Week 1: And They're Off!

Hello everybody! Welcome to week 1 of production for Red Sun. I expect that everyone here already knows what's going on but for those of you who don't here's the summary. Red Sun is a capstone project being built by students of Sheridan College here in the great white north, a.k.a. Canada.

We're now a week into the trenches and it's time we took a look at what's already been done and what we have to look forward to.

Starting with the art team. First up is animation. Our resident animator has been working hard at getting Bo's walk/run cycle to look right. This stuff isn't easy as much of the smaller details can really throw off the way it looks but it's going strong and we're well on our way to a very nice looking shepherd. Looking forward there are some concerns about getting other animation sequences just right since it's really hard to turn our wolves into something that has the right feel.

Next up, non-animated art assets. There's a ton of concept art going around the group right now, and you can see why some of it might be hard to translate into real game art. Some of it was done before we got this far in since a whole bunch of pre-production happened during the school semester. These pieces are some of the few things that are getting carried forward. Some of these pieces are really wonderful and some are still getting worked on. We recently saw the Huntsman finished but he's not read for here yet. You'll see plenty of him in the near future.

Also in the art department, we've got some of the background art getting started. Hopefully by next week we'll have some menu backgrounds and maybe, no promises though, some level backgrounds to share with you. Parallax backgrounds can sometimes cause weird issues, especially in 2D games. Since it isn't actually 3D and we're trying to simulate what they would look like in a real 3D environment we have to cheat a little bit. Unfortunately this can cause problems in some cases so it will take a bit of work to get things looking right. Also a concern is Bo's primary movement in the game is upwards and downwards. If you're not familiar with the game, it's going to be a dream-like city-scape. She'll be travelling up and down buildings which stops us from tiling the background the way you could in a side-to-side forest or hill environment.

Music. This isn't something that we are really going to have much of until significantly later in the project. Sensing a theme here? Early on in the development there's a lot of stuff for the programmers to do and the artists are really just getting things rolling so they can get more fancy things and add touch ups to existing assets. That's not to say they aren't working hard, but the fancy stuff that we get to show off comes much later. That said, music falls under the same category. We've had some trouble getting musicians so far. Initially there were two of them that were going to be working with us but they aren't anymore. They got better, and in some cases paying, opportunities. Hopefully we can find someone (or someones) to take their place. If we're really lucky we might have some help finding sound techs through the school.

Now we get to move onto the meaty stuff. The programmers have been very hard at work so far getting a working environment for us. We're using unity, which makes things easier for the designers, and already have a level that can be played through. No framework outside of it but it's an art-less level that has all the things we want in it so far. It's got elevators, switches, buttons, sheep, doors, and a fair bit of death. Working hazards in the level this early really helps get this thing off the ground. We haven't put this into the context of the rest of the game yet but there is concern it might be a bit too easy and that we might have to go back and change things, but that's a process for later in the development cycle and I know I can't wait to test it myself.

Behind the scenes the programmers have also been working on the Wolf AI, more room components, and some basic game infrastructure. You can expect some neat things like gears, conveyor belts, and wolves in the future. Nothing ready to show there yet but from the things I've seen it's looking pretty sweet for it being this early. I expect the momentum to carry on into the summer months.

Things are off to a great start. Sometimes I find it hard to make work for myself but the rest of the team is very hard at work making sure that things are working and look pretty.