Bringing the world to life in a brand new way!
Some of you may have noticed some of the other models floating around (pun intended) in development for Project Minerva. One such model was the space station made a few weeks ago. I had a lot of fun making it. It had been a while since I had been able to do some more artistic elements and not straight programming. I tried to look a various references to get some inspiration. And that is where everything went down hill, but I'll get to that later.
A game, however, cannot be made just by programming alone. There are art assets to be made, levels to create, and stories to write. We also have come to our first impasse: ship controls. Two programmers support one method, and I and another programmer support the one that was first implemented. We have decided to work on parallel version and do some user testing to decide the control's fate. And to do that, we need a Test Track. So, while several members are still finalizing work on other systems, I have shifted focus to developing our first test level. This level will be where we conduct our first user tests to get feedback. Once we get some user testing and revision out of the way, we will have our first deliverable! It may not look like much, but it is a huge step forward for Minerva and for our team. For perhaps the first time in a very long time, the DET Club will be able to showcase a major project to the entire department and potentially the school. That would definitely help not only bring in students to the university, but also draw current students to continue working on it and expanding it.
Since the School of Information and Technology at ACU has a system capable of developing and running VR projects and we just recently got our HTC Vive in, it would be such a waste not to take advantage of it. Right? Since the Vive has been made available for students, I am taking full advantage of it. I have already started work on a small room to start testing with VR. For narrative purposes, it is a small conference room on Minerva Station (the station model above). Depending on time and complexity, we may be able to have a VR set up to allow a user to walk around the room and interact with it, exit and explore part of the station's outer ring before heading to the launch bay and finding their starfighter. Another interesting plan is to integrate a VR mode to the first level of Project Minerva to allow for space flight and combat with VR equipment and controls. It sounds amazing, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
Ok, so I said I'd come back to my story about modeling the space station. Well for the most part it went off without any problems. It was stopping that became a challenge. Never attempt to stop a geek when they set their mind on making a joke or obscure (or in this case not so obscure) reference to their favorite topics. Long story short, the station I modeled that we will most likely be using also took on another form; one with perhaps a darker past. It's main operation is refining obsidian ore from nearby planets and moons, and for this reason it got its name.
Welcome to Terra Noir:
Pst: For those not versed in Geek: That's a reference to Terok Nor, more commonly known as Deep Space 9 from Star Trek.