DEV BLOG 03
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
This week was basically a chance for me to research into the genre and have a go at trying to create some mechanics as well as look into some level design practices. Here's what I got up to:
CUSTOM CHARACTER/ANIMATIONS
I decided due to the game idea it would be a good idea to actually have a character in the game as opposed to the default robot like character that unreal engine supplies you with. This will help with immersion and really bring the game to life. Although it is in the first person perspective you can look around and see the characters arms. Because of this I looked into 2 ways of doing this.
The first was to take a character I had created using Adobe Fuse, import it to Mixamo (another Adobe software) and give it some base animations for walk, run, turn on the spot and jump. The character I made was a basic naked character as this is essentially how the player will start. I like how this turned out and I learnt more about Unreals animation system and blend spaces.
The second way was to use some first person arms I had previously purchased. I then took it into 3DS Max, removing the gun that came with it and using the rig supplied I created a very basic idle animation, exported it and then put that in the game.
Out of the 2 I think I am going to go with the full character model as if I decide I need to do some animated scenes or add networking I will not have to worry about only being able to see the players arms and not the whole body. Also Mixamo has a large selection of pre-made animations which will reduce my workload greatly. Any that they can't provide me I could try and animate myself if needs be although, I would prefer not to as I am in no way an animator.
I managed to get the characters in the game and perform idle animations. I then researched into blend spaces which allow the animations to transist smoothly into one another, for example the idle blends into the walk animation and then when the sprint button is pressed blends into a run and vice versa. This is something I have always wanted to try and get working and I am proud to say I now can.
I still have loads to learn, for example how to blend into a hatchet being equipped (for example) swinging on a key press.
LEVEL DESIGN
I researched into the idea of using heightmaps for my level design. It is a quick and effective way to create a terrain in the engine instead of hand sculpting it all myself. It uses black and white colours and puts them on a scale. Here is the one I used.
Black is the lowest point in the terrain and white is the highest. The colours in between represent different heights. Below is an image of it in engine.
As you can see it has created a terrain with different heights. This is a great starting point and I can now go and sculpt it further if I wish to do so. (I added a base grass material to get an idea and see it better, not representing the final idea I have for this).
From here on I would like to add some procedural vegetation in the form of trees, bushes, grass etc. This way it will quickly populate the terrain and not always in the same form.
DAY/NIGHT CYCLE
I implemented a day night cycle. The idea is for a full day in game to last 1 hour. 40 mins day and 20 mins night. I want to be able to fire events (haven't decided what exactly yet) at certain times of day/night. I also had the idea of the player being able to sleep to advance the day by 8-12 hours so they can essentially choose to skip the day or night. This means storing variables which is something I have barely looked into.
To get started I implemented a working day/night cycle that lasts for one hour. However, just for now the cycle works in a 1:1 ratio of day to night. I just wanted to get it in and working and then I can at a later date mess around with making it a 2:1 ratio of Day to Night.
At midnight the sun is set directly below the terrain. The sky transists into darkness with stars showing. I will again at a later date look at implementing a moon and reducing the brightness of the sun as even though it is night time, the sun is still illuminating the terrain a little.
At midday the sun is directly above the terrain. So it works just like it would in real life. If you look closely at the image you can see the actual time of day that I have printed as a string in the top left hand corner to show you that it is working properly.
PLAYER ATTRIBUTES
I added the players Health, Hunger and Thirst attributes into the game with very basic U.I. for now. Hunger and Thirst deplete over time. When one reaches 0 the health also starts to deplete. If both hit 0 it depletes at a x2 rate until death or when the player eats/drinks something (to be implemented).
I also added prompts so that when a player is either starving or dehydrated the player is reminded.
They work separately so that when one runs out it shows like the example below.
And when they both run out they both show. Like shown in the next example.
They also disappear when hunger or thirst is added.
Again they are both pretty ugly, however the functionality is in and I can make them look better/position them differently at a later date.
MORALITY SYSTEM
This is very basic at the moment. It is just a slider and has no functionality yet as it will need to be linked into certain functions such as killing, only then will it play any part. So for now it is just an ugly slider with a variable that can be accessed from other blueprints.
DEV BLOG AND TRELLO SETUP
I also set up both a website to host my dev blogs as well as a trello board to help me organise tasks and see from another perspective how much work I have done and what needs to be done.
I created a full website to give this project that professional touch, you will have seen it as that is how you are reading this blog right now. The good thing about this set up is that it allows me to schedule a date for each dev blog. This way I can continuously add what I have done throughout the week and then each friday it will automatically upload what I have done and then I can do the same for the next week. Previously I have just done a word document and then updated it at the end of the project. This gives me accurate dates, accurate amounts of work done each week and also keeps me actively updating my blogs.
For the trello board I separated it into three sections, To Do, Current and Complete. This explains itself really. I can see everything that needs to be done, what areas I am currently working on and which ones I consider finished. From this perspective I can clearly see what needs to be done at any time. I have added the main areas I am going to work on for now and will add any others i see fit when the need arises.
