Studio 2 Finale
As the last week of this trimester nears an end, I want to reflect on what I've learned and achieved this studio unit. Also herein is a breif postmortem on the major project I was involved in, Atl and Ollin. I'll start by mentioning the goals that I'd set for myself at the end of studio 1. These were to make an effort at writing more concise documentation as well as continuing to improve my skills regarding time management. I have made improvements with the latter and will probably continue to do so at a consistent pace for eternity. Keeping task lists as I had started doing more of last trimester, is still working well personally and provides a way for me to effectively track and meet goals by their respective deadlines.
With regard to documentation, I certainly felt as though I had made improvements by actually referring to appropriate documents when seeking clarification on things. However this was counteracted by the fact that I rarely made updates as necessary during development, after technical changes had been made. This will remain an area that I will continue to work at, having also felt that my contributions could have been more detailed from the beginning. With that being said, I do understand that many systems could not have been thoroughly described early on. As the design of the game shifted quite dramatically over the first few weeks, reinforcing the need to keep documentation up to date at all times.
Quite a lot of material was covered this trimester with the major topics being AI, rendering, physics and all of the associated math including vectors, matrices and quaternions to name a few. I found this trimester one of the most enjoyable so far, I've mentioned before that rendering is my most favorable field, which probably explains why. For AI we were tasked with writing a bot as discussed in a previous post. It was also recommended that we attempt to write a basic math library as a way to drum in what we had learned in a practical way. I had written quite an extensive library some time ago for WebGL, so writing another in C++ was something that I'd been meaning to do and plan to release once finished.
The last six weeks of the trimester were spent on Atl and Ollin. Feedback received from playtesting sessions with the first in particular, pushed the gameplay and art style in a fairly different direction than what was originally intended. This among other changes with regard to the overall design and mechanics, introduced the need for some unanticipated technical changes quite late in development. Fortunately the project went quite smoothly otherwise. The team as a whole collaborated well and always worked effectively together, we were able to share criticism and all while avoiding any unwanted disagreement.
Completion of Atl and Ollin was followed by a gallery exhibition held in Fortitude Valley during the second last week, with projects put on display for attendees including other peers and industry folk. The event was very different from what I had expected albeit in a positive manner. Meeting other professionals and watching a diverse range of people play the games that we had created in such a short time, was an interesting experience given the setting to say the least. While we did suffer from one or two gameplay hindering bugs on the night, the majority of feedback we received was pleasant and most were able to look past these issues.
Goals for next trimester include carrying on the previous goals that are documentation and time management. New goals that I will strive for are to find and make use of more tools for project management, particularly when working in a group. I'll also aim to finally learn an industry standard 3D modeling package and move away from the outdated Half-Life generation modeling tools that I'm so familiar with. My preference is leaning towards Blender over 3ds Max, simply due to the fact that it's open source software. I am looking forward to having a break and the trimester to follow, having had an overall positive experience with both studio units so far.
With regard to documentation, I certainly felt as though I had made improvements by actually referring to appropriate documents when seeking clarification on things. However this was counteracted by the fact that I rarely made updates as necessary during development, after technical changes had been made. This will remain an area that I will continue to work at, having also felt that my contributions could have been more detailed from the beginning. With that being said, I do understand that many systems could not have been thoroughly described early on. As the design of the game shifted quite dramatically over the first few weeks, reinforcing the need to keep documentation up to date at all times.
Quite a lot of material was covered this trimester with the major topics being AI, rendering, physics and all of the associated math including vectors, matrices and quaternions to name a few. I found this trimester one of the most enjoyable so far, I've mentioned before that rendering is my most favorable field, which probably explains why. For AI we were tasked with writing a bot as discussed in a previous post. It was also recommended that we attempt to write a basic math library as a way to drum in what we had learned in a practical way. I had written quite an extensive library some time ago for WebGL, so writing another in C++ was something that I'd been meaning to do and plan to release once finished.
The last six weeks of the trimester were spent on Atl and Ollin. Feedback received from playtesting sessions with the first in particular, pushed the gameplay and art style in a fairly different direction than what was originally intended. This among other changes with regard to the overall design and mechanics, introduced the need for some unanticipated technical changes quite late in development. Fortunately the project went quite smoothly otherwise. The team as a whole collaborated well and always worked effectively together, we were able to share criticism and all while avoiding any unwanted disagreement.
Completion of Atl and Ollin was followed by a gallery exhibition held in Fortitude Valley during the second last week, with projects put on display for attendees including other peers and industry folk. The event was very different from what I had expected albeit in a positive manner. Meeting other professionals and watching a diverse range of people play the games that we had created in such a short time, was an interesting experience given the setting to say the least. While we did suffer from one or two gameplay hindering bugs on the night, the majority of feedback we received was pleasant and most were able to look past these issues.
Goals for next trimester include carrying on the previous goals that are documentation and time management. New goals that I will strive for are to find and make use of more tools for project management, particularly when working in a group. I'll also aim to finally learn an industry standard 3D modeling package and move away from the outdated Half-Life generation modeling tools that I'm so familiar with. My preference is leaning towards Blender over 3ds Max, simply due to the fact that it's open source software. I am looking forward to having a break and the trimester to follow, having had an overall positive experience with both studio units so far.
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