Author: 15563167

As the first game level is based on the Jurassic period, we needed to create hostile NPC’s that will fit in that era and the context of our storyline. We created a ground NPC and a flying NPC seen in the images below,  as targets for the player to shoot to further progress through the level.

 

As well as this, the NPC’s will need moving animations to make them more lifelike and realistic. We created a running animation for the raptor and a flapping animation for the Pteranodon seen in the sprite sheets below.

This image was going to be used for the first level of our game, however, we came across a problem as soon as we imported it into unity. In unity, as the player progresses through the level, the software replicates the background image and the terrain to make the level continuous. Whenever the background image would be replicated and placed beside the previous image, the mountain range and the forest in the foreground wouldn’t line up properly as seen in the images above, which left us no other option but to create a new background image which will line up correctly. Shown in the image below, the sky, mountains, forests and lakes all line up making the game look fluent.

 

The image above will be used as the background for the level. It is important that all backgrounds distinctly show the time periods to help the audience understand the narrative.

 

 

 

These are assets where created in photoshop to add more detail to the level. However, the large brown rock will also be used to place the floating platform on so the player can jump and access higher levels.

 

 

 

 

 

After trialling the previous sprite sheet on unity, we came across a problem. As unity reads each image as a frame, we had to make at least 20-24 separate images with slight movements in each image to create 1 second of animation. Above is the Idle sprite sheet we are going to use, although it may not be visible in this picture, each image differs from the one adjacent to it giving the animation a fluent looking movement as an end product. The arms are missing on this sprite sheet for a good reason. While playing the game, your character will be shooting at the same time, unity will recognise the commands given, replacing the idle arm into a shooting animation. when the player has stopped firing, the software will switch make to its original arm movements seen in the sprite sheet below.

 

 

 

The same process is used for the running animation seen above. To achieve a fluent running animation I had to create 24 separate images and alter them individually by eye to create a smooth flowing running motion. Once again this sheet is missing the cannon arm for the same reason as it had to be removed to allow the software to recognise both running arm animation and shooting animations simultaneously. An image of the running arm sprite is seen below.

 

 

 

This sprite sheet was the first to be tried and tested in unity. the top layer being the idle movement, followed by the jumping movent and then lastly the running movement. The way this works is so unity recognizes the first images and plays the rest one by one in the same row. Straight away we noticed a problem with the arm mechanics and the player model. The arm mechanism felt very out of place as it was jumping around, the reason this was happening was that the system reads the image at 24 fps (frames per second). For example, the idle position on the top row would be seen as 2 out of 24 where each of the 2 images lasting half a second each, the jump between the images was very noticeable. to resolve this issue more player model will need to be created on the same row, so when the system moves onto the next image it will begin to look fluent in its movement.