Sprint 2 - Paranoia

The goal of this second sprint for our team was to begin working on our digital assets and building up the core mechanics of the game, as well as getting a playable build made. I personally helped delegate design and modelling work amongst the team members and worked closely with Bryan in particular on the layout of the house included within the game environment and the furniture and items we were going to be creating. We decided to start with some key pieces that we would need for the prototyping and split those models up based on general material type. I ended up working on the metallic pieces, being the oven and fridge, as well as the puzzle pieces and frame that would be handed off to the lead 3d artist for texturing.

Once he was finished with his props that had more metallic materials, he handed those models to me and I created a UV map for my oven and fridge models, as well as his bread knife and ice pick models. I then had the task of texturing them like normal in Substance Painter, which was pretty straightforward. Despite the fact that our game will be pixelated, I've decided to go the route of texturing realistically first, then downscaling and limiting the texture maps afterward to get it to a more accurate and detailed place technically.

So, once I was done in Substance Painter, I exported those maps into a program called Image2Pixel, that allows me to set a custom resolution, filtering method, dithering, and color palette restrictions. Using PS2 graphics as a general basis for my own textures, my goal is to mimic the technical limitations of the time that gave those games that particular feel. Once the textures were run through the software, I tested them at a couple different resolutions in Unreal itself and decided to stick with these 512 by 512 pixelated textures.

Something else I worked on during this sprint was filling in as many of the models into the ALR spreadsheet as possible. I went through my map layout and listed off every piece of furniture, appliance, puzzle item, etc. that I could think of and organized those into categories and sections within the sheet. This spreadsheet's purpose is to identify who is creating which model, what UV maps the models will be going into, and which stage of completion they are currently on. I think this will be a huge help for everyone to keep track of all of the many assets being created.

Lastly, something I've been doing intermittently throughout the sprint is gathering reference images for the various models that will be created throughout the development process. It doesn't sound like a lot on the surface, but I want the objects within the game to feel cohesive and that they belong in that space. I've been doing research on early 20th century design and have been finding detailed references for each piece of furniture, items, appliances, etc. that will be created. The thing that takes the longest is organizing all of these images in a way that is easy enough to understand, especially for the rest of team as they haven't been the ones setting it up. I need to make sure the other members creating models know where to find their references. We also began setting up our itch.io page which I was very excited to design and I'm proud of that so far!

Overall, I feel that this sprint has been going pretty well. Everyone is continuing to get along well and communicate between each other. I've done quite a lot of cards, more than my producer has been able to provide me with at the moment! I find it difficult to give people criticism, as I believe I've mentioned before, so I'm still learning how to do that and make sure I am doing so in a constructive way without accidentally being rude. I don't think I have had any issues with that, but it is an anxiety of mine. I look forward to continuing progress on bringing my idea to life and filling this old house with all its pieces and secrets.