Cycles 1 (Sara)
Posted: March 25, 2021 Filed under: Assignments, Sara C Leave a comment »Intent
For the remainder of the term, Alex has given us free rein to explore any hardware or software we so choose in order to create an experiential media system of our very own. I’m a lifelong gamer who normally can’t abide motion controls (It’s like those Reese’s commercials: “You got your motion controls in my video game!”), but I’m also desperately curious about the ways in which we can make VR experiences more immersive. As a result, my goal for the next month is to test Leap Motion functionality by swapping out conventional video game controls for hand gestures. Problem 1: I don’t have a VR headset at the moment upon which to test. Problem 2:
I’ve never made a video game.
I decided I’d hop, skip, and jump over Problem 1 entirely and simply focus on a desktop-based, 3D game experience for the duration of this project. As for Problem 2? Well, I did what most any human in the world looking to acquire a new skill would do in the present day—I started browsing YouTube tutorials. I figured I’d run a crash course in rookie game dev before tackling my own Leap-Motion-Meets-Godot prototype. One week and an eight-part video series later:
Et voilà, I made…someone else’s video game.
Difficulties
I mentioned to Alex that this achievement feels hollow. The BornCG channel is truly a monument to patient, thorough software skills instruction. I didn’t run into any significant difficulties while following this series because the teacher (who is an actual high school programming teacher, I believe) was so diligent in holding my hand the entire time. But I also completed the software equivalent of a Paint By Numbers picture. Because of that, I don’t feel true ownership of this project. Moving forward, I know I need to veer off the well-trodden, well-lit path and stumble around in the dark woods. It’ll be messy, yes. But it’ll at least be my mess.
Accomplishments
All of that being said, I will say there were a couple of lightbulb moments where I deviated from the script the tutorial instructor laid out before us. A commenter pointed out that the texture for the provided block asset was much larger than it needed to be, which resulted in slower game load times. I couldn’t quite parse the commenter’s proposed solution, so I hopped over into Photoshop and downscaled the texture maps in there and reapplied them in Blender. (Woo!) Later, someone else in the comments lamented that the built-in block randomization feature in Godot was buggy and prone to file size bloat, so I meticulously read, re-read, and re-re-read their solution for manually introducing block variety. (Huzzah!) Similarly, another commenter had a more straightforward solution to coin rotation transforms that didn’t include adding scores of empty objects; it took some time, but I successfully followed that little side trail as well. (아싸!)
Finally, like a teacher who shows you how to solve example problems before leaving you to your own devices, the instructor ended the series with the game only three quarters complete. I wanted to push it over the finish line, so using the skills I’d accrued, I populated the scene with additional enemies and coins to bring it wholly to life. I gotta say, while it may not feel like “my” game, I sure am proud of that low-poly assortment of randomized blocks, those spinning coins, and those gnarly, extra enemies.
Now, on to the next one!
(Link to video of completed game)