Week 15 progress update
Added 2023-02-11 17:49:40 +0000 UTCI started the week working on my game engine. I considered it a bit of a vacation: I needed a break from the animation and video work. In two days I made good progress and implemented features I had been thinking about for a long time. I modified the engine to be more dynamic and allow Lua code to dynamically create (ECS) entities and systems. While this functionality is not strictly necessary right now, it will be needed when I start to focus on the game proper and on improving the game editor.
I also spent Wednesday studying some Shadertoy shaders and using what I learnt to improve the graphics of my demo. I added tone mapping following this post and looked into techniques that I could use for other parts of the scene. Honestly, I am a bit worried about being able to hit the minimum aesthetic target necessary for the video to be successful. Should I instead look for artists right now? What would this mean for the delivery of the video?
Anyway, on Thursday and Friday I went back to the video work. I did a first rough voice-over. I recorded the audio tracks for the script and added them directly to my engine. I spent almost one entire day playing with Audacity. I learned how to script Audacity to process multiple tracks automatically. I learnt about audio normalisation, compression, amplification, noise reduction, etc. I did all the recording using my phone and some tripods I bought for the occasion. I fear I’ll have to buy proper audio equipment to record the final tracks.
By completing this work, I now have the backbone of the video. I can now play it back, be horrified and think how to improve it. Next big things for me: (1) write the initial and final parts of the video and decide if I need to produce more animations. Adjust the script to make it more engaging. (2) Work on improving graphics in the demo.
