Intermediate Graphics 1- Bullet Devil: Developement targets

It’s a brand new year, and it looks to be an interesting one too with intermediate computer graphics. This first assignment is to modify a screen shot of our old game, and design it to a state which we can classify it as an indie game. Here are two screen shots which are a possible target for our game by the end of the semester, and how we plan to achieve it.

Screen Shot 1 

Before

After

• Layering – An idea we had was to use different levels or layers for which each ship/environmental detail would exist on. This way we could easily specify a layer rather than exact coordinates, however layering also refers to the drawing of layering. This would involve drawing the ship first, then shader on the ship, and then finally apply its shadow.
• Shadow - One idea we had was for shadowing would use a post processing shader which would create shadows for each ship. The light source for this shader would be high up in the sky and to one side of the field. This would result in a shadow which would be to one side of the ship, while showing how high the object is in the scene. Therefore this would emphasize the “depth” in the game and make the below enemies easier to identify, and bomb.
• Ship Shading- This would be done with a similar algorithm to the shadow above however this will be done to give the ships more appeal. The light source in this case would be around the same level of the ship, or slightly above it, if its below.
• Health Glow(outside)/Bloom- done to  enhance the “appeal” of the health power up. This makes it more friendly looking, as many people were intimidated by it at first, thinking it was an enemy attack. This will probably be done by a post processing shader, which will

Screen Shot 2

Before

After

• Ship shading expanded-The enemy ship in the scene, the turrent ship, is below the player and holds turrents on top of the ship itself, which will be interesting to apply this shader to. As I said above, we would have to use layering to properly shade, since the turrents are attached to the ship base. Only after applying the shadow to the ship base, we can apply the shadows from the turrent itself, to make it look proper.
• Cool downs shading- The cool down icon for the cloak, shown at the very right black bar, has been redone. With what I have in mind, this will be done with a shader which will use an external value, time. This time is basically the time until you can use the power up again, and will be calculated based on what time the power went on cool down; to the time it’s done. This will give it something like an hour glass, where it will tell when the time is up.
• Cloud shading- Clouds could be done on a simple oval like polygon involving a multi-step process, which involves a blurring shader. First would involve applying the white color to the object, where the opacity would decrease as you travel from the center to the outside. Second you have some form of blurring done to the object which would choose areas for the shader to blur on the cloud. This would be done randomly and independently of all the clouds, making no two clouds the same. Finally, if time permits, there can be an algorithm to randomly “poke holes” in the cloud. These holes will be 100% clear, however the blur shader will make it so the hole doesn’t look too obvious. Once again this process will be completely random and make every cloud completely different.

Hopefully by the end of the semester we will have something like