Milestone update
What a pleasure it is to see such a spectacle if you don't mind me saying so myself and now this is over I can once again chill like I did last summer.
Thursday, 25 April 2013
We're Here
Here it is my last post of this blog I would like to say If you've read this throughout the duration of my journey that thanks for your support and I can conclude my final mile update for you...just so this blog feels complete.
Milestone update
Friday 14th December - Character both modeled and textured
- Game design document complete
- Audio proposal
Friday 15th March - Press pack for Outer Eden
Friday 22nd March - Outer Eden cinematic completed with audio
Friday 19th April - Outer Eden level completed
Friday 26th April - Outer Eden Production Blog conclusion
Milestone update
Sunday, 21 April 2013
Fourth Milestone
Its quite emotional when things come to an end and I'm really feeling it now as this fourth milestone is welcomed , but before we go into that I would like to say that everything I intended to add to the Outer Eden game level was added such as the animated doors, fan animating, enemy wave system, soundtrack implementation with no issues apart from the doors at first because I've briefly worked in UDK I had made doors open and close before but I had forgotten how to go about this procedure but eventually it struck me and it worked fine. I will only display the kismet behind enemy wave system but other than that the rest will be clear from this final video of the Outer Eden gameplay sequence video experience.
Friday 14th December - Character both modeled and textured
- Game design document complete
- Audio proposal
Friday 15th March - Press pack for Outer Eden
Friday 22nd March - Outer Eden cinematic completed with audio
Friday 19th April - Outer Eden level completed
Milestones Updated
Friday 26th April - Outer Eden Production Blog conclusion
Only this here blog to do and that is set to be completed next week once I have fully evaluated my entire journey from beginning to end.
Sunday, 14 April 2013
Easter Festivities
Here we have it quite the big post if you don't mind me saying as this is the post to end all posts I hope been as it showcases a gameplay sequence based on game concept Outer Eden constructed in Unreal Development Kit.
So with 4 weeks until judgement day and my original level design featured in the game design document being far to complex with the amount of time left to finished so with Gears of War Horde mode in mind I began my search for basic wave systems implemented into UDK in order to see if it would be feasible for me to achieve such a gameplay mechanic and as it happens I came across the below link, which contained just the kismet I was looking for.
http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/750961-Help-Spawning-enemy-waves-horde
Moving forwards now I had clarified that the gameplay mechanics I desired was possible to do. Causing me to start looking at building up my game environment because of this new gameplay sequence concept I felt as if it was compulsory for me to have an environment to a fairly detailed standard.
Making my environment was purely scaled and created in 3D Studio max in order to provide me with a layout to work from. Importing wasn't as easy as planned because I had an idea that UDK would allow me to import the scene as one so I wouldn't have to allocate positions for each model but I did have to do that in the end which wasn't a massive issue. Below is a screengrab of scene in 3D Studio Max where everything was modeled and located.
You now see how it's all been made as a scene now below you can see the importation procedure into UDK when exporting models out as FBX's. All models were imported through this procedure and when texture maps are in PNG format they export as a part of the FBX format.
This process of importing models wasn't always successful as a few models refused to display faces as if the normals were flipped but I double checked them but it didn't rectify the problem so a few models didn't make it into the environment.Anyway below is a screengrab taken from UDK and Outer Edens progress displaying models in the engine.
From these images you will be able to see that my engine is processing my environment in a cel shaded visual style and this is because of a package I obtained from the below link.
http://prawnskunk.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/cel-shading-or-borderlands-style-shader.html
This visual style was mentioned in it's earlier designs but I didn't have it in place because I was expecting it would be a lot harder to achieve but Rob Ward a fellow student pointed me towards that link.
Once all static meshes were in place the fun began with importing custom playable/AI characters and weapons into the Engine.
Firstly before importing weapons in I had my character implemented into the game engine and at this point many issues were crumbling down on me because of the way in which my character was imported into UDK with the biped as it doesn't maintain UDK's default unit scale, so the character's collision was way too tall in comparison to the mesh. This also had the same affect with custom AI, but as far as integrating custom enemies and custom player was concerned I had succeeded with the use of custom scripts that extend the preset unreal script.
Even though I had my character in it wasn't the only stage with character importation as animations had to be assigned and this done through exporting animations baked onto a biped and importing them into an animset which are directly fed into an animtree where the animations are blended together for what ever purpose is required. I had no issues with this part of character importation.Below is a screenshot of the animtree and animset.
Referring back to player collision it was sorted with cylinder collision being assigned in the script files but it isn't very accurate when shooting at enemies as you have to aim at their feet but it was a good enough fix to allow the player to walk inside the building structure
Weapon importation was the next step in this chapter of this journey which was easier than the character, but only because I obtained this piece of software that generated the weapon code for me for its importation call Unreal X-Editor. Which was obtained from the below.
http://unrealxeditor.wordpress.com/downloads/
All I had to do was rig my weapon with bones for later applying sockets for handles to be applied and muzzle flash. Below displays weapon with bones.
When I did originally import my weapon it wasn't showing in 3rd person player perspective in UDK and after desperately searching for the answer I decided to email Games Architecture Tutor Chris Walton regarding the issues and responded mention the WeaponPoint on both the character and weapon which I completely forgot about. Below displays Character and weapon in the Engine.
Next Week
At this stage I felt that little bit more comfortable with that way things were shaping, but I didn't fee complete as doors needed to be animated, enemies spawned utilizing that wave system, fan animated and a soundtrack for that extra kick needed to be embedded, but I felt like it could be left til next week that final week on this project and in fact my fourth milestone...the end is near.
So with 4 weeks until judgement day and my original level design featured in the game design document being far to complex with the amount of time left to finished so with Gears of War Horde mode in mind I began my search for basic wave systems implemented into UDK in order to see if it would be feasible for me to achieve such a gameplay mechanic and as it happens I came across the below link, which contained just the kismet I was looking for.
http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/750961-Help-Spawning-enemy-waves-horde
Moving forwards now I had clarified that the gameplay mechanics I desired was possible to do. Causing me to start looking at building up my game environment because of this new gameplay sequence concept I felt as if it was compulsory for me to have an environment to a fairly detailed standard.
Making my environment was purely scaled and created in 3D Studio max in order to provide me with a layout to work from. Importing wasn't as easy as planned because I had an idea that UDK would allow me to import the scene as one so I wouldn't have to allocate positions for each model but I did have to do that in the end which wasn't a massive issue. Below is a screengrab of scene in 3D Studio Max where everything was modeled and located.
You now see how it's all been made as a scene now below you can see the importation procedure into UDK when exporting models out as FBX's. All models were imported through this procedure and when texture maps are in PNG format they export as a part of the FBX format.
This process of importing models wasn't always successful as a few models refused to display faces as if the normals were flipped but I double checked them but it didn't rectify the problem so a few models didn't make it into the environment.Anyway below is a screengrab taken from UDK and Outer Edens progress displaying models in the engine.
http://prawnskunk.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/cel-shading-or-borderlands-style-shader.html
This visual style was mentioned in it's earlier designs but I didn't have it in place because I was expecting it would be a lot harder to achieve but Rob Ward a fellow student pointed me towards that link.
Once all static meshes were in place the fun began with importing custom playable/AI characters and weapons into the Engine.
Firstly before importing weapons in I had my character implemented into the game engine and at this point many issues were crumbling down on me because of the way in which my character was imported into UDK with the biped as it doesn't maintain UDK's default unit scale, so the character's collision was way too tall in comparison to the mesh. This also had the same affect with custom AI, but as far as integrating custom enemies and custom player was concerned I had succeeded with the use of custom scripts that extend the preset unreal script.
Even though I had my character in it wasn't the only stage with character importation as animations had to be assigned and this done through exporting animations baked onto a biped and importing them into an animset which are directly fed into an animtree where the animations are blended together for what ever purpose is required. I had no issues with this part of character importation.Below is a screenshot of the animtree and animset.
Referring back to player collision it was sorted with cylinder collision being assigned in the script files but it isn't very accurate when shooting at enemies as you have to aim at their feet but it was a good enough fix to allow the player to walk inside the building structure
Weapon importation was the next step in this chapter of this journey which was easier than the character, but only because I obtained this piece of software that generated the weapon code for me for its importation call Unreal X-Editor. Which was obtained from the below.
http://unrealxeditor.wordpress.com/downloads/
All I had to do was rig my weapon with bones for later applying sockets for handles to be applied and muzzle flash. Below displays weapon with bones.
When I did originally import my weapon it wasn't showing in 3rd person player perspective in UDK and after desperately searching for the answer I decided to email Games Architecture Tutor Chris Walton regarding the issues and responded mention the WeaponPoint on both the character and weapon which I completely forgot about. Below displays Character and weapon in the Engine.
Next Week
At this stage I felt that little bit more comfortable with that way things were shaping, but I didn't fee complete as doors needed to be animated, enemies spawned utilizing that wave system, fan animated and a soundtrack for that extra kick needed to be embedded, but I felt like it could be left til next week that final week on this project and in fact my fourth milestone...the end is near.
- Doors
- Fan Animated
- Enemy Wave System
- Lights
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