Who we are

Team STASIS is the home of a small group of student game artists from De Montfort University tasked with creating a playable game level from absolute scratch, utilising the UDK development software.

From concepting, visual design, research, asset building, level progression and finished pieces, this blog records the progression from 19th January to 30th March 2011.

Team members include Arron Manchester, Sam Clarke, Izzy Kahn, Sai Ali, Steven Jones and Tom Edwards.

For any questions or feedback please feel free to leave comments.

P.S A run through and fly through of the finished level shall be posted soon!

Wednesday 2 February 2011

Group Status Report [STASIS STATUS?..lol]

Just thought it would be good for everybody to individually voice how they think the project is going so far, any unheard opinions, thoughts on progress, concerns or simply need anything clarifying.

Personally I feel we are working quite good as a team, I'm a little unsure on how much we can achieve in the time limit we have but I am hopeful. I feel like I need to savvy myself up more with UDK and really want to make this project the best we can. I think communication is very important within the group and hope some of the quieter members will voice themselves a bit more, I'm worried about not having set a player path that will utilize the whole of the area we have chosen but thats something to look at once we have our block out model I guess. After witnessing the breakdowns within other groups I'm glad we haven't had any particular power struggles and the fact we haven't assigned members with specific roles I think plays a part in that, however I also worry that this could also cause lack of overall direction so it is essential we communicate well.

Anyhow, please comment with your own mini status report as I think it would be good to see where people are at. :)

7 comments:

  1. This is a good idea Arron :)

    On a personal level, I am having a little difficulty with technicalities. For example, naming conventions, how to save, export, change grids to suit unreal. I dont know much about unreal yet, so i really have to study up. For now, please let me know if I'm doing anything wrong guys. I cant say I'm technically-minded, so any help or direction would be greatly appriciated :)
    As a group, Im actually really happy - we havent had any problems so far, and i think we work well as a team. Lets see if it holds up till the end!
    I think we do need to spend a little more time on organising and setting a stricter set of rules. Its annoying having a short time to do this project, but i think in the end we will save a lot of time and hassle if we plan better now.

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  2. Nice one Sai, yeah naming conventions should be defined thinking about it, so far I have been saving things with the naming on the asset list... so computer_deskDIFF.tga, computer_desk.max, computer_deskSPEC, etc. for the placeholders I have used computer_deskBOX etc.

    I'd quite like to get this skydrive/google docs thing up and running so that if when we save our files at the end of what we are doing, we upload them so they are available for everyone in the group to view and give crit/feedback on. But I'm kinda waiting on Steve to either post up info on the skydrive stuff he has sorted, or decide we should use googledocs.

    In terms of organisation and rules what kind of thing did you have in mind?

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  3. well just general things we should have sorted. For example when blocking out assets we noticed it would look neater if all the placeholder assets were the same colour/tone, and if the text on the assets had the same font and naming conventions. Small things like that would be good, so we all know how exactly to layout the level.
    I also noticed on toms camera he has used a specific way to texture (perhaps a custom texture brush) that no one else would match. His camera looked great, it may just be hard for the other team members to replicate his style. Perhaps agreeing on a colour palette and style for the assets too? Maybe keep the texturing as clean as we can for now then adding dirt and damage later when we have agreed on how we want everything to look?

    Just small things like that - we each have a style, so it may be best to keep things simple until we work out an overall look :)

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  4. completely agreed to sai last comment!! and yeah i think it would be nice if we work on udk together in that way we will all have the same kowledge on using the softwar and it would be best if we all get our assets done and uploaded in the scene asap so it could give us te understanding of the space and wht items we would like to have in each room!! so far i am happy with the team we just need to gt more assets done and textured so we have enough time to fiddle with udk...and avoid any pressure and stress during the end and we do not want that!!! GO STATIS =D

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  5. Did you mean like this? http://www.dantedesigns.co.uk/jinx/Untitled-3.jpg

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  6. I think it's going really well and yeah if we've got any problems dont be afraid to say and if we spot any problems dont be afraid to say. We don't have too many assets individually which is good, at the moment, but we cant forget how long a process texturing can be on more detailed and complicated models so lets not think we've got alot of time left cos it will fly by. Plus the more we get done now the more we can do later.

    As far as UDK goes, for the moment i'm happy observing, learning the theory of it if that makes sense. What steves done with the blocking out i could probably achieve given heaps more time than its taken him to do it. When it comes to importing, assigning materials etc, i'll learn that, as the project progresss, learning on the job kind of. Basically i dont want to get to a point where i've got no idea how and what is goin on but someone else has got it covered, cos i'd have learned nothing, and wont be able to make anything when we break up for summer, which i intend to be good practice for final year

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  7. I think we work really well as a team, we dont really have a leader, which is good I think. As far as shedule goes I think we could do with making a start on the bulk of the assets. Weve got about 6/7 weeks before we really need to have them all modelled, textured and tested in unreal to see if they all look consistent. I think thats my biggest concern atm, just making sure everything works well together. maybe next week we should make a weekly planner, to make sure certain things are done on time. Mike seems happy with out progress to so it's all good :)

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