2/26/18 - Math Inside the Player Script

This week for math I will be looking at the player script for Chandler and I's game. This script contains a fair amount of math in it.



To start we will look at the variables that are used inside of this script. There are alot. At the top we have the basic player stats, such as health, maxhealth, and level. Below that we have the Misc Player info, which could be brought into play later in development. Below that we have a misc placeholder for the healthbar. Then we have all of the Projectile Variables, such as the power, timebetween shots, and more. These are used to store all of the information needed when the player is firing a shot. After that we have all of the player movement variables such as speed, Camera variables, and more. These will all be used later on in the scripts, and can be set in the properties of the object so you do not have to edit the script when you want to make a change.











Next, we have the start function. This will run when the game starts. It will first set the projectile type to the most basic type, as thats what you start out with. Next it sets health to mac, and sets the healthbar to the proper gameobject. It then sets all of the projectile stats to 0, and assigns the camera to the Cameraholder.

 In order to have more options with the camera for Debug reasons, I followed an online tutorial for enumerators, which is a set of rules to follow, which can be switched. I set up four camera types: Lerp, MoveTowards, AccelDecl, and Acceleration.

The different Camera types were used in the switch function below.

What is happening in this switch function is that based on which option is selected (out of the four above,) it will change the way the function is called. For example, if the camera type is set to lerp, it will use the CameraMovementType.Lerp case, which will make the camera lerp between positions.

 At the beginning of the Update function, there is a Vector3 being set to the mouse positions on the screen, and then setting variable mouse, to that position. It is then rotating the aim guide to point towards the mouse, so you know where you are shooting.
The disFromCamera Vector3 is getting how far away the player is from the camera. It is followed by several if statements checking the distance, and setting whether the camera is moving or not. If the camera is moving, it will call the CameraMovement function.
After that, its setting the projectile spawn to the players locations, and also setting the healthbar to the current health.

Communication - Designer Meeting

Communication is one of the most important parts of human life. It is what gets us through the day alive and well, it is what helps us to understand ourselves and those around us. If we cannot learn to communicate, we might as well not be alive.

Communication is especially important in team settings. How do you expect to get a project done if you do not talk to your team? Often times people in the team will not know what to do or how to do it due to the lack of communication between team members. If they are too afraid to speak it could end up destroying their career.

I feel team bonding exercises play a very important role in developing a team, as it will help the team members feel confident talking to each other, which could prevent the issue listed above. Without the team feeling connected they will not work well together, which will lead to a bad or cancelled project or product.

Often times people are scared to speak up, or ask for help, from their superior, and this will often not get better over time. Although humans are social creatures, they are also creatures which can be scared off very easily. I, personally, have trouble talking to the people around me. It’s for the common reasons, such as Im afraid they'll judge me, make fun of me, or talk about me behind my back. Then there are the uncommon reasons such as not wanting to disappoint myself by making a bad first, second, third, or hundreth impression. This will often lead to me hardly talking to my team, and working on the project alone, which is not good.

What I took out of the conversation we had was that team bonding and relationships are very, very important in order to work hard a raise morale. If you’re not comfortable around your team, the people you work with everyday, will you be comfortable with everyday situations? I think that we need to find a way to help strengthen teams within Warren Tech.

Rigid Bodies

A Rigid Body in physics is defined as "a solid body in which deformation is zero or so small it can be neglected."

In this example, we will be looking at Rigid Bodies in Unity, and the physics that go into them.

In order to make an object a rigid body in Unity, you must add the Rigid Body Component into the object.

Once inserted, it should look like this...

Rigid Bodies can be applied to almost every object in Unity...

The default Unity rigid body settings applies a realistic set of physics onto these object, including gravity.

(It Even works with 2d!)

 

MORE SPLINES

Splines can be used in several ways to develop games, one of those ways is to rig a virtual camera rail that the camera can follow. This is a built in feature in Unreal Engine 4

This is an example of the Camera rig rail, which uses spline(s) to create a path for the camera to follow. This, combined with Lerp can give off a wonderful effect for the camera, and can create a smooth cutscene. This can also be called Spline Interpolation.

2/5/19 - Game Jam and the Week that followed

This past weekend was the Creative Jam for 2018. The Creative jam was a fun, educational experience. The theme was "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered," Which obviously led to the creation of some horror based or inspired games. My Team went for a VR Scene project, based off of Hansel and Gretel. This project was heavily ART based. I Think that the Artists did a fantastic job with their assets from making them to applying UV maps to them. However; there was some 'drama' in our team, and blames were thrown around after the game jam. Overall, it was a successful game jam, and I learned a lot about teamwork, working under pressure, and how to stay up for 42 hours straight.