Project Oriana

UPDATE: The Menus Are Straight Fire

Let me just say that it has been a great time to be working on Project Oriana and have the name Sydney. Because it has been. You may or not be aware that I am the one in charge of all of the menus for the game. And man, oh man have they been an undertaking of epic proportion. After weeks and weeks of struggling and making little progress, all of the little pieces and scripts are coming together into a beautiful set of menus that I am genuinely so proud of. There are floating elements, there are rotations, there are particle systems, there are smooth transitions. These menus are straight fire. I’m so hyped and I wanted to post here while this fire is still running through my veins. So, this is me trying to communicate my enthusiasm for the work being done on the menus and how things are coming together. I’m seriously so hyped and I needed to share with the world. That’s all for now, just know that things are coming together and it was the breathe of fresh air that I needed from this project.

Sydney

Menu Nightmare

Having a quick break from some intense coding to bring you an update about how my tasks are going lately: To be honest, I don’t know if I have ever been so frustrated as a programmer as I have been since I started working on the main menu and branching menus. The animations for the main menu look phenomenal. Seriously, they really look fantastic for a first pass through the assets and a first attempt on my part at creating a menu. But then there is the settings menu. And the transition to it. I have spent the longest time trying to figure out how the script is perfectly capable of loading the main menu, but refuses to do the transition to the options menu. So that is what this week has been for me, frustration and staring at the same bit of code for hours and hours on end. I guess there is something to be said for perseverance, right? I’m still pushing through, but know there is progress being made and that is how I have been spending my time this past week.

Sydney

Painting a World full of color

After working on the original thumbnails, I switched over to going into more detail, and refining the color. It’s another fun process, figuring out which colors and ideas will work when blown up and enlarged. Some of the thumbnails, while fun, won’t work or are unreadable and so need a complete overhaul while still trying to keep the same feel. We mostly focused on the earlier levels since that is what we are working on right now, but I still worked on some of the ones I was more excited about. It may have slipped into more of my free time, but it’s great when you like what you’re working on so much you keep pushing it when you don’t have too.

I also left notes on some of these, so the programmers would know what I was imagining, or how certain things might move. Or just stupid little thoughts that made me laugh, so obviously I needed to share them.

This woods concept is one that did get an overhaul, originally the lightning was more of a dancer. While I still adore the idea, it wasn’t coming across clear, so we made it be less of the focus, more of a background element.

This sea one is probably my favorite of all of them. The color palette is much more limited and somber than most of the other ones, but it is so chill. I tried to get a haunting feel, like are those just statues? Are they angels or guardians? Are they out to hurt us? Who knows! I wanted it to also come across a bit unsettling with the choppy waves an just the silhouettes.

Hello World! -Tom

Hello World!

My name is Tom Edwards and I am a coder and animator for the Project Oriana video game! I’m not gonna say much on this post but I do want to say a little about what I will be doing on the team. My part of the project will be animating Oriana which I’m super pumped about!! In addition, you will find me in front of the computer screen writing code to bring our game to life within Unity!

Here’s a snap shot of a draft of the basic level design for the first room that I am working on! Get Pumped!

Introducing Myself, Sydney

Hello everyone!

I just wanted to take this chance to introduce myself as the newest member of the Project Oriana team. My name is Sydney and I have just joined the project, so I am excited to dive right into the thick of things. My role on the project will be focused almost entirely on the coding side of things. I wouldn’t necessarily consider myself an adept gamer, so my current task has been to acquaint myself with the kind of game we are going to be creating. As in, my current task has been to play video games. Kind of a neat thing to be assigned to do if you ask me. I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable with the style that we are hoping to create, so I am looking forward to getting started on coding and developing Project Oriana. I guess that’s all for now, I will keep updating with my progress of knowledge as I am slowing converted into the gamer I’ve always secretly hoped to be.

Sydney

THE LOGO IS HERE! THE LOGO IS HERE!

The real question is do I need to watermark our logo am I right? No? moving on.

I like drawing things out in micronpen, so while we were still in the searching phase I did this to try and futz out what we liked. There’s even one I spelled wrong. The fun thing about pen is if you make a little mistake you either have to accept it or try to fix it, so c’est la vie, la vie.

We ended up liking one that’s not extremely ornate, but keeps dainty line quality and swirls. I’m all about those swirls. Even the photoshop brush I used has more jitter to it, trying to make it look more hand drawn and less computer perfect. Personally, I’m very happy with the one we settled with. I thought it was one of the stronger designs from the beginning, and it just progressed wonderfully

I think we’re all feeling more like the left shark than the right shark, this week.

3D Clothing Test

Thomas was charged with figuring out the best approach for tackling clothing in 3D. We ended up settling on using nCloth due to our limited budget. There were some mishaps along the way of course. Here are some tests that were made as we tried to figure out how to properly work with nCloth and the toon lines.

Developing a Character, Part 6

Well everyone, here she is! This is the final concept of the Oriana you will come to know and love through this journey of design and production till the game releases.

We wanted her to be perfect for this moment which is why we have so many steps involved in her process. But we are all really excited with how well she turned out and we can’t wait to start the spriting system!

This stage was primarily to fine tune the way her body is shaped and to double check all proportions and range of motion. It was also the kick off of the 3D modeling team. Their team received the side and front views of Ori so that they could shape the mesh exactly the way I have it laid out in the image. The five way turn around, however, is for the 2D animation team. It gives them the whole picture to figure out what goes where at any given time. I guess you could say it’s for tracking purposes.

I really hope you love the way this has turned out. It’s been a joy to work on! Keep up with our weapon and color designs throughout the next few weeks!

The Color Process

We wanted to lean heavily on color, with early levels being dark, mysterious, purple, haunting and creepy. Very spoopy, overall. And then as the game goes on it gets warmer and happier, Ori starts taking control of her world and molding it to her design. The last one is hard to read, and more a sketch note to myself than an actual color key or color plot.

I really thought the idea of the middle being monochromatic was striking. The way the lighting goes from dark, intense low key to warm and high key and victorious is fabulous, but I was digging the thought that all the color just faded away, all the saturation is gone. And then she starts building it back up, bit by bit. Some of my personal favorites are in the middle, I already love grey though so I may be a bit biased. Recently I’ve been making them bigger and pulling out details, which has been super fun. More on that later!

(Also how about 1989? Am I the only one jamming out to that on repeat? Just me? Okay…)

3d Living Line Test

One of the aesthetic features we’ve chosen for Project Oriana is what we call a “living line.” As previously mentioned, we will be using a thick and uneven toon line around our characters and environment. We will be using this line to help emphasize movement. This can be seen in the video game, Okami, and the short film, Shanghai Batman. These are some early line and streak tests that Kyle Murray conducted as we try and look at different possibilities on how to achieve this look.