Initial Project Proposal — New Media Capstone (NMIX 4510)
3D Printing technology has existed since the mid-1980s, but 3D printers have come into consumer affordability and usage as recently as 2010. Consequently, there has been an increase of 3D printing’s involvement in many sectors including education, science, health & medicine, architecture, and art. Given the apparently widening range of the 3D printing market, it would not be farfetched to project that 3D printers will quickly rise into common accessibility in the near future.
Let’s Get Physical!
(It’s a working title)
3D Printing + Video Games
Similar to 3D printing, video game development can be found at the intersection of technology and art. It is for this reason that we propose to create a video game that would have a checkpoint or story progression system tied into 3D printing.
The video game would be an adventure game to lend itself toward a goal-oriented system that would allow for symbolic game pieces as checkpoints. As players reach certain parts of the game, they will be rewarded with .stl files of a ready-for-print 3D model or figurine that can be kept as a trophy as well as for later use. Eventually, players and their friends / fellow “gamers” would have enough figures in their possession to use as board game pieces. This board game, which in-and-of-itself would be 3D printed, would essentially recreate the virtual world and adventure of the video game.
Who is our client?
This game would be presented within a simple model and uses 3D printed figures to combine the virtual world of online gaming with the physical interactivity of a board game. Therefore, the game would appeal to habitual video and/or board gamers as well as anyone with access to and interest in 3D printers.
Technology: M3D + Unity + Blender
For this project, we will, of course be using the M3D printer recently purchased by the NMI for printing the game figures. Additionally, we will be using two different free programs for making the game and designing the model.
The first program we will be using is Unity, which is free software that is compatible with OS X, which all four of us use. Using Unity, we can easily make the games with multi-platform functionality so that they can be played on mobile devices. While none of us have experience with Unity, Unity does have a large user-driven community where we can find tutorials and other support.
The second program, called Blender, is also free software and is compatible with OS X. Blender is an open-source 3D modeling program. Designs and models in Blender are 3D-print ready Like Unity, Blender offers a large community support system with tutorials and other resources.
Challenges
Our main challenge for this is overcoming our collective lack of experience with both 3D printing and video game development. None of us has much experience with 3D printing, the main focus of our project. Additionally, none of us has attempted to make a game, particularly one with an adventure component tied into it and adding complexity.
Although we have researched both Unity and Blender, we do not have experience with the actual use of these programs. This presents a particular set of challenges. For example, Unity is coded in C#, which is unfamiliar to all of us.
The artistic aspect of this project also presents a high hurdle to clear. Designing a video game, 3D printed models, and a board game each requires a large amount of creative conceptualization and design work to create them.
Finally, although we do foresee an increase in the availability of 3D printers within the next few years, 3D printers are not common to most households presently. Therefore, we are likely to encounter some roadblocks as many parts of our project requires access to 3D printers. However, there are ways to access 3D printers without having one in the home.
Checkpoints and Completion
As of right now, we are plotting are goals in a series of 3 steps: primary, main, and reach.
- Primary Goals
Our primary goals are to have a wireframe developed for the video game to act as a blueprint for what the game will actually become in the end.
We also aim to have some limited 3D-print ready design files of the figures.
- Main Goals
Our main goals for this project starts with a minimal working demo of the game that would be playable in a highly limited sense but also not include all aspects of the final demo or the complete adventure game.
Additionally, we would aim to have multiple but not necessarily all 3D print design files of the figures for the board game.
- Reach Goals
Our reach goals include a working prototype demo of the game that would be playable and include key aspects of the game as needed to successfully showcase the game as well as the purpose or significance of the 3D models in the game itself.
We would also at this stage aim to have all 3D-printer ready files for the board game and certain aspects of the board game available.
We would also at this stage start looking into multi-platform functionality of the game and so would look into making the game compatible with mobile devices.
