Go Team Elysian! 

We began the day by collecting the equipment from Mollie's house at 8:30am - an early start! We got there for about 9am and began setting up. We had a few changes with the lighting set up which held us back from the production schedule. We realised that having the lights directly behind was not a good idea as the we couldn't get a soft enough depth of field to blur them out. We obviously didn't want the lights to be obviously studio lights! This resulted in us putting one light and the back corner and another in the same position on the back corner opposite. We made the lights go as high as they could in order to make them shine downwards on the dancers - almost like the sun at the water's surface. A lot of blue gels were placed on the lights to give them a blue tint and make them give off a more water vibe. 

Setting up equipment

The original lighting set up before alterations

While we were altering the light positions, we asked the dancers to do rehearsals to practise their dance to get more in the swing of things and warm up before the shoot began. I found it really exciting seeing the dance in it's final stage on set rather than just in the SU, and it felt like everything had just come together. 

Tom focusing on getting the shot

Here are some photos I took of the dance / dancers throughout the day : 

Reflection

Even though it was a bit of a shaky start I feel the shoot went pretty well. It was so nice seeing our vision that we've put so much of our efforts into over the past few months come to life - there's been times when we doubted it was ever going to happen so getting it done was a big relief and accomplishment for us! I'm so proud of us for overcoming all the obstacles and making it happen in the end. I think this goes to show you that if you work hard enough, most likely good things will happen. We're all exhausted at the moment, it's been a very long day. However saying that I feel like I can speak for everyone when I say we had a lot of fun on set. Emma and Harry are amazing and very fun performers and it was an absolute joy to work with them on this. We were all laughing in between takes at various conversations we were having or general banter!  I feel so lucky to have worked with such a motivated crew, not even just as a crew but also as my friends. Of course there were various problems throughout as there is on any shoot, but we overcame these and got on with the job, and as a result I really hope that we've made something that reflects all of our work and passion for the project. 

Today we held a rehearsal which both performers, Harry and Emma, could attend to establish what the final dance will look like. This was held on the dance floor in the SU as all other rooms were booked or we weren't allowed to use because they were 'not our subject,' disappointingly. We began the session by allowing them to do solo improv based off of keywords that we gave them, such as frantic. It was described to them that they began in a small box and as the dance progressed the box became bigger allowing them to be more free with movement. After the solo improv we paired them up for body contact and they improvised based off of our previous keywords and what we had discussed about our idea. After awhile we established that it would be best to split the dance into  it's three sections and work on each section at a time. When a section had been roughly finalised we would then move on to the next one to begin working on. At the very end, before the dancers left, we got them to run through it several times as a whole to give them more practise. 

Here are some photos of the performances from the rehearsal :

Since we are gonna be filming in slow motion I thought it might be nice to use the slow motion option on my phone to get an idea of how the dance will actually look in the final edit and not in real time. Here is a snippet of one of the parts slowed down, similarly to how it will end up :

Idea

I'm bringing back my potato famine video from one of last year's small exercises and turning elements from it into the game! It is based off the ending of the video in which it shows potatoes raining from the sky in reference to Ireland having all the potatoes no problem again. The player will be the farmer and the aim is to catch the potatoes falling from the sky and eat them. If the player fails to eat a potato and it goes past the boundary of the game, the game will be over and the player will have to restart. 

Making and adding the models/ background for my game

I took a screenshot from the video and then removed the background and any unwanted material using the Quick Selection Tool. This was then saved to the texture folder, inside my Unity Folder, ready for access in the software.

Image with no background

I had previously sculpted potatoes in Sculptris and textured them in Maya, specifically for my game. I saved these from Maya into the Models folder inside the Unity Assets Folder on my Desktop so that they would appear in the folder when Unity was started. 

Saving the potatoes in Maya

Potatoes in Models folder in the Assets folder in Unity

Field texture in folder

Select Texture Window for Background

Shader selected as 'Unlit/ Transparent' with new texture appearing in the select box

Final texture on background 

To add the texture of the farmer and allow it to work in the same way as the spaceship used in lesson, I created Quad game object in the Hierarchy. Next I used the position tool to move the Quad over the top of the spaceship. With the Quad selected, I used the same technique as adding the background to place the farmer texture on the game object. I went to the select box and chose the farmer texture and made sure the shader was set to 'Unlit / Transparent.' I then parented the Quad to the Player in the Hierarchy. Finally, as the spaceship could still be seen underneath the farmer texture, I disabled the 'Mesh Renderer' to make this invisible. The result was that the spaceship had seemingly been replaced by the farmer. 

Quad added to Hierarchy

Quad positioned over spaceship

Texture added to Quad

Quad parented to player

Spaceship still visible under Quad

Disabling Mesh renderer

Spaceship now invisible - replaced with new texture

Adding Sound Effects and Music and Destroying the Player at Game Over

I downloaded my selected sound effects and music and added them to the Audio folder in Assets to be accessed in Unity. To add the background music I selected the GameController in the Hierarchy and the went to the Inspector to change the Audio Source from the previous music to my new potato song. Once that had been added, I made sure that Play On Awake and Loop were selected in the Audio Source, to make sure the music would play as soon as the game was started and also to ensure that the music would continue throughout the entire time the game was played. 

Adding tracks to Audio folder

Select Audio Window - potato song selected

Completed Audio Source tab - new audio added, play on awake and loop selected

'gameScript.AddScore (scoreValue);' allowed the score at the top left of the game to be updated by 10 points every time the potato came in contact with the player (the farmer). I added an Instantiate function in order make the nom sound play every time the potato comes in contact with the player. The Destroy function meant that as soon as the potato came in contact with the player it would be destroyed and disappear, giving the appearance of being eaten. 

Finished DestroyByContactScript

To add the 'Wawawa' sound effect when the game was over to show the player has lost, I had to activate it when the first potato reached the boundary just off of the Game View scene. To do this I added more code to the GameController script. 

In the 'public void GameOver()' section of the script I added to the 'If' statement an 'Instantiate.' This means that as soon as the game is over, and the Game Over text is activated due to the potato hitting the boundary, the sound effect will be played. 'GetComponent<AudioSource>().Stop();' was added in order to make the background music stop as soon as the game was over, in order to focus on the 'Wawawa' sound effect. A 'Destroy' was also added to make the player disappear when the game was over, so as they cannot continue to collect the remaining potatoes falling before restarting. 

Prefabs folder

Wawawa sound linked on Wawawa Pre Fab

For the 'Nom' sound I selected the potato prefab in the Assets folder. In the Inspector, under the 'Destroy By Contact (script)' section I selected the Nom sound from the Audio folder and linked it to the Nom Pre Fab. 

Nom sound linked to Nom Pre Fab

The result was that every time a potato hit the farmer the sound would be activated. When the game was over, the 'Wawawa' sound effect would be activated and the music would stop. 

Asteroid in Prefabs folder

Asteroid dragged to Hierarchy - Model selected in drop down menu

Original Mesh of asteroid

Potato mesh selected to be changed to

Potato now in game instead of asteroid

To make the potatoes spawn like the asteroids I selected GameController in the Hierarchy. In the Inspector under 'GameController (script)' I changed the asteroid prefab with the newly created potato one. This meant the asteroids were replaced with potatoes. 

Removing Rotation of Player

This was then deleted to completely remove any rotation on the farmer. The result was that the player would move solidly left and right instead of turning around. 

Removing the Bolt

The aim of the game is to eat the potatoes, not to destroy them with a bullet like the spaceship does with the asteroids. Therefore the bolt was not needed anymore. To remove the bolt I went to the PlayerController script, selected the following section of coding (that codes for the bolt being fired) and deleted it. This meant that when the mouse was clicked no bolts would be fired. 

Piece of code deleted to remove bolt

Adding a High Score

To add a high score to the game the following pieces of coding were added to the GameController script :

In the 'Void UpdateScore()' section I added an 'If' statement. This was saying that if the score is bigger than the high score, then the high score will equal the score. The 'highScoreText.text' part allows the High Score to then be updated to this new higher total. 

Final GameController script

Game with high score now added