3dproject75

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Game Audio: Game Soundscapes

Some open world games use either ambient sounds to make the world seem more real or background music to set a certain tone for the area that you're in. In The Division, a game set in an abandoned and evacuated New York during the winter, it uses wind and generally no background music to make the world seem more empty.

Elden Ring, on the other hand, uses background music in pretty much every area in the game. It also has wind and leaves rustling and other sounds that things in the environment could be making.

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Game Audio: Cross-Cultural Sound Design

Sounds and music will sound different depending on the country and/or culture it is set in. So a game set in Japan will have different music and sounds than a game set in the wild west of America. Examples of this is the Sekiro main menu music.

This is vastly different to the main menu music of a game like Red Dead Redemption 2.

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Game Audio: Influence on Player Behaviour

Sounds in games can be used to try and influence the players behaviour in some way, whether it be a sense of panic or an attempt to lure a player somewhere. The sense of panic can be shown in Dead by Daylight with the terror radius of the killer, telling the player that the killer is on his way, and the louder it gets, the closer he is.

The opposite of this is in Fortnite, with the sound that plays when near a loot chest, which is designed to lure players towards it and collect its loot.

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Game Audio: Cognitive Impact

Sound design in games can be used to alert players of certain events that have happened, which is more prevalent in games with stealth in them. An example would be in Hitman 3 when entering an area that you aren't allowed in, such as a trespassing or hostile area.

It can also be used to alert the player that they are being detected while in stealth. An example of this is this jarring sound effect from Payday 2.

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3D Animations and Rendering

3D animation is the creation of a 3D moving image using a computer software.

Some examples of 3D animations:

Rango

Rango is a film made completely with 3D animation. It's unique because it is a film made with nothing other than 3D animating software

Slave Knight Gael (Dark Souls 3) Second Phase Cutscene

I chose this cutscene because it is very cinematic in terms of the lightning in the background and the red smoke emanating off of him. The game uses these cutscenes during some boss fights in order to make them a little more cinematic.

Star Wars Revenge of the Sith General Grievous Kenobi Fight Scene

In this scene, and for most of all of the star wars films, there is a lot of 3D animation used, in this example, General Grievous and all of the robots. But the film is shot in real time, only some of it is animated.

Five Nights at Freddy's

FNAF is a game that uses 3D animation to simulate events happening and characters moving or jumpscaring you, except it isnt actually 3D animation. Everything in the FNAF series, from games 1-6, is all in 2D and animated in 2D, but it's designed to look as if it's in 3D. This is the reason why the animatronics aren't seen moving too much on the cameras, only when they jumpscare you.

Secret Level

Secret Level is a show on amazon where each episode is based on a different game or game series, with the first series being Pacman, Sifu and even Warhammer: 40k. But what makes it special is every single episode is uses 3D animation for everything.

During the recording of an episode in season 3 of Love, Death and Robots, a show completely animated in Unreal Engine, the team had planned out the episode by making a small, shabby version of the episode with awful character animations, and used it as a basis to work from. They then also got the actors in to mo-cap the scene so that the animation team could use mo-cap for the actual character animations that will be used in the episode. And they also said that they used the Quixel library for all of their assets in the environment, which was a narrow cave that the characters were walking through.

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Maya

Maya is the industry standard 3D modelling software used by many triple A game companies for their products.

These 5 games all use maya:

Uncharted 4 Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 Dragon Age: Inquisition Ratchet and Clank Mirrors Edge Catalyst

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Use of Voxels in Games

Crossy Road

Crossy Road makes it's world, objects in the world, and characters using mainly cubes of different sizes and lengths. This is used for the characters you play as and the objects in the world such as the cars on the road and the logs in the river.

Minecraft

Minecraft uses voxels, but in a unique way. Minecraft uses mostly cubes for everything, from the terrain blocks to the mobs in the world. There are a few exceptions like flowers, enchanting tables, stone cutters, etc. But Minecraft is mostly retextures cubes that are used in the game world, which gives the game a very unique design.

Teardown

Teardown uses a voxel art style, but it uses many smaller cubes to create a bigger object. This style of voxel is very 3D, although it looks very different to Minecraft, which is also a 3D voxel style game. The cubes are also used in the environment destruction, since that mechanic has a big part to play in Teardown, and the small cubes fly away when hit by an explosion or the sledgehammer.

Skies of the Past

Skies of the Past also uses a detailed voxel style such as Teardown, with smaller cubes that stick out of the models to give them more detail, but is also uses very smooth and flat surfaces with a gray atmosphere that gives off an empty vibe.

Fugl

Fugl uses detailed voxel art in its huge landscapes, along with colours on the bird you play as that shift and change as you flap your wings, which makes the bird look more real. The colours used in the environment are very vibrant, which makes the game feel more relaxing to play.

The Touryst

The Touryst uses an art style that's in between crossy road and teardown, with it using many cubes for the character models, but also being very detailed with smaller cubes for specific details on character models and certain things in the environment, such as grass.

Bonfire Peaks

Bonfire Peaks uses very detailed voxel art, from the terrain in the background to the clothes that the character wears. Every object has multiple cubes in them with different colours, making every object look highly detailed.

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What is a UV map?

A UV map is a way to transfer a 3D model to a 2D format so that is can be easily textured to be exported to the game engine.

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Flashlight

I now have, at the very last minute, a flashlight in my game. There is also a roof in my level so that we can not only see the effect of the flashlight, but now need it to see in front of us, which is what i wanted.

I started by putting a spotlight on my character in the viewport. I renamed it torch to make it easier to identify. I also put the spotlight component in the camera parent so that when the player moves their head the flashlight moves with them.

I then made an F keybind node and connected a flip flop to it so that when the key is pressed, it switches between the two actions connected to it. Then i put two Set Visibility nodes to the flip flop and got a torch variable and connected it to the target of both of the nodes, then ticked New Visibility on the top node to make the flashlight be on by default

This is what it looks like in game

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Decals Research

Rainbow Six Siege

Rainbow six siege is a good example for use of decals. Most of the decals come in the way of blood splatter from being shot, but in other cases, the use of bullet hole decals on walls gives the game a more realistic feeling. These bullet decals never used to be in the game, however, but were put in after complaints of players being able to shoot tiny holes in walls and be able to see and shoot other players through, but they couldn't be seen through them.

The video from start to 47 seconds shows the bullet decals and what they used to be

Warhammer: Vermintide 2

There are many games use decals of black ash on the ground from a grenade or bomb detonating. The example i wanted to choose is Vermintide 2. The bombs used in game leave a black area on the ground after detonating, which shows that the explosion left an impact on the environment.

From 0:17 - 0:22 is the best example that i could find

No Man's Sky

While many games use decals to signify things that happened in the environment, some games such as No Man's Sky use decals as a cosmetic to decorate the environment. With No Man's Sky in particular, it gives the player the ability to unlock different decals to use on walls in their base to make it look nicer.

From 2:50 - 2:58 is a good showcase of the ingame decals

Payday 2

Payday 2 is another game that uses explosion and bullet decals, but the difference from Vermintide 2 is that there are way more bullets and explosions in payday 2. These decals help the game feel more realistic.

From 2:39 - 2:56 shows off the explosion decals from grenades

Sea of Thieves

Sea of Thieves uses decals for impacts, but said impacts are not only created by cannonballs and fire bombs, but they are created on the player's ship, which is a physical asset in the game that the players controls themselves. There is also a unique decal used in Sea of Thieves in the form of the holes in the ship when hit by a cannonball. These are decals in the walls that cause water to start filling the bottom of the ship. If the players controlling the ship don't bilge the water and repair the holes quick enough, the ship will sink and they will lose all of their loot.

From 0:19 - 0:56 shows the different size holes

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Particle Effect Research

Infamous Second Son: Super Moves

The smoke super move uses a lot of smoke particles as the character travels up, accompanied with some fire that blazes in his hands as he travels downward.

The neon super move uses a lot of purple and neon blue, along with lightning beams that give off the idea of electricity. There are also some white dots that hover around the character, which makes the effect look somewhat galactic.

The video super move uses very bright blue with some vertical flashing lines that gives the impression of static, along with some white squares that appear when the projectiles as they land, which continue to make the effect look as if it has static.

Hogwarts legacy: Spells

The spells in hogwarts legacy usually use either bright neon lights, small different coloured dots that are used as particles from the spell, or a combination of both.

Fable 3: Spells

Fable 3 uses different effects for different spells, such as fire particles on the fireballs, blue lightning arcs for the lightning, white clouds for ice, etc. But a unique thing that Fable 3 does is that you can combine two different elements and cast them both at the same time, either as a projectile or a close range AoE. Doing this also combines the particle effects from both the elements used. For example, fire and lightning will have the fire particles and lightning arcs emitting from the projectile.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice: Deflecting

Sekiro uses a bright flash with sparks to signify if you have deflected an enemy's attack or just simply blocked it. These particle effects are more important in a game such as sekiro. It is a very fast paced game that requires hyper focus and concentration. These particle effects give the player vital information to their progression in the fight. There is a difference between blocking an attack and deflecting it, as deflecting attacks increases the enemy's posture meter, which is vital during boss fights to beating the boss. Blocking an attack just gives a small flash without the sparks or the sound que.

Start from 1:50 to see the fight

Helldivers 2: Impacts and Explosions

Helldivers 2 uses a lot of weapons, but the main ones they have at their disposal are stratagems, mainly ones that explode. From the Orbital Gatling Barrage, which raises dust from the ground when the salvos impact it, to the Eagle 500kg Bomb, which releases a massive yellow and orange cloud upon exploding. They don't have a practical purpose, especially the 500kg which actually reduces performance in some occasions, but they are still very important because it makes the game more fun, which is one of the most important factors.

From 0:41 - 1:20 shows off the explosions of the eagle stratagems

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Cinematics Research

Fable

The Fable cinematic uses a lot of lighting and colour in the way of foliage and landscapes, which gives the impression that the game takes place in nature, surrounded by plants and trees. It also uses story telling, where Dave the Vegetable Enthusiast is narrating most of the cinematic, only to find out at the end that he is a giant.

No Mans Sky

The No Mans Sky cinematic doesn't focus as much on the story telling aspect of the game, but rather the exploration aspect. It is recorded as if it's from the point of view of a player character, which gives the impression that the gameplay actually looks like what is being seen. It shows off different environments, both on a planet and in space, with different things you can discover, from minerals in caves to animals across the planet. And it shows off some ship gameplay and even some combat.

Shadow of the Colossus

The Shadow of the Colossus cinematic uses some lighting both outside and inside the building the character enters, along with some more storytelling focused aspects. This is shown with the horse being initially reluctant to walk through the door, giving the sense that this place is not safe.

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Maya Compass and Medkit

A few weeks ago i made a compass and a medkit in maya, and forgot to include it on my blog. So i am rectifying that.

Here is my compass.

And here is medkit.

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Weapon Case for K9 Project

I have finished my container for the K9 project. It is a weapon case that, when interacted with, will open and allow the player to pick up his weapon from inside it, of which being a shotgun.

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Bullet Decals

I made a decal for the bullets that shoot from my gun. We had to put it on a material with the texture sample node and connect it to emissive colour.

I then put this set of code into the projectile blueprint so that the decal would be put onto the surfaces they collide with without looking too weird.

And then i tested it in my game to make sure the decals work properly.

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Cinematics

I have made a cinematic for my game. It isn't the one i will be using for my final product, but i have learned how to create animations for the future. Here is the one i made today.

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Niagara

We created a snow particle that is attached to our character while we move that creates snow around you, to give the idea that it's snowing.

We also made an explosion of gold coins to be used on any loot boxes that we may have.