N420 Final Project

Capstone Interviews

5 questions with John Richard Hestor:

1.       Why did you choose this for your capstone project?

I have a desire to design games for a career.

2.        

      What are some changes that you had to make between your original idea and what you are presenting today?

I had to change the level floor plans a lot due to the narrowing size of the map. The level takes place in a tower and it gets smaller and smaller as you go up. So I had to scale down the size as I went.

3.        

      What is your opinion of the timeline for your capstone? Was it helpful or a waste of time? Why?

It’s only helpful if you follow it and pay attention to where it’s going.

4.      

          If you could change anything about your capstone, what would that be?

I really wish I would have devoted more time to promotional material. I spent all my time working on my level up until the very end and here I am, but I don’t really have a way of telling people I’m here.

5.        

      What advice would you give me in planning for my capstone?

Don’t overestimate how much you can get done in your plans. Scale it back if you need to.

5 questions with Xian Guan:

1.        

     Why did you choose this for your capstone project?

I want to be a character modeler.

2.       

         What are some changes that you had to make between your original idea and what you are presenting today?

I had planned originally to make the Ice King and Bubblegum Princess from Adventure Time, but the characters where too cartoony.

3.      

         What is your opinion of the timeline for your capstone? Was it helpful or a waste of time? Why?

I over-planned my timeline for about 120% of what I really thought I could get done in order to get close to the 100% I wanted to get done.

4.      

           If you could change anything about your capstone, what would that be?

I wish I would have had time to do the scene differently and I wish I would have blocked out a simpler scene for rendering and setting things up.

5.      

          What advice would you give me in planning for my capstone?

Watch out for project scope creep.

5 questions with Nate Moody:

1.        

     Why did you choose this for your capstone project?

I wanted to develop this set of skills for my projects.

2.      

          What are some changes that you had to make between your original idea and what you are presenting today?

I wanted to have more of my work colored but had to cut back due to lack of time.

3.        

      What is your opinion of the timeline for your capstone? Was it helpful or a waste of time? Why?

My timeline changed all the time so I didn’t stick to it.

4.        

       If you could change anything about your capstone, what would that be?

I wanted more physical material for my presentation, but had to scale it back for budgeting reasons.

5.      

         What advice would you give me in planning for my capstone?

Do something you’re really going to enjoy working on.

 What I learned:

I’ve been to several capstones in the past, but I usually take something away from them regardless. It was good to do the extra credit because it made it a bit more interesting getting signatures. It was kind of like a scavenger hunt. The interviews we’re a bit of a pain, but I enjoyed them. One thing I did decide to do differently was to put a little more thought into presentation. A lot of people I talked to had wished they’d done more and I think it also helps to pad your capstone a bit. It did seem to help draw in the onlookers. Also, a lot of people didn’t have business cards this time, which was kind of annoying. There were a couple of things I would have liked to have followed up on but didn’t get a way of seeing more of in the future.

  

And on side note: I was a little peeved at the faculty guy going around handing out pens butting in and cutting me off when I was trying to ask someone about their project. Freakin’ rude! As a result I never got to ask the questions I wanted. And the catering for capstone was disappointing yet again. You’d think the school could spring for a couple sandwiches.

Mostly it’s always good to compare to see what other people are doing to help you gauge what you want to accomplish with your own capstone.

Assignment: Timeline

My timeline was put together in map zones. I have assigned various chunks of the map (Models/Textures/Effects) into various weeks for completion. It's a pretty tight schedule with a lot of content creation to be done. But, I have also laid it out to where the actual schedule of completion would be 4-5 weeks in advance. I've put optional elements such as custom vehicles, weapons and characters at the end of the semester. This time will serve to either further my capstone or get caught up on things I might have fallen behind on with it. I plan to have the Halloween side mostly done by the end of the year and be starting on the Christmas side when the Spring session starts up.

Peer Capstone Support Group

My capstone would fall under the category of video games and level design.

I'll mainly be using UDK, Maya, and Photoshop but I'm sure there are a few more I'll have to add into the mix as I go.

This capstone will mostly be focusing on creating a custom environment and importing custom characters, models, and hopefully vehicles and weapon effects.

Look at the Big Picture Outside Yourself

The group meeting really wasn't what I was in the mood for (had like 3 hours of sleep that day) but beyond that it was a positive experience. I think a better warning of what we were doing this for should have been offered as we would have paid more attention instead of looking at it like just another hassle. I wish we would have got more into the specifics of each others projects but we were off on a tangent about capstones in general and I was the only one who had been and was explaining some of what goes on at them. I also didn't talk a whole lot about my project and was kinda brain dead from lack of sleep. It was an interesting discussion for what little specifics we did get into about our projects. I think the person who explained mine sounded more excited about it that I did that day.

Assignment III: Capstone Ideas

My apologies for the late blog post. I was ill all weekend, and so was my cat. But while I won't pay the $20 co-pay to visit the doctor for myself, I apparently have no issues with shelling out $256 to find out what is wrong with a sick cat. She's doing much better though. Anywho..

The first idea I've started kicking around is to redo how my map is laid out. I at first wanted to go with two sides of a map that while a little different here and there were basically just mirrored images of the other. I was wanting to keep game play equal for each side. I've decided this project is more about being creative than having a tournament quality layout. Also, my map style was pretty flat and confined. I've decided to move away from that and make a more dynamic play field with hills and valleys to explore. Getting to locations should feel more like a journey and not just a flat sprint across the board despite how pretty the cover objects might be.

This is probably a no-brainer but I really need to distance myself from my seat-of-my-pants planning style. I kind of despise doing rough drafts of anything or setting up schedules and time lines. It's freakin' totally like pulling teeth with me. I'm not even very excited about doing concept art. Sooooo.. We'll see if I can work on that. >>;

 Hrmm.. Other things? While I have several ideas and tons of resources to pull from since I'm sticking to a Christmas and Halloween themed map. One thing I should pay more attention to I think would be to add some more randomness of encounters on the map. I need more crazy in The Kettle of Crazy: Holiday Edition. What comes to mind when trying to explain it is like in Monty Python's Life of Brian where Brian is running from the Romans. For those who have never seen it, the movie is a comedy about a man who is born the same time as Christ and the whole movie is set in the Middle East during the occupation of Isreal by Rome. Brian is running up the stairs from some Roman soldiers and has apparently chosen an incomplete tower to run up. He gets to the incomplete top and accidentally falls off the tower to what should be his death, but instead of dying he happens to crash through the roof of a passing space ship and goes on a brief outer space adventure before being dumped back off on Earth. It's totally outside the movie you think you're watching. You're left to wonder "What the Hell just happened?" And that is what I think I need more of for my game. I need more "What the Hell?" for my players.

Eh? Things that inspired my ideas for this post? Umm... First I guess my desire to re-tool my map would be from just seeing a variety of maps that look more natural and not planned. Second on planning? I think I watched too much Holms on Homes while I was sick on the couch this weekend. He plans everything in super detail. Lastly? Umm.. More "What the Hell?" I think that was already in the back of my mind, but an inspirational episode of X-Play on the new Penny Arcade RPG might have brought that forward. They're pretty random. Also, I've been watching a lot of Adventure Time on Cartoon Network. It'll rot your brains! >.<

Assignment II: What is a capstone?

A capstone is the final project before you are allowed to graduate. It is designed to show that you have completed your degree and that you are graduating with a skill set in your field of study. It's also your last chance to create something unique to show off to your peers, teachers, and potential employers. What I mainly want to achieve is to get it done so I can graduate, but I also want to pull off a fun project as a way to show that I appreciate all that I've learned and those who have taken the time to try and push me to create something great. 

I've been thinking of this project for quite some time and have done some rough draft work. It's something I really want to do. The main thing I'm excited about it being able to create the environments from scratch and them be able to populate it with my own creations. I want to crate my own little world and the holiday themes I'll be working on never get old to me. You might think that a holiday theme would only have seasonal appeal, but truly I'll enjoy working on it year round. It's one thing to build an environment but then it's quite another to get to decorate it.    

And so it begins..

Welcome! My name is David Ewers and I am a senior year New Media student at IUPUI. This blog will be a record of my work as I create the game world I had in mind for my capstone project. The Kettle O' Crazy will be a holiday themed 3D UDK map with the opposing factions of Christmas and Halloween. What I would like to accomplish is to have two unique environments for each side of the map using almost exclusively custom modeled and textured objects of my own creation. Time is short and the task will be daunting, but hopefully I can pull it off. Cheers!