Sake is awsome ....

Went out for impromptu Wagamama last night, was definitely the right call. I don't know where that random aside came from, probably because I needed a blog title ....

Annnnnnnnnyway - today has been awesome. Managed to sit down and have a chat with Adrian about the whole production side of things. Since id written countless (about 5) planning documents that tended to have the max lifespan of a week I thought it might be best to hold off until I spoke to the professionals. I was a bit concerned that we are kind of at a critical stage right now and didn't want to rush off into the next 4 weeks or so without any direction.

The fact we have a playable build and are making steady progress through also helped because it allowed me to identify where the gaps are as opposed to starting from scratch. As i think i mentioned earlier as well I was preoccupied with the notion that it had to be crazy level of detail, when in actuality all you need to do is identify the cut off points for art and code guys. This made alot more sense as obviously the dynamic of our team is a lot different to a team of say 20 so were all in each other business to a certain degree. So now we have a shiny new and future proof (- ish, amendments as opposed to complete overhauls) that outlines when we need assets in relation to other sections of the game but allows the guys to determine how they get there.

This is awesome cos (not sure if reiterating here) but we don't really have the time or need for crazy levels of micromanaging. Most importantly everyone is happy with theplan and its all looking very feasible ... (i guess well see how that pans out ;) ) - Production Update

Art wise we are sooooo close to our proper alpha build. Just a case of plugging in the final bits and pieces to make it 100% feature complete. Dave has finished building the island up and has started adding textures and environment art such as trees etc (hes gunna do a monster update with more info) Ross has finished the rig and some basic animations for wing flaps etc as well as sticking wings onto a complete character so we can get him into a build to test camera angles etc.

Code wise Rich has been working away on the sequencer and has got some menu transitions in - as well as some nice place holders :) Rowens been plugging away like a virtools android working on some of our smaller features like the love arrows and context sensitive nudge items. Also coupling paths and all the other nice graphical touches - all good stuff.

Urrgh, just found out Dave and Ross have been using different Maya versions and so now theres 120 objects that need renaming :( ah well better it happened now than 3 weeks down the line :)