MFA Thesis Game - Terror Force 5

dproeder

I have just defended my Master's of Fine Arts Thesis entitled:

"THE ADAPTATION OF 3D VIDEO GAME PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES TO THE 2D GAME PLAY MECHANICS OF THE BEAT-EM-UP GENRE"

Gotta love mouthful titles to academic papers. Anyways I made a 3d Beat Em Up from scratch. I handled all the Art assets (with a buddy doing some 2d character concepting), and a Programmer handled all the codey stuff. We used the free version of Unity 3d....so none of that Unreal Engine Prefab cheating stuff. Some of the assets are rough due to them being over a year old, and me basically teaching myself as I went along. All in all I am very proud what we accomplished in spare time over the course of 13 months.


Gameplay Clips:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lv_mIhksck"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lv_mIhksck[/ame]


Production Video:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpvFQv1qpzM"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpvFQv1qpzM[/ame]

You can also check my production blog found in my signature.

Visceral

"Unreal Engine Prefab cheating stuff"

What?

dproeder

Visceral wrote: »

"Unreal Engine Prefab cheating stuff"

What?

Haha I was just pointing out that if you compare Unity 3D to the Unreal engine, Unity is pretty barren as far as packaged premade assets go.

gilesruscoe

If anything Unity has many more prefabs! With the whole prefab library as well as external sites offering free and payed for things. They just don't come installed with Unity, but there certainly are available.

dproeder

Before the real purpose of this thread gets further hijacked let me clarify. We built and coded all assets from scratch. Help was found online to be sure, but there was no cut and pasting.

Visceral

So are ya looking for crits on your stuff? Or just letting us know you made something?
13 months is alot of time.

dproeder

Visceral wrote: »

So are ya looking for crits on your stuff? Or just letting us know you made something?
13 months is alot of time.

I wanted to share something with a knowledgeable and respectable community. If you are slighting me by implying that 13 months is too much time to create the quality of work shown here than I guess I feel the need to defend myself. I was working a full time IT job, while working part time for another studio. Not only this, but during production I had to do research and documentation on workflows and the history of the Beat Em Up genre culminating in a 70+ page dissertation. Thanks for your input Visceral, and sorry I said UE was cheating even in jest.

But yes, I am an artist, and as such, critiques are always welcome as long as they are productive and honest.

Amadreaus

I think it's a great learning experience, especially because you're doing what's considered 'generalist' production work. Wearing multiple hats is a great skill to hone early on.

Are you looking to get into game art, or game design? From what I've read, you're seeking art crits. Are you focused in on anything more specific, ie: environments, characters, lighting?

dproeder

Amadreaus wrote: »

I think it's a great learning experience, especially because you're doing what's considered 'generalist' production work. Wearing multiple hats is a great skill to hone early on.

Are you looking to get into game art, or game design? From what I've read, you're seeking art crits. Are you focused in on anything more specific, ie: environments, characters, lighting?

After years studying, the biggest problem I have encountered is picking just one discipline to commit to. But I feel like I gravitate more towards character work. Maybe a few years in, I will change hats and go with some rigging. Now that I am no longer weighed down with a generalist workload, I am going to spend the next few months building up my character portfolio as I continue to work full time and part time. I just completed the Mutant League challenge, and I am both invigorated with what I am able to accomplish and what I need to improve on.

berry

great work .... how much did u sold ?

dproeder

berry wrote: »

great work .... how much did u sold ?

At least 10.

Amadreaus

That's good that you're gaining a bit of focus.... it's easy to waver or get lost in dabbling in every discipline. Best of luck!

Visceral

dproeder wrote: »

I wanted to share something with a knowledgeable and respectable community. If you are slighting me by implying that 13 months is too much time to create the quality of work shown here than I guess I feel the need to defend myself. I was working a full time IT job, while working part time for another studio. Not only this, but during production I had to do research and documentation on workflows and the history of the Beat Em Up genre culminating in a 70+ page dissertation. Thanks for your input Visceral, and sorry I said UE was cheating even in jest.

But yes, I am an artist, and as such, critiques are always welcome as long as they are productive and honest.

Haha im sorry that my post came a cross a little harsh. I think its fantastic work for 3 people. And while doing jobs on the side.

On the other hand, this is what me and 4 others(classmates) made in 4 weeks.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUyURm-vVzg"]Geo trailer - YouTube[/ame]

dproeder

Visceral wrote: »

Haha im sorry that my post came a cross a little harsh. I think its fantastic work for 3 people. And while doing jobs on the side.

On the other hand, this is what me and 4 others(classmates) made in 4 weeks.

Sexy. Yeah your game seemed more focused and allowed you guys to really spend the time on the assets. I wish I would have scaled back my game a bit. But some of the tenets to beat em ups are multiple different enemies to fight, a Boss enemy, multiple player characters, and scrolling levels with varied themes. So I had to get that all in the game to satisfy my thesis statement.

My undergraduate degree was straight up Fine Art, so no CG classes there. And My Masters of Fine Arts degree was orientated towards being a technical effects artist for film. The one thing I envy game schools for are focused projects like the one you did with your classmates.

Visceral

Yeah its pretty great to have that kind of enviorment to work in. The trick is to aim to do it in 2 weeks and spend the other 2weeks just polishing everything. Working in incrimental builds really.

It really helped that i got alot of tallented people on the team .

Anyhow everytime i read through one of my comments i sound like the biggest jerk, cant help it haha.

Fryght

dproeder, nice to see that you managed to complete the production cycle. I usually end up with cast aside unfinished prototypes, lol.

As for some critique:
- The animations are a bit stiff or sometimes don't sync up too well with movement speed. I think with a bit of work you can add a lot of polish relatively quickly here. Also, fighters tend to stick to a lowered center of mass. Maybe try adding more weight to most animations. I liked the fat guy best, in terms of animations.
- The lighting could be much more dramatic, to add more atmosphere. If it's not possible to use real time lighting, maybe it could be interesting to bake lighting into the scene.