has slowed down or stifled a bit, though som progress has been made too. Building the levels is working out fine, using 3-D shapes helps create a unique level but finding a way to make it different all the time can be something to overcome each time. I have found a character model on the asset store that suits the tone and genre of game and enemies as well but trying to make the player model move and have a 3rd person camera is proving challenging too.  Overall the game is progressing ok but I still need to work on certain aspects which are important.

This week, again we had to proceed with more unity tutorials to help progress with creating the game on unity. This week im still following Jimmy Vegas' unity tutorials. Specifically, the platformer tutorial series he provides on his youtube channel, which as I have said in the past tutorial blog posts, this benefits me as I am currently creating a simple platform game. Tutorial Sky box and Sound FX For this unity tutorial, it exactly does as it says on the tin. The video in question helps to go through how to implement these features. For the skybox, we import assets we want to create the sky. This part shows how to add textures onto the skybox (or backdrop) to make the game look more visually interesting and tie into the look and theme of your game. Then the tutorial also goes through how to implement sound effects into the game, the specific sound effect is picking up a gem in game. I find this tutorial decent to follow, I do find myself pausing and rewinding back through a s

This week I have continued on working on my Unity game prototype. So far the progress has been slow but somewhat decent. Although later on into development, unity has started to acting up on my Macbook.  The progress I have made so far is mapping out my first level and then what I did was add in some basic 3-D shapes to create a platformer level. The prototype and first levels platforming will be rather basic as im starting out and so is the player when they try it. The level will use 3-D shapes such as Planes and Cubes as effective Platforms and the character model needs more work. I am aiming to implement a decent character model, possibly music, some gems to collect and one or two enemies. Some early progres of the level

This week I had to do more Unity tutorials I have found on the internet that would help towards my project and prototype. This week I continued working on the same series of videos from Jimmy Vegas, the series is about how to make a platformer. As I said in last weeks post, this will help towards my prototype as I want to make a platformer so this is perfect. The first video I looked at is the 3rd in the series and is about how to work on the player character and music. Heres a link for Tutorial 3.  The video is quite straightforward and easy to follow, as usual, the video is informative and helps go through the process of working on the player character model and how they work in the game for platforming and implementing the music into the game. The next tutorial is the 4th in the series of videos and this one is a bit more tricky, this tutorial goes through Coding for the game and how to make a UI or User interface for the player. Heres a link for  Tutorial 4.  The tutorial, agai

Recently I have started working on my prototype for my Game. I started it on Unity and im following some unity tutorials on how to make platformers, not to copy them but to see what I can do and point me in the right direction though. The prototype is going fine, progress is slow but im trying to get stuff done though, I can imagine only getting substantial work in Multimedia labs though. Also, another issue is finding the time to actually get some work done on the prototype as I have other assignments and having to commute up and down to college every day. Other than that, work is going along fine, working on previous unity tutorials has helped give me some experience in helping to create the game and the detail added to my GDD has helped too as it will give me some focus for making the game too.

For this weeks unity tutorials, I had to look up and find tutorials online. I looked up some on youtube, especially tutorials for platforms as my game will be a platformer.  The tutorials I have found are from the same channel as the previous tutorials, Jimmy Vegas but this time around the tutorial is about making a platformer. So this means the tutorials aren't too complex and familiar. Unity Tutorial Platformer 1 This tutorial isn't exactly deep nor complex, its just going through the basics again, like the first unity tutorial and honestly is a nice refresher. All this tutorial is showing us how to set up a new project on unity, how to mess around with the layout, make basic 3-D shapes like cubes and spheres, simple stuff really. Unity Tutorial Platformer 2 This tutorial is rather simple as well, all I had to do here was take some textures and add them to the 3-D shapes I created in the last tutorial above. It also shows how to make the textures have more recessed and

This blog post is about my final GDD for my game. This will help me plan out my game and know what I need to implement it. Here is the link to my  GDD on Dundoc

For week six of unity tutorials, I had to watch more videos to help develop skills towards the project. I had to watch 2 unity tutorial videos one is adding a skybox and wind, another was adding in a fade screen. For the first tutorial, adding in a skybox and wind into the game's world. Firstly I had to access the asset store through unity, search for a free skybox pack.  Then I went into the window section, the lighting and then settings. Then chose the skybox material option and chose which skybox worked and changed the colour it appropriately. Then to add wind, I head into the game object section, then 3-D object and then add in wind zones. Then in the next tutorial, we add a fade screen, its an animation that only happens when we start the game,  a black screen fills the view and then after a short time it fades and the game appears. Something simple but yet effective. After doing these two tutorials, I felt they were simple, easy to follow, informative and yet not too complex.

When thinking about what to do for Dundoc, I had to carefully think about what I wanted in the game but also to keep in mind my skills, limitations, the fact I want the game to have a challenge but still be fun. So I had to understand what was needed and make sure everything is thought out well. My thoughts on Dundoc is that I find it rather useful I can put down everything on there that will be in the game and helps give me a scope of what's needed and can be amended if anything arises. It takes a while to get used to but everything has a section and helps focus and categorise the different elements of the game and what is required. Here is a  link to Dundoc  .

For this weeks Unity tutorials, I had to watch two videos. The first video was learning how to add a dynamic HUD in unity. The video's length was just over 20 minutes and the tutorial proved useful. It showed how to look at an object and pick it up, using extra cursors and working on the game's script helps achieve this, using Microsoft Visual studios and programming it using code. The code will help implement the feature of picking up the gem in the game and the sound is triggered as this is done. In this next tutorial, I learned how to add more environment to a project and creating a weapon with animation as well. Firstly I downloaded an asset which was a fence and then added it into unity by dragging and dropping it in, changing the size and making it look good within the engine. Then a box collider is added to the fence. Then a texture is added to the fence to make it look better within the game. Now I have to add the weapon, an axe to be specific. I downloaded it and it

Megaman style gameplay link:  Link to image The genre of game I was thinking of doing was a retro style platformer in the same vein as Mario or Mega Man. What I mean by that is the game will be a side-scroller with enemies and possibly bosses at the end, finding collectables and use power-ups. The gameplay will take a healthy mix of Mario and Mega Man. The gameplay will take the style of attacking and powerups and consumables like Mega Man with the simplistic and casual fun Mario provides. It's challenging but not annoying or frustrating to the point of forcing the player to quit.

For this weeks Unity tutorial, instead of following a video, I had to go through a step by step article on how to make a clock in unity without any extra asset packs, textures etc. This required some basic knowledge of unity and the most up to date version. Screenshot of tutorial I started by creating a clock in unity, there's an actual option to do so, then I create a cylinder to help create the face of the clock. Then to create the flat clock face, the Y component must be reduced to 0.1 and the X and Z components increased to 10. Then I created the indicators on the clock, I created 3-D cube shapes and changed the scale to (0.5, 0.2 and 1). Then I Changed the colour of the indicator to black. Then I placed the indicator onto the clock and then changed its angle on the Y-axis so it looks correct. Then copy and paste more indicators, changing each angle to suit the position of each hour until there is 12. To create the clock arms, I had to create a 3-D object, which was a

Image source For this blog, I had to read up on 2 articles about feedback. They were informative and insightful and are a good read. I would recommend them as they are helpful and the information they provide will be useful for future use, especially in college work etc. The first article I read through was,  Five Reasons To Stop Saying "Good Job" . The article lists 5 detailed points in no particular order, about why you should stop saying "good job" and in the long run actually give detailed and well thought out critiques. The five points are: 1: Manipulating Children: This means saying "good job" when unnecessary and is known as "sugar-coated control". In parenting it just makes the child comply and is a short-term fix, instead of talking to them and trying to reason with them, which does apply to other situations like workspaces and schools etc 2: Creating Praise Junkies:  This is another interesting point while praising someon

A collection of different platformers I took inspiration from. I have decided on a game idea from the many I thought up of in last weeks blog post and the idea I have chosen is. A classic platformer, while yes some might say its overdone, I love these kinds of fun and easy to pick up and play games, they are simplistic but charming and fun. There will be 3 mechanics that I have thought about implementing into the game. The game will have a simple story, and charming yet again simple graphics and art style. The key word for this game is simple as I want to make it easy to pick up and play but also be fun and not a chore to play either. The story is about a lone wanderer who has to travel through and discover many places, along his way he has to traverse dangerous perils and collect some artefacts and defeat a villain who, if not stopped could be dangerous. 1. The health bar and a checkpoint system:  The first and most obvious mechanic in games will be the player's health

For this first tutorial, Its all about improving graphics, simple objects like walls, water and sounds in unity. Firstly we add a sounds effect to unity then we do some coding. This helps with the sound effect just added.  After that we work on implementing the sound when the player touches the object, it makes a ding sound. Then we work on creating a brick wall to add more to the world and add textures to the world to make it look better and more natural.   In the second tutorial, we learn about implementing UI into the game (user interface) and a cursor into the game, a common part of UI when dealing with games that have a first-person perspective. And we also go through Raycast aswell. We start creating the cursor by going into the game object tab and then UI and then raw image, it creates a canvas amongst other things in the hierarchy. Then the raw image is in the centre of the screen when we play the game, so we need to size it down to something more manageable to be a curso

For this blog post, I had to read some articles about different formal elements of games and the design tools In this article  here , after reading all 7 pages. I learned about how games build off existing ones and strive to improve upon past games. Design tasks determine pacing and player goals. The gaming industry makes a diverse selection of games, look for common elements and learn from mistakes. Games are built of what works already and trying to improve or one-up the previous one game in the same genre. The article then talks about Mario 64, a classic game and revolutionised 3-D games. Its open-ended offers freedom but still has clear and concise paths and isn't messy or hard to navigate. And also talks about replayability in many of the same areas the player has already been to. The game's world is odd but concise and doesn't cheat a player and gives gratification in results and journey. The article also mentions random events and the choices that can be made an

I have thought of 4 possible ideas for games for this multimedia project. The first idea I have thought of was a 2-D platforming game in the same vein as old 8-Bit platform games. It's simple to control, fun and easy to pick up. With some enemies sprinkled throughout to help add variety. Sort of like Super Mario Bros. but with a different art style and the levels are designed differently.   The inspiration for the first Game Idea Image source The second Idea I had for the project is an endless runner that's either 2-D or 3-D.  It has some jumps and enemies to deal with but the objective is to keep running and not get stopped or killed. It can be 8-bit or highly stylised to try and separate it from other games of this nature. The third idea for the game is in the same vein as an old 80's game called contra and the endless runner idea, the point of the game is that you have to keep moving right while shooting all the enemies on the screen and there's some platf

I have viewed two Unity tutorials, the first one was an introduction to unity, how to set up a new project, select for different options like 3-D, asset packages when setting it up. How it works, how customizable the program is, tabs can be moved around to suit the user, what different sections there are. Your project can be used for pretty much any platform. It shows how to create an object (a cube or sphere ) and what you can do with it and changing it, creating ridges and making them an asset. I didn't find this section hard, just took a bit of getting used to the terms and where everything is placed. Link to video:  Unity tutorial The next tutorial explains the graphics in unity. the tutorial starts off with adding textures to an object in the game, this video goes through making mountains and adding textures to help create the look and changing colours. Even showing how to create a shader and the effects it has. I did this tutorial a little more complex but was still inte

I have read two rather interesting articles for this blog, they all relate to feedback and learning about it, these articles deal with negativity and self doubt.  The first one I read was,  Seven ways to crush self-doubt in creative work.  This article is rather useful and informative, as it should be. It goes through different things that people feel when it comes to self doubt and it explains how to deal with them and what they are about. For instance, it makes the point to not compare yourself to others, it creates unnecessary competition and is just an issue you'll create yourself, you will lose a sense of community with others in your field It also means you over work yourself to become "perfect". That article goes through other points like, being vulnerable to a trusted community, embracing a growth mindset as it helps you see mistakes and grow from the. Another point thats good is try and be experimental with your work and setting goals within reason and in

So You're Going To Make A Game For The Very First Time? Note: This article was interesting, especially to someone who likes games but isn't pushed on making them. It talks about the fact that you need good programming skills and also it says to try and take inspiration from other good games and modify them and change it up. It also talks about reining your self in and trying not to be too ambitious or go too big too quickly, focus on functionality over appearance, which is important. Take time to test it and see if it works or is fun and then improve it and take time to do so. Pulling the Plug: In Defense of Non-Digital Teaching and Learning Note:  The article above is a rather interesting one indeed.  Gaming requires a lot of high technology tools and programs but also a lot of knowledge on them too. The article tries to make the case that games should take inspiration from non-electronic games. The article poses a fascinating concept that is well executed. When readi

My first impressions are that I'm intrigued and some seem to definitely be more reliant on the Internet, I am familiar with some of the tools like blogging as it helps record thoughts and ideas and shares them with others. Bookmarking is another one I'm familiar with and uses the Internet as well and saves sites with relevant info. Images editing is also something I'm familiar too, while I use photoshop which is more complex, basic image editing is rather common, especially one phones as well. Graphics creation is another that's reliant on the Internet and seems to be common to create text on an image. While I have heard of Unity 3D, I am not exactly 100% familiar with the what goes into it. When looking at all this, it seems like a somewhat familiar environment, especially sharing online work, image editing but more complex, like photoshop and graphics creation, Though things like Unity 3D, is something I am not exactly versed with really. There are some technical

When reading the articles and thinking about time management strategies, I feel it could help benefit college work and everyday life. Planning out and setting time for certain things can make sure that all necessary work, chores or tasks are done but also can help get into a structure so that you can allocate time to work but also downtime and other important aspects too. Making sure you are stress-free, healthy and helps with work too. The two articles I read were: "Realistic Study plans" by Amanda Collins "11 Ways Unsuccessful People Mismanages Thier TIme" by Aine Cain. After reading these articles, I found them rather informative and useful. They helped point out common mistakes and helped offer solutions and answers for the issues. I definitely feel I could be referring to these articles in the future, especially when I get more assignments and the workload increases. From looking back at last semester, I feel the biggest time challenges will be traveli

For this blog, i had to do some reaerch on "Growth Mindset" and Carol Dweck, who talks about this particular subject. Prior to this, Ive never heard of Carol Dweck nor the topic of Growth Mindset. This blog post is all about Growth Mindset. If i was to look at my college work on the spectrum of growth fixed mindset, I feel like Im doing well enough in my own skill set but I do feel like i need improving really. What i have noticed with my learning is that i need to be explianed the point very cleary and need to really understand the in's and out's of a certain topic. I also need to see expamples or see such thing in practice to undertsand it better too. In short, I need to go through the topic to really grasp it and need to see examples and go through how its done.  My biggest challenges is trying to get the hang of new things, adjust to how different new learning can be, espcailly when its in a different environment and done differently too. I think might som

Hello, I'm Nathan, a second-year student at ITB. I'm 20 years old and from Cavan. This blog post is about me and hobbies, aspirations etc. If you're reading this, then I'm surprised you want to go through such torture. First of all, I really enjoyed CDM year 1. It was a great experience and felt it was fun and got to meet great people and do interesting things. I still can't get over the fact I'm in college or I even made it to the second year. Thought I would've had a mental breakdown at this point When doing the semester last year, I really enjoyed Storytelling and narrative. I find it fascinating to sit down and talk about films, I'm a bit of a movie buff so I did enjoy breaking them down and even tell a story or two. Honestly my biggest accomplishment last semester was actually getting through to second year and hell, even surviving it knowing me. My goals for this module is to plan out and hopefully make a small film for our group project as its

Topic: The topic of Digital Media is something I have been kind of familiar with in the past. I know and read about certain aspects about it and learned different things that relate to it. Also the topics about the time management and charting out a process is something I knew of but didn't learn. Delivery: I actually liked the delivery method, I felt it was interesting talking to others and getting their opinions and perspectives but also learning to work together and try and compromise and all work together to come to an answer, like in many group projects and work places. Reflection: On reflection, i think its good to write up about the experience I had, it helps me be more critical and see where i can improve or do more but also helps me improve my writing skills amongst other things as well. Link: url

 SPIDERMAN: THREAT OR MENACE? Spidey swinging through New York (captured on PS4 directly ) My new favourite game right now, Spiderman for the Playstation 4 by Insomniac Games . It makes you live out your dream by truly feeling like Spiderman. Spidey at Avengers Tower (captured on PS4 directly)

This post on the blog is a Test post!