At the start of week two, goals have been set, and we’re pushing forward! The big things on our table for the week are learning Lumberyard and working on team branding.
(Artists)
Our Artists are currently working on branding which involves a couple different things. Developing our team logo and team poster are among the direct art tasks that go into branding. Making a half-sheet that describes the project, website for blog, and team photo are a few other things. Here’s a list of some tasks for their week:
– Art Gold Spike [Model, Animation] (completed)
– Logo Draft (completed)
– Software needs (completed)
– Character Pieces Assembled in Lumberyard (For Review)
– Logo Final Draft (in Process)
– Poser Concept/Composition (Late, in Process)
– Poster Final Draft (in Process)
– Faculty Walk-around Prep/Branding (in Process)
– Half Sheet [Artwork] Front and Back (in Process)
Unfortunately, some of the poster concept was pushed into “late” because of some rework that was required. However, our artists have been working hard on it and should have it done shortly. Our logo is looking really great, and some of the final touches are being applied as I type.
(Design)
Our design has started slowly as we begin to shape ideas and discuss the types of things that are possible for our team to do through the semester. We had a school workshop on Monday to help us develop some ideas by using something called a ‘composition box.’ It’s a tool designed to help brainstorm some of the inspirations, experiences, and needs that the game we’re making will cover. Here’s a list of some of our designer tasks for the week:
– Afternoon workshop (completed)
– Deck of Lenses (in Progress)
– Brainstorm Idea Session #1 (completed)
– Work on Client Pitches for next Friday (in Progress)
– Brainstorm Ideas #2 (in progress)
– Twitch Exploration (in progress)
(Production)
As producers, Tony and I have to make sure our team has everything they need to function, from coffee in the morning to up-to-date graphics cards. We also set milestones, schedules, and meetings to make sure we’re able to hit our goals as the semester continues. Some of the tasks we’ve been doing:
– Half Sheet Text (completed)
– Check with IT for website information (completed)
– Set up Google Calendar (completed)
– Pull Bug/Issues List (completed)
– Website Formatting/Set up (in progress)
– Client Pitch Powerpoint (in Progress)
– Send [HCII Student] Emails for Invitation to Slack (completed)
– Get Internet Connected to Demo Computer TV (completed)
– Project Name/Producer Liason (completed)
– Requisition Items: Coat Rack, 60 day wall calendar, white board, cables (completed)
– Set up Processes, Deadlines, and Tasks (completed)
There have been a few other miscellaneous things come up that didn’t make it into the task list, such as responding to client emails, adviser emails, team consulting, and scheduling out of deadlines. Since both Tony and I are both producers and designers, we get to split tasks up between us a little. For producing, Tony is working at setting up milestones and doing a lot of client relations. His experience on ETC projects is invaluable as he understands the nuances that can come up through the semester, and realistic expectations of students as they balance life on top of the project, elective courses, and sleep. I (Cody) get to handle more of the day-to-day tasks such as leading our daily scrum meeting, working with our leads to develop task lists, working with internal ETC departments (such as IT), and supporting the team in any other way I’m able.
(Programmers)
Programming is going to take up a good chunk of each blog as they have arguably the most strenuous task in learning an entirely unfamiliar game engine. Luckily for us, our programmers are outstanding individuals and have already dove headfirst into our project. Despite the difficulty of learning a new engine, our programmers have identified some key areas they want to familiarize themselves with in order to understand how to build an architecture moving forward. They get two lists; the first is the tasks that they have been or will be working on, the second is a list of bugs or issues that they have come across and need to learn more about. As producers, we gave them these instructions: “If something takes you longer than five minutes to figure out, it gets written on the ‘bugs/issues’ list.”
Here’s a look at what they are working on:
– Configure New Project (completed)
– Art Gold Spike [Integration] (completed)
– Set up Terrain (completed)
– Nomenclature on the Game Engine (completed)
– Static Mesh, Animated Mesh, Particle System (completed)
– Physics Engine (completed)
– Character Animation (for Review)
– Lumberyard Learning (in progress)
– Lighting and Skybox (in progress)
– Structure of Game Engine (in progress)
– Entity, Components, Slice, Gem, Prefabs [in code] (in progress)
– Perforce Architecture / Integration with Lumberyard (in progress)
– Write Basic Scripts [Lua, Flowgraph] (in progress)
– AI System [Raycast, Navmesh, Behavior Tree] (in progress)
– Material System, Textures, Basic Shaders (in progress)
– Set up Perforce (blocked)
The second list of bugs, issues, questions, comments, and pain points:
– What is a “Gem” in Lumberyard
– How different is entity to splice, different from Unity component and prefab system?
– Figure out the new and the legacy way of programming in Lumberyard
– Why is the FPS so low? [New blank project running at 13 FPS on one computer, and dropping 30+ FPS on another computer when animations were loaded to a test environment] (Issue turned out to be a hardware {GPU}, driver, and resolution problems combined)
– Why doesn’t Lumberyard support Visual Studio 2015?
– General Purpose GPU in Lumberyard? Is it necessary or optional?
– Source Control options. Finding perforce plugin maybe?
– Deleting a project doesn’t seem possible or there is no visible option
These are a few of the issues that our programmers will continue to try to learn and explore in the coming months. Thankfully, our Client from Amazon is an expert in answering these types of questions about Lumberyard, and has offered his expertise when we conduct weekly Skype meetings to respond to some of these questions when they arise.
Summary
Tony: With the brushfires of week one dispatched—picking a name, figuring out everyone’s schedules, making Skype behave long enough for a meeting with our client—week two was devoted to two causes: branding, and bending Lumberyard to our will. Navigating the idiosyncrasies of a new engine is always laborious, but Sarvesh and Le have leaned into it hard. Meanwhile, Maya created a lovely logo that the team is hoping to put on official Sawmill-branded T-shirts!
Cody: We are officially in the thick of things. Our schedules are tight, and deadlines are already looming. But our team is already working great together and it feels like we’ll be able to work through a lot together. Each member has a part to play, Tony brings experience with client relations, ETC and School schedules, and great insight into how much can be accomplished through a semester. Sarvesh and Maya bring loads of experience and thoughtfulness from working at co-ops over the fall, and a willingness to help lead as we dive headfirst into the semester. Guangya and Le are both excited to work on this and have already demonstrated their willingness to jump into the unknown and begin tackling all the tasks and exploration we throw to them. We’ll keep things updated as we continue to move forward.
Have a great weekend!