CAGD 470 - Sprint 3

  CAGD 470 - Sprint 3

Production Process

This sprint functioned somewhat similarly to the previous sprint. We were one point ahead of last sprint in terms of completion. However, I may have over assigned cards this sprint. We had a completion rate of 68% of total cards assigned. I'd much rather this percentage be closer to 80%-90% if not 100%. I am still very proud of my team for all the work we were able to get in. 

As far as communication went, I feel as though this was as open and honest as we've ever been with each other in regards to feedback and challenging ideas. There were numerous occasions where we discussed whether or not to have certain features as well as how to describe certain items in the GDD. These discussions were lengthy, but did not devolve into anything argumentative. Rather, we were able to have a civil discussion about each topic. I'm also very glad that people feel comfortable reaching out to Jeden and I for advice or feedback. This makes things go quicker as I'm fairly prompt at giving direction to other team members.

Issues/Problems/Solutions

One of the issues we ran into was the issue was miscommunication with cards. Some of the ones regarding UI were worded a bit vaguely. To resolve this, and fix another issue of developing the backlog, I have started to rework the entire backlog. I'll be creating roughly 200-250 cards for our team. These have much more in-depth descriptions and are up-to-date with the game's design. This way it will prevent team members from having to ask us for clarification or worse do something not being requested.

There's also the issue of over-assigning cards at the start of the sprint. To prevent this I've organized next sprint with around 30 less cards overall. This means people should have roughly 5 less cards per person. I believe with the pace we're at, we can finish the game a little ahead of time. This would be ideal for us to finish around the end of Sprint 6 since Sprint 7 will be majorly bug-fixing and polishing art.

Sprint Kickoff

I believe our team bit off a bit more than they could chew at the beginning of this Sprint. People agreed to take on more work than they could feasibly complete. I've adjusted our points this upcoming sprint to create a far more reasonable goal for each person.

Work Completed

I worked a lot with team members in regards to helping clarify their duties. I checked and verified cards much more intensively this sprint. A lot of my work outside of VFX and low-poly modeling was doing work either with the designer or verifying the integrity and design of a ton of different submissions. I am not complaining as this means my team has been very productive.

VFX Showcase

As far as my work outside of being a producer, I was able to finish all the elemental projectile VFX as well as the little sprites that float around a wand. I made a few more sprite sheets and projectiles to use on the other elements. The creation of these was pretty straightforward as I would either draw it myself using the standard brush or would get an image from a free use site and trace it. Implementing these is pretty easy as you can simply set it to 2D and UI, set mode to multiple, and change the UV mode to flipbook in the VFX graph. You also have to add a tex index in the initial spawn menu and set it to the number of sprites you have in an array.

Most of the projectiles follow a similar pattern of having an outer orb that's darker with a brighter inner orb that pulsates. They also have a trail of particles flying out from behind them, following the velocity of the orbs. The wand VFX usually circle around the head of the staff and are meant to be subtle to not distract from the actual projectiles. I experimented using different particles, such as an arc for the wind projectile, but it blended in far too much with the rest of the environment. Also, having them be orbs felt better for consistency sake. I may revisit these later if I have the opportunity.

As for modeling this sprint, I made four variations of vegetation that will populate the scene. These still need to be textured, but are already UVd. I mostly used cylinders and turned the segments down in order to achieve a low poly look. I'd usually model one "leaf" and then duplicate it and resize it from there. For the vines, I used many CV curves and used the extrude deformer to get the vine structure.

Low-Poly Foliage Models and UVs

Work Incomplete

I had two cards left in Progress and Assigned. The first is to texture the foliage which I didn't have the chance to get to. Another thing left in assigned is to remodel the walls we're using for floor 1. As they are now, they are very repetitive and you can see the sides of the model in-game. We want to be able to cull the back of it, so I will be adding a back to the walls.

Current Work

I'm currently working on getting the foliage from last sprint textured as well as remaking the walls with their backs intact and with much less noticeable repetition.