Zachary Richardson
Animator, Programmer, Teacher, & Game Designer
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How To Fire A Trebuchet
This project served as an early Unity Game engine exploration somewhere around 2016. I leave it up to show off proficiency in using the Unity Game Engine. It was created as a solo project over 16 weeks. This game teaches players how to arm, load, prime, and fire a trebuchet. It was made as a test of skills and student portfolio piece. The player must follow the pop-up text directions In order to complete the mission. The short game is repeatable and can be replayed as many times as the player sees fit without reloading the scene.
Programming
For this project, I started by programming the scene to function with gravity, pause, quit, and UI for Unity. Programing pop-up text was a fun new skill as well, which would show up and disappear depending on the player's proximity. I also learned how to program wind using the default trees and grass.
Particles
I was able to play around with Unity's particle generation system within this project slowly creating unique effects. Some particles are locked in place while others are attached to movable objects. Within the scene Fog, smoke, explosions, sparks, and fire can be found.
Modeling
Besides the list of props created in Maya, this project was a chance to learn Unity's terrain sculpting tools which are quite robust. I created all the props, but the part of the list includes: the terrain, book, barrel, trebuchet, crossbow, fire rack, shield, and torch.
Audio
This went hand in hand with the coding aspect of the project. I can be hard to make audio that sounds right, plays at the right speed, doesn't irritate the player, and isn't over-applied.
Animation
Besides the particle and gravity interactions, the animation for the trebuchet was created in Maya.
Colliders
I spent time making sure that the collides of the objects felt real when the player interacted with them and that they worked correctly with gravity. I also took interest in making it impossible for the player to get out of bounds, past the mountains, which was a fun challenge.
