Texturing 3D Models

Finally learnt how to texture models efficiently in 3Ds Max.
This is what I did for Phil's lesson this evening, might not look like much but I learnt so much from this simple tutorial given in the lesson which I just finally completed!

Phils Robot Tutorial

Now I can go back to some of my old 3d models and work on mapping them, something that I could never get a grasp on when I was once teaching myself.

Old Work

Week 16 Reading - Game Mechanics - Support Puzzle

Jesse Schell - "The Art of Game Design" (2008)

Puzzles are wonderful mechanisms that form key parts of many games.
- They make the player stop and think

The Puzzles of Puzzles
Chris Crawford - "that puzzles are not even nearly interactive, since they do no actively respond to the play particular puzzles in video games".

Emily Dickenson - "the riddle we can guess we speedily despise - not anything is stale so long as yesterdays' surprise".

Puzzles are not repayable.
Games are repayable because of their dynamic elements which generate new sets of problems to solve.
Game that have dominating strategies are bad - unless the point of that game is to fine the dominating strategy.
- "A puzzle is a game with a dominant strategy"


Aren't Puzzles Dead?
Modern games have Incorporated puzzles within the game environment.

Good Puzzles:
Puzzle Principle #1: Make the goal easily understood.
- To get people interested in you puzzle at all they have to know what they are supposed to do straight away.
If players aren't sure what they have to do they will quickly loose interest unless figuring out what to do is actually fun.

Puzzle Principle #2: Make it easy to get started.
- Once a player understands the goal of your puzzle then they need to get started solving it.
Scott Kim "To design a good puzzle, first build a good toy".

Lens #45: The Lens of Accessibility:
- When you present a puzzle to players (or a game of any kind), they should be able to clearly visualise what their first few steps would be.

Ask yourself these questions:
- How will players know how to begin solving my puzzle or playing my game? Do I need to explain it, or is it self-evident?
- Does my puzzle or game act like something they have seen before? If it does, how can I draw attention to that similarity. If it does not, how can I make them understand how it does behave?
- Does my puzzle or game draw people in and make them want to touch it and manipulate it? If not, how can I change it so that does?

Puzzle Principle #3: Give a sense of progress
- Riddle vs Puzzle, difference is progression
- Riddle: A riddle is just a question that demands an answer.
- Puzzle: A puzzle also demands an answer, but frequently involves manipulating something so that you can see or feel yourself getting closer to the solution, bit by bit. - Players like these sense of progress - it gives them hope that they may actually arrive at an answer.

Turning a riddle into a puzzle - "Twenty Questions".
One player thinks of a thing or person, and the other player gets to ask twenty yes/no question in an attempt to learn what the first player is thinking of.

Lens #49: The Lens of Visible Progress
- Players read to see that they are making progress when solving a difficult problem.

Ask yourself these questions:
- What does it mean to make progress in my game or puzzle?
- Is there enough progress in my game? Is there a way I can add more interim steps of progressive success?
- What progress is visible, and what progress is hidden? Can I find a way to reveal what is hidden?

Puzzle Principle #4: Give a sense of Solvability
 
Puzzle Principle #5: Increase Difficulty Gradually
Jigsaw sequence:
- Flip all the pieces so that the picture side is up (mindlessly easy)
- Find the corner pieces (very easy)
- Find the edge pieces (easy)
- Connect the edge pieces into a frame
- Sort the remaining pieces by colour (easy)
- Stat assembling section that are obviously near each other.
- Assemble the pieces that could go anywhere

Give players control over the order of steps to your puzzle.

Puzzle Principle #6: Parallelism - Let the player rest.
- Puzzles make a player stop and think.
- Give players multiple puzzles at once.
"A change is as good as a rest".
- More than one puzzle at a time

Lens #50: The Lends of Parallelism.
- Parallelism in your puzzle bring parallel benefits to the player experience.
Ask yourself these questions:
- Are there bottlenecks in any design where players are unable to proceed if they cannot solve a particular challenge? If so, can I add parallel challenges for a player to work on when this challenge stamps thin?
- If parallel challenges are too similar, the parallelism offers little benefit. Are my parallel challenges different enough from each other to give players the benefit of verity.
- Can my parallel challenges be connected somehow? Is there a way that making progress on one can make it easier to solve than other?

Puzzle Principle #7: Pyramid Structure Extends Interest.
(Jumble Scramble Word Game)

Lens #5.1 The Lens of the Pyramid

Puzzle Principle #8: Hints Extend Interest

Puzzle Principle #9: Give the Answer!
Why not consider saving your players the trouble and give them a way to find out the answers to your puzzles from within the game. Plants versus Zombies by PopCap has a good example of this puzzle principle.

Puzzle Principle #10: Perceptual Shifts are a Double Edged Sword
Perceptual Shift where you either get it or you don't.

Lens #52: The Lens of the Puzzle
- Puzzles make the player stop and think.
- What are the puzzles in my game?
- Should I have more puzzles or less, why?
- Which of the ten puzzle principles apply to each of my puzzles?
- Do I have any incongruous puzzles? How can I better integrate them into the game?

Design Outside The Box

Artwork

Did some wierd things in Photoshop during Phils lessons today.

Week 15 Reading - Game Design Workshop A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games by Scott Kim

"What is a puzzle" in T. Fullerton (2008)

What is a puzzle?
The dictionary definition of a puzzles is "A toy or contrivance designed to amuse by presenting defiiculties to be solved by inguenity or patient effort". A humurous but insightful definition is "a simple task with a bad user interface".

Stan Isaacs:
1. A puzzle is fun
2. and it has a right to answer

Part 1: Of the definition says that puzzles are a form of play.
Part 2: Distinguishes puzzes  from other forms of play such as games and toys.

Novel: Puzzles are a form of play and play starts by suspending the rules of everyday life, giving us permissions to things that are not practicle. Folderd letters don't have any practicle value. They take somthing firmilliar and five it a novel twist - a good way of inviting to be playful.

Not Too Easy, Not Too Hard: Puzles that are too easy are dissapointing. Puzzles that are to hard discourage.
Tailor puzzles to the interests and abilities of the audience.
"The Well Played Game" - Read this book.

Puzzles Versus Games: Types of play activities, ranging from most to least interactive (Chris Crawford).
Games are rule based systems in which the goal is for our player to win. They involve "opposing players who acknowledge and respond to one another's actions. The difference between games and puzzles has a little to do with mechanics: we can easily turn many puzzles and many atheletic challenges into games and vice versa".
- Puzzles are rule based systems, like games but the goal it to find a solution, not to beat an oppenent. Unlike games, puzzles have little replay value.
- Toys are manipulable, like puzzles, but there is no fixed goal.
- Stories involve fantast play, like toys, but they cannot be changed or manipulated by the player.

Game - Winning
Puzzle - Goal
Toy - No Goal
Story - No Interaction

Quake is a game that includes some puzzles.
The incredible machine is a series of puzzles that includes a log like construction set for building puzzles.
Sims City is to make players more puzzle-like by setting up their own goals.
Myst is a story that happens to be told partly through puzzles.

- To design a good pizzle, first build a good toy. The Player should have fun just manipulating the puzzle even before reaching the solution.

Desgining Puzzles:
There are two aspects of puzzle design, as it applies to puzzles is crafting a particular puzzle configuration within a fixed set of rules. For example composing a crossword puzzle is a form of level design. The level designers challenge is to craft a puzzle with a distinct sense of drama and coherence that it is taylored to a particular difficulty level.
The other type of puzzle deisng is rule design: Inventing the rules, goals and format of a puzzle. For example, Edno Rubik was a rule designer where he invented the Rubiks Cube. The that some rules sets like Sudoku are reasonable forms that yield thousands of puzzles while other rule sets yeild onlt a single unique ouzzle genrally speaking, rule design is harder than level design.
Second, puzzle design has the same goal as game design in genreal; to keep the player in a pleasuably challenging state of flow that means capturing the players inntrests with an attractive goal, teaching the player the rule in a seemless and interesting way giving feeback during gamplay that keeps the player engaged and rewarding the player appropriately at the end.
Finally, be creative. Don't limit yourself to imitating the puzzles you have seen. There is a infinate suppy of puzzles waiting to be invented. Puzzles can be as varied and expressive as songs movies or stories. For inspiration, look beyond other computer games, to puzzle books, mystery stories, physical puzzles, science, mathmatics and anything else that captures your imaginations!

Simple Dice Animation

 

Been trying out some animation in Max. (Needs some work)

Week 14 Reading - Mike Stout - Learning from the mistakes: Level Design in the Legend of Zelda

What are the ways of evaluating level design the stout offers, how do they apply to Legend of Zelda.

- SNES Era "Good design principles".
Singeru Miyamoto: Once said that with The Legend of Zelda he wanted to evoke the feelings associated with exploration in the player.

Level Design on Paper:
Level Flow: How to the spaces in the level fit together? Where is the player supposed to go, and will she or he know how to get there?
Intensity Ramping: Does the intensity of the experience ramp up in a satisfying way? Do monsters get more difficult as the level goes on? Does the player get a chance to learn how the enemies work and then displays her mastery to later on?
Verity: Is there sufficient variety in the gameplay? Do enemy encounters frequently repeat themselves? Are the spaces varied in interesting ways?
Training: If the design requires new skill from the player, does it teach them?

"Mikes RPG Centre"


Analysis:
The feeling associated with explorations

Level Flow - Breakdown:
Critical path - shortest path through a level without using secrets, shortcuts, cheats, the path the designer intends the player to take.

Linear Layout:
Clever tricks to create illusion of very open level design.
1. The critical path is almost entirely linear. This means that it's much easier for the player to find her way through the dungeon without getting hopelessly lost.
2. Rooms branching off the critical path makes the level feel less linear.
3. A small bit of room re-traversal at the beginning of the level makes the level feel less linear but because it only includes a small number of rooms the player probably wont get lost.
4. Giving small hidden shortcuts through the level allows the player to feel clever and allows the designer to disuse the linearity of the level.

Intensity Ramping - Breakdown:
1. The enemy encounters should usually ramp up in difficulty over the course of the level.
2. No encounter should be repeated twice. This gives a greater variety and also helps the player constantly answering new questions as she goes through your level.

Variety - Breakdown:
None of the encounters are ever repeated. The combination of level design elements and monsters are always different.
- Too much monster variety (TLOZ)
- 10 rooms in total with 6 monsters.

Training - Breakdown:
The Legend of Zelda training is written the "Black Room" example where the NPC gives you a hint.
Analysis:
- Didn't consider the Black Room a training because they were fairly useless.
- Translation issue, they were trying to guide the player to train them to important things they needed to know.
- They abandoned the black room method after this.

What I learnt:
That it is possible to achieve the feel of a non-linear level design by taking a linear path and adding short off shoots.
Ramping encounters along the critical path still allows you to have a good intensity ramp even if your level designs aren't all linear.
Miyamoto and company intended to have training in the but it was excluded because of localisation errors.

Creativity of a Different Artistic Medium - Music Video Recording

I like to dabble in a bit of Photography and Video Capture from time to time, so on a completely un-related note to video games I've decided to post a music video that I filmed for a local Hardcore/Alternative Metal band.

Over the Christmas holiday more specifically new years eve, I did a favour for some friends by filming this video for them in and around the house I'm currently living in for University... and so here's how it turned out:

Entitled: Foreign Bodies - Tempt