Assignment - Using UV Textures

Since I've done a lot of UV texturing already, I went ahead and experimented with creating a mirror texture using VideoTextures. The mirror plane is UV unwrapped and has a texture applied, you just don't see it in game. Followed this tut: http://www.tutorialsforblender3d.com/Game_Engine/VideoTexture/VideoTexture_Mirror_1.html

Processing + Blender

Here's an interesting thing: Processing and Blender, used together to make music affect objects in the Blender game engine. Um, can anyone say perfect? This person figured it out and kindly made his source code available along with a tutorial here. I simply implemented it in our game. Right now it's pretty basic, just acting on an object's scale on different axes, but sophistication will come with time. The only real drawback to this is that it's not portable--meaning, if someone plays our game as an executable, because they won't necessarily have Precessing installed or have the particular sketch that is required, it will not work. Maybe one of our great programmers can figure out how to "embed" this capability? Hmm....anyway, a demo!

"Bioluminescence" Test Level

Just a crude test for a "bioluminescent" type environment. I was pretty pleased with the way this is coming along, especially considering that the first thing I tried worked pretty damn well. (I love it when Blender cooperates.) So, just a quick vid of our character stand-in negotiating a "living" terrain. Effect is accomplished with clever (if I do say so myself : ) lighting and the right UV texture. Texture started out as this, from www.cgtextures.com, which is an awesome site for high quality, free textures.

I'd like to know if the effect comes off to you guys...in other words, does it really look like the terrain lights up in response to the character (or am I just fooling myself)...if you have any suggestions to make it better...so please post!

A Growing Vine

Here's a little animation of a vine growing along a bezier curve. I made this following this tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-wF4Nqne1I.

Another Toy!

Using the arrow keys to navigate and the spacebar to fly, the player drives the little light creature around gathering the balls that are arrayed above it.

I used IPO curves to animate the light/flame as a substitute for particles, since particles can't be used in the Game Engine. Also used logic blocks to end the spheres when the player contacts them. The sound track is a song from our team's very own Sarah Spencer!

Try to collect them all before the song ends!

EDIT 2/13/2010:

It seems like some more explanation of how I made my game is in order. The "flame" is an animation made using IPO curves following this series of tutorials. The animation itself is not affected by the spheres that the player is meant to capture. However, the spheres have a "near" sensor for the property of "man" which is attached to an "edit object" actuator set to "end object".

This makes them into a "pickup" which can later be set to be counted as the player collects them. They are also set to "no collision" so that the flame can go through the sphere. This effect can also be achieved by making the spheres an "actor" and a "ghost", but I don't like the "ghost" modifier because I can't figure out how to make it a ghost to the player but not the plane it rests on (meaning it falls through the ground).

The flame emitter is parented to a cone, which has the property of "man" and is set to invisible so only the flame is seen.

So in reality, the cone is what interacts with and "ends" the spheres, but the flame is what the player sees. I did it this way because the flame emitter is picky about what logic bricks are applied to it ( I suspect this is another example of animation reacting in an odd way within the GE) and because I can apply a material to the cone (but not the emitter, which is an empty)--making it possible to later use a touch sensor (which only detects materials) on "pickups" or other game elements if I need to. (No, I'm not sure why I would need to use a touch sensor and not a near sensor, but I try to use things in a way that keeps my options open later down the line--I find it prevents many moments of hair-pulling).

Anyhow, I hope this helps to clarify how my little game was made and on to the next challenge!

Assignment - Making a Toy

For this little game, you move the "character" with the arrow keys, jump with the space bar and each ball plays a piece of music when you hit it. The objective is to hit spheres that sound interesting/good when played together. Be careful though! Hit them too hard and they'll disappear over the edge.

Small spheres play more melodic pieces and are trickier to hit. Medium spheres are more percussive. Larger spheres play more "accent"-like pieces.

I learned how to make a simple 3rd person camera with this assignment & how to incorporate sound and music into the game engine, both of which will be really important to my team's final game.

First Test Render for a Character Skin + World!