Classroom backgrounds, Wardrobe scene and Renpy experiments [WEEK 18]

Classroom -

Using the 3D models I had made last week, I used them as a reference to draw over and then add colour to. I kept the scenes somewhat empty compared to my other backgrounds as I will be passing these onto the Character artist so that she can add in some background characters to make the scene feel more alive. With this in mind I sent two versions of these files over, One i had added in some guide sketches for how the characters would be posed in the scene, and one that is just the finalized image in case Niamh wants to use a different idea. I have put all of this on our discord so we can all easily access these files. 

Side view

Front view

Here are the character sketches i sent over to Niamh, there are some rough notes dictating what characters are doing, I also made sure to tell her not to put any characters that will be appearing as sprites in these scenes in the background to maintain the believability of the scenes.

Wardrobe -

For the Wardrobe scene I started out with a rough block out of where i wanted elements to be, Initially i had this sketch of this large double sided wardrobe with two clothing sections as i thought this would frame the character well and provide for a lot of visual interest. I presented this to my team for their feedback and opinions on the layout.

Feedback-

The feedback i got was to make the wardrobe smaller, not only do I agree that this visually looks much nicer, but it also keeps in line with the design i had made previously for the main character's bedroom, making the scene overall feel much more believable. This was an easy change to make, i simply chopped my drawing in half and added in the greater clothing length variation.

Here is the scene with flat colours, I included a lot of references to the concept art we made for the game including drawings on the door, jumpers relating to old designs hanging up in the wardrobe, and our logo and team icons displayed along with the sketches. I tried to keep the scene fitting with the main character's general colour pallet so that they will look cohesive with the scene.

Here is this scene fully rendered with lighting, greater saturation, and the dawn gradient map i apply to all the backgrounds.

and here is how the scene looks in game with the temporary character overlay.

I'm very happy with how this scene looks and I think with the addition of Nathan's UI everything will start looking much more polished.

UI experiments-

On the subject of UI, I did a little bit of experimentation to see just how I am going to implement Nathan's UI designs into the game. I followed the Renpy website's guide on changing GUI elements to put in an About section, Temporary main menu cover and overlay, and identify the location of the inbuilt text box image. I sent all of these over to the new UI channel within our server so that Nathan has an easy to access and concise location of all the information he will need to make our UI. He has also asked me to send over the backgrounds for the decision screens, Now that I have the desk, wardrobe, bedroom [and partially the classroom] sketches complete i sent these over to him so that he can work on them. As for the classroom scenes I will have to wait for Niamh to finish them for Nathan to be able to use them for the UI.

Most elements for the GUI can be edited within the files of Renpy and does not require much coding, the most tedious part will probably be the decision screens, but by the looks of it it only really requires defining more images and calling them in the script at the needed locations. The About section was also a really simple piece of code that only needed me to define what text will be displayed.

Gantt Chart -

Here is the updated Gantt chart now that I have the wardrobe and classroom scenes complete. I have also spoken to Seb about him gathering some more people to playtest our game as well as this I have advertised our game on a few discord servers to get more eyes looking at it. I would really like to get the Alpha testing done and be 100% certain there are no more bugs remaining. Pantelis has also kindly offered to send my script to a games development friend of his to check over it which i greatly appreciate. I have also sent my campus scene to Pantelis for him to improve as I just wasn't happy with it in comparison to the rest of the game. My next task is to begin the sweater's fridge scene and make a slight alteration to the script regarding it [sweaters will appear twice which is not something i want]. I still feel confident that I am on track and that we can get this game finished by the deadline.