In Progress

Crunch Week 04 – Day 7

Today was another mixed bag in that I was preparing for another Zbrush model I want to start, and there was a lot technical stuff going on with Dinosaurs.

People are often unaware of just how much work goes into making a game. It’s all the little details that make a game feel right in the hands of the player that can soak up a lot of the development time. Tweaking, refining, and testing repeatedly until everything is intuitive and fair.

Many aspects have to be considered for a seemingly simple jump:
How high does the player jump?
How fast do they accelerate to the peak of their arc?
What kind of hang time do they get?
Can the player control their trajectory in the air?
What linear distance can be achieved from a standing position versus a running start?
The list goes on.

Most of tonight was spent setting up some scenes and looking into how the player will control their character. There are numerous ways to accomplish this. I decided to use my strengths in 3DS Max and mock up a scene that I can keyframe a test rig approximately the size and proportions of Triceratops to see if the motions look good. This will give me a good starting point on the variables necessary when it’s running in engine.

I also started toying around with possible button layouts with the feature list I have in place. This game is being built with a controller in mind, but still easily accommodates standard keyboard/mouse configuration. The layout will most certainly change as development continues.