tl3dproject

[tl3dproject]

Weird Weapons in Games

I have top catch up on research for this unit, so I looked at some weird weapons in games.

Mr. Toots in Red Faction: Armageddon (2011)

The Dubstep Gun in Saints Row IV (2013)

Groovitron in Ratchet and Clank (2016)

Mutated Milk in Team Fortress 2 (2007)

The Cluckshot in Gear of War 3 (2011)

The Hand Cannon in Dead Space 2 (2011)

Super Sheep in Worms: The Directors Cut (1997)

These weapons are very unique and interesting to see being used. I didn't use a weapon in my 3D game however, but if I make a shooter later on I might try to make a weird shaped, wacky one.

[tl3dproject]

Project

When I logged into my PC and opened up Unreal, my project was gone. The whole thing wasn't there and every model that I imported into Unreal was also gone. I had been like 90% done with my forest map and had imported a few things into it. The main thing being a torch that I made in Maya and was used to help the character see through the forest at night. I'm currently recreating the map as quickly as I can as this project is nearly over and I have about 2 hours left when writing this to completely finish my game. I had lost a hard drive before starting this project and I decided to continue without one until after I had finished the game, but I should've been using one and I am partially to blame for this. All the things I didn't import in, that are in the same folder are still useable and work, so I might be able to get at least a bit of work done before the deadline.

Jake managed to help me get my project back with a confusing process.

[tl3dproject]

What is Quixel Mixer?

Quixel Mixer is a program that allows you to paint and add textures to your custom models. It will sign you in with Epic Games and it uses textures, decals and more from the FAB store, that I can import and use to add onto my models. It has a variety of options, like paint and erasing and other helpful tool that make it so you can produce a really good looking model. It would be a 2D texture that would make whatever you put it onto, made it look 3D. The first model that I wanted to put into Quixel was the cabin that I made in Maya; However I didn't fully understand Quixel at this point and I was struggling to know how to texture and paint my model. So I learnt the controls and how to do things that would allow me to complete my ideas for the models.

[tl3dproject]

Grey Boxing, Cube Grid and Map

With my game I had to make a new area, rather than just use the basic template. So I used the grey boxing tool to make and area for my game to be played on. I had to use the modelling tool that was located on the top left of the screen, that was in a drop list. This tool put a menu on the left hand side of the screen that had many options to build a map with.

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Once I had used the options and understood what did what, I made a floor of the map that was just a simple area, but I might change a few things around and potentially add more to it so it will turn more into a dark forest maze kind of map.

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Before I knew that I wanted to do a nature themed game, I started off by using the grey boxing option, I just tried placing some paths around and a fountain in the centre. But in my opinion I don't think it went well, so I decided to delete it all and to come up with another idea. When I thought of the nature idea, I decided to make a tree and to try different things when designing it, once I was happy with the outcome, I places different sizes around the map. Although I might try again in Maya as I have gotten more use to it and know how to fully use some tools now.

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But after I had placed trees, I wanted to have rocks, so I made a rock design, which was just rectangles placed closely next to or in each other, and I placed them in different positions and sizes all over. I am happy with the current rocks and I will add more of a curved rock soon.

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The next part of my map that I wanted to do was a small river. This was actually easy to do as I used a curve tool to get a random bending design, and when I clicked off it would automatically make a mesh in the curve design just made. So I got the design I wanted and there is a water texture in Unreal anyway, so I just used that and I was happy with the result. After I had gotten the water, I wanted to add an edge to the river, like gravel or rock, so I used the same tool I did with the water and made an outline with the same curves as the water. When I was finished, I added a gravel kind of texture and It looked good in my opinion.

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I did have a look at some horror, kind of mysterious games, set at night in a forest, to get inspiration for this map, and overall I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I think that I used textures well, as I don't like a lot of the textures in Unreal as I think they aren't accurate and look weird when placed.

[tl3dproject]

Cabin

I was making a cabin for my world, but it was really complicated to texture and it would crash quite frequently. I did finish the base of the cabin with no texture and I think it look really good. However I think I might scrap it or use it for something small like a bird house and just use one texture for the whole thing.

[tl3dproject]

Decal

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[tl3dproject]

Creating A Cinematic

The next thing I did in unreal was create a cinematic, this was simple to set up as I just had to make a level sequence in the cinematic option in the content drawer.

An animation tab popped up and I had to add keyframes to it and make the cinematic.

To add the keyframes I just had to go down to the transform option on the left and click the add button, this gave me the starting keyframe and I put the camera in a good position I was happy with,. After this, I moved along the timeline thing and rotated the camera to a position where my Cabin will be placed when done, with this I pressed on the keyframe button again and it made the animation.

[tl3dproject]

Vfx/Particles

Today I have to use particles for my chest when I have completed it. To get particles, I went into the content drawer in unreal and clicked open a new list and selected the Niagara system. This opened up a page that had a variety of effects that I could use, and I selected omnidirectional burst.

Once I had the effect selected I named it N_BurstSystem and opened it up and it gave me a similar event graph to the colours for cubes and other things I've made before.

There were a few changes I had to make before I could add it into the world. The first thing to change was just the colour, so to do this I just clicked on the initialize particle option underneath particle spawn, and on the right side of the screen the details panel came up and I selected the colour wheel to change it from white to orange. The next thing I needed to change was how frequently it spawned, so I had to add a spawn rate option, underneath emitter update by clicking on the add symbol next to it. After this I went on the details panel for the spawn rate and changed it to 100, and just after this I made it so it was an infinite loop.

The last thing I changed was the shape, this was easy as I just had to go into the details panel on the left and there was an option to change the shape of it and I changed it from a sphere to a cube.

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Now if I placed this in my game now, it would be fine and just look like particles, but there are a few more things I could do to test out how the effects would look. One thing being that I could add this effect to the first person camera and follow them around when moving. Also I could tweak around the node to make it so it would look like snow. But I think that I'm happy with the current effect as its just to get an understanding on how to make one. With my loot crate, I think that I will use a similar effect but change the size and shape slightly so it matches the size and shape of my chest.

[tl3dproject]

Voxel Game Research

Minecraft:

Minecraft is controversial when it comes to being a voxel based game, because as it does use only cubes, the cubes have textures whereas voxels are just plain colours. Minecraft is a classic game for me and one I grew up playing, it has a relaxing and calm atmosphere and you can make anything you want to, being really simplistic or really detailed. The creator used voxels in bit more of a complicated way than other games, as of the use texture, but the random generation of the world makes it special and unique; however while having a complicated voxel idea, it is a really casual game while playing it.

Crossy Road:

Crossy Road is a very simplistic game that just uses plain colours. Despite being so simple, it still has a good amount of details and features that make it an overall decent game. It is another game that I played when I was younger and it has a lot of stuff to it, like with the water and vehicles, and these things give it character. Compared to Minecraft, it's a lot more flat and basic, but still has multiple different areas/biomes while only using colours instead of textures. It has quite a calm atmosphere, but it can get a little more intense with the vehicles.

The Touryst:

The Touryst is a game that I haven't played before, but from what I know it's a game where you can discover and explore tropical islands, caves, monuments etc. Compared to Crossy Road, although it uses just plain coloured cubes, it looks more detailed and I think that because of the lighting/shaders. Obviously compared to Minecraft, it doesn't have as much to it, but it looks similar in terms of nature.

[tl3dproject]

Teleporter

The next I made is a teleporter which was really easy to create. The first thing that had to was make a new actor in the content drawer, and I labelled it teleporter. With this I decided to just make a quick rectangle pad and add a sci-fi texture to it, as this would kind of give the player an idea of what it could be. Now after I had just made a rough teleporter pad, I added a collision box to it so it could actually work and detect the character. After this, I went into the event graph and added some nodes to make it work

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[tl3dproject]

Chest for K9 Digital

My project that I have 3 weeks to finish is making a chest or loot crate. This is a task set by K9 Digital, and they made it so there are limits to how we can make the chest, by limiting the amount of textures we can use and also the amount we can add overall to it. I made a moodboard for my loot crate and I wanted to focus on a nature look.

So I now needed to actually create the crate, so I went into Maya and I made one that I was happy with. I just decided to keep it simple like these options on my moodboard, just like a chest or crate that uses wooden boards, hinges and screws.

The reason I kept it very simple and only used 675 tris, was because In Quixel Mixer, I would be able to add textures and paint stuff onto the crate, like hinges and screws. I first needed to learn the controls of mixer, which wasn't too difficult, but I had a few things that I wanted to 100% be sure of. After I had learnt the controls and what does what, I made a new mix and called it crate. When I opened the mix, it gave me a flat plane, so on the right hand side of the screen, under the setup panel, I selected the drop down pin on type and changed it from plane to custom model, and then opened my crate from the files.

Now I had to get the textures to use on my crate, so I used the Quixel website, to claim the mega scans and to find surfaces.

I then went to wood and found the texture that I was happy with and I downloaded it as a 4K texture. Once it was done downloading I added it into my 3D Projects file, and then in Quixel I Imported it in by going on the library option at the top of the screen, and then clicking import custom asset.

Once this was done, it automatically applied the texture onto the crate, and I was pleased with how it looked.

The next thing to do was paint on some screws and hinges

[tl3dproject]

Creating an Animation In Maya

I had to make an animation in Maya to import into Unreal. Just to start off I used a regular cube, so I could understand how animating in Maya works. But I struggled to fully understand and it just seems confusing with some areas. To start off with making the animation, with my cube added in, I selected the animation option above where the tools/buttons are located.

With this tool bar open, I used the windows tab at the top and selected workspaces then animating. This gave me an animation graph at the bottom of the screen.

Now with this graph, I pressed on my cube so I would be animating that, and I selected the set keyframe button in the toolbar, this made it so there were two keyframes at different points, but at the start of the graph. With these two keyframes, I dragged one of them and put it at a point of my choice on the graph, with this I then selected the set keyframe button and it added a curve onto the graph to smooth out my animation.

[tl3dproject]

Voxel

I am using a program called MagicaVoxel and it uses voxels, which are volumetric pixels that I can design and make stuff with. I have to recreate my chair and health pack which I made in Maya. But to begin with I have to get used to the software. From what I understood straight away, was that it was an easy program to use, but because of the simplicity, it lacks a lot of details that Maya has. But I still liked the idea of voxels, and I started off by making some things to get the hang of it.

Vo-lumetric

Pi-xels

=Voxels

The first tool that I used was the geometry tool, and it takes a line or shape and projects it onto the cube, that is pretty much a canvas. There are three shapes/objects in the geometry tool, there is a line, square and circle and they are 2D.

The menu on the right looks like colours you will use and can change depending on where you click, but it is a colour palette, and if you change colour palettes, it will change the whole colour scheme.

The next tool I used was Voxel Mode and I just made a tree to understand how it works. With this tool, I had two shapes to choose from and an adjustable size slider, it was quite easy to make and I understand how to use these tools for when I make my chair and health pack.

Using the same tool I made the tree with, I made a chair with the same colour I used for the wood in my tree.

This was just a really quick little piece, but it was very easy and simple. It was easier than making a chair in Maya, but I know I can go into more detail in Maya.

I have now recreated my Health Pack that I made in Maya and I think it turned out pretty good. It was easy to make, as the one in Maya didn't have many details, and everything can easily be done in MagicaVoxel as well. With this health pack, I used a tool which is exactly like the extrude tool, and it was really helpful and easy to use.

The last thing I had to do with this health pack was export it and then import it into Unreal. So to do this, I exported it in MagicaVoxel and made sure I made it a obj file, and also made sure when exporting it, I had no spaces in the file name; then once I had it exported, I opened up Unreal and imported the health pack into the content drawer. But I had to make a new folder in the content drawer, because otherwise it would get confused about the texture/ materials used for it. Once I had all this done, I just dragged it into my map and had to scale it up as it was tiny.

Personally, with this program I think its really easy and helpful to make objects or whatever you want, but as I'm doing a 3D project, I think I prefer to use Maya for the rest of the current project. This is because MagicaVoxel is very simple, but it lacks the ability to have lots of detail and doesn't have nearly as much as Maya. This would be good if I was making a basic or simple game, but I want to focus on nature and include some complicated, detailed objects. I also want smooth, round edges and voxels is obviously all pixels, so it would look out of place in my game. I would use voxels in another project or game, with the main idea revolving around simplicity and using pixels, but for now I think Maya is the best option and has more to offer for a 3D game like I'm making. But MagicaVoxel is a good program, that has been used to make some games that have had a good outcome.

[tl3dproject]

Making a Compass

I was back in Maya and I had to make a compass which is something that if I want to I could add in my game, or is just something I can get experience from. So to get the rough shape of a simple compass, I grabbed a cylinder and changed the height so it was the correct size.

Now with this I went onto face mode and selected all the faces on top of the cylinder; then with the faces selected, I went on the modelling toolkit tab, on the side, and went on the extrude tool. With the extrude tool I made the offset 0.1 so the dent in the compass wouldn't start from the edges. Then I made the thickness around -0.07 to actually make the dent, and I think that the size looked fairly accurate.

Now that I had this done, I needed to add the the pin like centre, which is what the arrows are in. So all I had to do was click off the current extrude menu and open up a new one with the current faces selected. With a new extrude tool I make the offset smaller, so it is just in the centre, and then I add thickness to it to make it the correct size for the middle pin.

After this I went onto the pin and selected the edge mode , with this mode I went along the edges and once I had every one picked, I used the Bevel tool to curve and smooth the edges.

Now once I was happy with the size and curves of the pin, I had to add a top part to it which holds the ring or the loop. So to make this I went onto the face mode and used the extrude tool on two faces at the top of the compass and pulled them outwards. I wanted to make the edges smoother on this part as well, so I selected the edges of it and used the bevel tool to smooth it.

With this, I dragged in a cylinder and rescaled it, so it would act as the twist switch thing on a stereotypical compass. So I rotated it around and put it on top of the extended part of the compass and made sure I made it the correct length. With this, I could've just left it as it was, and it would still be obvious what it is meant to be, but I wanted to make it more accurate. So when I had the cylinder selected, I went on the modelling toolkit and used the multi-cut tool, and then did a cut at 90% which was very close to the top. With this new cut, I went onto face mode and selected the small faces within the cut so I could extend them outwards. To do this, I just used the extrude tool again and changed the thickness so it would get a result like this.

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[tl3dproject]

UVs from Maya into Unreal

The next task that I did was bring over UV's from Maya to photoshop, then to unreal. So to start off I opened up a new project in Maya and added a cube, with this cube I made sure it was on object mode and then I selected the UV menu at the top of the screen.

After I had opened up the UV editor, it gave me this net kind of shape for my cube, and with this I didn't have to do anything else to it, but in the future with other objects and shapes, I would have to change a few things. So I clicked on the camera on the top left of the UV editor and It gave me an option to browse my files and choose a place to export it, so I chose the same place where I save stuff for my 3D project.

From here I opened up photoshop and imported in the cube UV I had just saved from Maya, and it opened up a screen with a PNG background but with the net on top being really faint. So I made a new layer and made it black so the net would stand out. Then after I had a black background, I added a white circle in each section of the net, as this would act as the parts that would glow when in the game.

Now with this part finished, I went onto file and export as and then made it a jpeg file. After that, I went back onto Maya and clicked on the cube I had from earlier and held down right click so the menu would appear, and I went down to assign new material.

I selected Lambert and when the menu on the righthand side of the screen showed up, I changed this around by adding my design. To do this, I pressed on a checkered square next to the colour slider and when a new menu popped up, I selected the file option and I found my file from photoshop and used it.

The texture didn't appear in Maya but I knew it worked, so I saved this into my files and I opened up Unreal Engine to import this cube in. Once I had Unreal open and my 3D project, I went into the content drawer and imported in the file for this cube and opened it up. It took me to a screen that I haven't seen in unreal before, but it just showed the my cube in the centre and the size of it. But I didn't have to do anything in this page, so I just closed it and then dragged in the cube into my project so I could scale it up. After I had it in my template and resized it, I needed to make it glow, so I went into it's event graph to put some nodes in.

These were the original nodes that I used for the cube, which shows the colours that I used, blue and purple, and the bottom node shows the texture I made. This just added the colours, but no glow, so I changed it around just a little bit to make it work.

Before I added glow, this is what the cube looked like and I'm not too happy with the colours and sort of the look. It is just a demonstration of UV and I wont use this in the game for anything, so I know how I can improve for when I make something like this again. But for the colours I just changed them in the event graph. So I went back into the graph and changed the colours around, and when I was happy with them, I changed the nodes slightly so it would add glow. To do this, I detached the line from the top node and connected it to the base colour of the lambert node. Then I detached the line from the lerp node to the base colour and the connected it to emissive colour, which means glow.

[tl3dproject]

Moving Platform

I'm now making a moving platform to add in my 3D game. The process was a bit confusing, considering that it Involved timelines which I had never done before, but there was a brief that had all the steps to make it. The first step that I had to do, which is the same thing every time when making a new feature, is to add a new actor.

Then now that I had my actor, I called it Moving Platform and went into its viewport to actually add the platform. I then just added a cube and changed its size to make it a rectangle with a smaller height.

Also, I added a sphere which acts as an end point for the moving platform.

With these two objects, I had to make sure they were both moveable. So, I went onto the details panel and made sure that the moveable option was being used. This is obviously to make sure they actually move when they are finished and put in the finished game; and while I was in the details panel, I selected the sphere and enabled the option 'hidden in game'. As we don't want to see the end point, but just the platform.

Just to make sure it was the correct length before I started adding nodes, I added it into the template and checked if it worked along the gap I wanted it at.

After I had the correct size and distance, the next thing I needed to do was add the nodes to make it move. So I went onto the blueprint's event graph and I added to nodes that would make it move back and fourth on a loop.