Week: 30/10/23 - 05/11/23

Overview:
 During this week TLC swiftly progressed with the game.  A scoring system was completed, the lane changing system is working fluently, the map design is near finalisation, and the audio is being produced. We also attempted to make the game work with the hand system within the VR. 

Member Contributions: 
Thomas - Programmer: 
Thomas worked hard on the materials and shaders this week, the Tron-themed material was created, and he also looked into creating a shader for the speed buff and debuff from scratch. Thomas also began heavy work on the hand system for the game. Initially, we planned to have the player grab a steering wheel to control the bike, however after being informed that that is not possible in Liminal VR. Instead, we are working on a new method and Thomas will implement it. Thomas also created an audio manager for the FMOD-less version of the Project. 

Conor - Programmer:
Conor finalised the scoring system and connected the scripts with the speed boost and debuff. Now the scoring system multiplies by the speed you are going, if you hit a speed boost it increases the score by 10% and if you hit a speed debuff, it decreases the score by 10%. Conor also tested a lot this week using the VR in class. 

Liam - Programmer:
Liam finalised the lane-switching mechanics this week. He made the switching system incredibly smooth looking and it looks great. Liam also begun heavy work on the environment. He created the intro area with the game's name on the wall using the Tron materials and also began to create the final length of the road. 

Boris  - Audio Engineer: After a meeting with Boris in the previous week we deduced what would be needed for the game to sound amazing. This week Boris continued work on the audio for the game, He also joined our planning board and added all the necessary points to the progress we need.

Challenges Encountered:
Challenge 1:
Errors still arise when trying to attempt to play the game, we seem to have fixed the working-from-home issues but Liminal SDK errors still arise and all attempts to fix them haven't succeeded at this point. A build has not been attempted at this point but it is unsure if it would work.

Challenge 2: This week at the end we were told by Liminal that hand interaction such as grabbing and picking up is virtually impossible in the Liminal SDK and thus a lot of attempts to make this work were both explained to why it didn't work and also wasted effort. We need now to create and think about a new method of how to make the character intuitively change lanes. 

Next Week's Plans: Next week we have a business presentation and must prepare for that to come. Afterwards, it would be good to attempt to get a working demo completed. We must finish the steering system and also implement the speed buffs, debuff into the level and then finalise the environment.

Screenshots and GIFs from this week's development:

Environment Art Screenshot:

Current State Of Game GIF:

VR Hands GIF: