Welcome to Wrestling Gamers United Newsletter #284
1) Stick a fork in it 2) PWX Forum sign ups 3) Thank you Brendan 4) Link of the Week 5) Question of the Week
1) Stick a fork in it ***********************
Whew.
We were expecting an important visitor on Monday but it got pushed back to Thursday. That bought us more time to clean some things up. We weren't as disciplined as we should have been and we succumbed to the temptation to throw a few more moves into playable. Aesthetically a few minor things were thrown in because they were zero risk and they ended up making a pretty big difference to the overall presentation. Even a little thing like the 'staredown' reaction when two running wrestlers collide gave the playable a noticeable improvement. The programmers still aren't happy with the striking or animation system but they managed to get it to an acceptable level to present. The striking system was redone and it works much better but it needs polish. The collision system is almost too accurate in an ironic way. The networking code has been causing some funky animation playback but, again, nothing we can't work around. We wish we had known about some of the networking issues before we started animating but these are minor things that will just require more time to polish up. Nothing we've encountered so far has been a game killer for us. Huge credit to the programmers for forcing this engine to behave like a wrestling game.
The art team is happy though now that the programmers have enough content to work with and they can finally spend a few days making things look better. Darrell has been looking back at normal mapping the characters as well as lighting and with good results.
The visit went well and ended in action being taken with new publishers and investors. I presented the latest playable version of PWX and showed our visitor how everything was working. We've made a lot of progress so I was confident in that respect. But then he asked the million dollar question, "Is it fun yet?"
Why lie? "No, it's not where we know it can be yet. It works, but we want it to be a lot better." So we've got some work to do but we already knew that. His advice was to stop adding new features and make what already works more fun to play. If we can get it to that point as fast as possible we could potentially get the support to triple the size of the crew and get more things done faster. He's going to be making some calls on our behalf to people we normally wouldn't stand a chance of contacting.
Never a dull moment...
2) PWX Forum sign ups **********************
Thank you to everyone who has signed up for the new forum at proWrestlingX.com! It's been really good to have everyone together and discussing PWX and how we can make it better. A lot of people haven't been getting email notifications when their sign up is approved so if you haven't received an email yet please try logging in anyway. It's likely your sign up was approved the same day you applied.
3) Thank you Brendan ***************************************
Our lead animator, Brendan, finished his work on PWX last week. All of the animation design has been completed and Brendan leaves us with an incredibly valuable pile of animations and a system for doing more. Every 3D guy on the crew was trained by Brendan on how to animate for PWX. We'll miss him, but he left PWX animation in good hands. He is getting married next week and moving to a new city to run the family business with his new wife. Below is my open thank you letter to Brendan to the rest of the crew:
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Ahh Brendan what can I say? A lot of people have come and gone in the four years this project has been struggling along. I can honestly say that I’ve never been quite as sad to see someone go as I was today, your last day. Managing people has been one of the hardest and most frustrating aspects of this whole experience for me but with you it wasn’t even an issue. You managed yourself and you did it perfectly. Your work always set the bar for anyone else animating for this project and you never needed anyone to hold your hand or think for you. I never had to think twice about whether or not I could count on you to show up and get the job done right.
We all know the work hours at the studio have been flexible but I thank you for never taking advantage of that. You were almost always the first person in the studio every day and I think you only took two sick days in the entire year you were with us. Thank you. You could have taken advantage of the casual hours but you never did. That meant a lot to me.
Needless to say you’re contributions to PWX will live on for as long as this company is making games. You pretty much single handedly designed the entire animation method everyone else will use after you. The foundation for all of the action in PWX and every game after it was built by you. Thank you for giving us a solid start to build on.
You never once told me you couldn’t do something because it would be too hard. You just got it done. Again, I could count on you. You were never afraid to speak up when you thought a mistake was about to be made in one area or another. I could count on your honest opinion. You didn’t just tell me what you thought I wanted to hear. You honestly seemed to care that we got the job done got right. I think the one thing that floored me the most was the time you told me you didn’t need a raise even though you were one of the lower paid crew members at the time. You didn’t try to take advantage of the money we had. Thank you.
I wish you nothing but the best with your new life, marriage, and career. I think I speak for the crew and every fan around the world when I say we were very lucky to have you for as long as we did.
There will always be a job opening here for Brendan.
4) Link of the Week ********************
Darrell wanted to show you guys this link this week and he insisted he get credit for finding it. Is that a good thing?
http://www.fat-pie.com/salad.htm
3) Question of the Week ************************
You seen many screenshots of PWX on our weekly website updates. Now that we have a bit of time to pull back make some improvements to the look of the game would you mind offering some helpful feedback? What don't you like about the look of the game so far? What would you change or add?
Please email your answers to Dave@WrestlingGamersUnited.com and thanks for the support!
In the meantime and in-between time, that's it. Another edition of Wrestling Gamers United.
Offering some videos showing animations and gameplay etc would really help for fans to give feedback. Pictures are worth a thousand words, but I'm sure videos are worth a thousand more. It's tough to judge the game just from screenshots alone, because most feedback will be about the game's graphics anyways.
Judging from the screens so far: - Adding some "shining" effect to the wrestler's would be nice, but not to the point where it makes them look like plastic action figures. Since most wrestlers add baby oil/water on their body to make themselves look good, I think it'd be a nice way to give the game a nicer more next-gen type of look as well. Adding some sweat textures would be cool as well. Better lighting effects in general I guess.
- The ring ropes are too plain. Adding rope textures would definitely enhance it.
David Firth is one of the best british flash cartoonists ever. "Panathinaikos Bear" is the most random, minimalist set of animations that have ever made me choke with laughter. An episode that revolves around setting fire to a small child, only to turn out to have been allegedly "written" by Hacksaw Jim Duggan is just one fine example. (http://www.fat-pie.com/pana7.htm) Burnt Face Man is my favorite superhero.
Yeah salad fingers was created by David Firth I know his younger brother, They have been around for some years personally I feel all of the material is as over-rated as Hogan...but that doesnt mean you cant respect wot hes done. the town we come from is a shitty northen UK town with nothing going on so to drum up hype about some crappy flash vids is fair play to him, (just like Hogan minimal work maximum reward) :) . Also check out any MC Devo! stuff you can find. Persoanlly I hate this creation cos its just weak sauce dude, my friends and I have gorwn up with ACTUAL people like this parody all our lives (and even we dont find this funny) this sort of comedy is something that was invented and left on Yorkshire playgrounds many many moons ago, but again someones gotta find it funny cos hes got an albuming coming out soon. To be honest tho I did find the Devo at Leeds Festival skit quite funny first time round
Just read the Hacksaw Jim Duggan thing and I can confirm that this ISNT true, man who thinks of these rumours
I think the skin of the wrestlers needs some work done.I agree on the shining effect idea right now the skin of the wrestlers looks kinda dull.But the masks could use some shining up too as well as soime of the ring attire of the wrestlers.And maybe some shiny new ropes. Well that's all of the shining up I can think of
We have the materials and textures on the wrestlers fully prepared with normal mapping and specular (gloss) effects. It should be later this week that we begin to see the difference in engine.
[quote][cite] spudz:[/cite]effect...you know what they mean... btw you are just like that guy Marshall from "How I Met your mother",cute story...[/quote]