Week 11: Home Stretch in the [setting] Sun

Hello, everyone, and welcome to a glamorous new look for the game! This time, rather than spend another week or two poring over what I likely cannot fix in the time I have left (facial animations), I have invested more effort into polishing the remaining visuals of the game, along with taking in beta testers’ feedback for analysis! 

II. Easier on the Eyes

Near the beginning of the week, I had already been approached by a beta tester with critiques of certain spotty areas in my character models—bits of skin peering through Kai’s metal handguards, Vixen’s undershirt being completely rigid and constantly clipping through his neck, etc. Yet another series of model tweaks and reimports later, it was now time to churn out more backgrounds! 

Showcased below is the newly incorporated background for the beginning tutorial scenes and the following Scene 3 of the game:

I know you must all be rather dismayed to find that I will not end up conquering the elusive Tier 2 of my project by the time final presentations roll around, but Cindy and I had both agreed it would be the wiser choice to smooth out and embellish what visuals we already had rather than grasp at visuals that seemed impossibly out of reach. (From what research I’ve done on the topic, however, the most likely explanation for my unsuccessful attempts at facial animation is that the simple rig I currently have for the face is far from adequate to accommodate the more complex, subtle movements I captured.) 

Thus, our final product for the presentations is complete and raring to go!

II. A Humbling Journey

As mentioned earlier, beta testing has officially begun—and with it, a stream of critique. Our testers’ remarks are invaluable, of course; they’re precisely what both Cindy and I will be basing our results and analysis off of, as the success of our project is entirely determined through the quality of player experience. We did tell our beta testers not to hold back in the honesty of their comments, resulting in such remarks as “Their hands seem unrealistically stiff and their movement is slightly awkward but they get the emotion across.”

From here on out, it’s just a matter of gathering as much critique as we possibly can before spinning it all into analysis in time for the big presentation. Onwards!