WEEK 7
May 31, 2018
GROUP STATUS REPORT
Weekly Status
Here is a breakdown of things in summary:
Meeting Dates
Friday, 5/25
Tuesday, 5/29
Wednesday, 5/30
Thursday, 5/31 (official meeting with professor)
Group Morale
6/10 - Pressure is getting to us, there’s so much we want to finish but so little time. Looking forward to all-nighters for the upcoming week…
...On a slightly funny side note, we still need a title
Screenshots
(^I swear the walk cycle isn’t this clunky, it’s just the gif...)
INDIVIDUAL STATUS REPORTS
Leon Medvinsky
What were your concrete goals for the week?
What goals were you able to accomplish?
If there were goals you were unable to meet, what were the reasons?
What are your specific goals for the next week?
What did you learn this week, if anything (and did you expect to learn it?)
What is your individual morale (which might be different from the overall group morale)?
5/10 - I don’t really want to untangle partially-finished code
Chris Ozawa
What were your concrete goals for the week?
Work on adding more point lights for the candles in the room as discussed in the previous weekly report. I wasn’t able to meaningfully start on it last week, so I’m working on it now and will hopefully finish it before the end of the day.
What goals were you able to accomplish?
I was able to locate the coordinates for the candles in the game’s center room using previously created code that outputs the mouse’s position on the map on click. Since there are also existing constants in regard to the size offset between rooms as well as width/height of rooms as well as the scaling of the rooms, I have the x and z offset values between each room, and a bit of manual verification with rooms neighboring the center room suggested that these offsets would give correct numbers. There are some differences between the middle rooms and the rooms on the edge of the map as far as candle layout/count, but I made sure to check coordinates for some of the edge rooms accordingly and identifying candle points for other rooms of similar patterns should be easy with offsetting as with the other rooms.
I still haven’t implemented the lights in the game yet, but I am currently writing code to allow for multiple point lights corresponding to the candles and will hopefully be finished soon. I will probably test the functionality of lights in the center room first before extending the functionality to the rest of the surrounding rooms. Once I know that it’s functioning properly for one room, it should be pretty trivial to extend it to the rest.
If there were goals you were unable to meet, what were the reasons?
Aside from ongoing implementation for the lights at present, I’m pondering what’s best for design purposes as far as the candles go. It’s possible to always have every candle light active, but I was contemplating whether or not it would be better to have it similar to how the game only visually renders enemies as they enter the player’s current room. Candles for the entire map might also be a bit problematic as there are hundreds of candles for the whole thing, so while it is possible to just iterate and toss in positions for each candle, this might not be the brightest approach.
What are your specific goals for the next week?
Whenever I finish with the candle lights, I guess whatever other visual effects we desperately need to have or any other game components that are high priority. We have a bunch of issues listed on Github at the moment, so unless some new pressing thing comes along, it’ll probably be picking off the important ones on there. Since we only have about another week, it pretty much comes down to what needs to be done and all the other little nifty things will be a bonus. But we might not be able to get to all the nifty things we kinda wanted to do at the beginning of the quarter, so hopefully we’ll be able to fit as many of them as we can in the time we have left.
What did you learn this week, if anything (and did you expect to learn it?)
On the coding side, it was pretty much refreshing on more lighting stuff and going through tutorials again. On a not programming related note though, when I was playtesting in the VR lab with Jimmy one day, some people were touring the VR lab and there was a boy who looked pretty interested in our game. I ended up letting him give the game a try and it seemed like he had a lot of fun! It was reassuring to know the game was engaging for someone not at all connected to the project and it was a good opportunity for me to try to explain the game both on a how to play level for him and an overall design/purpose level to his parents. It kinda made me feel like a cool game developer, which wasn’t something I really anticipated and it’s hopefully a good indicator that I’ve come a long way since being an incoming freshman who heard about this course and wondered if I would take it one day.
What is your individual morale (which might be different from the overall group morale)?
I guess it’s probably like a 7.5/10. On one hand, the experience I talked about above was really cool and made me think wow, we actually have a functional and engaging game working! It’s really neat to see how we went from having one room and a cube sliding around it to what we have now with multiple rooms, combat, enemy mobs, and the thrill of actually being able to fight other players trying to steal the flag. On the other hand though, presentation day isn’t some distant, few weeks away kind of deal anymore, and without even realizing, I somehow stumbled into practically the end of the quarter. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna have a lot cut out for me during week 10, both with this class and with other homework on top of finals prep. It’s worrying, and it’ll probably feel pretty bad next week, but I’m sure it’ll be really rewarding being able to show off our final game next Friday. Frightening workload aside, I’m looking forward to it!
Paula Quach
What were your concrete goals for the week?
Get the mage attack and defense working and maybe extend combat further and/or include even more classes.
What goals were you able to accomplish?
I was going much slower this week so while I got the mage functionality started, Leon and Jimmy helped me finish it up. By the time Thursday happens I might also have a pre-game character selection time period working.
If there were goals you were unable to meet, what were the reasons?
N/A
What are your specific goals for the next week?
If I haven’t finished the character selection phase, that. Also just cleaning up functionality and maybe adding more.
What did you learn this week, if anything (and did you expect to learn it?)
Just got more C++ experience.
What is your individual morale (which might be different from the overall group morale)?
6/10 Average.
Jack Wang
What were your concrete goals for the week?
What goals were you able to accomplish?
If there were goals you were unable to meet, what were the reasons?
What are your specific goals for the next week?
What did you learn this week, if anything (and did you expect to learn it?)
What is your individual morale (which might be different from the overall group morale)?
Jimmy Ye
What were your concrete goals for the week?
What goals were you able to accomplish?
We made good progress on mage mechanics but haven't completed all the functionality; I contributed a good amount of code to the PR for it.
I also added object culling at the room level, so only the objects in the same room as the player will be rendered on the client.
If there were goals you were unable to meet, what were the reasons?
We haven't added more mobs. Other features that were prioritized took up more time than expected and/or group members had other obligations.
What are your specific goals for the next week?
Since this is the final week, we want to focus on adding mobs and combat.
What did you learn this week, if anything (and did you expect to learn it?)
Lots of C++, per usual.
What is your individual morale (which might be different from the overall group morale)?
7/10
Jamie Zhang
What were your concrete goals for the week?
What goals were you able to accomplish?
If there were goals you were unable to meet, what were the reasons?
What are your specific goals for the next week?
What did you learn this week, if anything (and did you expect to learn it?)
What is your individual morale (which might be different from the overall group morale)?
Vivian Zhang
What were your concrete goals for the week?
Finish animation for the character models
What goals were you able to accomplish?
I was able to finish animations for the character models! Also created a door model in case we decide to go with locked rooms.
If there were goals you were unable to meet, what were the reasons?
I was unable to start looking into sounds due to the hiccups I ran into for animation, but I have some tunes that I’ve recorded that I might be interested in using for background music.
What are your specific goals for the next week?
Create two extra character models - the healer and the paladin - in case we manage to pull through. Also the nutcrackers on the door will probably become enemies to use as well.
What did you learn this week, if anything (and did you expect to learn it?)
Animation can be a real pain (but so rewarding when it works).
What is your individual morale (which might be different from the overall group morale)?
7/10 - I was able to finish what I wanted to, but I’m definitely feeling the pressure now with a week to go.
