Just a little something I cooked up while working on a fish population visualization. This was pretty quick, about a half hour’s work – perhaps with some more love a visualization like this using real data will make it into TerraViz. We could certainly add a lot more to this, for instance playing with the particle system transparency (instead of just having points be on/off). It’s easy to adjust color, size, etc. on a per-particle basis to do multidimensional analysis. As an example: we could use...
read moreHere’s a sample video from the course that I taught on game design in the fall of 2012. This video is from fairly late in the semester, so it assumes that you know a little something about 3D meshes and what ‘procedural generation’ means with video game design: editing objects with code, at runtime, rather than by hand, beforehand. I have to caution that it’s fairly technical, but there’s some good eye candy (especially in the second half), and a lot of good information about how to create and edit meshes from...
read moreAdding real-world architecture to your game has a ton of benefits. It can set the mood, add authenticity, and give an emotional punch to your game. Plus, and let’s be honest with ourselves here, it’s a heck of a lot easier to base your game on a real place than to come up with something from scratch. So if I’m a game designer and I don’t want to get sued, pretty soon I’m going to ask myself: Can I include a famous location (like Times Square) or a historical building (like the Taj Mahal) in my game? Do I...
read moreEvery year, we bring students in from nearby schools and give them a tour of the work we’re doing at NOAA. The kids have a good time, and we try to stuff them full of environmental science and wonder about the world around them. This year, the group I work for (the Technology Outreach Branch, or TOB) did two stops along the tour: Eyes on the Earth was a presentation Eric, Don, and myself gave on our giant multi-monitor display. That handsome man you see to the right is Don, talking about the Frankenstorm that hit the east coast a...
read moreThis is most likely just the first of many posts I’ll write on the MDA, or Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics, framework. MDA isn’t a method or set of rules for designing games. It’s a way of breaking down game design into discrete parts, and looking at how those parts interact. The end goal is to help developers go from mechanics (how the game works) all the way to aesthetics (how the player experiences the game). By doing so, developers can focus on creating a game that is engaging for the player on multiple emotional...
read moreThe video below explains the major changes in the editor between Unity 3 and Unity 4. More specifically, it goes over changes between Unity 3.5 (the latest version when Unity 4 was released) and Unity 4.0. It doesn’t include an introduction to Mecanim. That’s a large enough topic that it needs its own video (or videos), and when I post that I’ll add a link here. Property Drawers Unity 4 also includes an upgrade called Property Drawers. These are a way to make working with scripts in the inspector a lot more powerful,...
read moreAs I posted previously, this semester I’m teaching a new course in video game design and production at the University of Colorado. We have a great group of students, and they’ve just finished putting together their first game, of two that they’ll make in the course. These games were developed by students of CSCI 4830-008, working in teams of two. This is the first of two games they’ll be making this semester in the Unity game engine. They were asked to create a 3-5 minute adventure / scavenger hunt game, where the...
read moreThis last week Julien was kind enough to allow me to teach a class in his new Introduction to Video Game Design at the University of Colorado. I covered using World Machine to generate realistic terrains for the Unity environment. I’ve shared the lecture slides and example file in an effort to beautify our virtual worlds. If you would like to try it out for yourself, grab the free version of World Machine (non-commercial use only) and feel free to try out my World Machine Sample Terrain. I’m not sure if Julien plans on releasing...
read moreJust wanted to announce that I’ll be teaching a course on video game design and production over at the University of Colorado, starting tomorrow. We’re going to be using Unity and covering all of the basics: materials, terrain, animations, particle systems, programming, physics, etc. It’ll be a design-based course, with the students creating two games over the course of the semester. You can check out the course outline...
read moreWe’ve been working for a while on a planetary shader for rendering the Earth. I’ve posted our solution (in two parts: a planet shader and a clouds shader) below; the planet shader is also posted to the Unify Community Wiki. You can download an asset bundle with the shaders and textures here. Shaders Planet Shader Cloud Shader Planet Shader Description Version 1 of this shader was created using the Strumpy Shader Editor. The original tutorial for creating the earth (minus night...
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