L.O: To be able to understand what 3D modelling is.

A 3D model is a computer generated object or person that immerses the use and has a certain depth of field, altering the viewer’s perception and believing it to be almost real.

L.O: To be able to understand what Polygons are used for in 3D modelling. R

A 3D Polygon is a collection of different vertices shapes and faces when, put together create a 3 dimensional graphical model.

Triangle - A polygon with three vertices, no more, no less.

Quad - A polygon with exactly and only four vertices.

N-Gon - Any polygon with 5 or more vertices. Examples of this are hexagon, which would be called a 6-Gon, an octagon, known as an 8-Gon, a decagon, called a 10-Gon and so on.

An orthographic drawing is a three dimensional drawing created with a series of 2 dimensional views of said drawing.

L.O: To be able to understand what Vertex Colour Information is.

Crash Bandicoot

Need for Speed: Most Wanted

Halo Combat Evolved

Halo 2

Star Wars Battlefront II

L.O: To be able to understand the Creation and Use of Convex Collision Hulls

A collision hull is an abstract representation of the 3D world in which the player resides. It is responsible for special actions in the game, player movement, and hit boxes. It is, in essence, an invisible polygon that makes colliding exist.

Collision hulls must be Convex. If the model is complex and cannot be realistically be wrapped in a single convex shape, then the hull must be separate convex pieces. Collision happens when the shapes of two rigid bodies are intersecting, or when the distance between these shapes falls below a small tolerance.

Materials are an enhancement of texture mapping that allows objects in 3D modelling and video games to simulate real life materials with great accuracy.

L.O: Know and explain what the different 3D coordinate systems mean.

A 3D coordinate system is the place on the X, Y and Z axes that a 3D object resides on. It is used to precisely position a 3D object.

L.O: To be able to understand what 3D modelling is

A 3D model is an object or character that is made up of 3D polygon meshes and exists in 3 dimensions.

Solid - Models that define the volume of the object they represent, like a rock. These models are primarily used for engineering and medical simulations.

Shell/Boundary - These models represent the surface or boundary of an object, rather than its volume. Almost all visual models in games development are shell models.

Digital modelling is one of the methods used mostly for building and engineering. Digital modelling is usually based with CAD (Computer Aided Design) and are made using 2D vectors or 3D modelling. There are four different types of models, surface, mesh, solid and wireframe.

It is 1962 North America, the gamer controls the main character Alex ‘Giggles’ Malone, Alex has been having a tough time, juggling his home life and his work. He works in a travelling fun fair as the resident clown. Performing tricks and jokes for the few people who still attend the fair.

The game begins on a ‘normal’ day for ‘Giggles’ waking up after a heavy night on the laughing gas, as he leaves his rugged trailer he finds himself on the outskirts of a post-apocalyptic fun fair. Although this is the way most visitors would describe the fun fair on a normal day, this is not a normal day. The fair has had a large meteor land flat bang in the centre of it, on top of the central circus tent.

All of ‘Giggles’ friends and colleagues are now mutated almost beyond recognition and hungry for more than candy floss and toffee apples (although most were already part of the freak show anyway) Giggles must fight his way across the landscape, past various rides and amusements to get to the central tent where his beloved clown car (Betsy) is, so he can make his escape.

We have an idea how we would like ‘Giggles’ to look but we do not have the ability to create him ourselves, so we are putting this task to you. We have some criteria that must be abided by:

·   Look like a clown

·   Be appropriate for the era of 1960’s

·   Be appropriate for the location of North America

·   Look tattered and rugged – rough, dirty, unshaven

·   Clown Makeup – although worn, smudged

·   Big shoes

We also will have various weapons that can be located throughout the playable area, although we currently are undecided on what these could be, we would appreciate it if you could sketch and design us some ideas:

·  Must be items found on a circus/fair

·   One ranged

·   One two handed

·   One, one handed

Upon receiving the brief, I researched classic circus' and the attractions they had, and, pairing it with my own experience of the modern day circus, I set to work designing weapons and enemies from the items and people you would expect to find around a classic 1960s era travelling circus.

When I created the brainstorm, I wanted to make sure I had a surplus of the things the brief required, allowing me to fall back on a different idea if the original one I tried failed. The brainstorm includes ideas for weapons, enemies, bosses and the main character himself.

The original design of my clown was going to have ruffles on his lapels and other such classic designs, along with a cone-shaped party hat on his head. After starting out my original design, I decided that looked a bit silly, so I scrapped the hat in favour of more shaggy, untamed red hair, and removed the ruffles entirely. The final outcome has stripy trousers, a polka-dot coat and a multicoloured shirt. The colour palette still hasn't been decided on, but that's because I've decided to wait until I've got a completely finalised sketch of the main character. Unfortunately, the shoes have been giving me grief, and I'm not entirely fond of the big shoes, but they are a requirement on the brief.

Enemy design was proven to be a whole lot simpler, because of the enemies I've selected. One of which are the not-so-tame-anymore lions, which are just lions, so designing wasn't a problem there. The hypnotised circus freaks were also pretty simple, take people like the strongman and the bearded lady and give them the classic comical swirly eyes that indicate hypnotism. The trapeze samurai and acrobat ninjas were definitely my most outrageous idea, since you wouldn't really see either of those at a circus, much less a half-destroyed one. But, that's where some of the background lore comes in:

The circus was currently residing in a more closed off, permanent location for the winter, and when it was destroyed, there were five primary locations, the caravan park, where the circus freaks and staff lived and slept, the minigame area, where all the *ahem*, rigged, games were played, the larger attractions, like the merry-go-round and the freakshows, the dining area/food and water transport, and lastly, the main tent itself. Each area is linked by pathways and other smaller side areas, which are full of mutated visitors (actually zombies - MUTATED VISITORS *zombies*), which are the hideous remains of people visiting the circus, changed and mutated by the energy emanating off the meteor that destroyed half the main tent.

The caravan park (or trailer park, whichever you prefer) is where the first boss can be found. It is surrounded by a chainlink fence, and the only way out is through a gate that leads to the rest of the circus. It is designed this way because generally the trailers are the last things to pack up after the rest of the circus, leaving an empty area for an easy drive out (getting sidetracked there - Shush).

Recently I've decided to scrap the trapeze artists and acrobats, which I'd realised early on I was likely going to do, for a couple reasons. One, the idea is totally absurd, I let my imagination run a bit wild there. And two, there just wasn't a way to cleanly fit them into the design. I may keep a couple of the designs and use them on NPCs, as a sort of homage to an idea that simply never came to fruition.

Unfortunately, since I seriously lack forward thinking, I don't have the beginning designs for the first person view. I have however managed to split the final image into three parts, of course there are a lot of jumps in detailing since, again, it completely slipped my mind to put everything into a Development Log.

Stages one, two and three respectively. The first being the base sketch, or 'foundation' if you will. Second is interior detailing. Since it's supposed to be a more run down caravan, I went for rounded doors and windows, and tore some of the wallpaper off the walls. The furniture is also a bit ratty, with the cleanest thing being the drawers, but there is a reason for that we will get to later. Just outside is a temporary fencing between the caravan park and the main circus area, with a lovely view of the main tent (or what's left of it) from directly outside our character's door. The third image has the meteor, which is the catalyst of the entire game, hitting the main tent and causing all the residents to be affected, some more so than others. 

Now, the drawers I mentioned earlier are only clean because they are relatively new, bought by 'Giggles' because his old set literally fell apart. I've also pointed out that the meteor affected everyone, but our character, 'Giggles', is supposedly unaffected. Or is he? I guess you'll have to theorise on that one...

Note: My interpretation of this game is an Action, Horror FPS. Keep that in mind while reading. There aren't many happy endings for the characters present, if any at all.

As I went along creating the environment, I had it following the structure of the brief and, using that a foundation, constructed my own version of the game's story around it. It is rather extensive, and as a result it's unlikely I'll be able to cram even half of the things I've imagined into my own version of Clownin' Around. But I'm still going to write this stuff down, in fact it may be a bit messy, since my thought processing works in funny ways. You've likely noticed in reading things related to the creation of the game that I run off on a tangent placing in lore and other such things, so instead I've decided to create this area for whenever I get such an idea. This should hopefully keep everything relatively organised, and I will attempt to put everything in a chronological order in relation to the game, its gameplay, and the events that take place from the point of view of our character.

Area 1

The caravan park itself is the beginning, but leaving it won't be as easy as walking through the gate or scaling the fence. You hate climbing. You'll never climb again. And the gate? Guarded by a makeshift fortress, created by caravans that have either fallen nicely or been pulled into place by their vehicles. It's incredible really, how quickly this stuff comes together.

The resident magician, who has been driven into madness by the meteor (it can cause mental damage as well as physical) has taken up residence as a 'King', sparing you and your van in the vain hope that you'd become his Court Jester. Oh how wrong he was. You first saw him again when he walked through the 'Castle Gate', beckoning to you, inviting you to become his Jester. You decline, and he becomes hostile. You can't get near the Castle without being killed now.

Journeying away, you look for weapons. You find a car door, torn from its home by the mad magician and his minions, and decide to use it as a shield. You know the Sword Swallower kept all his things in his caravan. You venture through the park, fighting off the small number of mad creatures that have shown up, moving towards the Sword Swallower.

When you reach the caravan, you find the door unlocked. Walking in, what you are greeted with is terrifying. The Sword Swallower, hanging from some kind of handrail in his caravan. Doing your best to keep your eyes off the horrifying image above, you see his swords, and grab them. They are a bit blunted, but still sharp enough to cut through things, if you put enough force into it.

Going back to the Castle, you've got a hell of a job, cleaving through the Mad Magician's Magical Minions™ and journeying through the Labyrinth of corridors until you finally reach the main court, where you discover the Meteor has given the Mad Magician™ some primitive form of actual "magic", allowing him to appear and disappear in nearby places, or just enough to get to the far side of his courtroom. After taking out his henchmen with extreme prejudice, the pair of you battle, until you emerge victorious, able to unlock the gate at the other end of the Castle, which was in fact so strangely designed it had two fronts rather than a front and a back. It was a colossal feat of fast engineering, you just wish you could've met the man who made it all happen. You walk through, and journey forth, towards the main tent...

Area 2

Now, looking up above at the map, you've probably wondered, "I can get to the main tent, wouldn't that mean I've won?" Sure, while your goal is to reach the main tent, where your car is, it most certainly won't be as easy as the map says.

While you are able to reach the relative area surrounding the main tent, you can't access it. This is because whoever has taken up residence there has somehow once again tamed the lions let loose after the meteor struck, and has now got them guarding the ruin of an entrance to the tent. Of course, it's a tent, just crawl under right? Well whoever is in there has thought of that too, and has surrounded the edges with debris, pinning down the sides of the tent, which also seems to be what's helping keep the rest of the tent in place. To get into the tent you've got to get rid of the lions, and you know that the tamer keeps his lions in special cages in a fenced off part of the Park. You must go there. If you've already been there, you know it's empty, and the tamer is nowhere to be found. He is in fact, in the amusements, held prisoner by the circus hypnotist, who attempted to take control of the circus ruins by hypnotising the mutates and horrors created by the meteor to do her dirty work for her. Her goal is to take total control, starting with the Amusements, the largest part of the Circus.

I should also mention, your car. Why's it in the main tent? Why not by your caravan? Well, that's because it was. By your caravan, that is. You woke up the night after the meteor, which by the way, didn't wake you up because you'd spent from midday yesterday to the next morning completely wrecked on laughing gas. It was your weekend off, why not? Anyway, the car. It was taken by whoever is in the main tent, because they were originally going to use it to escape, since it's actually the only vehicle not attached to a caravan, or supposed to attach to a caravan. Because of this, it's smaller and quicker. But whoever stole it clearly had a second thought. Now you've got to get there.

Area 3

So you've gotten out of the caravan park, you're murdered a lot of innocent bystanders, and killed two of your circus colleagues. Well done. Now you've got the tools and tips you need to storm the remnants of the main tent, so you do so. Or do you? Upon entering the tent you either die or end the game, there is no going back to the circus itself. Grab the gear you want, collect those collectibles, perform the side quests, or ignore everything and roll on in. Your choice.

Side Note: Since I'm constantly churning our ideas for my projects and how I can expand them, I have actually created a hypothetical DLC for this game. It goes as follows:

These events take place the day of the meteor strike, when the actual game character 'Giggles' was totally high on laughing gas until the next morning. There will be references to this DLC in the actual game. Maybe.

You are Nicholas Webb, just an average man with a wonderful wife and a daughter who wants to become a part of the circus. To fulfill one of her dreams, you decide to take her to the traveling circus nearby, since it has stopped and set down for the Winter. You arrived in the morning, bought tickets, had a great time in the Amusements and were going for food, when you realise you left your wallet in the car. You run back to grab it, leaving your wife and child in the cafe close to the Main Tent. You grab it, and hear a deafening roar, the rush of air, something passing overhead. Something big. You look up in time to see a massive rock, a meteor, heading straight for the circus. Before you have any time to react, it slams into the main tent with a boom, spraying debris and collapsing a few nearby buildings. The cafe was close by. Sparing no time, you take off running, hoping to find your family and get them to safety, before anything bad happens. 

Alas, when you enter, the people are not normal. Far from it, in fact. With growths, and other horrible mutations, their skin an ashy grey. You can only hope the same fate has not been suffered by your family. Realising their hostile, you pull a pole holding those stupid little triangular flags from the ground, spinning it, like a staff. You're suddenly glad your father, weird as he was, gave you weapons training. You set off to the cafe.

The cafe is blocked off by the remains of a food cart, blocking it firmly shut, and the windows? Forget it, you'd bleed out just knocking what remains of the glass in. There was a back door, but first you've got to get to it. Journeying the long way round, since the short way is a literal flaming wreck, you spy the back door. Moving forward, you reach it, but are suddenly thrown back when it bursts open, and a nastily mutated, rather huge chef comes out, wielding a cleaver. The rest of the cooking staff poured out behind him, unnaturally fast, and you prepare for the fight of your life.

You had to retreat, climbing the fence, leaving the staff safely corralled in the back, just wandering there. You decide to hunt around nearby, grabbing cutlery, broken glass, tape, glue, anything you can get your hands on, and, pulling a second pole from the ground, set to work on your new weapon of ultimate death.

Jumping back in for round two, confident as ever (that is to say, not at all), you set to work. Even though he holds the cleaver, you're the butcher. But you still feel the guilt, as you always have, at killing so many, even if they are already dead. Guilt aside, you enter the building. Silence. You start panicking, the worst case scenarios popping into your head. Even if your wife and child survived, what about the strange grey rash that's come up on your arm? What if you're convicted for murder? What if you get them killed when you try and leave? And the most worrying, what if none of you leave?

You enter the main part of the cafe, and understand now why you couldn't see through the remnants of the windows. Tables and chairs were thrown about, and what wasn't damaged inside was a wreck outside. You turn and throw up behind the counter. The stink in the air, undoubtedly caused by the corpses in the cafe. You look around before spotting your daughters bright dress, which she'd insisted on wearing to 'blend in' with the circus. Moving as quickly as you can, you reach her. She stirred, breathing. Unscathed. Somehow, miraculously, she had survived without a scratch. Hearing a noise, you turn, and are heartbroken instantly. There was your wife. Mutated, feral. She was gone. Your daughter, still unconscious, won't know what happened to her mother. She was 9, and would live on without her mother. Or so you thought. But then, she spoke. Hoarsely, slowly shuffling towards you. The mutants avoid her. She's the safest bet for your daughter to get to safety. Picking her up, she walks out the back, through one of the holes you created in the fence, during your fight. 

You go the long way, hiding from the mutants. You still haven't killed many, apart from the ones at the entrance and the Kitchen staff. Dropping your weapon at the entrance, you see them. Waiting by the car. You all get in, and drive off. To safety?

Unfortunately for Nicholas, he isn't safe. I'm sorry to say that soon after their escape, they were caught by the military, who were traveling to the circus as quickly as they possibly could. They were setting up a temporary camp and a roadblock, and had caught the Webb's, ironically, in their own web. The family was never seen again...

End of Side Note