pizzaworld-2dsidescroller

[pizzaworld-2dsidescroller]

2d side scroller evaluation

I found 2d side scroller fun to make, it was exciting to use photoshop since I've never used it before and that I've learnt a lot that can improve my next project. 

there wasn't much that went wrong i think i just need to be able to sort problems and bugs out a bit faster and to get the main thing down then add cool features rather than getting distracted a lot.

I think i will handle my workflow better next time with the blog and actually adding each part. As well as adding a bit more effort to the character and other art sided things.

The thing ill be looking forward to is working in 3d and with meshes, and it being an fps game too which is my favourite so i want to make it as competitive. 

[pizzaworld-2dsidescroller]

creating tile maps in unreal engine

tile maps are pretty cool, they allow for easy level building by just painting the level on using a tile set which is a tile sheet.

this is a tile set we get this from a tile sheet

this is a tile sheet and we get this from photoshop where we make all the flooring and background, as well as other things we may need.

this is the actual level, i have painted it out using the tileset on the left. This makes it very easy to make levels.

[pizzaworld-2dsidescroller]

state machines

a state machine can be extremely powerful as well as being mostly easy to understand.

In this project we made the state machine in the player as we didn't have a anim blueprint as we are in 2d not 3d.

the state machine starts off by always ticking which goes into a branch which has a condition saying if the health is equal or less than 0 play the death flipbook, if the character isn't then its false and goes on.

the next part is checking if the characters falling or "in the air" if he is then we play the jumping flipbook.

this is where it gets a little complex if the movement (which we set in the movement code) is NOT equal to 0 then it plays the walk flipbook.

here we are setting the movement for the state machine using the current walking system.

and if all of that is false then it just plays idle which is perfect.

[pizzaworld-2dsidescroller]

widgets

widgets are very fun things to just add to your game to make it feel more like a game. They are used mostly for the Hud and main menu.

you can also add effects and animations. Here in the not all coin widget the quit button opens a second menu that has 2 options which do different things.

The pause menu was probably the most tricky to get working as it has many buttons and it needs all to work properly, like when you are on the main menu it doesn't let you open then pause menu, and other things like making sure when you open one menu the other one gets removed. I had a bug in my game that happened when i pressed the back button on the options menu when i had come from the pause screen and should had gone back to the pause screen instead it opened the main menu resulting in the main menu options and then the pause menu when you tried to get out. now its all fixed and it is working perfectly and flawlessly.

You have to thing about the design of the widget as well, making sure it suits your game and is in the right font and style of your game, as the pause menu has a background blur to separate the game from the menu but it isn't a image then it feels like a different menu.

[pizzaworld-2dsidescroller]

variables, what are variables?

variables are quite interesting, they can be true or false as well as integers and floats.

these are some of the different uses for a variable.

we can use these to call different functions or to get a reference for a specific thing.

In this example I'm getting a reference for the pause menu which is the widget so we can set the proper input mode.

we can also promote things to variables which can then be used else where to reference other things that weren't accessible.

variables are very powerful they allow us to store data in different types and quantities.

[pizzaworld-2dsidescroller]

double jump and character details

my game has a very simple double jump its just in the player character.

my player also has a pause menu.

this means the player has more freedom when it comes to playing the game and they can leave when they want.

[pizzaworld-2dsidescroller]

Trigger boxes, Collision Boxes, Overlap Events

I have quite a few collision boxes in my game. Some being the finish activator which isnt the finish itself but somthing to tell the finish to actually run the code.

these are my activators and finish huds the are all activated by a event begin overlap.

In my activator when the overlap begins it enables the mouse cursor then casting to the side scroller character to get the score and checking if this is equal to 35 if it is then the branch runs the finish code if it doesn't then it runs the not enough coins code. The activator doesn't open any levels it just activates the widgets then they handle resets and opening levels.

This is the killbox it destroys any actors or pawns and players who touch it. Its code it very simple it just gets the current level name then opens the level acting as a "reset". these are used to stop the player from falling to far.

This is another example of collision, this is a collision sphere. Its job is to run some code when a player overlaps with the sphere, when a player overlaps it will play the sound of the coin then its casting the the side scroller character then getting score and adding 1 then destroying the actor.

[pizzaworld-2dsidescroller]

casting, what is casting?

Casting is when you want to get something from an actor or pawn or character it can be anything.

this is what the node looks like it has one main input on the left an object and one main output on the right as well as a as side scroller character this is saying that as we are casting to this character we can get things that belong or associate with the side scroller character. in this example we are getting the score then checking if the the score is more than or equal to 35 which is the condition of the branch.

in summery casting is the ability to get other information e.g. variables, functions and components to other actors and pawns.

[pizzaworld-2dsidescroller]

widgets and code binding

In the beginning i added the visual elements like the progress bar and the icons as well as the text

each text that needs to be changed has a binding

depending on what it needs to do it can be a float or a integer. Mine are both floats since the progress bar goes from 0 to 1 and the score i had other ideas so i kept it as a float.

The code for the score is quite simple

we first cast to the side scroller character as our object we get the player character then as the side scroller character we get score then just plug it into the return node

The health is pretty much the same but i split the health up into max health and current health this would help me when i add the health bar

I divide the current health from the max health then plug it into the return node

[pizzaworld-2dsidescroller]

food character design

My character is a slice of pizza. he jumps very weird and only runs never walks

these to images flip between each other and give the effect that he's running.

I decided to make a pizza because i though it would be cool to have him running away from pizza cutters as it was a good stable idea that i could build from.

[pizzaworld-2dsidescroller]

game features research

I played shadow of the tomb raider as a example of great games design. This game has it all. good graphics, good story and interesting unique features.

In tomb raider i love how they moved away from the same old controls that most modern games use and how they incorporate Lara's different tools into the controls.

The scenery in shadow of the tomb raider is very good too. The graphics are very good from the distant mountains and trees to the close up buildings all the way down to where are place my hand and leg it al seems solid, there's no floating arms and legs, or weird glitches,

[pizzaworld-2dsidescroller]

sprites and animation in the engine

today I added my character to my game. I did this by going on photoshop and creating a thing called a sprite sheet,

this sprite sheet hold all the frames for the animation. once we had the flip book we made sure there was no background then saved it as, after that we dragged the file into unreal engine. the engine automaticaly makes it a texture, we dont want this so right click it and find the export sprites button once clicked a window pops up,

the grid must be slected from the drop down then set to the apropriate size to your character. once that has done you will have 2 or how ever many images in your animation. select all the images then right click at the time press create flipbook this creates a book of all the animations. you can open this up and changethe fps which is how fast your animation plays.

make sure you do this for all the animations you want in your game and add them each to their own folder. Then we need to head to the main character, drag the idle flip book into the viewport and make the mannequin to hidden

once the mannequin is hidden the sphere collision needs to be resized to the size of your character. now we go to the event graph and off the event tick node write this

once this is added it should work apart from the walking which will be done soon

[pizzaworld-2dsidescroller]

animation and sprites

I think that animation is a big group of photos that are drawn in such a way that it creates an illusion that they are all joined together and make a fluent film or programme. A few examples are the marvel Disney plus show What If?, others include Rick and Morty, the Simpsons and family guy, all using the image illusion way of making an animation.

Sprites are a 2d image that can be drawn or brought into an animation space and can be moved or redrawn to create an animation. They go well with things called sprite sheets which are a type of file that have an array of sprites layer out in a grid. This makes it easier to animate because then the game only has to load one file rather than quite a few.

[pizzaworld-2dsidescroller]

fonts

Fonts a very cool. They allow us to be able to add our own feel to our game and to make things look fun.

this is my finish screen after i added my font it allows it to feel different and cool.

[pizzaworld-2dsidescroller]

health and hud

today I made a health bar and make the hud

the health bar is still a work in progress but it works functionally just doesn't always work visually which ill fix later.

I might add more to the Hud like a score and other things too.

I also have a finish screen for level 1 and will have a a screen for level 2 eventually

[pizzaworld-2dsidescroller]

game characters that are food

I am Bread is a very weird game where you play as a piece of bread and randomly run around a room making a mess.

[pizzaworld-2dsidescroller]

game characters that are food

there are not many games that have food as there main characters, but fortnite does have characters that have food as their character

they are quite weird but they are food.