January 30, 2005
Engineering To Do List
Glenn: We three engineers met after the meeting and came up with these tasks that needed to be done to make the Cloud game happen. So to quote Mario, "Here we go!"
Some high level things to consider:
Cloud Appstate (The One) -- we have this, at least a clean bushido build.
Get CVS Setup
GUI (Rick)
XML: Save games, INI files, Game scenes.
Prototypes (Priorities 1 (highest) - 5 (lowest))
*Gameplay/Cloud Behavior (John)
a. Leonard-Jones Particle Clouds (1)
b. LOD - partitioning (1)
c. Fluid Simulation (layer 3) (5)
d. Wind design (static) (2)
*Terrain (Rick)
a. Partioning -- quadtree or BSP (2)
b. Modeling -- tiles vs. heightmap vs. triangles (1)
c. Gameplay - what do you do to it? (1)
d. Lightning, moisture production, rain, trees, growth and decay
Rendering (1)
*Sound (Rick)
a. Muisc and Transitions (1)
b. SFX (1)
c. Fuzzy modulation (4)
d. Sound effect variety/randomization (3)
Camera (Rick and Glenn)
a. View and FOV (1)
b. Physics - springs - force functions (2)
GUI & HUD (Rick and Jenova)
a. ASSETS & Layout (1)
b. Animation? (3)
c. World map (Radar) (2)
Rendering (Glenn)
a. Sunlight & lighting
b. Animated Textures
c. Cloud Rendering -- corresponding to particle simulation, height, and all that jazz that deals with clouds.
Level Design
a. Serialization?
b. How do we plan to design the levels? What tools/gui interfaces will we need to make that possible?
World design
Placing Islands
Island Design
Placing clouds
placing cloud generators (near mountains)
terrain
design wind (grid/vector field?)
Posted by Jenova at 10:34 PM | Comments (0)
Weekly Cloud Meeting, January 30th
To Do
1. Experience
a. 1 Frame of gameplay (Jenova)
b. Anamatic (ETA 10 Days) (Dinehart)
2. Engineering
a. Cloud Rendering prototype -- 1 Cloud (Glenn)
b. Extended Cloud Particle Sim (John)
c. Mouse (Rick)
d. Timer System Bug (Rick)
3. Processing Prototype (Aaron, John)
a. Port Cloud/Particle Behavior from John
b. C++?
4. Administrative (Dinehart)
a. Rebalance for pay rate change
b. Blog Permissions for Rick, Aaron, Glenn, et al.
Posted by Jenova at 04:35 PM | Comments (0)
Cloud Scale, Camera & Cloud
The scale change in the cloud game is about 25 times on one dimension.
The scale of the cloud goes from
Radius 50 units to 1,250 units
The first camera view is 640*480 units
The largest camera view is 1600*1200 units
Posted by Jenova at 03:06 PM | Comments (0)
Our meeting W/ Bing Gordon
Our partial team meeting with Bing Gordon in the game lab last Thursday was a great experience. Hearing him challenge our ideas, created a great discourse with the team.
I asked him if he would advise us and he agreed. I look forward to his continued involvement over the course of the next few months.
Below are the primary points I took away from our meeting, please feel free to add to this list:
1) Scope: We need to identify key features to accomplish, and focus on creating quality in our game through those features.
2) Presentation: For others, and ourselvesm, a concept game and trailer must be created, to insure common vision, within the team and community, moving forward through the production.
3) Game System Rethinking: The game system is a playground, the elements toys; as such we need to have each piece unto itself to inspire play. Together then as a complex system they will create a emergent system of fun, within the playground.
Posted by edinehart at 12:22 PM | Comments (0)
January 29, 2005
Quest One Process Concept
To cut down the scale of our project, this quest maybe substituted by intro.
Posted by Jenova at 12:24 PM | Comments (2)
January 27, 2005
Quick Prototype about attract and repulse
http://interactive.usc.edu/projects/cloud/cloud_prototype2.html
A quick prototype about the good and bad cloud concept. You will attract and repulse different clouds that are smaller than you. Please try it and comment about how do you like it or not.
Posted by Jenova at 09:15 PM | Comments (3)
January 24, 2005
Experience Script (Updated 2)
Cloud Experience Sheet
This document gives an overview about the whole game experience. It will help everybody to have a better vision about what they needs to do in the future.
http://interactive.usc.edu/projects/cloud/experience sheet.htm
Thanks for John's grammar editing, I corrected a lot of grammar error in the page. If you see any other language problem, please feel free to let me know. It will help me a lot. Thanks!
Posted by Jenova at 07:37 PM | Comments (4)
Cloud Prototype
Here is the prototype as of our meeting on Sunday, the 23rd. Expect a lot more functionality by the next meeting.
Posted by adm at 11:20 AM | Comments (3)
January 23, 2005
New Cloud Painting
I think this could be used as wall paper or some in game background.
Posted by Jenova at 08:03 PM | Comments (0)
Weekly To Do List 1/23/05
Timesheets and Payment:
Everyone have his or her time sheets to Jen by Wednesday at noon. If they go more than above your bi-weekly cap you need to pass it by Jenova and Stephen.(Everyone)
Script: Continue (Jenova and Dinehart)
Flowchart: Continue (Jenova and Dinehart)
Bushido Engineering: Mouse issues, Terrain, Integrate w/ John, Alpha Bucket, Camera Control (John, Glenn, Rick, Aaron)
Glenn, Rick, John:
- What is sufficient for first-try to support Cloud gameplay (so designers can start tweaking)
- Pseudo-code of what the rendering & support systems should look like.
- Terrain
- Data representation (quadtree, grid, tiles vs. mesh, paging & LOD, etc)
- LOD (what is the extent of the world?)
- interaction (rain, trees, lightning, tornados, sucking stuff up and putting it down elsewhere)
- rendering
- Cloud behavior & simulation
- Layer 1 / Cumulus - similar to processing prototype
- Layer 2 / Stratus / Small storm - scale, behavior changes, layer transitions, rendering
- Layer 3 / Cirrus / Thunderhead - scale, behavior changes, layer transitions... fluid sim?
- Space?
In all these engineering areas, consider:
- priority of desired new features with regard to Cloud
- development time
- leveraging existing bushidoness as well as other libs/sample code
Rick & Glenn: Skim the tinyxml docs and check out example code
Rick & Glenn: Skim my project, "hippo" (keep it secret, keep it safe)
Processing Prototype: Basic cloud interaction, variations of control method(Jenova, Aaron)
Music and FX: Continue (Vincent)
Misc: Network Storage(Rick), Get Petty Cash System Working (Dinehart)
Posted by edinehart at 03:52 PM | Comments (0)
Story
o Once there was a boy named Yun, he lived among his friends the Clouds, in the sky of Dao.
o Raised thereby the Cloud elders, he learned the ways of the wind.
o One day while playing in a cumulous valley he saw a dark cloud that laid a putrid precipitation on the planet of Urr far below.
o The cloud absorbed Yun and despite his powers he could do little to fight it.
o Luckily the dark cloud spat him out, for small boys where not of his taste.
o When Yun awoke he found himself far away from his home sky of Dao.
o He followed the sun for a day but it was no use, his cloud family could not be found. Making friends with the local Clouds, he settled down for the night.
o As he slept a great wind carried him, unknowingly, to a new sky; and when he arose the next morning a great Skyity lay before him. Excited, Yun explored the ancient, seemingly abandoned, civilization and found many a curious thing.
o While wandering the cloud gardens he discovered a doorway that was just his size, he thought “ Surely this place was not made be Cloudkind.” Traveling down the corridor he found another entranceway, this one larger.
o Upon entering, a massive hall was revealed unto Yun. In the nicest way he could Yun shouted, “Hello, I’m a friend”, as not to make enemies. The echoing of the chambers shook the great hall and as it shook a great spirit awoke from a shrine centered in the room.
o The spirit surprised to see a CloudKeeper alive revealed to Yun his origins and purpose.
o For a time Yun stayed in the city and trained with the spirit, learning his peoples ancient ways of service to the sky, and the planet Urr.
o One sunset a dark cloud could be seen on the horizon, it gave Yun a fire in his heart, so he set out to save the Sky of Urr, a CloudKeeper dedicated to cleanse the darkness.
Posted by edinehart at 03:48 PM | Comments (0)
January 22, 2005
Main Menu: Visual Design Concept
Today I'm having fun working with the could team in the ZGL. This is a concept I just created in the Game Lab. Jenova's thumbnail concept really got me going. Mind you this is just a concept, and up to much modification and continued experiementation.
Posted by edinehart at 01:41 PM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2005
Flowchart Script
I quickly threw my sketches and some ideas together, basically went throw the whole procedure of the game. But it's still the first version, there will be a lot of changes coming soon.
I'm going to start a new chart with arrows and relationships of each componet tommorrow.
http://interactive.usc.edu/projects/cloud/flowchart.htm
Posted by Jenova at 06:15 PM | Comments (1)
January 16, 2005
Jan 16 2005 Meeting Minutes
To Do and Deliverables by Next Week -- Sunday January 23rd
Rick:
*Call john, ask when he's getting back, how he's going to fit in with our process.
*Work on Bushido: little technical details, i.e. mouse, fix timer bug in kernel, appstate switch bug, intercepting the
rendering code, alpha bucketing
*Get networking space for CVS, asset storage, website.
Glenn: Alpha bucketing/intercept rendering code, camera, cubic spline path
Jenova, Erin:
*Outline out the game demo
*Describe what player is doing in every choice.
*Script and Flowboard draft by Thursday for comments.
*Flowboard. Tracy wants an application spec, that is, the flow chart, what is happening on the start screen, options, game
state, end state, cinematic states. Write a script for the story/gameflow. Draft by Thursday for comments.
Erin: Semester Schedule, Budget
Aaron: Processing Prototype. Building Cloud class (base class, inherited classes).
Tracy: Send us an example of a game flowchart, storyboards, script, etc.
Vincent: next generation scoring sketch
Cloud Game Notes
Date: Sunday, January 16 2005 In attendance: Dinehart, Aaron, Tracy, Chris, Rick, Glenn, Jenova, Vincent Administrative: Budgeting Timesheet: January 26th -- biweekly Keep recepits and give to Jen at the end -- keep track of how much we spend. max: 12 hours a week, $10-12/hr. *What can we get done by the end of the semester? Prototyping Plan of attack Tracy: Basic spec of the game, underlying features the same between the prototype and actual game. Spec needs to be given right away. 3:30 - 4:07: Jenova giving presentation from: http://interactive.usc.edu/projects/cloud/ Tracy: happy if we have a build up, simple tasks: learning how to manipulate clouds, drawing with clouds, and then a large goal to build a thunderstorm. Lastly: Payoff, we see an animation (in game, pre-rendered) to see environment change (flowers grow). Tracy also says "we're not producing a game, we're investigating an idea." Tile Based Terrain base class (do we inherit this from a basic game object type): class ITileType Q: How does the interaction with the terrain work? Crazy Idea: Use tile-based system to build terrain regions (desert, forest/field, water), use the tiles to help procedurally generate 3D blocks that "join" together. Tracy: Checkpoints instead of Milestones. We ought to decide which path to choose (what to do and cut) based on how far/fast research on (engineering) topics go -- i.e. cloud rendering. Rick: Clouds are more important, we don't know how long it will take (research). Difficulty: We want to wait until John DeWeese gets back.
Posted by Jenova at 05:06 PM
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Cloud Types & Interactions Cloud Shaping Process Cloud Development & Weathers
Posted by Jenova at 03:10 PM
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Saving a forest fire could be a typical quest.
Posted by Jenova at 02:04 PM
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When I took the interview about the cloud game, Tracy gave me this very interesting idea. Instead of Jupiter alien, why not a little boy. Yes, it would be a very dream like theme. Little boy fly between the clouds. So I started do some sketch...... Rough Story Partly affected by my own experiences, Yun is 7 years old. He has serious Asthma since he was born. He can not leave the ward without doctor's permission. But he is very optimistic to his disease. Instead of watching TV, Yun's favorite hobby is watching the clouds and day dreaming. He is fond of reading nature science magazine (only the picures) and guessing clouds with Fei. Fei (meaning fly in Chinese) is a 6 years old girl who shares the same ward with Yun. Yun always believes he can fly, though doctor told him it's just his daydream. One day, some people (maybe god) tell Yun that Fei will lose her life in seven days unless some one can clean the air and clouds around. Yun started his dream travel to save his best friend......
Posted by Jenova at 02:02 PM
| Comments (0)
Three viewpoints:
Posted by Jenova at 01:58 PM
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Time: 3pm (start)
Sign up with Jen Stein
We have hourly rates -- Jen Stein will know the rates.
*Playable demo, essence of the game by? mid-March.
*Possible to extend the game in the summer (no promise)
*Get the system of "Cloud" down, one level to start, looks nice.
*Make sure game play is playing.
*Java OpenGL, get the beta of Processing
*Build something very basic in the engine.
*Rick: 10-15 lines of C = 1 line of processing
Jenova, Aaron: build prototype in Processing. Cloud simulation/game mechanics, tile-based terrain
Glenn, John, Rick: Extend Bushido, work in parallel
Basic game ideas.
*How big are the tiles? (n x n)
*Do we procedurally generate, what's the interface?
*Develop tile system
*Each tile a class (inherited from a general tile type), the inherited tile would have an update function that is affected by the gameplay.
{
render();
update(delta_t);
}
A: The clouds can make a rainstorm, the rain falls on a desert tile and then changes it into a field -- makes it grow grass/trees.
January 08, 2005
Cloud Game Play Charts
A Quick Concept About Game Play
Ideas Of Cloud Boy
And here is Yun (meaning cloud in Chinese), the potential avatar for the cloud game.
Cloud Interface Sketch
1)Game Play view, where you play with the clouds.
2)Cinematic view, where you can enjoy looking at your clouds from any angle.
3)World View, where you can look at much larger area around you to seek new cloud resource
