Adrian Nock's Semester 2 Blog

One of the tasks Marco gave out to everyone was for everyone to model one of the rooms in the interactive story. We did this in 3DS Max. The art style chosen for the game by the artist involved a lot of hexagons in the designs, so I built my room with these decorating the wall, floor, and having many of the objects in the room use hexagons in their designs. Since it is not one of the basic shapes in 3DSMax, to create a hexagon model in 3DSMax I first create an NGon spline set to six sides and apply the extrude modifier to thicken the shape. I can then convert this shape into a editable poly and modify it further if need be. For example, for the details on the floor, I used the chamfer function on the model’s edges to create more rounded edge. I also built entrances into the room in the shape of a hexagon. I knew we’d be implement portals to transfer between rooms without corridors, so I could just create the entrance itself. I used the proboolean function and subtract...

One of the tasks I was assigned was to be the voice for the mysterious benefactor, since I was one of the few of our group with a English accent, and as creative director, had a clearer image in my head of what I wanted our villain of the story to sound like. These were recorded using Adobe Audition and then edited for clarity in the same software by removing any background noise. Since my natural voice isn't exactly the most mysterious and imposing, and my acting skills are limited, I used the software to try and enhance the voice over. I also removed any background noise for a clearer voice over. I pitched shifted my voice, which gave it a far more sinister quality, and was exactly what the team was looking for. Based off my final script, all the dialogue my side was recorded. The one thing the team vetoed was an additional effect applied to the voice over which gave it a radio static effect, the team wanted clearer dialogue, arguing that in cyberspace there shouldn't...

Using online software called inklewriter, I made a interactive version of the story for the team to follow and trial. Whilst ambitious, the team liked it, and inspired one or two of them to try and implement what we can in the final project. The storyline can be played through via the link below. http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/rcrr

For the first usability test, I tasked the user to perform two actions: Complete both puzzles. Since I had left the test map wide open, one of the things the user did was to wonder about looking for things to do. When they actually approached the puzzle, the first one was solved immediately by them happening to look in the correct place straight away. After wandering around the empty world map for a period of time the user then approached the number puzzle, and their first instinct was to remove all the cubes, once they were told how Marco’s “gravity gun” worked, (By holding the mouse button down the user holds onto objects. Without on-screen prompts this is not obvious.) The user then proceeded to put the cubes in backwards, which revealed the flaw behind the original algorithm used for the puzzle - the wrong cube would light up correct as it found the number somewhere in the sequence, just not necessarily the right place.  Following this test I need to revise the whole co...

Puzzle 2 Algorithm A number sorting puzzle was created by myself that could be implemented into the final game. This uses Marco’s Gravity Gun code in order to move cubes around. This puzzle went through 2 iterations, and was changed based off user feedback and the fact the first version didn’t really work at all. Puzzle Type 1:     The puzzle is to make all the numbers on the cubes be in ascending order. The puzzle is built in the game world, and instantiates additional objects on startup which act as lock on points, so that the cubes will snap in place. In a actual game, these would probably be invisible and the puzzle built into a wall. The first algorithm used was Binary Search, the idea being that it would return true if the number in sequence was found. Here is the function for the binary search.   Binary searches only work on sorted arrays, so the theory was that it would check against the array and see if it sorted. There is an invisible object whic...

Early on, we as a group, drew up concepts for a GUI. My concept was to use a semi Diegetic Interface for the information that needed to be displayed, a Meta Heads Up Display, as that is what the player character would see in-universe. For example, any news stories (pink) would pop up on screen from the left. Early ideas included using a disembodied hand to interact with objects. This was dropped in favour of a "Gravity Gun" like the one found in Half Life 2, a crosshair that could manipulate objects instead. This was a better decision, as being abstract allowed for more actions, which the puzzles of the other teammates put to good use. I also wanted to give the view a goggle effect, as shown by the lines at the top. I'm not sure how effective this would be in VR. Ultimately no GUI was done for the final project, except for subtitles.