Thursday, December 8, 2011

Final Project

Proposal:


For the final video project, we're filming an action-type movie. The general storyline is as follows:

I witness a murder in the beginning, and all following scenes consist of me being chased until the final scene where I am killed.



Storyboard: 

After creating the plot, we took pictures of scene locations where the chasing could potentially take place and combined them into a storyboard:















Production Log:

As a team, we spent between 15 and 20 hours filming all over campus. In between filming sessions, we met as a group to edit the movie and discuss what other scenes we need to film. Editing and special effects alone took about 3 times as long as actually shooting the scenes.



Conclusion:

Everyone worked really hard to bring this project to life, whether it was acting or putting the pieces of the puzzle together to create a motion picture. We all put a lot of time and energy into the development of this project.



Self-evaluation:

As a team, we all had our roles and we each did a lot of work with those respective jobs. Most of the work I did was focused on acting and doing stunts in the movie. Overall, I would definitely say that all of us did a great job creating this movie.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Midterm Images

For the midterm project, I decided to showcase most of the image components that make up my Android game, Space Dodgers.

These are the images that make up the 3 current bonuses. From the left, they are health, an explosion that destroys all enemies, and a temporary shield that protects the character from damage.

These next 5 images are character/enemy models. The 3 on the left are character models which are selected based on the current state of the character. From the left, they are untouched, shielded, and damaged. The last 2 images are the 2 different types of enemies currently used.


This next image is a promotional graphic I made for use with the Android market.


This next image, like the one above, is also a promotional graphic.


This is the loading screen for the game. When the user clicks the "Play Now" button, this screen will appear to instruct the user on how to actually play the game and move the character.


These next 3 images are screenshots of the actual game as it would appear on an Android device. All buttons and images are all positioned relative to the screen in real time.


If you would like to see more about Space Dodgers, you can view the details on the Android market.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Space Dodgers Development - Real-time Image Layering

Since all the images in a game are positioned in real time, it is incredibly important that they are layered correctly or things would go wrong fairly quickly. Images could end up hidden or displayed improperly if not ordered in the right way.

For Space Dodgers (Visit Market) specifically, this is how my images are ordered:

1. The bottom layer is strictly black to create the effect of space.

2. The next layer up consists of white lines (each with a randomized opacity, size, speed, etc.) flashing across the screen in the -x direction to create the illusion of character movement through space (the lines represent stars).

3. The enemy particle system (with randomly generated colors and sizes based on the enemy type) is then drawn, this way it will be behind the enemies and not in front of them.

4. The enemies are then drawn above their particle systems based on their individual x/y coordinates.



5. After the enemies, the bonuses are then drawn above them.





6. The player's particle system is then drawn in respect to the player's position; this way, like the enemies, it appears to be behind the actual player.





7. The player is then drawn with it's respective x/y coordinates. The selected player image is entirely based on what is currently happening in the game at that time. Shifting through the images creates the illusion of animation (IE. the red one will appear for 300 ms (.3 seconds) when the player is hit, giving the illusion of damage).

8. Finally, other text (such as current/high scores) is then drawn on the top-most layer.

The ordering of the layers is incredibly important. For instance, if the enemies were drawn behind the background, the player would end up colliding with enemies that they couldn't even see.

The point is: order matters.

Assignment 4 - Color Corrections