Just tinkering with capturing video. In gooder news I'm now able to put much more time into this project. Less tinkering, more explosions!

Dear Journal

Today I gave AI the ability to "follow" or react to player location. Now it can mostly operate on it's own. Not to much more before I can sit down on some art assets.

AI, all A, no I

Building artificial intelligence is mind numbing. I took my mech prefab and built an AI run version as of course you always need robots shooting at you, simple science. I've slowly figured out how to create basic awareness. The object is able to track the relative position and range of the player from it, including applying the vertical angle to it's aiming system.

So, now it's able to turn to face and track you. If it were a turret my job would be done minus it shooting at you. Just needs to be able to scan it's surroundings well enough for navigation and be giving movement driving logic.

So...turret AI is doing great.

Mounting!

Okay, my next big mini-project is shooting. I'm showing this now because shooting is so much more interesting than anything else. This clip shows off vertical aiming and mounting/dismounting working as intended! Mostly. Complete with animations...which will probably be tweaked later. (on a minor note, yes the video is for some reason sped up).

Nothing to see here

Well not enough anyway. I've been trying to learn enough Javascript to build a tech demo and over the last week have been working on a plat-former with functional vehicles. One of many pieces to the puzzle.

Hurry up and wait

Today I have decided to set this up for actual use as so far I haven't really had any reason. Incidentally it will almost be used for the actual purpose I was originally intending to use it for. This will function is a sort of development record for interactive media. Commonly referred to a a game! Right now I'm working towards a BA degree in Graphic Design, though many of the programs taught in the program are useful for making media assets for lots of things so I thought it would be interesting to as a Graphic Artist build a game instead. If I can sell it, great, if it's just good for a portfolio piece I'm also not complaining.

This requires me to figure out one small hurdle to making an interactive product. An engine, which while an artist a code monkey I am not so this should be interesting to attempt. The goal is a 2.5D single level game with at least the basic functionality enabled. For this experiment I will be using Unity. I like Unreal but having access to more platforms for now is better. Unity also features a web player plugin and eventually export directly to flash, meaning I can post bits and pieces while I'm at it. So far I've figured out how to bring assets into the engine and how their animation is setup. Next step is getting them to be playable and attach look controllers to said assets. Also animate them...might look nicer. Finally after all that here's a snapshot off a cell phone of one of those assets (in a Unity demo project). That's not even a good picture off a good system but it gets the point across.

What the...

I forgot this even existed!