Promo Video & Graduate Show

As you may noticed we have changed the name to Hurrah! as we felt H.U.R.A was a bit weak. A massive thank you to everyone who came and tested, all your names in the credits on the game. Also to our lecturers and the staff at Bournemouth who provided us with a fantastic amount of support.

We are looking forward to presenting our game at our graduate show which will be at Framestore CFC (soho, London) on the 2nd of October. If you would like to come and meet us at the show please email any of the team members for details.

For your entertainment please enjoy this promotional video of our game! Hurrah!

Complete Level/Environment

Like Sophie said below, our deadline has been and gone and now we are polishing the last few parts of the game and working on a promotional video. As for the environment, it's 99% done (yay!) so I've put a few images of it below for you to have a look at... Enjoy!

Deadline!

Unbelievably our deadline has come and gone. We handed in a very nearly completed game and I can't wait to show you the result. We are currently polishing up the game and will be making a movie shortly, but until then please enjoy these character clips :D

Development

Well, a lot has certainly happened on the development side with which I have completely failed to keep you up-to-date. We have had some excellent feedback from all over. Our mid-project presentations went well and were certainly a good opportunity to raise awareness for the game, and then more recently our testing sessions.

Feedback has been invaluable, especially to the development process. Areas that I might have thought needed more attention (such as the AI agent's actual "intelligence") were shown to be far less important than, say, how the player might be able to leave the track or get stuck in an awkward corner. The main aim for this game is to be fun, so it is extremely important that nothing annoys the person playing and fluidity is maintained. I'm learning a lot here.

Sometimes things don't always go as expected...

Game Play testing begins :D

At the end of last week we held our first play testing session here at the University. This was the first time the game has been tested with people other than ourselves and was really good to see how others played the game and hear what they thought about it. We set up Wiimotes for the testers to use and the game was available to play in single and two-player modes (with AI opponents). Here are a few images of the session and a demonstration of a two-player race using the Wiimotes (please ignore the video quality and the commentary!)

Phase 1 down!

Having finished modelling all the structures, level decorations (doors, windows, etc), and most of the vegetation I thought it would be a good time to put another environment post up. All the structures are in the level along with a few decorations and vegetation assets. The lighting and terrain colours have been adjusted to make the place a lot brighter too. I'm now about to enter the vast world of texturing and set dressing!




We are now ready to start play testing the game properly and will be conducting feedback sessions weekly here at the University.

Piggy Preview

As well as helping Ian with some aspects of GUI I have now moved on to modelling the pig. We still have few things to iron out with the Aristocrat and Cow but these are now things which will be done more easily in bulk when we have all the character assets created.


This fella is about half the height of the cow but a similar width, creating a nice chunky feel with a low centre of gravity. The saddle looks particularly precarious on the top of his bum so I added handles on the back for the rider to hold. I am hoping to generate a more wobbly effect with the pig and have asked to have control over the swing of the belly.


I also popped the aristocrat on the pig quickly to test the size of the saddle... loving the look of it!

Booooost

The boosting and crashing mechanisms are in place, the animations blend nicely between the different gaits and we're now in the process of putting the rider on his mount.

We have Wiimote control and, with a quick trip to Maplin, a home made sensor bar to polish it off. The level has a map, lap counter and timers, a boost bar and tokens to pick up around the track.


It has taken a lot of tweaking to get the AI system to work for recent additions since each mount might tackle a corner at a different speed. In light of this, it was a good move to develop AI alongside the other components of the game. New additions to the player controls can then easily be merged with the AI logic.

The AI system itself sits on top of the mount controller. This means that the AI agents have the same access to controls as any player. This was done to keep the game fair but does mean that the agents must be fairly clever to provide any real competition.


In other news, we are soon to add our first rider which ultimately means we can start working on attacking other players. I can't wait!

Aristocrat Colours

Just a quick update on the character progress. Have been UVing and texturing Mr Aristocrat and he is looking a lot like his concept now. I need to work on his face a bit more I think, particularly the eyes and brow. Also I think his head comes to too much of a point. Having said that I am looking forward to animating him, I think its going to be a lot of fun to get him on the cow finally :D

Environment Update

It's taken some time and effort but finally the environment warrants a blog post! The level combines the landscape with the track (through the use of a height map) and the more primary assets (without textures). I created these first so that Ian could continue with game development in the actual environment rather than the blocked out level.

The biggest struggle I've had over the last few weeks is the actual environment terrain. Unity has the ability to import height maps (grayscale images) to determine the height of the terrain you are wanting to create. This is great but it has taken a lot of fiddling in several different programs (XSI, ICE, PhotoShop and Unity) to get it right!

Below are a few images of the level so far (in the game editor).

Development Update

It's been a hectic past couple of weeks. So much so that I've neglected to tell you all what's been happening over here on the technical side. As Sophie has mentioned we have had some small issues with the rig and with the pipeline for passing animated characters to the engine. However, I am very pleased to tell you that we have everything working and that the cows are now happily running around our track.

That's right! While the animations were being worked on, I set about developing an AI network to allow the little critters to navigate their ways around. Unity makes it very easy to develop tools and I have ended up thoroughly enjoying what I thought might be a tedious aspect of the development process. Take a look:

Modelling update: Aristocrat

Here are some images of the Aristocrat. I have spent a long time on his head since the design was pretty weird. He is currently 7646 polygons. Little bit worried by the size of his head...

Full body:


Head:

Some Animation...

It's been a busy time here, lots going on, namely testing the engine. Having modelled the cow Ian moved on to rigging the creature. We went through a few versions of the rig as I tested and subsequently broke it several times. Here is the rough animation of the running cow used to test the rig and Unity. We still have some issues with the pipeline but we are close! Enjoy.

Trot:



Gallop:

And we have a cow...!

Here's the current status of the model of the cow. As you can see its reasonably close to the concept shown in my previous post. I have removed some of the angular bones such as the shoulders and hips and make the back line more smooth. I have also added horns as this just helped with the silhouette of the animal. This is a quick render (apologies for jaggies) and I have currently only made diffuse maps.

Level Design and Development

As mentioned earlier in the blog, we are creating the game in a 1950s British countryside setting. After looking at existing levels in games and creating my own level features, the three of us set about drawing a level design. The video below is a time-lapse of its' creation (it's now hanging on the wall behind our desks!):



The level consists of four distinct areas: Hamlington village, a large field, a farm and finally a windmill and the hill it is on. We wanted to make the player move from areas of calm to areas of franticness and by spreading the four areas out meant that the player would have time to recuperate before entering the next area.

All the areas apart from the large field keep the player on a fixed route through them. The field is quite different. It is a large open space which gives the player the opportunity to freely roam it. The player enters at one end and have to exit at the other, but how they get there is totally up to them.

The image below is the level so far in blocked in in XSI. The models have been placed on the original plan but changes have been made during development - the start/finish line is on a straighter route and the farm has had an overhaul. My next task is to create the track and give it height to (the windmill is sat at the highest point and the field at the lowest).

New Concept, New Characters

So... having changed the concept I have had to go back to the drawing board with the characters. We started out by generating a list of potential village characters (riders) and animals (mounts). These being:

- Vicar, Farmer, Aristocrat, Policeman, Landlady, Little Girl, Grannie, Village Idiot, General.
- Pig, Sheep, Goat, Fox, Sheepdog, Bull, Cow, Deer, Badger

We then selected two of each to make for the game (due to time restraints its not possible to make all 18 characters). We decided to create the Policeman, Aristocrat, Cow and Pig. Here are the concepts for the mounts:



And the riders:

New concept: Hamlington Underground Racing Association (H.U.R.A.)

Concept:

The game is based in a small fictional countryside village called Hamlington, in the 1950s. The general theme revolves around an underground, possibly illegal, racing scene in which the village residents race against each other on the backs of farmyard animals (not horses). The tracks run through the village, farmyards, meadows, manor estates and the surrounding countryside. The game will be designed for the Nintendo Wii console.

Gameplay:

When playing the game in single-player mode the player controls both the rider and steed as they race through predetermined environments. They have the ability to accelerate and decelerate, turn left and right, brake, jump and perform actions left and right (punching/hitting).

The game will have the option to play the game with more players (up to four) as well. The players can choose to race head-to-head with each controlling an individual rider and steed or choose to divide into two teams. When dividing into two teams one player controls the rider and the other controls the steed. This adds a new gameplay element that sees the two players from each team working together to beat the other individuals to the finish line. Hopefully this will create fast and furious fun!

As well as racing to try and beat others to the finish line, the player must avoid a variety of obstacles. If the player does hit an obstacle (e.g. a lamppost) they must perform a certain action with the Wiimote to get back in the race. If performed correctly the player reappears with a limited boost in speed. We did not want to penalise the player for hitting obstacles and falling out of the competition for first place. Hitting obstacles can be used tactically as well since a speed boost is awarded if the Wiimote action is performed correctly.

Characters:

The characters are all residents of Hamlington and each of the steeds is either found in a farmyard or in the countryside. Both the riders and steeds have stats that tie into the actual gameplay. These stats add a competitive edge to the game. The environment will have to accommodate these characters or at least their places of work/residency for authenticity. Note: only a selection of characters will actually be made for the game (due to the limited time period).

Levels/Environments:

The main theme of the game is Britain in the 1950s. Each level will guide the player through the village itself, farms, private estates or the surrounding countryside. By creating an entire environment that encompasses all of these areas, each level can then be sectioned off using props such as gates and fallen trees. To expand the number of playable levels each one can be played in reverse, have a variety of weather conditions and a different time of the day. Note: only one level will actually be made for the game (due to the limited time period).

Wii Remotes

Well, the concept has somewhat changed but I'll let my colleagues fill you in on those details. I'm far too excited about the cube we have moving around. Using DarwiinRemote¹ we have the Wii remotes, complete with nunchucks and classic controllers, synced up to the Mac. It takes a while for the software to detect the Wii remotes but once connected they perform very well and we get nice pretty graphs of the motion.


From here and with the discovery of the Unity plugin, UniWii², it was possible to use the data from the Wii input devices directly in the game's scripts. The whole set-up process, as with everything in Unity so far, was very straightforward. I particularly like the way it structures everything required by a project in a well-organised folder hierarchy as this is how I like to work.

Starting with a basic controller script I mapped the motion data from a Wiimote to a cube and watched it move as I moved the controller. This was quite satisfying in itself but I then went on to create a simple vehicle controller and had a very simple car driving around.

1. http://sourceforge.net/projects/darwiin-remote/
2. http://www.unifycommunity.com/wiki/index.php?title=UniWii

Chick n' Stu Concept Art

Here are some sketches of the characters. I feel that Chick has a really strong personality but I am still unsure with Stu. I am not sure whether to make him young (as he is in the coloured image) or to make him older. Since the game has a lot of pain sequences it might be more politically correct to inflict these on an older man as opposed to a teenager? I will continue to work on this!

Game synopsis and control interface

So the game, as it stands (all this is flexible at this stage) has two characters: Chick and Stu. Yep, we are a witty lot! As a duo they each possess opposing personalities. Chick is the intelligent motherly chicken, and Stu is the poor fool attached to the 'bandwagon' (he's slightly on the dim side too).

The current theory is that Chick and Stu met whilst Stu was escaping from an experimental lab facility (The introductory level). Stu remains shackled to the cart or wagon for some reason and Chick ends up helping him, much to her reluctance.

This sets two sorts of sections for the game
- Stu based: Track based balance level
- Chick based: Exploratory puzzle based level

Each level will therefore make use of the controls in different ways.

Welcome to the Bandwagon Blog!

This is an online account of the development of a Masters project undertaken by 3 students at Bournemouth University.

The team consists of:

John Griffiths (MA 3D Computer Animation)

Ian Thompson (MSc Computer Animation & Visual Effects)

Sophie Shaw (MA 3D Computer Animation)

Our premise is to develop a fun scalable game for the Wii console. The inspriation is from the expression 'jumping on the bandwagon' which we decided had the potential to create a very entertaining game!

We are currently at initial software testing stage but it looks like we will be using Unity. It is very exciting to have the opportunity to make use of this software and we are grateful to the staff of the Interactive Media degree for allowing us to use their kit.

The project will have a duration of approximately 15 weeks.