Gantt Chart update

Just the usual weekly update

Production plan week 3

Week 3: 19th-23rd Oct

• Concept characters - ref sheet
• Rig experiments
• Weekly Review and Targets
• Concept environment
• Update Gantt chart if needed
• Continue Concepting environment and characters
• Continue research for Animations riggs and A.I.
• Continue Engine Mechanics
• Write the character blueprint
•  Game Testing

Just a reminder of this week production plan 

New Track Layout - Volcano section concept art start

This is a quick mood board of an idea of stylized environments, after seeing Jenna's drawings of the dinos i thought it would no be a good idea to look into cartoon environments.  

Added some straight sections to the design. Need a good mixture of both corners and straights original design was very windy. There wasn't much space for the dinos to reach max speed. hopefully there will be a higher chance to do that here

Started some concept art for the volcano section,

Targets for next week

Adam - Perceptive shot of the environment, some iterations due to the size of the map.
Jenna - character reference sheet minimum 3, two main characters (Carla and Rex) and one environment dinosaur. perspective shot singular for each with the chosen style agreed by the team
Rhys - keep looking AI and getting it to work in engine.
Michael - Animation practice getting the idea of how to add character to animations, editing Adam spline maps so that it is smoother and also adding some vertical elements
Team meeting - Wednesday 21st October
Game testing - Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday depending on what we decide but we must do it next week even if their is nothing new

The Cretaceous Period - Jurassic Coast

Early in the Cretaceous, the environment of the World Heritage Site was similar to the modern Gulf of Arabia, with lagoons covered by salt flats known as sabkhas.  

http://jurassiccoast.org/rocks-and-fossils/140-the-geology/381-the-cretaceous-period

During the Cretaceous Period the continents continued to spread apart. Repeating thin layers of limestone and clay form the Early Cretaceous show that conditions fluctuated between salt flats and lush swamps and lagoons. Dinosaurs roamed the salt flats while crocodiles hunted fish in the swamps.


http://jurassiccoast.org/rocks-and-fossils/a-super-continent-divides

Gantt Chart Update

Just and update to show the team how much time as passed and what week were on. so far still good were all on track continue as you were

Latest Track Design/Iteration

Mood Boards

Rain Forest Beach

Rain Forest

Salt Flats

Volcano

Track Design

Splines Unreal

[Research] Car AI, Animation and Control system

I've been looking around the forums, the question section and YouTube videos and unfortunately I'm still not finding any useful tutorials. As far as the work done peter L Newton is good but he has left it and has not been updating much recently so its still quite basic, So the best we can probably hope to do with the AI for now is maybe just point to point while leaving up posts and questions on the forum and hoping someone will get back with useful tutorials or at least maybe someone will start working on it.

Animation 

T-Rex

Carnotaurus

I found these video which I will probably be using them to help with the animation of the dinosaurs when they are ready to be rigged. The T-Rex skeleton one at the bottom will be a good idea to figure out the Rigging of the T-Rex skeleton when he is done, The all perspective shots of the Carnotaurus will help greatly with animating it since I can see how it moves from every angle.

Control Scheme

This is Set up we currently as you can see their still a lot that hasn't been set, though given we basically have all we need we will probably leave them blank unless we put in something later for them but that would depend on how much time we have to spare.

Character Sketches with quick color

Attempting to show some character in the pose and expression. Also some color for texture ideas.

Parasaurolophus colors based on these two pictures.

 Carnotaurus colours based on these pictures.

T-rex colors based on more toy based colors than the usual brown.

A Carnotaurus attempting to take a runners start stance.

Target for this week

Adam - Continue with track iteration, get feedback from the team.
           - Attempt to white box and test in engine (even just segments)
Jenna - Continue concepting dinosaurs, finalize style/research
Rhys - AI work/research. Dinosaurs physics braking an turning
Michael - AI research, control schemes and Animation research/design

[Game Testing] 1

Game Testing 1 (12/10/2015)

Participants: Game Design second years

• Luke Hamer
• Jordan Howcraft
• Ben Williams

Comment

• After turning a certain amount, turning feels slow, getting to high speed feels slow

well we need to have discussion regarding the best time to seek out people to test our game and a sheet/questionnaire to ask each participant. we will probably end up using Google Doc to keep track of the results since it easier than printing or write upon a numerous amount of paper. Google Doc can be updated by anyone so will be the best thing to use to record information 

Production Plan week 2

Week 2: 5th-9th Oct

• Research Trip - Cardiff Go Karting 
• White Boxing
• Game Testing - Every Week
• Prototyping
• Start Concepting of Environments and Characters
• Animation List
• Asset List
• Effect List
• Engine List
• Sound List
• Hazard List 
• Revise Gantt Chart - Every Week
• Multiplayer Mechanic Start
• Bug Hunt/Solutions
•  Game Testing

Just a quick reminder as to what we had planned on the production plan, I thought it would best to post this at the start of each week to make sure we don't forget what we wanted to do each week.

Cartoon Moodboards

As recommended by Julian I've done some character style moodboards.

Exaggerated Proportion

 These characters all look in proportion in a cartoon sense not realistic. Big feet and big head with a slightly smaller body.

Small appendages, somewhat big body, varying. Tends to have a large head.

Kind of the reverse of the previous cartoon style.

This style is a large body with a small head.

The style of our dinosaurs is a mix of Exaggerated Proportion and the big head, limbs with small body. Big mouths and wide round eyes for expression.

I've looked at characters that act different to how they should. For example;

• Maximus - Tangled

 

Maximus shows traits of a dog from sniffing the ground to pick up Flynns scent and (somehow) wagging his tail while sitting in a way not usual for horses.

While other actions involve sword fighting and responding with very human expressions.

• Sven

Sven also has dog traits, panting with his tongue hanging out, wagging his tail, licking people much like a dog. He also does comical movements such like trying to move along the ice, both unusual and even impossible for a reindeer.

I have used this before with my own character for a comical appearance.

Big expressive eyes also help.

Dinosaur Cartoonizing Iterations

Argentinosaurus

 Brachiosaurus

 Stegosaurus