Outrageous.
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Week 24.
This week, some friends wanted me to help them with a game they're making. They asked for particles that people could use for magic,which is something I had been wanting to work on for forever. First off, I made a fireball that looks more gaseous than most others, and explodes upon impact. Made a dark type of magic that looks as if its slowly holding someone, then crushing them with an extreme amount of force. Made an ice spear type of magic that shatters into dust and shimmering speckles when it dies off. Also made a wind slash kind of particle effect. Made all of these within one day, which is definitely faster than I could have done them at the start of the year. While they aren't the prettiest, they're well optimized, and from far away will look pretty legit.
Week 23.
Decided to try and and make my own special HUD, rather than the basic one the tutorial gave me. This ended up being really difficult, but also became really good practice for what I needed to learn. Started with the basics, health and mana, but also had to make spaces for things to bring up menus, put potions, and skills into as well. Had to make a massive inventory section, along with areas that you could see current equipment in. This made the knowledge I learn from the tutorial really stick with me better as well. The amount of work put into the HUD also astounds me now, since I was trying to make an actual one. Also learned that I had to make a drag and drop function for picking up items and whatnot. That made me cry a little.
Week 22.
The Tutorial from last week was finished, but I wanted to see if I could "equip" something on my character. I decided to try and do it by myself, and I actually managed to do just that by the 4th day of the week. I wanted a pickup that I could then use to equip a briefcase, which was neatly put on the Model's back (Its unsafe for a person to try and shoot a rifle with a briefcase in either of their hands). equipping the briefcase would then increase inventory sizel. I was really happy that I was able to do this, considering it was doing things the tutorial didn't cover. First hard blueprint logic I had to figure out for myself, and I was really proud of that.
Where else was he going to put it?
Week 21.
This week I was dead set on learning more about blueprint, and looked up a tutorial on how to use Unreal's UMG blueprints, which make up the game's HUD. The tutorial went through a lot of stuff about connecting events between blueprints, making blueprints look nicer, and generally how things work in blueprints as well. By the end of the week, I had the HUD up and working, along with pickups that I could pick up and store in an inventory that the tutorial had me make. Great investment of my time, as I feel I got a lot smarter just making the blueprint and having to solve small errors that I made when trying to copy the tutorial.
All the basics the tutorial taught and some background particles.
Week 20.
Kept on working in blueprints this week, and also optimized the particles a bit more, so they would be even less ram intensive. Also realized that the AI I had running through the level would just stand in one inconvenient place once it ran its course, so I made him explode. I also brushed up on some parts of the level, removing the old landscape that went further than needed, and replaced it with a smaller one. Made a cloud particle so I could have my lightning and rain in a more reasonable area, rather than just being there without anything to make them. Made the lightning a million times better as well, making it better looking across the map, and up close. Made the lighting better too, you can actually see now.
Finally getting the scene to have the right feel.
Week 19.
Started doing more with blueprints, but before that I made the rest of the platformer level. It was now possible to make it to the goal without going into Sonic mode. In blueprints I made pickups that would let the player get back health and jumps. and also made a plume of fire that would hurt the player if they walked into it. Made it so the player would restart the level they were on if they died as well.
Technically a game.
Week 18.
I felt like an idiot for most of the week trying to figure out how to talk between blueprints and get player health working. For some reason, something that I had done before (which was casting from blueprints to get variables to change in other blueprints) was so hard to remember. Never forgetting again. When I finally figured out what to do, I immediately went to making fire hurt the player, and give the player jumps to make them lose stamina. I made limited jumps a mechanic in my one level platformer, and the only joy I got this week was having people hate the jump limit.
Game was the base, people were the acid, therefore salt.
Week 17. Semester 2.
Got back into the classroom and immediately started looking at blueprints some more. I wanted to learn more about what I could do in it, and this is when I really started getting my feet in the water. I really wanted to get player health and stamina working, so I started working on that. Used what I learned from variables to start and try it. Got really sad when I couldn't figure out what to do even though I thought I knew. I also went back to almost all of my particles I had made, and made them more optimized for gameplay. The FPS in my level went from the poor 20 or so to a full 60 FPS, and made the game look better at the same time.
Week 16. Final week of semester.
Got the basic level mentioned last week done a bit more. Made a falling sound for the falling tables, made some moving floors and added a sound for that as well. Only way to get to the end of the level is by going Sonic mode. Started realizing that the FPS in my first level was drastically dropping, and took note to optimize more stuff when the next semester starts. It was a slow week and the class had two wind-down days, missed one, but got to wreck someone at Skullgirls, even though it was my first time playing it. 10/10 would wreck again.
Why? Because I can.
Week 15.
Made the constant spinning stop, so he only spins when he's in Sonic mode now. I've also worked more on Compton's modular level so that it can be a platforming game. The level will have different moving floors for the player to jump onto and get to the magic particle I made before, sending them to the next level. At the moment it's just so I can learn how to make matinee activated objects fast and easy.
Week 14.
I was only here for two days this week, but I got an amazing amount of work done. I worked really hard on fixing all of the bugs that were in my animations, and fixed that completely. Also threw in stuff in the blueprints to make the character able to do the firing animation, which was impressive seeing as how there weren't any tutorials showing me what to do exactly for it. I realized I learned a lot from having to do all of the animations stuff and having to debug it as well. Worked on making Sonic mode a thing as well. The first Easter egg of the school year for me, which is surprising since I love making them the most. The character goes fast when pressing the "*" button, but he's constantly spinning. (It also plays the most beautiful sonic song ever made).
I live for this and only this.
Week 13.
Started getting into blueprints for animations and stuff a lot more heavily, and also spent a lot of time trying to get the gun in the guy's hands. Got animations working for the most part with a lot of bugs in it though, which made it less than desirable. Made doors work in matinee, made something small with Compton's modular level, and made a second lift taking the player to Compton's level. Near the end of the week I started working on fixing some things in particles as well. I also got particles and sounds (that I made) on the character's animations, so dust comes up when he walks around and it makes a sound.
He's got a gun and a dream of kicking up dust.
Learning about modular level design.
Week 12.
Did more in blueprints, pretty sure I started messing with matinee as well this week. Started learning how matinee works a bit and made a small lift. Also made and finished a more magic related particle effect to learn how combining different types of particles can make cool things. Started working with animations this week, and had Aaron make a gun so we could make the character hold it.
I never specified the age of the person casting the magic.
Week 11.
Gave up on making the rain run off the gazebo, since it didn't look good at all. I made torches this week. and placed them in the cabin/house thing. I also started working on some more blueprint things as well, like learning about variables and the such.
Physics engines sometimes can't handle physics.
Week 10.
I started lightning near the end of this week. It's a particle effect, and it's working pretty well, but it needs to bend back and forth a lot more. It's bounds are also off so that needs some tuning. I made a Gazebo for the water to run off of, to help show off some particle effects. All around the scene is looking better, made the textures better for the ground, changed the fog, and made the AI work again (I broke it to try and do something else, but it didn't work). But yeah, got a lot done.
It comes with a bad roof because the rain doesn't want to kill on collide.
AI looks ready to fight.
Week 9.
I worked on my rain a lot this week. I made it so it followed the velocity, fell in a more accurate way, and made it so the rainfall effect didn't sputter like before. It's all looking a lot better. I also got painting on terrain done and working, so that is helping my scene a lot. Also worked the terrain in other aspects a lot. Made it more rocky and mountainy and stuff.
Week 8.
My goal this week was to make rain. I ended up with a good rain particle, along with a waterfall, and splashes on the ground for the rain and waterfall. It's collision properties are set so that it can run off of roofs and whatever it pleases. Started making a map that I'm going to use for presenting all of my particle effects in, along with my ability to make a scene.
The start of the map, with some rain visible.
Week 7.
This week I worked more on AI blueprints and setting up particles on people. I was able to put the fire tornado on the AI guys chasing me, and got all that working. Also messed with making people hold stuff in their hands. I got fire hands and feet working, along with getting a sword sort of in place.
Fire + sword = best character design.
The AI deciding to chase a man with flaming appendages.
Week 6.
Fully finished the fire tornado effect. It is now done, tweaks were made, all is dandy. I worked on my basic fire a little bit, working out some of the things I fixed in my fire tornado as well. With all this, I started working on my palace level again. I started working on AI blueprints at the end of the week also.
The "palace" level, lower floor.
The "finished" fire tornado and the second floor.
Week 5.
This last week I worked on my fire a lot. I finished the basic one, and Compton decided to have me do a fire tornado, so I've started to work on that. It's gone pretty far, and a thing that Spencer showed me made my fire look a lot better. There have been a couple meetings this week. and we've added Connor as our producer.
Week 4.
I started working on meshes for my scene this week. I made some drums, a flute, a pan-flute, a type of lute, and some shelves for them. I also started working on making fire again, so that I can have it in the future when I need it. Only got the colors done though. My team met some more, and we decided on what we're going to do.
Week 3.
This week, we once again revised the idea for the game. I told the team that I thought it was still too much for us, so we changed it into a single level game that's just FPS. It's now based around a single wizard, who's traveling in a Tundra.
As for my project, it was barely worked on. I worked more on making a basic Tundra level so that we had some idea as to how the layout would look. This helped me though, since I worked with the terrain editor in Unreal for the first time. I also tried to re-learn Maya from doing the die assignment.
What I made for the tundra scene.
Week 2.
The second week of Warren Tech was pretty good. The team met a couple times, discussing things that we should change since our original pitch was declined. We ran through some ideas, but after a while, it still seemed like too much.
I also worked more in UE4. I messed around in the particle system, learning the similarities and differences between it and UDK. I also went into blueprints and the materials editor. I attached a particle effect, and had it go off with the fire of the basic UE4 character shots. I also did a tutorial on the lighting in UE4 as well.
I also worked more in UE4. I messed around in the particle system, learning the similarities and differences between it and UDK. I also went into blueprints and the materials editor. I attached a particle effect, and had it go off with the fire of the basic UE4 character shots. I also did a tutorial on the lighting in UE4 as well.
Example of the light tutorial. Shows a preset Light map.
Week 1. Start of the year / First semester.
I learned how to use the very basics of Unreal Engine 4, and compared it to UDK to see the differences and similarities. I made a simple house from materials the engine made and messed around with the lighting. (I would show it, but it was lost in the power outage or whatever happened to the computers.)
I've added two links in the learning resources. One was a link to all of the coding Unreal shares with it's users, and the other was a quick-start guide to Unreal for importing, lighting, the very basics, and basic coding.
We pitched our game idea to Compton, said it was good, but way over the top. We talked before that figuring out all that we wanted in the game. After the pitch, we talked about the asset list we previously made, and then revised it to be more realistic.
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