ACSS InfoTech 2014-15 Day: 75 - Year End Recap

Since we are know heading down to the last few days of the course, it is time for a year end review. Going into this class, I was really excited and was looking forward to working with new programs and also exploring more in-depth with programs I have used in the past. In one of my first blog posts, I stated that I wanted to focus on Photoshop, 3D modelling, and creating a game.

I sort of worked on both Photoshop and 3D modelling at the same time which was sort of neat because I was also able to learn how to move PSD files into Cinema 4D and vice-versa. I learned that these programs were able to compliment each other so well. In Photoshop, I basically worked with lighting, colour correction, stocks and .png files. In Cinema 4D, I worked with the camera control, C4D materials, animating, and most of the basics of Cinema 4D in general.

I was also fortunate enough to have the opportunity to work two motivated and creative thinkers (Justin and Ty) on an RPG game using the program Game Maker. It was really interesting to see all these types of things you could make in this program. The game itself made a huge ton of progress and overall looks very well done for 3 high school students despite not reaching a few of the goals we had set for ourselves in the beginning. I also worked on a side project which basically represents all the stuff I have learned in Game Maker. At first, the program (for me) was really tough to use mostly due to the fact that I had no idea what I was doing half the time. But over the course of the semester, I got really familiar with the program by watching tutorials and seeing how other's were able to make their own games. I feel that I can at least say that I am half decent at using Game Maker now.

                https://www.dropbox.com/s/z1wrrpme02u0jvo/Block%20Jumper.exe?dl=0

                                       *The main RPG project can be found on Ty's blog.*

ACSS InfoTech 2014-15 Day: 74

Today I worked on making a simple win screen the for mini-project since it is pretty much done. I used Photoshop CS6 to get this complete and also used a font called "8-Bit Party" to create a video game like text. After adding the win screen background to Game Maker, I set a collision script to the main sprite. So when the main sprite reaches the end of the room, the win screen shows up. I also made it so that the background music is put to a stop when the game is complete.

After all this was done with, I went to file > Create Application so it exports as a playable program on my desktop.

The game was then uploaded to Dropbox under this link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z1wrrpme02u0jvo/Block%20Jumper.exe?dl=0

Basically the controls are the arrow keys to navigate around. 

ACSS InfoTech 2014-15 Day: 73

Since it's nearing the end of the course, I decided to close up on the projects I currently am working on. With the main RPG game being finished up with, I decided to also finish up on the Game Maker project I had also worked on individually. Basically, I created this as a side-project in which all the things I've learned in Game Maker is put into this mini project, and used this to really explore and look more into what the program has to offer. Some of the stuff I found out how to make gets put into the RPG game that Justin and Ty also helped create. With that being said, I decided to find out how to export the game so anyone with a computer can access it. This video was pretty much what I was looking for and is very straight forward:

ACSS InfoTech 2014-15 Day: 72

Today I finished up on the current house models for the Game Maker project. I can also create different colour schemes for the house. What I plan to do now is export the houses into a .png file and from there get it into Game Maker. It's also nearing the end of the Info Tech course so I also plan to finish up on the current projects and create a semester-end recap of the projects I have created/contributed in.

ACSS InfoTech 2014-15 Day: 71

So as of right now, I got started with working on some house sprites for the game. I decided to use Photoshop CS6 instead of the Game Maker sprite editor as I find that I am more familiar with the tools on Photoshop. The resources I needed to acquire were textures (roof, brick, stone) in which I create a clipping mask for them. In the next class, I plan to create different styles of houses in terms of their structure (roof, texture, etc.)

ACSS InfoTech 2014-15 Day: 70

Today, I was looking for things to add to the RPG game as we near the end of the semester. What I did to look for some ideas, was look at some videos on Youtube of other game developers working on RPG games. I found this really helpful as they focus on every little detail of what to add to a good game. Something to note is that many of these game developers take their time to make a good game.

After looking at a few of these types of videos, I decided to start working on creating house/building sprites to populate the map a bit of the RPG game. 

ACSS InfoTech 2014-15 Day: 69

Today I got working on animating character sprites. At first, it was a bit difficult to think of how to get this to work. By creating multiple frames of the same pose and slightly changing the height or position of the character creates a movement that can be seen in the game. I thought this was a neat addition when beginning working with animating sprites. A simple adjustment to the sprite prevents it from just staying in one position. 

ACSS InfoTech 2014-15 Day: 68

I spent a good amount of time working with creating a NPC sprite. I didn't have an idea in mind at first, but I decided to start off with creating a basic NPC that is kind of unusual to what you would usually see on an everyday basis.

To be honest I don't think it is too bad for my first go at creating a character through Game Maker. Since Ty and I's style of a Game Maker sprite is noticeably different, I sent my sprite to him through Skype so that he could work with creating a version of my character that looks similar to his characters since he has most of the files on his computer. 

ACSS InfoTech 2014-15 Day: 67

Today I got started with creating NPC sprites. I decided to create sprites through Game Maker itself. I have an idea of some characters I want to create for the main project. The tools for creating a sprite are pretty straight forward but there were plenty of tools to use. Most of the controls I played around with were similar to Photoshop (opacity, colour wheel, magic wand tool). The challenging thing about this is creating a character sprite since I have no experience doing so.

ACSS InfoTech 2014-15 Day: 66

For the main project, I am currently working with creating NPC sprites (Non-Player Characters) for the RPG game and moving the intro screen I created for the game to it's own separate file. In regards to creating NPC characters,  I found a few sprite generators that I played around with just to get an idea of what I could use for the game:

http://gaurav.munjal.us/Universal-LPC-Spritesheet-Character-Generator/#?body=tanned&nose=button&ears=big&legs=robe_skirt&clothes=longsleeve_brown&mail=chain&tie=on&hat=cap_leather&sex=male

http://www.mmorpgmakerxb.com/p/characters-sprites-generator

http://www.piskelapp.com/

So this is something I don't have too much experience with so it should be fun learning along the way and working with.

ACSS InfoTech 2014-15 Day: 65

Today, I got started on creating the scripts for the second enemy. The scripts here control the movement of the enemy sprite and collision with the main character. 

When the main sprite collides with this enemy, it will respawn at a different starting point as oppose to the original one at the very beginning. Basically, this will be the checkpoint of this mini project.  

ACSS InfoTech 2014-15 Day: 64

Now that the room of my game is expanding more and more, I decided to look into creating checkpoints. To start, I created two different enemy sprites, one for the first half of the map and the other one for the second half of the map.

I also found two helpful Youtube videos that I currently am trying to follow:

Even though the videos are pretty long in terms of time, they really go in depth on each part of the scripts which I feel will help me going forward on creating a checkpoint. 

ACSS InfoTech 2014-15 Day: 63

Today I was experiencing an error where Game Maker states the following message:

Error: Too many objects, you can only have 15

Without me knowing, Game Maker added a limitation to their free version application. After some research I found out that Game Maker was now giving out the Standard Version for no cost and inside that version, there are no limitations at all. The version I had turned out to be outdated for some time. So as of right now, the version I currently have carries no limitations. 

I got started on adding more to the game (obstacles, moving clouds, enemies, etc.). Knowing that there are no limitations, I feel that I can add more features to the game. 

ACSS InfoTech 2014-15 Day: 62

Today I finished up the moving platforms by creating a vertical moving cloud sprite as opposed to the horizontal one. The scripts were very similar as I really only needed to change the variable "x" into "y". The one thing I found out when working with the script is that the cloud stops moving once the main sprite jumps onto the cloud. When the main sprite is off the cloud, the platform begins to move again. I'm going to be leaving that in for now as I find that it isn't an issue I am worried about.

ACSS InfoTech 2014-15 Day: 61

Today I got right into making a moving platform. Most of the tutorials I found were outdated so I had change up the script a bit so it works in the current version of Game Maker.

The constant given was RADIAN, since the "define constant" option has been removed from the latest version of Game Maker. Instead, I just replaced the constant with the value of it which is

0.017453292519943295769236907684886. I also added a script that makes it so that when the main sprite touches this sprite, it will restart the room. Now that I got a moving platform moving, I can start adding more obstacles in the game.

ACSS InfoTech 2014-15 Day: 60

After finishing up the intro screen for both my own game and the main project, I have decided to expand a bit on the game I am currently working on. I made the room larger in size and am looking into create moving enemies and moving platforms as seen in these videos (tutorials):

ACSS InfoTech 2014-15 Day: 59

Today I found out a good, simple solution for re-sizing the sprites of the object which was, scaling the canvas size of each of the sub images. Doing so, this makes re-sizing a lot easier as the image itself can stretch to the right size. Another method is individually re-sizing the subimages but you would have to do it one by one where as resizing the canvas applies to all of them.

I moved the objects around a bit, so it looks like this currently. I plan to fill in the empty space with the name of the game, logo, etc.

ACSS InfoTech 2014-15 Month: January, Day: 58

This month, I plan on finishing up on Game Maker. More specifically, my platform game and the main project. As of right now, I am working on completing my platform game and (currently) working on an intro screen for the main project. If I have some time left in this course I want to look into video editing and maybe some photo manipulation.