Update Pending!

Good Day All,

With my recent graduation and getting Visions of Zosimos to GenCon officially complete, I am going to be taking some time to compile all of my works and compile them into my blog so that I can easily use it for submissions.

Though I was that I put all my effort into finishing my school and to getting VoZ to where it is now this blog  has gone to the wayside for long enough and it is time to update it and maybe get some new pieces on it.

I hope you all will enjoy when I am done.

2014 Begins

A lot has happened since the last I posted, I have become the Product Owner for VoZ, I ended up starting my own project (Notorious: Star Corsair Saga), then shelved said project and decided to change out what I wanted to do with that project. With the beginning of the new year I told myself I was going to get back into my blog. Hopefully I can keep up with the weekly grind of running VoZ and the tabletop version of Notorious 

So one of the things I am doing this year is changing how we are creating content in VoZ. Before, we had made content using a meta based system. In the system we had teams setup to create parts of the cards. Programmers would program the cards in large batches, 2D artist would create only the card art or character concept, and 3D modelers would create the character in batches as well and no one is talking when changes are made and things need to go back and fix stuff. 

To change this I am breaking up with meta teams or like-discipline members and putting them into feature based teams. These teams are created around features where x amount of each discipline to get a feature to completion. This should help alleviate the need to bug fix, to make it so that changes are done quicker and the asset is completed and doesn't need to be touched again, unless we are making huge sweeping changes.

Here is the diagrams I used to show the new teams how exactly things are going to work. 

This is basically outlining the card teams responsibility for both minion cards and spell/astral cards. And I am doing the same with a framework team and environment team. Hopefully things work out like I planned and we can release cards regularly. 

Its sparks to life

Here is the video of me making sparks that fly out of exposed wires. I think it turned out pretty good.

Sorry for the choppy video and length..google hangout is a bad video recorder when it comes to animations or at least at school

Here is the texture I used for it

FIRE!!!

Here is the fire I made for rubble pile within the ship

Sorry for the choppy video and length..google hangout is a bad video recorder when it comes to animations or at least at school

And here is the texture I used for the fire

Weapon Trail

I was working on the weapon trail for the engine but now I get why its hard to get the combat code working. It's hard to find. I will keep looking. For now here is my texture I am going to use it.

Nothing special but its a start.

Plan for the Spring Break

Since our Next Retrospectives lands on spring break we are going to have a hard time to get things done. So what we are going to is have this plan, over the break people are required to send in two email stand ups about what they did. This should make the case for everyone to put in some work over the break. Here's hopping.

Retrospectives 4

I think the pressure is starting to build, we still don't combat in the engine and it seems to come down to use not being able to find the files or commands needed to call animations. But without this we can't run numbers or set up the attack and defense system. Pretty much I have put all but 1 member onto the combat feature team to figure it out. Hopefully we can get it in time to get AI in.

Sprint 4

3/26/2013

Bad

• Combat Feature team
• Standups take too long
• People aren’t responding timely to friday standup
• Morale
• Tempers are high
• Art team’s work is getting in late

Good

• Effort
• For the most part, Improve section from last sprint was done
• Inside meta and feature communication
• People have appreciated the little victories more
• Attendance
• Information disseminated in friday emails

How to Improve

• All hands on deck for combat
• Appreciate small victories more
• If you have something to show, show it
• Dedicate a bit of time in the first hour of class to show work
• Meta team google hangout for screen sharing in class
• Start standups immediately
• Make sure to send friday standups ON FRIDAY
• Learn from your mistakes and success
• People need to use Trello as they work, rather than just before the end of the sprint
• Art Team needs strict deadlines