This week in GAM111 was the last tutorial before the end of week 13, when the final assessment piece is due, and marked the end of GAM111 as a subject. During class, while very little lecture content was actually discussed during this tutorial, it did give us the opportunity to look back on and reflect on the trimester as a whole. Yes it has been a bumpy ride, however looking back now it is clear that I got a lot out of the course, making mistakes in the process, but learning many lessons along the way.
Styled in a much less formal format than previous lectures, there was no Stand-up Meeting this week, more an ongoing discussion regarding the course as a whole. Surprisingly, Iain had already graded our previous assessment and had our marks ready for private viewing. I took this opportunity to see where I sat in regards to passing the course, and while I didn’t do too well in the last assessment, I still felt comfortable in being able to pass the course with even just a basic pass for the final assessment piece. Another thing Iain did this week was take the opportunity to assist anyone with their Blogs for the final assignment. Feeling more than satisfied with the amount of work and effort I have been putting into my Blog posts, I didn’t feel the need to ask for any further assistance.
This was also the first week in which we didn’t work on one of the In-Class Exercises, which have very much defined the tutorials. While I will miss working on these activities in class, I in no way intend to just put the work done aside and simply move on. Quite the opposite in fact. Over the coming break between trimesters I plan to further expand on the SHUMP and RTS activities, building on the work already done and hopefully creating works that I can show off as my own. This is experience and represents skills necessary if I am to be able to succeed in the Studio units to come. Simply passing the unit is not enough, I need to be able to work on projects myself, and in my own time, in order to further develop my own personal skills as a Games Developer.
During the tutorial Iain did briefly touch on what awaits us in Studio. Before the lecture even began I asked him a few questions regarding the Studio Showcase from the previous Wednesday evening. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend due to Production class conflict, but Iain did give me a bit of an insight into what was on display and what to personally expect when I found myself in Studio 1. Knowing now that even Studio 1 students have to showcase their works to the public sphere, I will need to commit 100% next trimester if I want to stand out to prospective employers, else blend into the crowd.
(Procedurally Generated Terrain in Unity from the Code-Phi Tutorial).
On a closing note, in what little free time I could scrounge together over this past week I have been taking the time to read through an insightful tutorial on Code-phi.com regarding the Procedural Generation of Terrain in Unity. An interesting read to say the least, I was surprised to find that it is far less complex to implement than I had previously thought. The tutorial does a fantastic job of breaking the concept down into manageable chunks that can be digested by even a novice to Unity and C#. Lone functions are explained in immense detail, with all scripts available for easy access like the example below.
(Code-Phi, 2015).
I can’t recommend it enough to anyone looking into building procedurally-based Terrain in Unity, and they can find a link to it at the bottom of this post. While too late now to implement into my previous assignment, it certainly leaves open a number of windows for what is possible down the road in future projects, perhaps even those in Studio.
Also included below is link to the latest version of the RTS Game assignment that can be found in the References.
REFERENCES:
Procedural Generation Tutorial – http://code-phi.com/infinite-terrain-generation-in-unity-3d/
KIRA ZINGMARK 
Please feel free to leave a comment, I’ve love to hear everyone’s thoughts. 🙂
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