February 2021 – Joyce's Documentation Blog

WP2WS – W04 – Project I

I actually didn’t know where to start with the project. 3D space on the web page is still a little abstract to me, and I don’t know what a world I can create with current knowledge. I somehow wanted to create something bouncing & interacting with each other, so I started with the most basic sketch: a few spheres with a red material, pretty similar to my previous assignment.

I got strongly inspired by Flutter Generative Art: The Easy Way about how they use trigonometric function creatively. It seems those functions can add a lot to the unchanging pattern in the sketches, so I started to experiment with them. Below is two groups of balls moving and rotating in an “∞” way.

However, I found it confused about how to rotate a 3D object/array. First thing is that when rotating something in 3.js, it has to be defined which axis is being rotated, and be written in the animate function. Prof Moon also told me that I could push two groups of the same class with different velocity/ parameters to achieve the effect I wanted. Below is what I have after creating 4 groups for different directions with broken spheres – something I create to imitate a cracked and glittering effect. I also started playing with lines to create a geometry/mesh outside of the rectangles. However, lines in 3D space cannot be easily manipulated and cannot rotate smoothly, so I turned to something symmetric later.

Basically what I did later is modifying the colors/geometries.

I randomly found an example on the 3.js doc about buffer geometry lines that stroke me and I played around with it. The points buffer geometry made by Prof Moon also inspired me so I began to experiment to find a balance between everything I have now. During the progress, I realized that I am creating different layers – from outside to inside, from the dispersion to the origin. Nonetheless, the lines are too hard to be integrated into the whole visual so I removed them later.

Everything is working right now and the moving balls are generating their own visuals. But I think I should expand more on the concept of origin – should there be something more inside&outside? For the inner part, I created a reflective ball with a flower inside, took from my previous assignment. It fits with the petal array. I got reminded of the class example where the light is rotating in an orbit, so I created two lights rotating with a small and a larger orbit. However, the geometries are not opaque – light will go across them. So after finalizing the sketch, I only kept one light that rotates outside of the biggest shell. Below are some screenshots of the final sketch.

CGDD – W03 – Playing Response

Playing Response

太好玩了！甚至可以说人生找到了新的乐趣🙏

Among the games, I chose Ori and the Will of the Wisps to play as I heard the first two games really need hands – I am kind of famous at being 人体描边大师 and I am personally fully aware of that. I am TOTALLY AMAZED by the game’s visuals, and so happy that I didn’t start playing it when I was in high school or my academic will be a disaster as it is so attractive. I somehow understand the fun of playing a game. Since the game can only be run on Windows and pretty big, I went to an internet cafe with my friend for the first time in my life. After we finished playing for 4 hours my friend asked me: “Can we go out to play again during the Spring Festival?” (Update: We did so and made it to 夸洛克地穴 17%!)

Now go back to the game itself. As mentioned above, the visuals of the game are so amazing from the very beginning. I didn’t finish the 迷雾沼泽 part, but I already experienced so bright, vivid, and harmonized scene design. I am not sure if this game is in the 2D game category but it gives me the feeling of 3D. I did some researches later said that they have 7-8 layers of the art design for the game scene, which struck me a lot. Every second is like walking inside an Avatar world, the juicy, shaking mushroom when you jump on it, the shining fluorescent blue plant where you can stick on, the floating trunk in the center of the river, and the sunshine shining down on you from a distance – all the visual effect and interactions on them trigger by the player is so realistic and incredible. Even though I have only taken the first part of the game, the character design also surprises me a lot. The first two characters (库’s parents) reminded me how diverse and interesting characters can be – they are human-like, but you can clearly feel that they are not humanized. I am sorry for using so many praising words, but for a game green hand, it is like a whole new world. Along with the amazing visual that I cannot describe well, the sound effect also contributes a lot to the immersive experience. I cannot fully remember them now but there was a wolf boss at the start of the game, where the music suddenly got intense and I was truly shocked. Generally, the music is soft and creative, and adds to the feeling of “exploring a magical world”.

Sunshine from the distance in the background layer

Since I haven’t played so many games during my life, I cannot really judge the design of the technique of the game. Something I highly appreciate is how they design some hidden spaces like you need to break the obstacles by yourself and then push the game to the next level. How you transfer in a 3D way in a 2D world is also cool. The map is very well-designed and pretty complicated, as I think it would be better if there is a small map since I often got lost and need to stop to check where am I (a small map may destroy the whole visual effect though). I chose the normal mode to play the game, but many parts of the game are still challenging for me, for example, my friend and I spent nearly 20 minutes on the first wolf boss and a lot of time exploring the way of escaping/collect different resources.

I have heard some people saying that the technique part, such as the level design and collection design of the game is worse than Hollow Knight, but from a new game player’s perspective, games like Ori and the Will of the Wisps is more attractive to common audiences as it doesn’t require a high level of gaming ability, and has incredible audio & visual experience. There is an additional part in the game called 精灵试炼, where the player will compete with the ghost AI player and see who got to the destiny first. It is pretty difficult and I failed, but my friend spent nearly 1 hour on it and finally made it – she was so excited – I think some additional designs like this is great, as it does not influence the whole experience but could add on to the difficulty and enjoyment of the game. Generally, I would say, at least for me and my friend, Ori and the Will of the Wisps is definitely an amazing game with an appropriate difficulty level that attracts us to keep going forward.

WP2WS – Case Study I

Projects I found interesting:

HYPNOS: SLEEPSCAPES
Hours Art Print
A series of rendering from Crossconnectmag
Layers

Among them, the most interesting one I found is Layer made by the Zhestkov studio (the last link above). Actually many projects from this studio have a very high level of aesthetic and ornamental value, I will just pick Layer as I found it first.

Regarding the technology, I am pretty afraid that everything of the project is made out of video editing software or 3D modeling software like Blender cause it looks like that:P… but they have some common shares: novel material applied on the geometries/particles, and forces applied among the objects.

For its aesthetics, take Layer as an example: they are trying to find an intersection between the invisible object and the black box, as magical fluid color patterns compose the intersected layer. How the invisible object devours the black box is very cool, and the generated layer’s color is visually amazing. The concept of 4D is attractive as well it seems that time is the object that swallows the black box. What’s more, I first found the project via Pinterest and the video they are showing has a mixture of reality and unreality, where you can find people commenting if this is a true installation or a fake one as well, which I appreciate a lot.

WP2WS – W03 – 3D Visualization

For this week’s assignment, we learned and practiced basic 3.js knowledge.

Different from p5.js, I found 3.js much harder cause all the forces become different in a 3D world. I started with the class example code and experimented with it. I experimented with geometries, materials, and forces. Geometries and materials are fun to play with since all you have to do is parameters, the difficulty point is still how to deal with forces in a space rather than on a plane.

For the forces, I found that a tiny change in velocity would result very differently, so after limiting the acceleration and velocity of the rings, I got the effect where all the rings rotate very nearly to the center (the point light). I also added the attraction force that we have learned to the knot, where they will fly around the point light.

However, I found difficulty accessing data as well. When I tried to add more parameters for the GUI, the result won’t change in real-time, but only worked when I directly the code. Professor Moon pointed out that writing the parameters in the setup part of the class doesn’t work, and I had to add a updatebyGUI function to pass the updated value.

But for the mesh radius, it is another situation – after updating it, I got something like:

Which obviously doesn’t make much sense… Later Prof. Moon told me that changing the radius inside the setup geometry function will only set it up once as well, like the rotation. Besides changing the radius, modifying the mesh’s scale here is more intuitive and simple to implement.

I also found the fps very unstable, I am not sure if it is because of the object numbers or the computer issue. Fps will gradually increase and becomes stable when the toruses spread away.

CGDD – W03 – Reading Response

Reading Response

Before listening to the lecture, I got a chance last semester to watch the documentary High Score. It talks about the evolution of the game industry in the past century and how crazy it was. It is pretty surprising to me that modern video game has a relatively short history but has achieved such level in the contemporary era.

From the simplified, pixelized style in the arcade era to the 3D and complex visual effect in the Set piece period, one of the strongest feelings after reading the introduction is that the video game is evolving with the advanced computer technology at that time.

I also found something interesting in the article. The first one is about the challenge structure in the game. Initially created in 1978 in Tomohiro Nishikado’s Space Invaders, a small error in the way the machinery of the game made the enemy invaders became incrementally faster when there were fewer of them on screen, while Nishikado found that an accelerating challenge made the game much more interesting. To add to this effect, he also designed each level to start off slightly more difficult than the last, by moving the invader fleet one row closer to the player at the start. As a person that didn’t play much video game before, I feel like this kind of challenge graph can easily trigger people’s curiosity and inner aggression. Starting with an easy level will also keep people stay to continue the game. Somehow it is like a gamble – let you have the taste of winning at first, then attract you by incentivizing your aggression and the desire of winning the game.

The powerups made by Shigeru Miyamoto also reminded me of the skills/package set I met in Ori and the Will of the Wisps. From the article, “The axis of abilities could be a way of bringing in design elements from other genres to expand the gameplay possibilities and entertainment value of video games.” As an avid collector player, the different design elements not only expand the gameplay possibilities and entertainment but also satisfies my own need in the game. Something I also agree with is that:

“By shifting between skillsets just before players get bored, composite games are able to more easily induce a flow state in their players. The psychological state called flow is a kind of clear-minded euphoria that players experience when they’re totally locked into a game. Most players of video games will recall having experienced times when they’re completely engrossed in play, and minutes or even hours disappear. It’s not just gamers that experience this; runners, knitters, musicians, and plenty of other people can all experience the same thing when they’re locked into their respective tasks. Flow is a state of positive focus and can have a wide variety of causes. Composite games are able to put players into a psychological state I call composite flow, which isn’t exactly the same thing but is very close to ordinary psychological flow. These games can do it by using a structure like the one visualized here.”

The concept of a flow state is very interesting to me. I have met much cumbersome time in-game as well as in other fields – like when meeting the first boss in Ori, it took nearly after an hour for me and my friends. That’s a pretty tricky part since it worked as part of the storyline, and the players are not able to explore other places when got stuck. But when going to other places that cannot be passed in Ori, we can still change our direction or fight more bosses, to develop further in another direction, which is having a flow state according to my understanding.

At the end of the article, the author also mentions that “there is an increasingly large amount of game development occurring outside of the corporate mainstream. Indie games are growing at an incredible rate, thanks largely to digital distribution services like Steam, Desura, and Newgrounds (and now Epic, Humble and other storefronts).” I remembered that the latest most popular game – 戴森球计划 – is made by a team only of 5, and it went viral globally. It is inspiring to see how separated, and small groups can come up with different nouveau ideas that give new energy to the game industry.