Artisan Old Page

=Artisan=

Project Goals & Scope:
Looking for something easy? Looking for something challenging and totally unique? Either way, we've got a place for you! Artisan combines traditional game programming with never-seen-before applications of current and even not-so current performance of graphics hardware. Our project spans cartoony and whimsical to breathtakingly realistic and immersive gameplay.
 * Our goal is to implement one of the craftsman types/job classes (for example, the Blacksmith) such that you can create the relevant custom items in the game world, complete quests in that job class, and, if time permits, engage in combat in the game world.
 * By the end of our 16-week development period, the game should be sufficiently advanced for one job class to be able to present a playable demo on kickstarter.com and from there acquire the funding to push the remainder of gameplay, design, and development into a broader marketable game incorporating the remainder of the job classes, quests, and combat options.
 * Students who have taken CS455 (Computer Graphics) from Dr. Egbert, myself included, have already built 3D games, and it's not as daunting as it may seem! The kicker is that we already have code to play with and work with for interactions in the 3D world, so even if 3D isn't your thing, there are still lots of places where you can fit in and make a contribution. Also, several of the contributing artists are already experienced in 3D modeling.
 * If our kickstarter project receives funding, you can choose to stay with the team into fully funded production! If it doesn't get funding, you still had a lot of fun and have an impressive demo to add to your portfolio!
 * Questions? Email Seth Stewart (Project pitcher) at pygosceles@yahoo.com

Ideas, Questions, Comments

 * Items created by players could be made available on an online marketplace, where you can buy and sell from other players and acquire items for your game.
 * You can also export 3D-printable models of your creations and through an online service have them printed and shipped to you for a small fee
 * If we can team up with an actual smithy or craft studio, you could remotely machine or commission an artist to create your game world item and deliver the actual thing (sword, buckler, helmet, pendant, etc.) to your door!

Premise of Artisan:
Artisan will be a fairly simple 3D, first/third person perspective game that allows the players to be inventive and contribute to an internet-based community. The player will create a simple, fun character that will populate a world which will have a whimsical medieval feel and aesthetic. The goal of the game will be for players to create custom 3D items and become famous artisans within the game world. The more famous their characters are, the more immersed in the world they can become. They will be able to create more items for their characters and to sell in markets. You can proceed to adventure, explore, and combat monsters in the game world using your custom items and accessories.



Items will be fashioned both interactively and programmatically with a realistic interface that allows you to employ tools to shape raw materials into unique items. For example, a blacksmith will be able to pour molten steel into a mold, and then use a hammer to strike the object to shape it into a sword or axe blade, armor, or some other artifact. A woodworker could turn items on a lathe or use a carving knife or saw to shape and pattern his wooden creations. The level of realism and complexity of the modeling workflow depends on how much we can do in one semester, and there are many options available (see Technology below).

Gameplay & Setting:


Artisan takes place in a whimsical, Norse dwarf-themed world called Smörgåsland. Players will create personalized dwarfish characters to populate this world, and within it they will venture to become successful craftsmen. Players will use their characters to design and build custom items. By doing so, they attempt to win fortune and fame by selling to rich and influential NPCs, such as kings, queens, lords, magical beings, etc. When a character is created, the player will select which type of craftsman his character is. Examples are woodcarver, metalworker, weaver, alchemist, etc. This will determine the character’s base skill, which creates restrictions on item creation. For example, if Fred creates a character who is a metalworker, he gains the metalworking skill. This means he can create items that are made of metal, but he cannot create an item made of wood or of fabric. As the game goes on, Fred’s character will gain additional knowledge and may add more skills to his retinue. Let’s say he chooses woodcarving next. He may now create items made of metal or wood, or items which are made of both metal and wood, such as a spear.

In order to use a character’s skills, the character must first possess the proper materials. Materials may be gained in a number of ways: Once Fred’s character has created a number of items worth recognition, his character gains favor with some of the influential NPCs in Smörgåsland. If this keeps up, he may have the opportunity to obtain a permanent shop somewhere in Smörgåsland. The advantage of owning a shop is that as long as your reputation is maintained, you will have a steady flow of income. This represents locals shopping at your character’s establishment for trinkets. Sometimes, a government official may commission you for a particular item, in which case you would have to go out and obtain the necessary materials and skills. Such commissions might have deadlines. COMBAT: Combat serves the purpose of gaining materials and items to help characters become successful craftsman. Your character must have the proper equipment in order to survive combat. This equipment, such as armor, weapons, protective spell items, etc., can either be crafted by the character who wishes to equip it, or can be bought from markets. Once a player feels their character is ready for combat, they may choose to leave whichever city they are in and head off into the dangerous wild. There, they will enter fairly small maps populated by monsters. They will combat them, and if they survive, return to civilization with loot.
 * 1) By purchasing materials from merchants. Each city and town has a market. Each market may have a different set of materials, depending on various factors such as local environment and cultural trends.
 * 2) Characters may obtain materials by adventuring. They can seek and destroy various monsters and mythological creatures who may have access to what you need. This is especially true if your character is in need of the materials to create a magical item.
 * 3) Characters might be given items or materials by wandering merchants, magical creatures, or benevolent nobility. This happens more often as your character gains a reputation as a craftsman.

Technology
NVidia's latest graphics cards can do real-time raytracing and fluid simulation. Using even outmoded desktop or mobile technology, GPUs are now capable of 3D physical modeling and rendering at incredible speeds. This means that it is now feasible to create video games that employ realistic physics models to create totally custom geometry and texturing for objects that really interact physically with their environment. NVIDIA Kepler demo from 2012

This **may** be the very first game on the market to center on fully customizable and interactive user-made objects that are actually crafted within the game itself.

Lest you think the technical aspects are too challenging, I have done some research and found that the vast majority of the problems in physical simulation have already been solved - they simply haven't been employed to give video games a creative edge beyond mere special effects and scenery. NVidia Physically-based simulation demos Most of the physics actually comes for free with libraries like NVidia's and game engines like UDK (see below)! Possible approaches for modeling unique items in-game:
 * 1) Voxel editing - really easy and straightforward; basically just a 3D pixelated Paint program (like Minecraft)
 * 2) 3D modeling - there are a number of cheap and free 3D modeling programs out there that let you point and click and edit 3D objects. While it isn't physically based, the basic features are simple to implement and allow for a high degree of geometric customization (see the freeware Anim8or.com). Point-and-click polygon creation could be easily implemented well within the course of a semester.
 * 3) Sculptris.com has invented something they call "Digital Sculpting" which is a lot like Photoshop, but for 3D objects: http://pixologic.com/sculptris/ The geometry and math required for this approach are quite a bit more challenging, but many well-published and well-documented algorithms exist for solving this type of problem interactively.
 * 4) Approximate physically based modeling - This approach is even more realistic but is still an oversimplification of physical reality. It is not particularly hard to implement, for example, a spring-body system where particles in a "solid" object have a basic shape but employ some amount of deformability. The main challenge here is to tweak the system so that it approximates real objects to a sufficient degree of accuracy. The complexity of this system could be highly variable depending on how accurate or detailed we want it to be. Many surveys and papers have been published detailing these approaches and their pros and cons: https://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs448b-00-winter/papers/TR97-19.pdf
 * 5) Exact physical modeling - in this type of system, certain laws of physics are employed with the highest degree of exactness available. Benefits are high fidelity and close correspondence to real-world systems, but drawbacks include greatly increased computational complexity so we are not likely to attempt this approach.

We can choose anywhere within or beyond or outside this spectrum and still be doing something innovative that few, if any, other games have done.

NVidia and other companies offer several programming SDKs that leverage the extremely parallel processing power of modern GPUs and actually support a very wide range of consumer hardware: NVidia CUDA Potential programming environments:
 * UDK
 * C++
 * C#

First meeting
Per the schedule, our first team meeting to get ourselves organized and working will be during our class period this Thursday, January 16th. We may get some in-class time tomorrow (Tuesday the 14th) to meet, so please be prepared for that possibility as well. Meantime, please be thinking about your desired role versus needed project roles, ask questions about the project, post ideas, and get connected with the team. Then they built another hall [...] which also is a very beautiful mansion, and is called Vingolf. ''Thereupon they built a forge; made hammer, tongs, anvil, and with these all other tools. Afterward they worked in iron, stone, and wood, and especially in that metal which is called gold.'' -The Prose Edda, chapter 6, stave 14

Agenda:
Please feel free to add to this list if you feel there are other topics that need to be worked out!
 * Share contact information
 * Investigate project scope
 * Begin drafting requirements
 * Establish roles of each contributor (these are subject to change according to project needs)
 * Establish programming environment, target platform, project website and source control software.
 * Plug in to collaboration tools, including timesheet



Project Team: (Sign on and take your share of the gold!)
Please add this page to your watchlist for important updates!

We also have two professional artists (Kathryn and Bryce Lowry) outside of BYU who are willing to back the project with artwork, storyline, and game concept design:


 * Bryce Lowry (Creative Direction plus various design positions)
 * Kathryn Lowry (creative direction plus various design positions)



Team Roles Needed
Despite the technical aspect, the majority of the work done for this game will be fairly straightforward and typical of game development.

Art Personnel Requirements: Programming Personnel Requirements: Team members may occupy one or more positions, depending on project intensity.
 * Creative Director(s)
 * Character designer(s)
 * Environment designer(s)
 * Prop designer(s)
 * 3D modelers
 * Lighting director
 * Sprite artists
 * Animator(s)
 * AI programmer
 * Graphics programmer
 * Sound integrator
 * Gameplay designer
 * Scripting
 * User interface designer
 * Input processing
 * Network communications
 * Physics engine integrator
 * Game tools developer
 * Game testers!!!
 * Level designers could be from both the art and programming departments. It seems likely that 3D modelers and scripters would work hand in hand to build the levels. Levels in this game would be more of a backdrop than an interactive environment, so maybe just a 3D modeler or two could fulfill this position.
 * Miscellaneous Personnel Requirements: Musician(s), sound designer, PR and advertising.

Team Public Wiki

 * I did some research into how we should do our wiki. I found a free wiki hosting service called ShoutWiki that I believe will do everything we need other than code versioning (I recommend GitHub for that). I even set up a wiki - currently blank - that you can all look at to see if you like it. It is at http://rileytest.shoutwiki.com/. -Riley Monson
 * [Temporary] Requirements docs hosted on Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/?as_qdr=all&pli=1&authuser=0#folders/0B-Em5UW4Vi_YakxrRjlCTndFYkE (SethS)

More Game Details
(Details and requirements as found in this proposal are subject to change)


 * Project to be Developed by: Sly Fox Entertainment (current preferred company name)
 * Project Working Title: “Artisan”, other title options include: “Smörgåsland”, “Artisans of Smörgåsland”, “Dwarfworld”, “Dwarves of Smörgåsland”
 * Project Type: Video Game/App
 * Game Genre: Sim/Adventure/RPG
 * Game Platforms: iPad, iPhone, and perhaps Android, Windows and MAC OS, depending on funding and project scope.
 * Project Funding Source: Kickstarter.com



CHARACTER CREATION:
Each skill set has its own distinct, basic costume for starting out with.
 * 1) Choose gender.
 * 2) Choose head shape.
 * 3) Choose facial features and colors.
 * 4) Choose hair and facial hair styles, colors.
 * 5) Choose body type (skinny, medium, fat)
 * 6) Choose basic skill set (metalworking, woodworking, weaving, stonecutting, alchemy, ceramics)

ABILITIES LENT BY SKILL SETS:
Woodworking: Craft wooden weapons (bows, arrows, staves, etc) Build wagons and carts. Carve totems

Metalworking: Craft metal weapons Craft metal armor Craft goblets, tankards, utensils, etc. Craft metal jewelry (rings, necklaces, arm bands, etc)

Stonecutting: Carve statues/statuettes Cut gems/precious stones Create rune stones

Weaving: Create clothes (cloaks, tunics, pants, etc.) Create tapestries Create banners

Alchemy: Create potions Create poisons Transmutation of materials (steel to silver, etc) Gadgetry?

Ceramics & Glasswork: Create bowls, plates, cups, etc. Create vases. Create bottles. Make beads and other jewelry

Functionality of Skills:
When you choose a basic skill set, it does not define the end of your character or his development goals. Rather, it is where your character starts, and helps you decide what you might want to focus on. As you progress through the game, you can add additional skill sets. This will allow you to combine multiple skill sets to create items that cannon be created with just one. For example, let’s say your character starts out with the woodworking ability. You can create things made completely of wood, but nothing else. Then you upgrade and add metalworking to your skills. You can now create blades as well. The two skills can be combined to create something like a spear.

More interesting combinations will also exist to form a sort of recipe-style craft system. Let’s say you want to make a bomb. You could use alchemy to create an explosive substance and ceramics to create something to contain the explosives in, like a bottle or ceramic casing.



Creating magical items:
Magical items are created when something with magical properties is combines with the usual materials in the creation process. For example, if you have a magical piece of moon rock and you’re creating a sword, you could throw the moon rock into the mix of usual materials (iron or steel) for a magical moon sword. This would give the sword a unique aesthetic, as well as advantageous properties that have something to do with moon magic. Creating magical items can be done in three different ways. They are as follows: 1. Magical material + item ingredients = magical item (as described above with the moon rocks). 2. Alchemical solution + item ingredients = magical item. 3. Rune combination + item ingredients = magical item.

A Note on Runes: Runes are not solely in the domain of the stonecutter. Anyone can learn runes. For example, the woodcarver could make a totem and carve a rune combo onto it for magical effects. One must simply learn the combo first. A weaver could weave a runic pattern into a cloak to give the cloak special properties.

List of Magical Materials:

Dragon breath Dragon scales Moon rock Fallen Stars Trapped souls Ghost cry Pegasus feather Phoenix claw Tooth of Fenrir Hair from Sleipnir Freya’s Golden Apple Draugr Bones Mead from Valhalla Sun flare Water from Mimir’s well Jotun Belch Leaves of the World Tree Essence of Bifrost Heimdal’s eye Dwarf Stone Dragon teeth Draugr Talons Thor’s toenail clippings Odin’s Missing Eye

Story


King Brandulfar of the kingdom of Dwarrowheim once wielded his ancestral sword in defense of his realm. The blade was a beacon of safety and struck fear into the hearts of the kingdom’s enemies. So strong was its magic that evil could sense its presence for miles around, and so the kingdom went unmolested for many years. Issaethra, an icy white dragon who once plagued the mountains of Dwarrowheim, hid in his lair for centuries after the sword was forged.

But now the sword is missing. Once the sword was gone, Issaethra sensed the sword’s power fade, and gained courage. In desperation, the dwarfs of Dwarrowheim fortified themselves in case of the dragon’s attack, but all in vain. The icy fiend soared to the gates of the kingdom and bashed its defenses to pieces. King Brandulfar was slain in his attempt to save his people, and the dragon took the king’s crown back to his lair to add to his collection of loot.

Eldgrimar, the King’s right hand man and Warlord of Dwarrowheim, swore to avenge the king’s death. He will stop at nothing to put an end to Issaethra once and for all. As preparations for the dragon hunt began, Eldgrimar made two declarations: first, that the discourteous dwarf who stole the king’s sword shall be found out and put to death. Secondly, that all of the greatest dwarf warriors in the world are invited to aid Eldgrimar in his hunt for the dragon. All are promised fame and fortune should the quest succeed.

As a character, you have the choice to help Eldgrimar fulfill either or both of his declarations. The whole world of Smörgåsland is available for questing in, which will be necessary to become worthy of confronting the world’s most frightening dragon. You must discover what it takes to slay a dragon, for such a task is nigh impossible. Then you must gather the skills and supplies to create weapons, armor and other tools with which arm yourself and your party for the final confrontation.



All art on this page is (c) Copyright 2014 the Lowrys.