Wednesday, November 12th

Wednesday Class Hours: 10:05 – 1:45
Mr. Cronin

Notes

Early release Wednesday. Callbacks:
- Isaac to Public Issues @ 12:15
- Jayden to Algebra 2 @ 12:15
- Quang to Algebra 2 @ 12:15
- Shelby to English @ 1pm
SLC Meeting today at lunch for Quang and Bourdeau.
The Pre Tech 2 students will be coming in during your next 4 THURSDAY English classes to get some hands on practice and exposure to what we do in GAWD. More on this tomorrow.

10:05 Attendance and Article

10:10 Midweek Morning Meetings

Wednesday’s we will have our Midweek Morning Meetings.

You and I will meet 1:1 and we can:

See what you are missing for assignments
Go over the previous weeks T&E grades
Go over anything you are pretty confused about so I can review

When not meeting with me – I want you working on Production.

10:50 Morning Break (10 minutes)

11:00 GAWD Working Game / Ground Level 1

Over Quarter 2 we are going to be working on a multi-level game.

Here is what we are going to have in broad strokes:

Main Menu
Ground Level 1 – This weeks focus – think the picture above.
Sky Level 2 (Sky based level “higher” than level 1) – we can see it from Level 1 but won’t be able to access it until we get a certain number of collectables.
Success Screen – we won
Game Over Screen – we lost
Something to make us lose – time, enemy, something.

This week we are going to work on Level 1.

Level 1 requirements

This week you are going to build the foundation to your game. It can be landscape based, or urban based (like above).

Requirements:

Base level
Collectable (non interactive)

I strongly recommend using modular construction. Build components of your world and put it together in Unreal.

For example if you are going to build a Castle level in a field for your Level 1, build the towers separate from the walls, separate from the drawbridge, and export/import them. Then in Unreal put the pieces together like Legos. This allows you to reuse assets, reposition elements as needs arise. If you export an entire structure (as above) as a single FBX, it is “locked in” and you don’t have flexibility and will be going back into Blender over and over.

And for the first time ever – we ARE going to allow downloaded assets with some caveats…

The first caveat – straight from JoAnn Patel from Champlain College – she is the Program Director and Professor for Game Art and Animation:

And to be clear – when someone is applying to the Game Art program at Champlain College, we do not want them to include AI or downloaded art. We only want to see art they have actually created.

She literally wrote this in an email 2 days ago. It’s still in my inbox.

Another caveat is that if you download your assets, we are going to expect an amazing level. You are just downloading individual assets and creating the world, and that has skill and takes effort, but it has to be WAY more than if you actually created your OWN art.

Really think about what area of post secondary education you would like to go into, and what would be the best use of your time. Are you looking to be a Gave Dev? Then maybe download assets. Are you looking to be more of a Game Artist? Then create your assets.

Regardless, make sure you are using your human reference for scale. Always be testing for scale! Make sure the objects make sense together that you combine to make your world.

Some options to get you thinking:

Vermont Field / Trees / Fence with a collectable that is a leaf. Level 2 could be a floating island?
Church Street with a collectable that is snowflake. Level 2 could be inside the buildings.
Broken down city with health pack collectable. Level 2 could be the tower that is … towering above the broken down city.
Grocery Store with microwave burrito collectable. Level 2 could be Game Stop.
High school cafeteria with sun chips collectable. Level 2 is the gymnasium.
Space Station / Sci fi with Alien power source collectable. Level 2 is the next level of the Space Station, or another floating structure outside the observation window.
Flower garden where you are collecting Ladybugs. Level 2 is the greenhouse.

Some GAWD examples from last year to get you thinking:

This can be 100% realistic, 100% silly and meme based, up to you. Just remember that we aren’t trashing the idea after a week or two. Assume you are working on this until end of January here and there. Sometimes fart jokes get old quick…

I will also accept 1st Person or Third person – that is up to you.

Create a 30 second OBS recording that demonstrates your Level 1. Again the collectables don’t need to function yet, but they should be modeled and in-game.

If you want to be eligible for the “A”, we don’t want to see the OBS interface at the start or end of your file.

That was a lot of stuff to go over.

TO START:

Create a new Unreal Project with your working Game Title. This is beyond the Weekly Projects we build, just for your specific game work, not for little learning projects. You will use this week by week.
Save often.
Save your final screen recording as lastNameLevel_1.mp4.

11:35 Lunch

No food in the room / eat in the Cafe.
You are welcome to return to the room when you have finished eating and work / hang out.

12:05 Attendance and Article

12:10 Afternoon Practice & Production

Working Game / Ground Level 1

lastNameLevel_1.mp4

DH11: 1PT Architectural Design

lastNameDH_11.jpg

Week 11 Agency

lastNameAgency_1.jpg through lastNameAgency_3.jpg

12:40 A Gentleman in Moscow

A Gentleman in Moscow is a reader’s dream — a wonder-full, nuanced story full of wit, insight, and imagination.

Read along with Mr. Cronin. Improve literacy, word decoding, enjoy a nice story, and unplug from the world.

1:00 Afternoon Break (15 minutes)

1:15 Afternoon Practice & Production

Only 5 minutes as it’s Wednesday – Dailies at 1:20!

1:20 Dailies

1:25 “19 Minutes”

Every day in GAWD will end with “19 Minutes” of silent reading. Closing down our day with silent reading provides many benefits:

Improve Literacy Skills / Reading Stamina
Create space for a small reading meditation where we can disconnect from the world and get lost in a story
Unplug

At the end I will 3 students and ask for a 1 sentence explanation of what happened.