Final Spread

Reflection Essay

I wanted to really get the least important done after all the important stuff was done, but it was just not happening. I think I've lost my creativity...my touch. Or something, I don't feel as inspired anymore and it really shows in my level, at least in some parts of it, some other parts I had fun doing like making the puzzles, texturing the pillars in the Crimson room. Some things were fun, others were just a headache. But I keep moving forward seeing if I can push myself to my limits, but I fear the things that are going wrong are just simple fixes that I cant see. I really feel I can do better.

I've gotten lots of great feedback from my peers. Mostly good things that they liked, some of the things that they wanted me to fix I either wasn't too sure how or I just didn't want to because it was a part of how I wanted it to look. For example, the Black Room (first room you start out in) a few said that it was too dark, but that is why its called the Black Room, I wanted the player to start out in a dark space and see if they can find their way out with the small amount of light leading the way. I forgot to put the window light in the room so that may be what it needs. I now know how to apply a window light easy without actual lights.

I fixed the collision problem so hopefully it all works out well. I guess I was having some issues with my Indigo Room boxes, where the collision would be on the bottom of the box but not all the way around. It was kind of annoying but all the headache turned out to be a simple overlooked issue; I was updating the wrong package. It seems I had two different packages in the same place and they both had the same name so when I updated in one it wouldn't show because it wasn't the right one, confusing yes, but its all ok now. Even though I could not get the Indigo Room's puzzles working I was able to (with lots of help from a friend that graduated) re work my puzzle so that it was simple and made sense. He even told me how to attach it to my camera so once I was done with the puzzle it would cut to the camera animation.

I've learned a lot in this class, and I now know the limitations of what I can do in Unreal. I know I started out thinking really big and to me that was thinking small, but after hearing everyone say that it would be almost impossible to do everything that I wanted in the time that I have I tried really hard to cut it down to the bare minimum. Good thing too because I think I would have killed myself trying to do four puzzles as complicated as they were. Even though my room and level are considered “complete” there is still things I would like to add. For instance I worked so hard trying to get the puzzles working that I didn't have time to input the story into the level the way I wanted. Even though I didn't have much of a story to begin with. For some reason I couldn't focus on the story in this class even though it was extremely important.

The way all the rooms are textured (save the Crimson Room) bothers me still but I can't put more into this then I already have right now. It will have to wait til another time when I have the time to dedicate to even more things and fun possibilities.

Beta Testing

Journal 8

My first approach was listing everything that needed to be done in my level, fixing and more texturing and what not. I put that all in a list and went down it from most important to least. Going through it the most important was giving me enough trouble and I still wanted to finish the least important. I was able to get the puzzles working, both of them, everything works, its just i'm missing key elements that I cannot do at the moment because of time (and poor time management on my part, I have only myself to blame). Most of the headache from this project was trying to remember how to do certain things that I wanted. Like how to texture something a certain way. Or how to make something look right.

Crimson Room

Indigo Room

Mesh List: Complete

Orb of Reflection
Tiffany Minsal			Finished	Finished	Finished	Finished	Finished	Finished
	Original Mesh Placeholder Name	Mesh Name	Modeled	Uv'd	Textured	Imported	Placed	Shaders
Necessary for Gameplay:
	Platform	Platform	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
	Window	Window	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
	Door	Door	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
	Platform	Box	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Critical to Story/ History:
	Treasure	Orb	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
	Buttress	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
	Tree	Lava Pillar	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
	Balastrade	Glass Pillar	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Decoration:
	Plant Pile	Bush	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
	Doorway	Doorway	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
	Arch	Arch	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
	Column	Column	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
	Obelisk	Pot	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
	Beam	Ceiling Torch	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
	Plinth	Flower	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
	Switch	Wall Torch	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes