Civilian Vanilla Male Rig

So I know the model is in its pre-made infancy but I decided to add a few edge loops to crucial areas, and rig it, so far, the mesh deforms rather well. The rig is fully scale-able, and has a foot roll system in place.
The clavicle/shoulder area requires some addressing,  as well as the wrist, the pelvis/thigh also needs some more edges for deformations. And as long as you maintain the volume of the mesh, I can easily update the rig with the improved version.
Also, Im bored again...

Here is a quick sample video of a terrible animation.

Concept For Vanilla Male

Here is a concept model for the Vanilla Survivor.  Right now it has a mesh smooth on it that puts it above 1500 polys but we can remove it or collapse polys to bring it down.  Also clothes?  We can discuss next meet. 

Happy hunting!

- Fuller, V.P.

G-Dev V: The Final Frontier

KKKHHHHAAAAANNNNN!!! Alright, I know that's from star trek two but I am running out of movie sequel titles that get past five.  Anywho, last meeting covered a lot of what we already knew and was more of an update of work being done. 

We now have survivor turnarounds for modellers to gander at and do their worst (best?).  2d'ers will continue working on more turnarounds for zombies and troopers.  Programmers are still trying to figure out horde movement and selection.  Hopefully we will all have work to show for the next meet.

Logan has taken the noble quest of creating a club poster.  The info required for the poster is in the G-Dev folder on the MAA.  Noob.

Keep up the good work and we will have a nice show and tell next meet!

- Andrew Fuller, V.P.

Civilian Turn Arounds

G - Dev and the Search for the Crystal Skull

And another thrilling session of the Game Development Club has come and gone.  Our numbers grow every day and soon we will be able to start our own company softball team, also we are looking for a pitcher. 
On a more official note, we have solidified concepts and mechanics for Z.P.F. and now the homework has been dealt like a high stakes game of steamboat poker.  Here is what we covered:

The game will be defined as a real time strategy with fog of war and cones of vision for A.I.
Behaviors for the A.I. have been clarified (see graph)

	Vanilla	Sprinter/Pyro	Tank/Riot Control
Zombies	Walk, Bite	Run, Bite	Walk, Kill
Survivors	Run, Hide	Run, Hide, Hop Obstacle	More Health, Kill
Troops	Patrol, Kill, Hop	Walk, Kill, Chase	Walk, Melee, Save Survivors

There are also plans for a sniper troop that is just a stationary vanilla with a longer cone of vision.
The environment will be a tile-able cityscape that can be randomized.

Overall required assets including:
Turnarounds and models for zombies, survivors, and troops. 
Texture art for models and environment.
Tile-able environment models.
(Addendum: Something like this)

Animations for survivors including: idle, run, frightened idle, and death/conversion.
Animations for zombies including: idle, walk/run, attack, and death.
Animations for troops including, idle, walk, attack, and death/conversion.

and much much more!

Our assignments for next meeting include:

Team 2D - 3 point turnarounds for survivors.
Team 3D - Concept for a tile-able environment.
Team Programmer - Work on code for horde movement and finger tracking.

Things are picking up momentum and soon will snowball wildly out of control so stay tuned for the next installment of... G - DEV!

-Andrew Fuller, V.P.

Meet 3: With A Vengeance

Jeremy Irons as Simon Gruber showed up to the third meeting of G-Dev and said we were all doing quite an excellent job.

This is what went down on the third meet:

MECHANICS

We decided that while a cell phone game would probably reach more people, we are going to go the tablet route because it offers better graphics and easier usability.

After great debate, and much example showing, we are going with a top down camera with a slight angle so that the 3D modelers can showcase their amazing skills.

The zombie horde that the user controls will have a max of 40 zombies and have the ability to break into 4 separate groups.  Each group will have a select button on the bottom of the screen so as to be able to grab each quickly.  The group button will also flash if that particular set is in danger.

The method of selecting zombies to break into groups will be to drag a finger lasso style around the zombies the user wishes to select and press a group button.  (If we port to cell phones after the game becomes a raging success  we talked about a tap and slider method)

To direct the groups of zombies the user will press a group button and drag a path along the screen for the zombies to follow.  When two groups come in contact with each other they will merge back into one large group.

The goal of the game will be to clear a level of humans or reach a certain goal object per level.  The strategy involved with the game is to select varying sizes of zombie groups and to utilize drawn paths to accomplish goals.  With a variety of zombies and troops we can vary puzzles.

Variety is the spice of life!

We have decided to keep it simple at first and have three different varieties of zombies and troops.
Zombies include:  Plain Vanilla, Zombie Hulk, and Rage Sprinter.
Troops include: Regular Rifleman, The Flamer, and Riot Guard with Shield.

Each unit has differing strengths and weakness that can be used for strategy.

Lets say you see a pack of survivors (who are faster than Vanilla Zombie), if you had a group of rage sprinters you could probably run them down, but you dont yet, too bad... The strategy to used would be to split your group in half, send one around the building to cut off the survivors escape and close in.  Boom!  One step closer to the Zombacolypse.

Or their is a flamer troop in the middle of the street.  This guy would be bad news for vanilla zombies.  Send in your zombie hulk to distract and soak up damage, and use your vanilla zombies to circle around the non inferno generating side of the flamer.  OVERWHELMED!

These are just a few examples of the puzzles and strategies we could devise to make the game entertaining.

We also discussed computer A.I.  We have talented programmers who know more than I about this subject than I do...just may have to have a guest post.

We covered a lot of the mechanics this meeting and we planned to tidy up that subject next meet and get into some concept work so bring your creative pants and we will rejoin at the same bat time, same bat place.  (Thursdays, 11:00 am, Room 901)

Happy Hunting G-Dev!

-Andrew Fuller, V.P.