Today i made some space debris for our game this are going to be used in the actual game after I made them in 3DSmax I decided to bring them in to Unreal to be able to see the models better and walk and look around them in all the different angles.
And because we are in space the debris will float up and down a little bit and will slowly rotate to give them the affect of no gravity this will help the player immerse better in the game and this will fill a little bit more the “walking in space” level to make it feel less empty.I started with a piece of broken wall I wanted to accentuate the fact that the space station got some problems and broke down.I give the broken piece of the wall some smaller pieces again to make it look like there is no gravity and the smaller pieces float near the big one.After that I made a model of a pillar again with some smaller pieces nearby, I did something different because I didn’t want to make one model and put it everywhere, so I decided to use this pillar to give the player there is the impression of a randomness factor going on with the different debris in space.Last I made a satellite to put in space this one will have a path to follow and will make a small orbit around the station this is suppost to simulate that the station have some mean of communicating with other outpost but it can’t because it got hacked.
I remember when I got really interesting about engineering, it was a couple of years ago when I went to a museum about air, land and sea vehicles, when I saw a real submarine for the first time and when I was able to get inside of it to explore how it looked like and how it worked.
That was the moment in my life that made me want to know about how everything works and why sometimes can have an odd design.
I started to look more and more about how everyday object was made and reading about technology and innovation in science magazines to learn something new every day.
During the years I started to disassemble and reassemble small mechanical parts like the motor of a blender or anything that caught my interest, I also enjoyed building project with friends like a mini working hydroelectric dam we did in the past and, I liked that type of experience a lot because everybody we helped each other to solve the challenge the project had and everyone brought new skills and ideas.
That’s why I always liked to be a team player and work with someone, sometimes I prefer to think outside the box because the solution could not be as easy or as straight forward.
During my free time I enjoy making video games I always try my hardest to create something new that has never been saw before another thing that I really enjoy doing is using the 3D printer I built myself to model and print some simple models of vehicles and engine an that’s really cool because you can touch, move and see the part.
To conclude I just want to say that engineering has played an important part in my life and I would love to have a job in the engineering industry in the future.
With this research, I will explain how video games could be useful in the field of rehabilitation, what application the video games can have to cure or to help to cure the different cases and the pros and outcome of such therapies.
This is Pong one of the first ever game.
A SMALL JUMP IN THE PAST TO UNDERSTAND BETTER THE FUTURE
The use of video games as a rehabilitation tool started to be used in the late 1990s but the technology wasn’t really developed enough to create the games more interactive and at the beginning result weren’t as good as expected, it was only in the late 2000s that the technology progress helped a lot this idea of using games as a therapeutic tool, also with the help of common console brands such as the Wii and the Kinect technologies the researchers and therapists were able to conduct more tests on a big number of patients in a cheaper and easier way.
From there on technologies evolved and made possible that a larger of patients were able to access this kind of therapy, in 2012 a study was published that collect over 963 articles, studies, text regarding the use of those technologies from 1996 to 2010, the study clearly showed the difference of research, article and studies across the different years.
For example in 1997 less than 10 studies in all year and more than 40 in 2008, this was as I said before with the help of technologies becoming more available to everyone.
VR (Virtual Reality)
During the last years new technologies were developed and of those is Virtual Reality or commonly known in the video game world VR, this technology is mainly composed of 2 main and important part the “headset” and the “sensors”.
The headset is a special pair of big glasses but is not needed to see better, it’s used to see what you are going to do in your VR experience, is something in between a screen and a pair of glasses and you have to wear it of course on your head.
Meanwhile, the second part of the VR set is the sensors they are usually not on the person but on the ground connected with a pc, they detect the movement of the user and transmit them in the game or program.
I wanted to mention this technologies because I think this could be really useful to help to treat some type of rehabilitation problem such as neck problem or to recover better from accidents with such exercise, games, where you need to look around or do certain movement to complete task, could be used in the future to help recover from this trauma.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VIDEO GAMES REHABILITATION AND NORMAL METHODS OF REHABILITATION
A lot of people can understand the difference between using video games as the main focus of the therapy instead of using normal methods in a doctor office, for example, in my opinion, there is 3 main difference between using video games and using conventional methods and those are :
-Patients engagement and enjoyment
–Therapy stress and length
–Accessibility
PATIENTS ENGAGEMENT AND ENJOYMENT
Video games can help a lot to create a more interactive experience for the patient, by using this type of machines the researchers are able to create more personal and all-days life experience that could relate with the patient, that is a really good thing because it helps the patient to get more engaged with the activity he is doing.
It’s considered important to keep the users engage with the therapy because usually, the activities use in the rehabilitation are really long and repetitive because they are aimed to train the muscles or the brain to get back the function it lost before the therapy, therefore it’s a good thing to help the patient to make feel those activities less “heavy” and unfortunately that’s something conventional methods aren’t good at.
THERAPY STRESS AND LENGTH
Another major difference between the 2 different methods of rehabilitation is to consider stress and time from my point of view, quite a bit of patients use digital therapy methods to regain functionality of their body because they may find conventional methods of therapies to stressful or just because they don’t have the possibility to go to the doctor office to perform the therapy exercises for a couple of different reasons, and that’s not good at all for the patient himself because that could cause even worst result if the patient doesn’t practice the exercises at all actually that could cause the opposite effect of the wanted result instead of making progress the patient will need to attend even more sessions and this could change the mode of the patient making him stressed out and less involved with the activities.
Also, the good thing about video games therapy is that patients will feel less the time they spent doing the activities because for the fact that the user enjoys more the activity and that will help a lot for the fact that the patient will spend less time in total for completing the therapy.
ACCESSIBILITY
The last difference from games and normal therapy is that therapy made with a console like a Wii or the Kinect sensor is that that the activity can be done at home and there isn’t any fixed time to do it, and that’s really good for the patient because like that patient is more about what he can do exercises and when he wants to ongoing with his exercises.
This video in less than 2 minutes gives an example of how even simple games could be life-changing for some people.
SOLUTION
The video game therapy solution is also for both the 2 types of rehabilitation, both the neurological but also the physical, they are both rehabilitation that takes a bit to completely heal and unfortunately sometimes they never fully heal and some marks can always stay.
The physical therapy is consider but some expert “easier” to make excesses about and to regain, a university in the USA use programs and application in combination with a Wii during a time period of 7 weeks to help patients and to improve rehabilitation method and improve the efficiency, on the other hand unfortunately neurological trauma could be a little bit harder that trauma can be distinct as stroke, after a stroke attack a victim could lose the movement of a part or parts of the body but with the help of our news technologies it became easier to try and solve this problem that afflicts people around all the world and make it easier and more accessible for everyone.
USER INTERACTION WITH THE GAME AND THE COMPUTER
It was important for the player to understand what was supposed to do and for him to recognise what was what therefore we made the models of the key card and the code pad as close as reality as possible with a little futuristic twist, the key card produce 2 different sounds, one if the player doesn’t have the key card with him and the second sound is played when the player has the key card after the sound is played the door open up.
The video of the key card in Terminal 404.
While the code pad have the code inside once you clicked the player is tasked in to understand which numbers are displayed on the screen and the numbers change every time he played so there is always a bit of a challenge, also when the code is wrong the code pad light in red while if the code is correct the code pad light up in green to make understand the player he inserted the right code all these choices were made to help the player in a more enjoyable and understandable experience.
This is the video of the code pad from Terminal 404.
This is the greybox of the hangar bay this area is going to be preatty important for the gameplay because from here you will able to reach the main generator room and reboot it (one of the main objective in the game)The area will be devided in 2 floor the player will arrive from the ground floor and he will get the choice to go inside the landing area or going at the tower control (first floor)Here in the tower control the player will be able to use a broke window (small one) to float a little bit in space before reaching the main generator room, there will be also some possible puzzles on the terminals that are going to be located underneath the big windows to get access to something else…The last part of this area is the landing area here is where ships would usually land to deliver the cargo containers with the supplies for the station this area doesn’t have a lot of gameplay the only “playble” part is going to be the puzzles on the second floor and the fact that you have to go through the broken window to reach the generator which is an important part for the story.
This part of the ship is going to be the storage area were all the containers will be stored, we were think of using this area to hide some secrets and or something important for gameplay.
I decided to put the containers in a messy way in this greybox because i wanted to give the felling that this is an area where a lot of people go often therefor it doesn’t need to be the most tidy place in the ship.The storage area was suppost to be run by the robots but here the robot are just for decoration and we don’t even know if we will keep them.From this gate the player will be able to access the hangar area of the ship I decided of putting the hangar near the storage because it make more sense in a visual way and in a logical way, I say that because the two areas have similar room design and they call each other style also it make sense in a logical way because after a ship with containers full of cargo land the robot can move the container in the storage area directly.
Terminal 404 is a space station puzzle game. You’ll hack on-board systems, defend yourself from weaponised turrets, fix the super generators for the ship’s mainframe and save the station from being vaporised. Hold onto to your life in the endless vacuum of space. Can you find hidden canisters of oxygen, discover the ship’s secrets, survive, and complete your critical mission?
We did a small meeting to decide how the oxygen system was suppost to work and after that we came out with this.
This is a picture show a general idea of how it’s going to work.
We started by looking at how the oxygen is going to depleat, we are going to use a timer so the oxygen is going to depleat overtime until it reach zero and you die.
In the game your are going to start with very little oxygen but when you equip the space suit the oxygen bar fill to 100% and the game will start, we decided to do like that to add a little bit of adrenaline rush while the player try to get to the space suit before he pass out.
Then we looked at other possible way to loose oxygen one of it for the moment is when the turrets of the space station shoot at you, the player is going ot loose oxygen because the turrets will create hole in the suit and the oxygen will come out of this holes.
We are going to show the oxygen levels on the HUD it also going to be percentages that help you to see where is the current oxygen level I was thing of putting it at 25, 50, 75, 100%.
There will be also a way to refill your oxygen tank by using oxygen canisters you will find around the station, the air canister will need to be collected for the player to survive and keep going with the game.
After finishing talking about the oxygen system we talked about how the map is going to laydown in the game and how the game is going to play.
Those are the 4 main objective in the game for finishing the game you as the player will have to complete all of those to win the actual game.
This is a more ditailed picture of the map of the game we putted numbers in where the objective of the game that will help us understand better and remeber where everything need to be in the map.
At the end we decided how many level were going to be in the game we decided to have only one level but we will be able turn on or off the gravity for different part of the story we did it like this to simplify whiele we will have to model everything for the game.
This is going to be the door that lead to the player’s living quarters, I decide to put numbers on this doors and the other doors to show the player that he is not part of the only crew on board of the station.
The corridors that bring the player from the living quarters to the hub will have an airlock before entering the Hub that is going to be something more in the game but that also they thing we are going to use to divide the different levels of the game
This is the Hub situated around the center of the ship and it’s going to connect all the different section of the ships, in the normal life in the station this area is used to hang up with the other passengers and enjoy the life on board.
I decided to change the shape from hexagonal to circular because it gives a better feeling and create harmony.
And I also made a second floor so all the corridors are not going to be on one floor
During last year I acquired skills that in my opinion are going to help me in this year project, the skills that I fell more confident in our coding and map design and the skills that I’m looking for to improve our modeling with 3DSMAX and I know all these skills are going to help me with my future career.
The course helped me a lot by developing the skills that need to create a game, now I feel more confident than when I started the course. I am really interested mainly in modelling because I like the fact that with enough knowledge I can be able to create anything that comes from my imagination and that fascinates me, but also because modeling is one of the first things that you see in a game or a trailer and that created interest in a game or keep them coming back to enjoy the game.
In my future, I would really like to be a prop modeler because I really like to shape the in-game world to create a really immersive experience for players.
Project Concept
My group project is going to be a problem-solving game in a dystopian space station, and you have to survive in the meanwhile you are traveling to reach the control room.
The player will wake up from his cryo pod at the beginning of the game, after that, he will discover that the space station has been hacked and some parts of the station are inaccessible, after that the player will need to solve some problem to get access to a certain area.
We got the ideas from the film Aliens but also from the movie Passenger where the ship broke down.
In the game I’m going to make the exterior part of the space station and the HUD and for make these things I will use 3DSMAX for the modeling of the exterior because I think it’s the best program but also because will be making the modeling I will make practice and improve my skills in 3DS, for the HUD I’m thinking about using photoshop.
But before starting everything I’m going to watch a lot of tutorials and practice my 3DSMAX skills so I will also be able to help my team in a better way through our game project.
Evaluation
Most of the development is going to be shared on WordPress all the changes, improvement, update and decisions are going to be documented on our blog but we will also use other sites such as SurveyMonkey for creating a survey and asking other person opinions about our game while we are developing it.
I will also use Facebook to share some ideas of concept art and listen to comment and ask suggestion, I think that the fact about working in a team can create advantage but also so little disadvantage at the same time for example is going to be easier for everybody because every person have a different part of the project but also little disadvantage such as not be able to make something without asking what the other members think about or how to make it look like because everyone should be happy about it.
Today I started to create the Greybox of the cryo room which is the place where the player will wake up when the game start, the cryo room is situated under the living quarter and it function as a place where the crew can be put in cryosleep but also as a medical bay where the astronauts can help each others out if someone is injured.
I made the decision of putting the medical bay in the same room of the cryo chambers because if the cryo chambers have some problems and one of the members of the crew need an operation they rest of the crew doesn’t need to move him a lot and they will have the tools for everything they need already there.
So after deciding what to do I started by looking at some design for the cryo chambers I started by looking at some circular shape for the section where the person is “stored” but that I didn’t like much how they were looking so I adopted a more sharp design, and I decided with my team that was a better design also because it call back to the corridors and shape of the rooms and the different object.
For the hospital bed I went for a dentist chair design that could also become a normal straight surface where you can make someone lay down.
After all of that I decide to make a little corridor that would connect the living quarter with the cryo room I used this section also to showcase that with a pretty cool technique you can show some “raw” part of the ships like cable, pipes and little mechanisms but without making the player walk right on top of them, I used add and subtract to make that effect but in the final product we are going to use texture to create the ideas of hole in the floor, this have 2 good application : the floor is not going to be irregular because the player is walking on a solid and homogeneous surface and not on pipes and cable of different dimension and shape and the second good use of the texture is that is not going to make the game lag as the geometry because the game have less poligons so it will load quickly.
I started with a piece of broken wall I wanted to accentuate the fact that the space station got some problems and broke down.
I give the broken piece of the wall some smaller pieces again to make it look like there is no gravity and the smaller pieces float near the big one.
After that I made a model of a pillar again with some smaller pieces nearby, I did something different because I didn’t want to make one model and put it everywhere, so I decided to use this pillar to give the player there is the impression of a randomness factor going on with the different debris in space.
Last I made a satellite to put in space this one will have a path to follow and will make a small orbit around the station this is suppost to simulate that the station have some mean of communicating with other outpost but it can’t because it got hacked.
The area will be devided in 2 floor the player will arrive from the ground floor and he will get the choice to go inside the landing area or going at the tower control (first floor)
Here in the tower control the player will be able to use a broke window (small one) to float a little bit in space before reaching the main generator room, there will be also some possible puzzles on the terminals that are going to be located underneath the big windows to get access to something else…
The last part of this area is the landing area here is where ships would usually land to deliver the cargo containers with the supplies for the station this area doesn’t have a lot of gameplay the only “playble” part is going to be the puzzles on the second floor and the fact that you have to go through the broken window to reach the generator which is an important part for the story.
The storage area was suppost to be run by the robots but here the robot are just for decoration and we don’t even know if we will keep them.
From this gate the player will be able to access the hangar area of the ship I decided of putting the hangar near the storage because it make more sense in a visual way and in a logical way, I say that because the two areas have similar room design and they call each other style also it make sense in a logical way because after a ship with containers full of cargo land the robot can move the container in the storage area directly.
Tommaso Riccone Game design 