Angela Buchanan, Week 2 PPJ, Blog Post 2, GMAP 378

Interface, 2D art, Status Report

This week I focused on getting some of the interface elements up to date, with the biggest task being the UFO dash. Because the UFO is visible at all times, I felt it was important to put a lot effort into creating it. 

I took advice suggested in class. Instead of texturing the 3D asset, I made a new 2D vector asset that has two screens. I agree that it does make it easier for the viewer to grasp player 1 and player 2 instructions.

I also made the time bar. Because the UFO abduction suggestion had popularity, I scrapped the battery idea and implemented abduction instead. 

The only issue I ran into this week was with the UFO dash. I underestimated the amount of time needed to recreate the UFO from scratch. Originally, I wanted to have the slot machine vector complete and animated, but the time invested into the UFO dash prevented me from completing that task.

Positive Content   

- Got a good amount of work done

- Took advice from class and made a UFO dash with split screens to make it easier to understand player roles

Negative Content

- UFO dash took longer expected, preventing me from finishing everything I set out to do

- Slot machine will have to be completed later than planned

Work and hours

UFO dash (7 hr)

- after thinking over what I could do with UFO dash, I settled on redesigning it in 2D. Anything that allows the user to grasp instructions quicker is worth the time and effort. Duel screens also look rad on a UFO dash.

And I felt that texturing the 3D UFO would take roughly the same amount of time anyways (since I'm more familiar with 2D than 3D)

Working from scratch also allowed me to add a stronger carnival influence to the UFO's design.

Time bar (1 hr)

- I modified some previous assets to make a minimalist alien abduction time bar. The bar will be used to allow the player to quickly grasp visually how much time they have left.

I added an effect to make it look as though the graphic is being projected onto the UFO window.

slot machine update (.5 hr) 

-Nothing major was changed aesthetically to the slot machine. I mostly spent my time adapting the asset I made for the mock-up for in-game usage.

I just need to add something to the last slot to indicate that is a boss game selection opposed to a normal one.

I also plan on adding a simple animation to the handle.

Total Hours: 8.5 hrs