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305

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Mechanical Engineering

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Feb 20, 2024

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After completing your plan analysis, conduct a team reflection and consider the following:  What parts of the plan did the team perceive to go well in relation to the last stage evaluation? Overall, the planning process that was developed in Module Three has undergone significant improvement throughout the last few weeks. In relation to the latest stage of evaluation, we were able to start testing even earlier in the process than the previous two stages. This allowed us more time to discuss potential changes or modifications to elevate the end-user experience (*Group Decision*). For example, the level designers wanted to find a way to highlight certain walkways for the player to notice (*Brigitte Rollain*). We had a declining platform in one of the lungs that was colored with a purple hue to stand out amongst the surrounding pink-to-red platforms (*Brigitte Rollain*). After consideration, this color seemed to contrast with the other hues of the level too much and felt out of place (*Daniel Noel*). We discussed a possible solution as a team during one of our verbal Discord meetings. A level designer took all the feedback and was able to find a great way to integrate a bluish hue that is reminiscent of the color of blue veins (*Brigitte Rollain*). This color was used to highlight certain pathways within the level design. In addition to the coloring of the level materials, we were able to have a group discussion about the placement of jump pads, elevators, and platforms to create a more user- friendly fun experience for the player (*Group Decision*). Another benefit that arose from having a live group testing session was we were able to learn more about one another’s roles and how the development of each feature of the game went (*Daniel Noel*). For example, in testing a team member mentioned that the color of the texturing in the heart had turned out great. They wanted to know if this coloration could be replicated on other surfaces in the game (*Kylie Nencetty*). At this point, a level designer informed this team member that the colors they were seeing in the heart were actually the result of a reflection from the green acid pools at the bottom of the room (*Daniel Noel*). While we would not be able to replicate that coloration onto other surfaces, it was valuable insight that would have gone unmentioned had we not gone through group testing together (*Kylie Nencetty, Daniel Noel*).  What parts of the plan did the team perceive to go wrong in relation to the last stage evaluation? Every week we have adjusted our approach to testing to improve upon the previous stage. Therefore, we did not have many things “go wrong” in this latest evaluation stage (*Group Decision*). However, we did find that some of the bug fixes we had intended to implement did not work as planned. For example, we were aware of an issue with the

functionality of the jump pad within the stomach. We tried to add in more jump pads to make the jump easier to do correctly (*Daniel Noel*). We had thought that this resolved our bug. After allowing friends and family to test the game, we quickly realized that there was still an issue where if the jump pad was not hit correctly the player would fail to make the jump to the above platform (*Brigitte Rollain*). We tried to adjust the placement of the jump pad again while taking out the newly implemented ones, but this again did not resolve our issue (*Daniel Noel, Joe Rafferty*). We decided as a group that at this stage of development it would better serve us to remove the jump pad and replace it with an elevator (*Group Decision*). Had we had more time, we would have created a jump pad specifically for an inclined surface or perhaps changed the level design to allow for full functionality of the current jump pad design (*Group Decision*). There was also feedback during this testing phase in which it was pointed out that in the packaged version of the game, there seemed to be additional motion blur that was unintentional (*Jenji Sayre, Daniel Noel, Brigitte Rollain*). This motion blur was noticed more by some people than others. Ultimately, we are unsure exactly why this blur was worse for some players than others, but the lead programmer tweaked the settings within Unreal Engine to minimize the issue (*Joe Rafferty*). With more time and further testing, we could have been able to pinpoint exactly what was causing the issue across different hardware (*Group Decision*).  How were the previous evaluations wrapped into this latest stage? Previous evaluations were wrapped into the code release testing by going through each test case scenario for alpha and beta tests again. We were sure to test each scenario again, even if it had passed testing in the previous stages. By doing this, we were able to determine that we had introduced new bugs with the implementation of some of our latest features (*Group Decision*). For example, we added a whirling sound to the micro-lab that goes off when the player creates a vaccine (*Joe Rafferty*). However, during testing, we realized that the sound was going into an infinite loop if the player was creating more than one vaccine at a time (*Kylie Nencetty, Jenji Sayre*). The sound would continue to play, and the player would only have one vaccine even though they had brought two or three samples to the machine at once. Before adding the sound, this feature of the game passed testing. Had we not retested this after adding the sound, we would have never found this bug (*Group Decision*). Thankfully, because we retested, we were able to identify and resolve the issue prior to the final code release (*Joe Rafferty*). We also found a couple of platforms that were missing textures, which were hard to notice due to the way that the light reflected from the green acid pools (*Kylie Nencetty, Brigitte Rollain*). If we had sped through our testing phase, we could have easily missed this.

 What would you do differently to improve the process? From an artist’s perspective, there are things we would have done differently to improve the entire process. Although previously mentioned in prior project logs, we would have liked to have utilized 3D modeling software to create the rooms and capillaries for our level (*Daniel Noel, Brigitte Rollain, Jenji Sayre*). We then could have imported those models into Unreal Engine after the gray blocking had been completed by the level designers (*Joe Rafferty*). Unreal Engine’s editor tools are somewhat limited, and our level designers had to spend a lot of time sculpting the rooms and working out issues in the capillaries (*Daniel Noel, Brigitte Rollain*). Had we used this approach it would have alleviated a lot of the stress from the level designers and allowed them to focus more on the placement of objects within the level and aesthetics of the overall design (*Group Decision*). Level designers also noted that it would have been a more pleasurable experience if we had worked together to create more specific blueprints or drawings outlining what we envisioned the level to look like (*Daniel Noel, Brigitte Rollain*). We did have some initial drawings done up, but they were very minimalistic and did not provide enough information outside of the general shape of the rooms. Because we did not do this, we found ourselves discussing the details of each room and where we wanted the capillaries placed in between them during the same week we had to do alpha testing (*Group Decision*). This was not ideal and put a lot of stress on the level design work (*Daniel Noel, Brigitte Rollain*). UI design noted that it would have been beneficial to have paid closer attention to the actual scale that the UI programming needed assets to be (*Kylie Nencetty*). Thankfully, UI design had created assets that were larger and could be scaled down easily, but some of the details were lost due to this (*Kylie Nencetty*). It would have been better to create assets that were already scaled for the UI to alleviate the extra work put on the programming side when integrating the assets into the game (*Kylie Nencetty, Joe Rafferty*). It also would have resolved an issue where the menu screen has a bit of a stretched look on the red button detailing on the sides of the screen (*Kylie Nencetty, Joe Rafferty*). Another artist who primarily worked in Blender to design 3D model assets for the project noted that having more knowledge of 3D modeling software in general prior to this project would have been beneficial (*Jenji Sayre*). They found that researching how to get their desired results using the software to become stressful under the time constraints (*Jenji Sayre*). The lead programmer had to re-rig a model that was not importing correctly from Blender to Unreal Engine (*Joe Rafferty*). However, this programmer did not have enough experience in Blender to figure out how to resolve this issue promptly.

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Therefore, they used Maya (another 3D modeling software) to rerig the model (*Joe Rafferty*). The lead programmer noted that if they had shared expertise in the same modeling software as the artist who created the model, this would have likely improved efficiency (*Joe Rafferty, Jenji Sayre*).  Were there any tools or techniques that you did not find helpful in the success of your project development? Why? Level designers noted that the mesh editing tools offered by Unreal Engine had their limitations which did not contribute to the success of this project. As previously mentioned, the tools available in Unreal Engine for the modeling of the landscape and its features were generally unsuccessful and time-consuming (*Daniel Noel, Brigitte Rollain*) . Our level designers were able to make the best of the situation and continued to research and find new ways to use the tools to their advantage. However, this was not the most efficient use of our resources (*Daniel Noel, Brigitte Rollain*) . Overall, we feel that the modeling of the rooms and capillaries would have a more finished look if we had utilized 3D modeling software instead (*Group Decision*). An artist attempted to recreate the capillaries using Blender halfway through the project development (*Jenji Sayre*). However, once the models were imported into Unreal Engine the lead programmer found that the player character could not enter the capillaries (*Joe Rafferty*). It is possible that the issue was due to collision with the player model, or the size of the capillary model was too small (*Jenji Sayre, Joe Rafferty*). However, we decided it was best to pivot instead of delving too deeply into problem-solving. We were concerned that we would waste too much time and effort trying to resolve this single issue, and other aspects of the game would suffer (*Group Decision*). The artist who created these capillaries within Blender noted that the subdivision surface modifier tool was not helpful in the modeling (*Jenji Sayre*). This tool was making the capillaries too short, and the artist had to manually add in extra loops while fixing edge loops on multiple occasions (*Jenji Sayre*). Therefore, this tool did not contribute to their success in modeling these assets. As previously mentioned in a prior project log, we also had an issue when attempting to import a rigged model from Blender into Unreal Engine(*Jenji Sayre, Joe Rafferty*). However, we believe that this issue could have been resolved if we had more experience importing rigged models from Blender into Unreal Engine, but ultimately it was more time-efficient to just re-rig the model in Maya (*Jenji Sayre, Joe Rafferty*). Although Adobe Illustrator was a vital tool used in the creation of UI elements, the UI designer did find some limitations while using this software (*Kylie Nencetty*). For example, the ‘QUIT’ and ‘CLOSE’ buttons on the menu are in the shape of a triangle.

Because of the angle of the hypotenuse and the scale of the triangle, the hypotenuse appears to have a jagged appearance after being imported into Unreal Engine. Efforts went into trying to resolve this, and while the appearance did become less jagged, the issue remains (*Kylie Nencetty, Joe Rafferty*). Also, there was an issue with the creation of the ‘HUD’ tab within the menu screen. All the scaling was exactly the same for each tab, and yet for some reason, the HUD tab became slightly enlarged when exported as a PNG file (*Kylie Nencetty*). This caused the screen to move when the user clicked on the ‘HUD’ tab (*Joe Rafferty*). Time and effort went into resolving this using Adobe Illustrator, but ultimately the UI designer realized they would need to recreate the entire menu screen to fix the issue (*Kylie Nencetty*). Thankfully, the visual bug was minimized using the scaling tool within the Unreal Engine editor (*Joe Rafferty*).