I’ve built another random test area to learn how to export from Blender to Unity and make it more like the target environment. In other words to make a brutalist interior. I was hesitating on the size the model should be, because previously they turned out to be small when imported to Unity.
About size: the conclusion is that the size of a model in Unity depends on the scale value that is set up on the prefab before importing that to project. Before realizing it my model became huge, as according to several tutorials I set up the scale factor too big of a value (just didn’t think that they were importing small assets like barrels, while I was importing a whole area. Tutorial reference: https://youtu.be/nhJ8EJ_GtLI). This made the environment so big, that camera was clipping out several of its parts in the distance.
Lighting: this was done with some very basic knowledge of lightmapping in Unity at it is as it is. But it worked. Horrible, but worked, so it means I have to dig further on the topic.
I also wanted to try glowing panels following Brackey’s tutorial:
That turned out not ideal, but I got the idea how to do it.
Going further
After that I decided to model part of the floor plan that I’m going to implement in the final version. The starting one whith flooring/repetitiveness elements.
And I still couldn’t decide which way of modeling is better, because if building from solid blocks, then it becomes difficult for me to see through the model, and it take much more time to model.
Whilst I was strarting to research the topic of lighting, I noticed that designers quite often used panels for walls and floor, which are visible only from one side. That allows very good observation of what you’re doing. So I thought it would be a very good option since the area is big and trying to clip through walls to see something was not comfortable.
By that time after trying a couple of times to buld the area from modules in Unity doesn’t suite me at all, as Blender does that much more efficiently (especially with snapping tools and freedom to alter the modules in any way or add new ones very quickly). So my workflow is set up to modelling in Blender and exporting that to Unity.
To try that I completely recreated Brackey’s tutorial. (This was the time I discovered he was using panels. He didn’t mention how he modeled the room.) And those really turned out to be panels that he used. And practiced some more on lightmapping. That’s where I learnt to set objects to static in order to apply lightmap correctly.
I still hesitated between planes or solid shapes for walls, but started off with panels. And while it looked nice in Blender and was fast to make
in Unity it looked horrible and unable to work with it adequately, because you’re just not able to see the whole picture. I needed visibility, but not that much
it is the very same model with everything in place, but you can’t see them because they are panels
So my conclusion here is solid shapes are my only option. This method is suitable for more simple environments, but when everything is supposed to overlap, it makes a mess. + as test showed, panels have issues with collision, and character was often stuck in the walls.
I’ve spent several days building the final piece and it turned out pretty well.
So the next thing is to actually work with lighting. Hopefully it will be possible to implement what I have in mind.
So the donut experience turned out to be very useful and made me much more confident with modelling and following experiments. At least I thought that modelling would take me much longer than set up in Unity, but it all happened vise versa.
I had 2 approches in mind for level design in Blender: a solid level buliding and modular geometry.
I started with a solid level like in tutorial here:
I saw benefits in quick carcass of the whole level which I could fill with details afterwards. I all went fine in Blender and I successfully exported the model to Unity. And that’s where problems started. While Blender allowed clipping inside, Unity didn’t, what ended me having just a number of interconnected solid blocks.
But still the experiment didn’t fail entirely as I tried colliders and physics with a 3d object, which went well (and I must note seems a bit more adequate than with 2d colliders). Maybe there is a way to render the object with insides, but by that time I decided that I won’t use this method as it will be hard to make the interior layout with constant need to be inside the object.
So I quickly went for modular geomerty:
I quickly made simple modulars in Blender. Very basic just floo tile, wall tile, doorway and ‘stairs’ (I wasn’t sure how to handle normal stairs, so just made a slope for a quick test).
First I built a simple room and also tested collisions, which worked very good and smooth
Then I’ve developed it in a small interconnected area with flooring. My aim was to test how I can cope with stairs or at least slopes. The complete area looks like this, pretty simple, and very time-efficient with using modulars.
But that’s only camera movement, to test it properly I needed to make a first person character movement, which I never did before (ok, actually everything in this project is something I never did before since it’s a 3d game. So further on just keep in mind that everything was new for me). And though it was tiresome in terms of set up and figuring out the cause of some collision problems, it all went pretty well.
This was the end of my day of experiments which helped me significantly to see where to move forward. So the game will be definitely in 3d, and I can cope with a walking simulator. There are some pecularities on the technical part that I’ll need to keep in mind when exporting and setting up in Unity for the actual level map, but in general I can start thinking through locations and interiors as well as navigation elements for the project.
The next test area is ligting both in Blender and Unity. I tried a little bit of that even this time with a spot light in the first room. But I’ll need some atmospheric and special lighting for my navigation system, which might be easier to do in Blender as I’ve already tried some during my tests with donut. But that’s the topic of further research. So far I’m quite confident in the progress.
This week I’m starting to learn Blender. I have already learned some basics, and in general I found the program much more convenient and responsive compared to the 3D programs I used to work with before.
As the first test project I followed the donut tutorial, which made me familiar with some basic tools. The outcome was beyond my expectations, where I managed to make a photorealistic modelling and render.
It means so far I’m confident that I will manage to model the map for my game, which is much easier and won’t require even less modeling skills that with a donut since it will be very geometrical. Next step is to learn to export that to Unity and see, how it works as a game environment.
So for now what I’m doing is:
Model a test map containing a couple of rooms and flooring
Learn how to export the level to Unity and how to set it up correctly
Set up character movement in 3d space and make sure all the test build works correctly
If that succeeds, then I’ll start producing the full map and gradually develop the game concept.
Final major project directly continues the thesis topic and is devoted to implementing proposed theoretical model of LL navigation system.
The thesis offers an alternative light&landmark based navigation system for brutalist-like environmments in contrast with signage and mapping system of Control, which causes significant navigation issues provoked by pecularities of brutalist style: repetitiveness, visibility and complexity.
Breefly, LL System is based of the following principles:
Light as the main navigation tool
Light forms landmark patterns or is combined with architectural landmarks:
Architectural landmark combined with area light patternFill light area pattern
Light forms 2 types of navigation: global and local. Global is formed of key or fill lighting (depending on situation) of a particular pattern, assigned to a specific area. Local activates in complex rooms, where an action must be taken. Global lighting is deactivated not to interfere with local lighting.
A room before activating local navigationThe room after activating local navigation. Global lighting is dimmed.
Game genre
I see the game as a walking simulator genre because the main idea of the project is to test my manvigation system. But in order to make the game more like a game, but not a navigation test, some entertaining elements must be added. I see 2 options: a story or some puzzle element. The main point is that player will need to orient themselves in order to get to some key waypoints and reach final destination.
There’s a concern about split screen which was one of the first ideas about the project. Split screen will allow to compare 2 navigation systems: Control-like and my system. In case of a split screen, ideally it should resemble Medium, where pathways appear on another screen in spirit world.
This will clearly demonstrate how my system makes pathways more evident. But I’m not sure about my capabilities to implement that technically.
Another option is to make 2 runs with different navigation, but that has familiarity issue, when player will get more familiar with the environment during the second run, which will make navigating easier despite the system. So I wouldn’t opt for that.
Map
Within thesis I’ve developed a Control-like map, which I’ve designed to imitate the 3 legibility issues of the environment.
Player will have a task to get to the ground floor, solve a puzzle (or get further instrustructions) and get back to the start to exit the level. In order to make navigation task more challenging, some of the fastest pathways will be blocked, what will tell the player to look for another pathways depending on navigation hints. The blocks will be placed in such a way that player will have to pass through all 3 test areas before finishing the game. That will allow to check navigation effectiveness in all of the 3 issues.
Visuals and inspirations
Visually I see the game similar to Fugue in Void and Naissancee wich combine simplicity and specularityof brutalist architecture.
NaissanceeFugue in void
This is the bare visual minimun to make brutalist environment work and won’t require much texturing. Also due to geometric forms this will allow low amount of polygons and relatively easy modeling. Also this will exaggerate repetitiveness even more wich is benefitial in our case as it will perform additional testing to the system.
Technicalities and further work
Currently I’m on stage to choose the game form, which requires some technical research. Ideally I see it as a 3D game, but I never made one in unity. So that will require modelling and importing models to Unity. As far as my research shows, levels are usually modelled in Blender and then expoirted to Unity. Same concerns lighting, which is key for this project. So my goal for now is to make a basic test level with a couple of rooms and stairs with lighting in Blender (which is also new for me) and try out how it works in Unity and if I’ll be able to make player succesfully move in that environment. If that’s succesfull, I can implement the map and focus on lighting navigation. So, basically the speed and form of the project depends on this key step as I’m still not as experienced with Unity.
Now that my essay is complete, I can think about presentation in full capacity. As I predicted, the practice presentation helped quite a lot, so I used a lot of material there. In order not to repeat myself, I’ll just highlight what I’ve changed
Nothing much changed here. I’ve added objectives sentence and updated the presentation plan.
This is a new important slide on methodology as readers/viewers must understand how I came to the conclusions and what support sources I used for analysis. The sources remained the same. They proved to be working well.
Definitions slide changed slightly. I decided to give a visual scheme of how Sweetser and Wyeth developed conditions theory, and also I’m referring to it in the written essay, when I discuss the presence of time mechanics in skills-challenge balance conditions. I believe that Sweetser and Wyeth just made a more detailed set of conditions, which overall can be included into Csikszentmihayi’s original condition.
This is a developd version of micro and macro flow slide. I’ve researched the topic and it fitted very well into my essay.
I also updated case studies slide as now I have decent analysis and several outcomes. Of course I will explain more when I add voice over.
This is another new slide based on discussion part of the essay, where I present evidence that time relates to at least one of the basic flow conditions: skills-challenge balance. I’m mostly elaborating on this aspect here and showing the scheme of these time influence in both games to compare. Other two conditions are worth mentioning, but since time is not as significant there, a brief not would be enough.
And, finally, updated outcomes, that I’ll elaborate on more verbally. They come directly form essay’s conclusion section.
So I’m happy with the presentation and think that it reflects well on written essay. I guess, I’ve simplified it enough to make it as clear and coherent as possible. Presentation video you can find in a separate post.
So, since I’m unable to make a decent finished piece like I want, I’ll have to make it in 3D at least, thanks to my second course I took this year, where we studied 3D coat for concept art.
But before starting I had one thought in mind about the shape of positions. For prototype I made it like a box, which holds birds well, but hard to produce. So I made a quick test with another type: a square with a hole in the middle, which is big enough to fit the bird in, but too small to let it fall down. And tests showed it worked very well even upside-down
Taking that into account I’ve spent 2 days working on the model, which turned out pretty well. I took into account problems with distance and proportions of the prototype, so model looks much better. I changed colours a bit due to some thoughts on further development of the project, that I’ll write below. Also I used wood shaders to give an idea about material
And even made a 360 video:
I’m very satisfied with the result taking into account that is the best I can do now.
Some further thoughts:
The reason why I opted for wood and colour alterations is that ideally the concept can be developed in an eco art therapy game. Overal, origami is one of the tools to develop fine motor skills. So the game can potentially be used as a developing game for adults and children. For children, for example, time span can be increased in the app with a special mode.
Materials of the game are natural and ecological. Both plywood and paper can be recycled or in general the game can be produced from already recycled material, and birds can be used for decoration, for example, like I did afterwards.
Additionally wood and paper give natural and pleasant tactile sensations, together with chromotherapy (that’s why I changed colours to ones often used in colour therapy) the game can be a nice helping tool for people in need of such kind of therapy. And in general the game can provide nice challenge if desired, or can be a more relaxing one if needed. So I suppose the game has great potential in that area and can be developed further.
Overal, I consider the project finished for now. The game fullfills its functions, is totally playable, fun and useful. It still may lack visual design, but it wasn’t the focus point of this project in particular. The focus was mechanics and experimentation, which for me was accomplished succesfully. So I’m getting ready for submission and this was the final entry for the Birds game 🙂
Since playtest 2 showed that the rules work, I needed to update the prototype one more time to make it firm and stable, and test everything as a “final” product. The material must be firm for branches to be stable. Ideally that would be plywood, that won’t let the branches bend and birds to fall from positions. But due to I’m not in London and don’t have access to woodwork and laser cutting facilities, the best option I have is thick cardboard.
This is how templates look before cutting. I had to cut all that by hand for a couple of days
To solve the problem of birds falling, I decided to make box-like positions, which worked pretty well.
In 3-4 days the final prototype was ready for playtest
Later on I coloued the inside of boxes to mark positions
As you can see, the prototype is still not ideal as some of the branches are too heavy not to bend downwards. But it’s the best I have on offer. I could have used an even thicker type of cardboard, but I would be nightmare to cut by hand as I don’t have any other options. So this one will be the final physical prototype that I’ll film for gameplay video later.
In general it turned out a bit unproportional with little space between levels, but it’s still playable and birds don’t fall. Thus, I’ll take that into account when making the mock-up, which will be a 3D model.
I have also updated th app a bit. Added some design and a video tutorial on how to fold the bird.
this is a bird army now
This is some evidence of the amount of birds made during all three playtests. And I finally solved the question with type of paper. I managed to find a special origami double sided coloured paper that can be bought at any hobby shop. It folds nicely and is not as thick as previous ones. And it will be easy to replace when the original paper stock ends.
Overal, the third playtest went very well with all previous issues resolved. One tiny alteration was made to the role of win position, which should have some bonus for the player. And since the game is about quantity now, player, who takes win position get the right to add finished birds from rejected pile to the total count of their birds. So it doesn’t guarantee victory (depending on what strategy player used during the game), but gives stimuli to get it and increase chances of winning.
Below you can find the finalized rules text:
Birds game
Spring is coming! All nesting places in the neighborhood are taken, only one tree left. Choose one of the flocks and help it claim as many nests as possible before the other one does! A fun speed origami game for the whole family!
Genre: Speed duel game, 3D tabletop game, craft game
For 2 players
Equipment: tree model, origami paper, mobile app
Goal: Claim as many nests as possible
Tree overview: The tree is divided into 4 levels, each of them has 4 branches. Each branch has a number of coloured positions (nests) and a special UP position (except level 4). Level 4 has additional top part, where final stage of the game takes place.
How to claim nests: This is a speed origami folding game. A nest is claimed when player folds and places an origami bird into one of the positions of active colour for the time given. Time and colour are defined by a mobile app (see below).
Mobile app: The app sets active colour and time frame, when it is active. Colours change randomly as well as timer. There are 5 colours and time frame from 30 to 60 seconds. Timer sets the duration of a turn. During this period players act simultaneously and must fold and place a bird to the nest of active colour. Players are free to make and place several birds within the time frame. But a new bird can be made only after previous one has been placed. If player started making a bird, but doesn’t manage to finish it before time runs up, the bird is put in “rejected” pile and doesn’t participate in the game any more.
Skip button is used in 2 situations:
If all nests of this colour on the level have been claimed
If the colour is unavailable for one of the players (e.g. if players are on different levels)
THE COLOUR MUST BE AVAILABLE FOR BOTH PLAYERS AT ANY TIME OF THE GAME. Colours can be skipped until the suitable one appears.
Pause timer button: Can be used to pause the game for various reasons
Tutorial button: Contains a tutorial on how to fold the origami bird
How to play:
Players start from level 1. After timer is set off, players make a bird and can place it on any position of active colour. When all positions on one of the branches are claimed, player, who took the last position (no matter who claimed the majority of nests on this branch), is allowed to proceed to UP position. Player can choose whether to use this opportunity to move up to the next level or continue claiming positions on the current level.
UP positions: Up positions work as a sub-level and can be used to get some additional nests. If player decides to proceed, they can’t move back down. Up positions are claimed in the same way as normal ones, but don’t depend on colour. Timer applies for them too though. On Up sublevel player can claim only those positions that belong to them (e.g. if player claimed the last position on a branch, they’re allowed to claim only UP position of that particular branch. If on previous level player finished 2 branches, then 2 corresponding Up positions can be claimed). After an UP position is claimed player can proceed to the next level with the colour active at that moment.
If all nests on a level are claimed, player automatically moves to the next one skipping Up sub-level.
The duel mode: Some of the positions should be claimed in duel mode in case there is only one available position of active colour is available. In that case the player, who makes and places the bird first claims the position. The losing bird goes to rejected pile and next colour timer is set. Same applies to the positions of the final top part of level 4.
Level 4: Level 4 is divided into 2 sections. Lower part goes a normal. In order to proceed to the top part all nests of the lower part must be claimed. Positions of the top part are claimed in duel mode including the final winning one (without color). Player, who claims the winning position stops the game and gets a bonus: all complete birds from their rejected pile are included in the total count.
Results: When the game ends, all birds are counted. Player, who has more birds in total wins the game.
Quick tips:
1 turn = 1 timer. Every new turn starts with a new bird. An unfinished or unplaced bird becomes rejected if timer has ended.
During the turn players act simultaneously.
Players act according to the scheme: make-place-make-place. It’s forbidden to stack birds first and then place them.
Colour in the app must be available for both players despite the situation. Use skip button to get to the correct colour.
It is forbidden to go down. If player claimed Up position, they can either claim more positions on Up sublevel (if allowed) or move to the next level
These have been also tested with people, that never played or even saw the game. And testers said the rules were clear enough even without seeing the game physically.
And finally the video of gameplay process that I made afterwards and that will go to submission
As the research progresses I’ve compiled the practice presentation. Thus, I must say that this comes a little too early as I’m currently working more on experimental development submission, and my research didn’t proceed too far since the last time. All I have is case study part with collected data, and I’m not even sure about structure. But I’ll try to make some structure blueprint with this presentation.
As I was advised before I’ve rewritten the research question to make it look more solid and professional. I believe it looks better now as I used approach from BA thesis sessions, where I was adviced to be as specific as possible.
Also this is how my approximate structure looks, where I tried to include the basic minimum of what I need to cover. And just to give viewers some understanding of case study games, I included their brief description.
Of course I’m starting with definitions of flow: from most basic definition by Csikzentmihayi (his definition is the one that is used and modified by the majority of other researchers) to a more specific for videogames by Sweetser and Wyeth, who also happen to be one of the methodology support sources. I’m also including conditions of flow as it’s important to show their development as well, and they are the main criteria of evaluation time mechanics impact on flow.
Next stop is part about time, since it’s the second main topic I’m researching. I’m not very sure about the Gimbel source, if I need that or not here as I’m just stating the type of time in video games, but not sure I’ll use it later.
Igarzabal’s work is one of my major sources on time and anxiety/boredom discussion point, so I definitely need to highlight that in presentation.
This is a very new aspect I’ve recently discovered that will help me to present more firm evidence. I’ve only read it briefly for now, and it’s the point of further research.
Here I just compiled all the information I previously showed on case studies. As I said above, I just have a big amount of data on time frames and their relation to flow conditions. Not much analysis now, still working on it.
And the outcomes. Of course since I don’t have even approximate analysis now, I’m just presenting the very basic now that can be made without much effort.
But overall, at least with the help of this exercise, I have some understanding of future final presentation. I just hope that I won’t need to redo everything from scratch, but it depends on the actual research and analysis I’m have yet to do. To finish, I’m also presenting the video of this presentation:
This is the summary slide for everything I’ve done so far. I’m not working much on essay right now as I want to focus on experimental development unit due to a closer deadline. But in general to sum up I’ve highlighted 3 basic parts of the current research work.
First is, obviously, research question. First part is more ‘official’, but I don’t think it’s the final wording here. Second part is more for inner use just for me not to forget, what question I need to find the answer for.
Second is the sources. For now I have 5 academic and 3 supportive ones. I’m quite satisfied with them, especially the ones that will definitely form the basis of my research and methodology: Csikzentmihayi, Igarzabal and Sweetser&Wyieth. But since I haven’t started analysis yet, there might be more.
Third is case studies, which hasn’t changed, and I’m finishing their analysis in terms of collecting data. I have more than 2000 words for it so far where I define time frames and check on game meeting flow conditions from thime perspective. And here I’m also giving overview of time mechanichs. Not sure if that will end up in the final essay version, but let it be for now.
