Update v0.7.2 - Bathrooms, Gym, and Better Visuals

What's New?

• Bathrooms and a gym have been added. At the moment, they are just empty rooms (except for some basketball hoops in the gym). 
• Updated Lighting. The lighting has received an overhaul. There is now a Sun that casts shadows onto the school, and the lighting in the school has be tweaked.
• New Props. From lockers, to vaping awareness posters, the halls of the schools are starting to take shape!
• The Outside of the School is Taking Shape. Previously, the school was just floating in space. To make it feel more like you are in an actual vape-ridden school, the school's outside and surroundings areas are being built out. The students now spawn outside of the school, via magic doors (not final), and walk in.

Bathrooms and the Gym

Bathrooms have been conveniently placed around the school. Right now they are empty, but in the future they will serve two purposes. The first being a place for the students to use the bathroom, and the other being a place the students will vape. Vaping students will prefer bathrooms to the vaping spots in the halls or outside. 

The gym has also been placed. I even created basketball hoop props to put in. In the future, the gym will be one of two classes that the player can enter (the other being lunch). Students will be playing basketball, running laps, and vaping in the adjacent locker rooms. Better catch them before they set off the fire alarm!

Updated Lighting

A Directional light acting as the Sun has been added. This light only affects the outside of the school. For lighting the inside of the school, I'm using spot lights and environmental lighting. Environmental lighting is lighting that affects every mesh uniformally.  It gives objects a flat look because it casts no shadows, which im a fan of right now, but in the future i might lean more on the spot lights inside of the school, depending on how much detail is lost in more complicated models.

New Props

Lockers, vaping posters, basketball hoops, and awnings have been added to the school. Originally I was going to save creating models for the school until beta, but I was getting bored programming student AI (which is more than half the code in the game!), so i decided to start roughly modeling some meshes to put in the school.  The vaping posters are really fun to do. There are four right now, and the final game will have around 15. The game is much nicer to look with the props and the new lighting.

Outside of the school

After I finished some of the props I still wasn't ready to start programming again, so I started building the outside of the school. The outside of the school is actually modeled after the high school that I went to. Right now, there is a road that pulls up next to the school, where the buses will let the student off and pick them up. This connects to the main road. There is also the start of parking lot to the left of the right entrance. 

Whats next?

v0.8 - Vaping in Bathrooms - Bathrooms will now be a choice to students (and maybe even preferred) who are looking for a spot to vape. Also vooping.

v0.9 - Lunch Segment - A once-per-day segment will be added where the students gather in the cafeteria to eat (and vape, obviously).

v0.10 - Player-Student Dialog - When the player interacts with a student, a dialog will be opened where you can gain insight on the student.

v0.11 - Rapport System - Gain rapport with your students. The higher the rapport, the higher level of access to information you will gain from the student.

v0.12 - Progression System - Resource points, upgrades, utility items , and more!

Final Remarks

This is the furthest long I have made it in the making of a game I intend to publish and its a great feeling. Although the school still looks rough around the edges, its starting to look like an actual game and not a tech demo. Looking at the update milestones above, I am close to Alpha, and checking another box off is really motivating.