Hotel Room VR
15th April 2017
I started working!!
In the second post of the blog my work in the group evolved to making 3D models
In the last of week march I made a series of poker chips for the game, on last week I made a gym bag.
To create the models I have used two main programs, including Photoshop and Lightwave 3D, Photoshop for texture creation like the numbers of the chips and manipulation of the textures on the bag, and Lightwave 3D for the mesh creation.
Meanwhile my partners have been dealing with VR optimization, because we had problems with the game being to heavy for mobile usage, later on they had a meting with mini-clip employees who gave them a feedback about the game, and it has a good one!!
In last week they have been working on the code architecture.
In next week we have scheduled a meeting to make sure everything is OK and our work is organised.
I am Carlos Carvalho, I am a student of fine arts, in multimedia art, and I am doing group work with IST students. My group colleagues are Alexandre Gordo, Luís Freitas and Nuno Fontoura. Until now we met on 11 March to talk about the ideas of the game, it was explained to me that the idea is to make a virtual reality game that explores the capabilities of Unity and make a game for Samsung Vr, the ideology of the game is to create an escape game, but a more fluid, faster and more interactive version of this type of game. At this moment the group is in the brain storming phase and my colleagues find themselves experimenting with Unity projects for appreciation and to communicate to me what I will need to create at the level of level design. The group also has a blog dedicated to the game possible to visit at: https://mdjg10.wordpress.com/
31st March 2017
30th April 2017
Work in progress!!
In the last two weeks I've been continuing the work,while my colleagues are doing their programming and computer magic I've doing my type off stuff, I've been building and changing models in Lightwave, including a toilet, bathroom furniture, bedside tables, a wardrobe with a mini fridge, and a clock.
The clock was the only item I build by scratch this week, while the other models were modified, in the other models I had to make them more fast to the game, like reducing the amount of polygons in the mesh, and I had to create all the guts off them, like drawers, doors, shelf's, hangers and so on.
Last week our group meet twice, one on Google Hangouts and the other one on person in Instituto Superior Tecnico where I played the prototype of the game for the first time, using the VR set, already with models that I created/modified.
To note that all the work I made I've sent it to my colleagues for implementation on the game, to this time I've sent the poker chips, the sports bag, the clock and the others models that appear in this post.
15th May 2017
On the way to end our game!!
We are near the finish of our work!! On my side I've been working with 3D modeling, I've been pretty busy, in this phase of the game we had to deal with some problems and some of those occur due to the lack of performance on mobile phones compared to PC, like frame rate, draw calls and the number of polys in the scene, to fix some of this issues my colleagues asked me to reduce the number of polygons on all the models of the game, to make the game suitable to mobile gaming, so here's a list of what's been done and the number of polys I was able to reduce of the game:
Trashcan (315-81)
Sink (3057-714)
Shower (3383-421)
Bed (1262-631)
Book (313-38)
Blanket (2278-284)
Bin (2662-860)
Bench (2278-1138)
Door (1452-1154)
Curtains (224-56)
Chair (1460-364)
Vases (1837-458)
TV (38-38)
Towel (984-246)
Towel 3 (2804-700)
Towel 2 (1810-904)
Tap (1798-898)
Switch (466-326)
Soap (994-144)
Soap 2 (456-228)
Pillows (1318-328)
Pictures (same)
Mirror (194-96)
Heated Towel (1654-827)
While I was working on 3D my colleagues on IST were working on various things like animating the last models I've sent them (opening and closings doors, drawers...) and playing around particles. In this week I've created some 3D models, the open version of the Sports Bag, that I created a few weeks ago, I also built a lighter, a ball holder, a lock and a radio, to notice that once they were finished I was sending them to my colleagues so they can work.
Now we are on the last stretch of road, my colleagues are almost finished with the game, they completed the animations, and now they are trying to get 60 FPS.
Road to MOJO
In the last two weeks our group prepared everything to MOJO, the fair where we are presenting our game to the school community. My colleagues made the final steps on the programming of the game and then made the final steps on the game level design.
I made the last modifications and 3D models, including modifying the shower cabin, separating and improving the bed pillows and creating the treasure to the treasure chest witch is the final reward in the game.
When the part of technical aspects of the game was completed i started working on the image side of the game and made a logo a a simple background to the poster for MOJO. While i did this, my colleagues continued on testing the game, and creating a feedback form using the google tool, we also arranged a deal with MYVR which will lend some VR sets to us on the event for the game testing with the return of some publicity.
Now we are on the final steps to having a final product to deliver to the market, therefore our group decided to continue on the project outside of the classroom and we have an estimation of 4 weeks of work to put the game on the market completely finished, with minor issues fixed like performance issues because of draw calls.
29th May 2017
MOJO!
The experience off being in a fair and to be showing something was amazing, not all was easy, we had some problems like compiling problems, hardware problems and internet problems, our presentation was planned to be 3 headsets, with 3 computers showing what the player was seeing through a mirroring app, one off the problems was the internet on the place being very slow and not able to make the app function properly. but by midday all was function more or less OK, we we able to have the 3 headsets working and have at least 1 or 2 PCs mirroring the game. we had many people trying our game and all of them liked the game.
Hotel Room VR
Carlos Carvalho
4th June 2017