A bit or an update...... or ......... "I love it when a plan comes together"

General Blurb!
Well it's been a bit quiet here on the Blog for a while. I've been getting to grips with Twitter so most of the updates have been going on there. Twitter is great at providing just a short update until I get the time to sit down and write everything out in Blog format. So, if you want more up-to-date news, then you can either Follow us on Twitter, or Like our Page on Facebook (the Twitter updates go to our Facebook page). If I had the time to sit down and work out if the Twitter feed could also go to our Google+ page, then I'd do that as well, but to be blunt: I'd rather spend my time on developing the game.

The Game
Yes, a game decision was made and I'm really excited about it! It's a survival horror game... and that's all I can say at the moment. Oh, I can say that a prototype is being developed!

Wii U
Kirkley Entertainment Inc. is now a registered Nintendo developer! Yay! That was very exciting! :D
We signed up for the Deferred Payment plan and got our Wii U Developer Kit. It was a bit of a process to receive the Dev. Kit as it got held up at border control because we didn't have an International Import number. Fortunately it was only a quick call to sort that out.
I did have an error when trying to run something on it, but the forums were a great place to get help. I managed to get up and running and had the Unity Angry Bots demo running on the Dev. Kit.

Unity
If you haven't guessed by now, Unity was chosen as the development engine going forward. I learnt a lot about it at the Unite Training Day as well as at Unite itself. You get a special Wii U version of Unity Pro when you become a Nintendo developer, so that was a bonus. Add in that Unity is compatible with PS 3 & 4 + Vita, Xbox 360 & One, Windows, Linux, Android and Apple OS's, then it makes it a one-stop shop for games development.

The Unity Asset Store
In order to develop the prototype as quickly as possible I decided to buy assets from the Unity Asset Store. Taking out the modelling component for characters (plus some great sales on the Asset Store) means I can just concentrate on developing the prototype and getting to rips with Unity and the Wii U Dev. Kit.

Unity Tutorials
Everyone needs to learn how to do stuff. Even if you've worked with a game engine before, or built one yourself, you still need to learn anything new. The Unity Tutorials have been great, and I'm especially getting a lot out of the Live Training Sessions, which are archived here:

http://unity3d.com/learn/live-training/archive

Other Tools
As a Unite attendee I got a great offer on a product called iClone. I got a bundle which included 3DExchange, the Mocap Device Platform (which allows you to use a Kinect to capture motion so you can animate in iClone) as well as training DVDs. Very handy and a great price.
Today I managed to create a custom animation in iClone and then export it using 3DExchange. Then I imported it into Unity and watched my animation play. The tutorial I followed is here:

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MDMcCallum/20130926/201111/iClone_to_Unity_Tutorial.php

I also subscribed to the Adobe Creative Cloud so I can use Photoshop to create Height Maps for Unity, as well as for texture editing.

Then there's the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suite, and Maya LT that I've been playing with. I haven't done much with these tools as I have been getting content from the Unity Asset Store.

We also got accepted for BizSpark, hence the logo on our site, which means we get awesome tools like Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate. I think that means we'll have to invest in a copy of UnityVS to take full advantage of that toolset.

Other Stuff
We put a legal firm on retainer, though that retainer was eaten up by getting them to go over our incorporation documents to make sure everything was in set up correctly, and then creating a Corporate Minute Book. The lawyer I'm working with specialises in the Technology field and Intellectual Property, so this is great!

And so it goes..
Now that the game has been selected, the engine has been selected, and the content creation tools selected work can really start to progress on the game. I'm hoping that the prototyping goes well and a basic prototype is available some time in 2014. Once that prototype is running, then I'm considering a Kickstarter campaign so I can raise some money to hire staff and really get going on this game.
I'm really excited in the progress that has been made recently, and the future is starting to look bright, so get out your shades! :)

Unite 2013 Day 2

*** The following are notes on the sessions I attended and do not represent the full schedule of events at Unite 2013 ***

Enable your apps to see with Qualcomm Vuforia (Qualcomm Vuforia - Sponsored Session)
The Vuforia session was really impressive. The SDK allows you to specify a particular shape in the real world and apply animations around it when it is discovered. For example: say you are developing an application for a soda company and they want a particular animation to play when the application on your mobile device detects one of their soda cans. You would specify the dimensions of the soda can, and it's appearance within Unity (using the plug-in), then create the animation to play in Unity (in this session they modelled a 3D soccer ball rotating around a soda can).
On the show-reel they demonstrated how this technology could be used to scan a real-world item and import it into a game. The example for this was for My Little Pony. A new My Little Pony was purchased and scanned in an app, the character of that Pony was then unlocked as a playable character in a My Little Pony Game.
I've done some Googling and I just can't find this show-reel anywhere, which is a real shame as I don't think I'm doing a very good job of describing it here. Anyway, you can find more information on Vuforia here.

Nurturing Large Projects: How We Structured Hardware: Shipbreakers To Make It Easier To Develop, Test, and Maintain
Blackbird Interactive gave a postmortem of the challenges they had when developing Hardware: Shipbreakers in Unity. The presenters were really engaging and presented well, but rather than break it down (and forget stuff) then I thought I'd just share the link to their presentation. Unfortunately, I lost the link to the page when I was fixing up this post, but I have a copy I'm sharing here. I hope this is OK with the folks at Blackbird, if it's not the please let me know and I'll take it down.

Console to Mobile: Bringing an AAA Console Title to Mobile with Almost Zero Asset Modification
The staff from Owlchemy Labs also gave a well put together presentation and were highly engaging. They took us through the development process for when they converted the console game Shoot Many Robots to a mobile game for the original developers, Demiurge. They talked about how they rapidly prototyped the game in Unity, rejected their own idea, then prototyped again all in a matter of days.
The discussion also centred on assets and how they were able to develop the game so that it was compatible with iPad 1 & iPhone 3GS all the way to iPad 4 and iPhone 5. The way they did this was some scripting on the back end that looked for the hardware type, and then neglected to draw components of the scenes in order to optimize the game.

3D Content Creation on a Budget (The Foundry - Sponsored Session)
The Foundry took this opportunity to show off the amazing power of Modo. I've ranted before about 3D creation and what a pain it is. I love Autodesk (more on them later) and would love to own their Entertainment Suite, but it's not really conducive to easily creating assets for games. That statement may seem out there saying as 3DS Max and Maya have been staples of the Games & Film industries for years and have resulted in many beautiful works of art. And I'm not denying that, but consider this:

Your artist roughs up a Character design in Sketchbook (most likely Photoshop but I wanted to use all Autodesk tools as an example)
The design gets approved, tidied up and made ready for your 3D modeller
The 3D modeller creates the character in 3DSM or Maya
To get the character's skin/feature just right, the modeller then sculpts the model in MudBox
The 3D modeller then hands a copy off to the texture artist who creates the texture also in MudBox
The model then gets handed to your Animator for rigging and animation. The animator then uses SoftImage to start to animate it. Once the animation is roughed in and looking good, the animator then opens it in MotionBuilder to refine the animation and maybe add some effects (dust, etc.)

OK, so I may have exaggerated the process a bit, but in this example there are 6 pieces of software needed to create the character! SIX! Why can't it be one? Why can't you build, sculpt, paint, animate and create effects in one solution? Well, with Modo you can. And it costs around $1500 instead of close to $9000 (if you buy the full Entertainment Suite with 3DSM and Maya).
That was the focus of the demonstration and how you can create amazing 3D content with 1 application. There is currently a 15 day trial available, but I'm not sure how long it is available for.

Talking Characters and Animation for Games (Reallusion - Sponsored Session)
The presentation by Reallusion was fantastic! They demo'ed their application iClone and it is an excellent product and is currently priced at under $200. Their application integrated with the Kinect SDK so you can use the Kinect sensor (only 1 at a time at the moment) to capture raw motion to be applied to characters. They also have lip-synching tools that will lip sync from an audio file. You can also zoom into portions of the face and manipulate it to get the desired emotion to match the lip-synching.
I went to the Reallusion booth the next day and they were very friendly and took the time to give me examples of their product, and then how to get them into Unity.
They also have an "asset store" where you can buy characters and animations.

Your next modeling tool... (Autodesk - Sponsored Session)
I said I'd get to Autodesk again :) The previous section on Modo was not meant as an Autodesk bashing rant, not in the slightest. It would be still worth $9000 if Autodesk rolled all their products into one suite. I've always wanted 3DSM or Maya. ALWAYS. And this session made that dream come closer to realization. What was highlighted in this session was MayaLT 2014. Yes, a light version of Maya aimed at Indie developers and with a price tag to match: $795!! MayaLT allows you to create, rig, animate, shade (limited shaders compared to the full version of Maya, but this is a light version afterall) and create effects all in one application! Yay! They also offer a subscription service where you get major release versions, etc., but you don't need to buy a subscription. They also offer a Rental service and a monthly cost of $50/month! Learn more about pricing here.
I was so excited that I downloaded the 15 day trial as soon as I got back to my hotel and installed it. Yes, only 15 days though. That is the trial duration for all the Autodesk tools I've looked at.

Analyzing engagement in F2P games (Game Analytics - Sponsored Session)
The Game Analytics team were very friendly at their booth and gave a great presentation. Their product captures in-game statistics so that you can determine key statistics about how players are playing your game, even down to where they're spending their money.
They recently went live with a Free version of their product which you can checkout on their website here.