Development Blog

Week 1 Progress (3/17-3/23)

During the first we mainly brainstormed and finalized some major decisions regarding game development. All members of the team had two meetings in which we discussed and completed our both tech and art assets lists, brainstormed a list of pre-battle skills and in-game power-ups, and decided our game controls/rules/mechanics.

Week 2 Progress (3/24-3/30)

This week, the tech team worked on the menus, power ups, cameras, and the game flow. Brittany worked on implementing menu UI. Having a color gradient is a challenge, however we will try custom materials or vector art. Jason created the foundation for using power ups, and will add the specific powers next week. Zesh created the camera setup, as well as the starting minigame to determine turn order and start the actual gameplay. Lastly, Jade tested using sequences to map object spawning to the songs, as the method using timers had unpredictable lag, and worked on the function for checking the accuracy of hits.

The art team started on all of the different types of assets this week. Mason fully modeled Beat-Head, one of our main characters, and is preparing for texturing and rigging. Ryker greyboxed our level with a basic object modeled for all of the props. The biggest challenges with the greybox were the buildings and the support beams. The buildings were a bit of an “amorphous” task, as they are the biggest props in the scene, and need sufficient detail without being repetitive. The support beams were difficult because of how they connect to each other. While modeling them on a perfect 1-to-1 scale from reality is possible, we are trying to complete them faster than that, while retaining their realism. Lastly, Mia created solid placeholder concept art/buttons for all of our menu UI. She also created the template for texture resolution and began to work on the modeling of the companion character.

The team also collaborated with a couple of people from various music-based clubs on campus to start creating some songs for the game. The vocaloid presets have been created, and we have a variety of original songs and covers in the pipeline. 

Week 3 Progress (3/31-4/6)

This week, Brittany worked on the general structure of the project. She created the animation sequence transition for the camera from the main menu area to the stage, created the player and character classes and their associated variable storage. Jason worked on the power-ups. He created and implemented each power-up, as well as the algorithm to give them to the player. Zesh worked on the management of the classes. He implemented the GameState and CameraManager, as well as the indexing for all menus and partial implementation of the UI navigation. Jade worked on the gameplay. She created the system for getting player input to register with the NoteSpawner actor (the actor that spawns notes based on the song's level sequence) and hit notes. 

This week, Mason worked on Beat-Head and the powerups. He created the morph targets and rigging mesh for Beat-Head, who now has 3 color variants. He also textured and animated 4 of the 5 power-ups, as well as the Alembic objects on Beat-Head and the disco ball. Ryker worked on environmental modeling. He modeled and unwrapped more detailed assets of the greybox placeholders, as well as the final power-up. Mia worked on the control rig for Beat-Head. She used the IK system in Maya, and also captured animation data for the idle, up, down, front, and back animations to be re-targeted to the IK rig. 

Week 4 Progress (4/7-4/13)

This week Jason fully implemented the power up system including the actual functionality of the power-ups, using the power-ups and having them spawn above the player’s heads. Additionally, he created an in game health bar and combo meter which changes color as the players get higher combos. Brittany worked on adjusting the camera animation and proper reset functionality for after each match. Jade worked on the implementation of the power-ups that related to the note spawner and displayed the hit accuracy. She also connected all of the logic of the note spawner to the rest of the game allowing the game to properly function. She also fixed multiple bugs that were only appearing during the build process. Zesh implemented functionality for UI keyboard navigation for both players and storing the player’s values using these controls.

This week, Mason worked on textures and assembling the scene for our alpha build. He textured objects in Substance and built the “final” stage scene. He also completed the Bunny Girl character block-out. Ryker worked on the environment. He gave the environment models simple unwraps and textures for the alpha build, then started working on them in more detail for the beta. Mia worked on the animations for Beat-Head.

Week 5 Progress (4/14-4/20)

This week, Jade implemented the feedback from playtesting. She switched the arrows, reduced audio lag for Echo, and created a calibration system for notes. Jason worked in various different areas. He implemented sound effects and worked on a variety of bug fixes. Zesh worked on the UI. He straightened out the code so the menu works smoothly, and made the UI more personable. Lastly, Brittany worked on player interaction. She created the instructions menu and all of the documentation. 

This week, Mason and Mia worked together on the animations for the dancers. They imported the skeletal meshes with removed animation data to get static t-pose meshes. Then, they duplicated the bodies to replace the old A poses and applied the heads. Ryker worked on texturing. All of the objects have been unwrapped, and a third of them have been textured. 

Week 6 Progress (4/21-4/27)

This week, Jason added the polishing touches for the game. He added sound effects for when the player is hit and power-up sounds, and added power-up indicators and a pause button to the UI. Jade worked on the calibration for the health. She made it so the game ends when a player is at 0 health, switched the text renderer text to be UI, and added damage for combos. Brittany worked on the player experience at the start of the game. She fixed a bug in the camera animations that caused there to be a camera jump, and scaled and aligned the microphones with the player characters. Zesh worked on the menus. He fixed navigation for the instructions, created the pause menu, added an option menu, and added the skill descriptions. 

This week, Mia worked on the Bunny Girl. She worked to fix issues within the animation pipeline, exported all of the animations for implementation in Unreal, and Rigged/Polypainted BunnyGirl. Mason worked on the character pipeline. He unwrapped and textured the Bunny Girl model, and imported the meshes in Max to prepare them for rigging. He also animated the lights and added a light function for the disco ball. He also helped fix issues with the animations not matching the beat head skeletal mesh hierarchy. Ryker worked on texturing. He finished texturing all of the environmental models in Substance, preparing them all for importation into Unreal.

Week 7 Progress (4/28-5/01)

This week, Jason implemened the animations for beat head and bunny girl, the credits page, implemented bunny girl into the game and particle effects for damage and heal. Jade implemented persistent variables for health and volume, changed game health and volume based on options input, made instructions show on first game opening, helped fix the animation freezing bug, and mapped a third song. Brittany added the overlays and particle effects into the game so that the fire particles are only triggered during the camera animations to save resources and also so that the different powerups have overlays, she also added the how to play page on win conditions and damage. Zesh hooked up the credits page with navigation working, implemented the way that the close up character meshes will change based on the button that the player is hovering on, and then he made a splash screen that will show up at the beginning of the game. 

This week, Mia fixed bunny girl’s rig, skinned the model to fix weird deformations, and did additional cleanup for animations. Mason perfected the lights, creating spotlights that only shine after zooming in, made particle effects for damage and healing, as well as material overlays for each of the long lasting powerups, finally he edited keyframes of beat heads animations in engine and retargeted them to bunny girl. Ryker fixed the broken models and wrote our play-testing report.