andrewspeedfutureworks-blog

[andrewspeedfutureworks-blog]

Proposal for Presentation

Upon finishing University, I would like to get a job in the game industry as a 3D Artist. Over the past year I have done work in all three of the areas I would be most interested in working. I have made props, an Environment and Created a Vehicle.

For this Assignment I have decided to base my research on becoming a Prop Artist, although many studios consider Prop and Environment to be one in the same during my research I may combine both. It is understandable as they go hand in hand. Both are necessary to bring a game to life. And even If a company defines them as two separate entities it is still valuable to have knowledge of both roles, and workflows.

For this I intend to research Developers of some of my favourite games, such as Rockstar, TT games and Bethesda. I Will search for key designers from these companies and look into what kind of work I would be doing on a day to day basis if I was to work for such a company. I will look into how work differs from between companies and the difference between AAA and Indie Companies when it comes to workload and wages.

I will contact an Artist in the industry to get some insight to what it is like making games and try and find out about their route into the industry.

I intend to research to find options I have for working and find out what the average wage in these different scenarios would be.

I also would like to analyse my own work and to determine what weakness I feel need to be worked out to better my chances of successfully achieving my goal of making games.

As a side I intend to create a plan for the summer, in which I will include my found weaknesses and focus on improving these skills by setting goals and challenges for myself. This will hopefully mean I will be a more desirable employee once I have finished the course next summer.

I would like to research Companies local and in other countries.

For the time being I will most likely be aiming for a local Company, but I do have desires to travel, and live in another country. Although i do have the option of working from home with certain organizations, such as Slightly Mad Studios as mentioned by Vehicle Artist  Sean Barron, former Futureworks student. The idea of working from home was something I’d only considered and option for freelancers, so this adds more options then i initially thought of.

Photogrammetry is something I've been interested in for while, but it wasn’t until recently Paul Bannon was discussing it and the fact that it is becoming more common place in the games industry. This is a role that could possibly interest me as it can still tie in with an Environment, prop and even vehicle artists work pipeline.

[andrewspeedfutureworks-blog]

Reflective Blog 2/2 - Evaluation

What went well and what did not?

I’m am very happy with how this assignment turned out.

From my initial first plan I wanted to create a small British village which seems isolated from the rest of the world. I first felt that the idea I wanted to achieve was just not feasible in the time frame, but after finding the village of Warnham the project moved along quite quickly. This did take me a while after numerous researching, eventually I found out about the area on a mother’s website. Someone had asked for a small village with transport direct to London, so this fitted the bill perfectly, especially since I always imagined the main character to originate from London.

The modular building took me a little bit of practice to get working right. I first created a kit in maya and then imported it in to Unreal. I found that it didn’t fit together quite right, and also the scale didn’t seem realistic.

I had already used the UE4 Guy for scale but I decided to do it again, this time creating a basic floor plan I made sure that he would have enough room to roam about the house. Once I settled on this I created a Plane 15 x 15 in Maya this comes out at 375 x 375 in unreal. I decided to build the house with this one piece to double check the proportions felt right for the height as well as the width and depth. The next Issue I came across was that the interior walls would need to be far too close to the outside wall to give the player adequate moving space which would have caused Z flickering. I resolved this by making a corner piece with height dimension of 15 matching the flat plane, but 1 x 1 in the x and y. This worked perfectly as it extended the house exterior enough to prevent overlapping geometry and also gave the feeling of depth to the walls. I probably could have gone for 0.5 to give a more realistic thickness, but I decided working with whole numbers as much as possible. Although later I did create a few panels with width half of the original. This allowed me the ability to bunch up doorways for the upstairs bedrooms, as would be found in a real house.

I think I made excellent use of modularity.

With the House kit I produced I was also able to create a post office exterior, train station and platform exterior and a Signal box interior and exterior. This allowed me to create the other buildings very quickly allowing me to focus on other aspects.

I also decided to make a modular piece for the road and train track. Although I did manipulate this in Maya to make bigger pieces rather than placing individual parts in unreal which can be tedious, particularly with how small my train piece is.

Road Piece with slight curve.

After making the first train piece I used the duplicate tool so several panels were connected I then merged them together and imported that as a whole into Unreal.

For the curved piece I once again used the duplicate tool but I also added a small rotation and set the copies to instances. This allowed me to snap the points of the new piece to the old and at the same time altering the bottom points of the original piece, meaning that every piece snapped together perfectly.

I used the same method for the road, but due to the variation in the shape I decided it was best to use the modular pieces in Maya to complete the whole road piece.

I also made variates of my Fence with 1 post, two post and no post. This is only small in size in comparison to the rest of the pieces I made but it is the most used piece in the scene so it needed to fit well together. I also produced a gate variation.

Modular Blueprints?

I’m not sure if that is a real thing or I've made it up!

For my blueprints I decided to try an use modularity.

Using the modular pieces I built a house exterior in Unreal.

I wanted to use this over again but this would have resulted in several issues. Only one house can be entered and if i duplicated the BP as difficult it means half the houses would allow the player to enter.

My solution was to create 3 Variables

2 Booleans Sams House, and Neighbours House

and a Integer

Simple if Sams House Boolean is ticked then the closed gate model will be replaced with an open gate model and the original front door will be hidden with collision disabled. 

Neighbours House will also change the closed gate model to the open gate, but nothing else will change.

And the Integer sets the House number

What would you do differently next time?

I can’t think of anything I would change next time. I am pleased with how it turned out, as the outcome was better than i had originally expected.

I did play through Everybody's Gone to the Rapture to get a feel for the kind of game i was making. I felt that helped, maybe if i had of had the time to play it before starting the project i may have looked at things differently its hard to say. I think i would have been more tempted to copy things I liked rather than make my own unique game. I feel like I’ve made a good starting point and I could use this as a starting point for future projects.

If i had to pick one thing it would be to consult the module book more often, i spent too much time trying to make it look pretty for myself and to proof i could rather than to just make a nice looking white box, which of course is the main aim.

Some assets used in my game were downloaded from the internet. here is a list

Cars https://grabcad.com/library/austin-mini-cooper-s-1965 http://animium.com/2017/08/lotus-cortina-3d-model Textures

http://www.wallpaperking.co.uk/fabric-style-leather-effect/5486-frequency-teal-blue-beige-wallpaper-2625-21851.html

Music Jorge Méndez - Cold

Sound effects

I will be reusing The bird, wind and footstep sounds that Adam Whitehead created for the group project. As these were recorded to such a good standard it seemed redundant to have new recordings made.

vegetation pack

https://forums.unrealengine.com/community/community-content-tools-and-tutorials/30694-free-foliage-starter-kit

Final Screenshots

[andrewspeedfutureworks-blog]

Reflective Blog 1/2 - Level WIP

Beginning of the Second attempt of the level

Added houses

Close up of built house

Close up of original station, used as place holder in the remade level

Station wide shot

Original House kit

Original house kit duplicate to produce a semi detached house

The Final house kit, with several adjustments made to the original. extra pieces added.More variation in windows. Used for creation the Signal box

Remade and final train station also produced with the House kit

Bench, Fence, and Signs also added.

I got some very valuable feedback from the last game test.

Based on the comments I made adjustments to my game.

I shortened the length of the platform.

I added more things including the signal box to direct people to aim to where the level feels busy. the surrounding area contains no other buildings to distract players.

The backstory of the protagonist is given as a little intro at the beginning.

I added things to the street and curved the road to prevent players spending to much time walking in a straight line.

I made the inventory feel more meaningful, by firstly adding more items for the player to pickup and secondly by having the protagonist make comments about items after looking at them in the inventory, this helps steer the player to where they need to go. The inventory is also where the story is feed to the player via snippets of information in each item collected.

[andrewspeedfutureworks-blog]

Route to Industry Blog

Over the course of this year i have delved into a lot. As I was confident with my modelling skills I had aimed to learn more about blueprints. I decided to spend the year focusing on AI for games specialism. and for one of Ewans assignments I also worked on AI.

I still managed to do a lot of 3D work as well. I worked on all three aspects that i would be interested in doing full time. From props to environment art as well as creating a vehicle.

I enjoyed all of the 3d work I did but, I did regret choosing to do a car in such a short period of time. It was rather overwhelming and the attention to detail i wanted achieve combined with the lack of references of the car caused me to struggle, but after finishing it was great to see what i could achieve. And with better references i could achieve the same if not better results in less time than the original took. Making a car was something I’ve wanted to make for several years and i decided that if i was ever going to make one i had to jump in which was the reason why i chose it.

https://80.lv/articles/summer-courses-for-environment-artists-from-cgma/

https://80.lv/articles/tips-and-tricks-of-3d-interior-production/

Objectives for the summer 

Over the summer i intend to:

learn zbrush

learn substance designer

continue to learn substance painter

and practise texturing

Also continue to make 3d props

and ideally make another car model

create a artstation

begin working on a portfolio

http://eat3d.com/forum/art-gallery/portfolio-chris-green-environment-artist

http://dylan-collins.com/kitchen.html

https://imgur.com/gallery/LiSB6Kq/comment/168917916

[andrewspeedfutureworks-blog]

Route to Industry Blog

I recently contacted both Christopher Reid (Environment Artist) and Joe Neville (Vehicle Artist) of Foundary 42 Ltd, one of several studios under Cloud Imperium. They are responsible for making Squadron 42 within the Star Citizen universe. Thanks to Simran for providing me their emails.

I decided to contact both as I am quite torn on which direction I should go in.

Sadly Joe was too busy to get a chance to reply, thankfully Chris got back to me and we sent several emails back and forth.

This was very interesting, I realized that my workflow as far as 3D modelling goes is pretty much the same as Chris’. Firstly starting with researching for as many reference photos as needed, and then started to block out the general dimensions before beginning to add in the big details leaving the smaller details for the end.

As he began to talk about texturing this is were our workflows differed. He once again gathers reference but this time focusing on the materials and how the lighting interacts with the object. This makes a lot of sense but something I’ve never done which would explain in part why I struggle so much with producing nice little textures, and renders. This small piece of advise will help me massively in the future.

Another subject we discussed was how he got into the industry.

He explained as i already suspected that the largest contribution is having a great art/portfolio piece. and the rest be professional, make sure that your CV and cover letter are well presented with correct grammar.

Using Stephens phrase which i have heard many others say

‘Don’t be a dick’

The game design industry seems to be a unique community. Everybody is linked. If you act unprofessional word will get around very quickly.

Chris told me that he offers a mentorship which can be catered to the students needs. The process is he sets tasks to be completed with in a week and He meets up with the student to give feedback. As i mentioned that I was unsure on direction he said how he was happy to discuss that as well as the work itself as he said ‘It's not only about the work but also preparing you for industry’

He left me with inspirational words

‘Make great art and you will get a great job!’

old blog by chris

https://artofchrisreid.wordpress.com/author/christopherwaynereid/

[andrewspeedfutureworks-blog]

http://forum.projectcarsgame.com/showthread.php?24079-British-Touring-Cars-P-cars-Almost-a-true-sequel-to-Toca-1-2&s=246dd726677036e80e029baf65c8471e

[andrewspeedfutureworks-blog]

Requirements

Slightly Mad Studios requirements for a vehicle artist

We pride ourselves on the quality of our vehicle art, and we need to scale up our team in order to deliver for our current and future projects.

Core requirements include:

Experience making high quality in-game plane and car assets.

Good experience with 3D Studio Max 2011-2016.

Experience with Photoshop and JIRA a good bonus.

​

Core responsibilities include:

Modelling aircraft/car exterior (high detail, 100k+ polys).

Modelling aircraft/car interior (high detail, 60k+ polys).

UV mapping (unwrapping meshes).

Modelling low poly LOD versions of high detail meshes.

Daily progress reports in our central forum.

Skills with textures, animation, skinning and setting up data / runtime files a distinct advantage.

Slightly Mad Studios is a built from the ground up to support remote workers. It’s not a working style that suits everyone, but for the right sort of mindset, it’s a great way to get things done. That being the case, the following soft skills would stand you in good stead:

​

Trust: be able to work from home regularly, and in a primarily online work environment. We’re built from the ground up to support distributed development, and it’s part of our DNA.

Flexibility: be able to quickly fit in with a company with a mature and well-defined culture.

Speed: you’ll be working with a well defined and mature pipeline. We expect you to get up to speed with it quickly.

Diplomacy: you’ll know when to stand your ground, and when to give a little.

Motivated: working from home, or remotely from the rest of the company, isn’t for everyone. You need to know what this style of work entails.

Car culture: it’ll be a benefit if you’re a petrolhead, or a genuine fan of car or plane culture, or a follower of motorsport.

3D Vehicle Artist        

  Manchester, UK

       Posted: March 13, 2017            

Cloud Imperium Games is the ground breaking development team behind the highly anticipated space sim Star Citizen. We continue to set higher standards of quality and push the boundaries on what is possible in a modern game engine. We are a group of talented developers in a fast-paced environment and encourage ownership and thinking on your feet. Join our team of star-performers in pushing the envelope on in game visuals.

Foundry 42 is looking for artists with experience working in hard surfaces. Our artists are responsible for working closely with designers to create ships of all shapes, setup in strike teams, you will be work together to craft these beautiful flying multiplayer levels.

The ideal candidate has a good understanding of vehicle/industrial design, our ships require a strong degree of technical knowledge both in the software we use and the function areas that need to be developed to make a fully functioning ship for the Star Citizen universe. They work well and communicate with designers and other disciplines in a collaborative team oriented development process.

Responsibilities

Working from concept models and images turn them in fully functioning and flyable works of art – the work is both exteriors and mainly interiors.

Collaborate with designers, technical artists, and partner studios to understand and implement correct file naming, and directory structure requirements within the engine’s and game’s limitations.

As part of a team, maintain the high standards of modelling, texturing, PBR material creation and manufacturer design cues to provide consistent and high quality models.

Work with technical artists and animators to deliver ‘animation’ ready solutions, landing gear, cockpits, cargo doors, ejection seats.

Requirements

Hard surface modeling experience.

Strong working knowledge of 3DS Max and Photoshop

An eye for detail while maintaining efficient model making

Experience applying and tweaking shaders.

A keen eye for Industrial Design

Excellent sense of form, mass and volume.

Passion for pushing the state of the art in asset fidelity and production techniques.

High degree of self-motivation and initiative.

International travel may be required as part of the role.

Pluses

Experience with Cry Engine.

Experience using ZBrush or Mudbox for organic shapes.

Knowledge and/or experience with PBR (physically based rendering).

Strong verbal and written communication skills.

An avid gamer.

A love of Sci-Fi

Experience in vehicle or industrial design.

Environment Artist        

  Manchester, UK

       Posted: March 13, 2017            

Foundry 42 Ltd. is looking for Environment Artists with experience working in high-poly modular environments. Our artists are responsible for working closely with designers in laying out and finishing geo, props, materials, and textures.

The ideal candidate has a strong understanding of environment asset creation and modular kit-based construction methodologies. They understand all phases of environment creation from block-out through lighting. They work well and communicate with designers and other disciplines in a collaborative team oriented development process.

Sample pictures or portfolio link, which shows sample work are necessary.

Portfolio or demo reel should demonstrate:

• Exceptional modeling skills.  Great assets examples using custom normal workflow or high to low poly baking • Strong understanding of a PBR workflow • Examples of building realistic shader libraries • Ability to create game ready assets, that work well within the given technical limitations • Very strong texturing skills and excellent knowledge of Adobe Photoshop • Keen eye on detail and realism • A strong sense for composition, color and light • At least average drawing/painting skills

Responsibilities:

• Creating game ready models of environmental objects (architectural building sets, organic’s, etc) • Working in the editor to build out levels and environments • Creating efficient UV layouts that work well within the engine/platform constrains • Creating realistic PBR shaders • Work closely with Level Lead, and Lead Environment Artist • Work closely together with the Level Design department • Work independently on asset sets and oversee level art

Requirements

• Thorough knowledge of the game development process. • Previous experience creating high quality environments for AAA games. • Strong working knowledge of 3DS Max and Photoshop, as well as, experience in using editors to lay out environments. • Strong knowledge of Substance / Quixel packages • Experience creating environments using modular systems. • An Understanding of effective asset creation and optimization. • Experience applying and tweaking shaders. • A keen eye for spatial composition and building believable scenes. • Excellent sense of form, mass and volume. • Passion for pushing the state of the art in asset fidelity and production techniques. • High degree of self-motivation and initiative. • International travel may be required as part of the role.

Pluses

• Experience with Cry Engine. • Hard surface modeling experience. • Experience using ZBrush or Mudbox for organic shapes. • Knowledge and/or experience with PBR • Experience with programmatic and/or parametric environment generation tools. • Strong verbal and written communication skills. • An avid gamer. • Experience in architecture, interior or industrial design.

Location: Wilmslow, Cheshire, UK

Environment Artist

Immotion Group     -         Immotion Group has vacancies for freelance or fixed term contracts Environment Artists. Contracts vary in length but are approximately 3 months from April. You will be based at our offices in Media City, Manchester.

We have a couple of VR experience projects that need beautiful environments. They range from interior rooms with props and lush open landscapes including buildings.

You will be able to take creative and technical direction. You will work from concept design and reference material and we also welcome your input into the design.

You will have a minimum of 2 years’ experience in modelling, texturing and lighting in a game and or VR environment using a game engine, either Unity or UE4

You will be expected to check your work in the game engine and ensure it adheres to the technical capabilities needed to make an efficient asset.

A creative eye for colour and light, understanding of real-time lighting techniques and understanding of composition is needed.

Good working knowledge of Maya (or 3ds Max), Photoshop, Substance Designer, Substance Painter, Unity and/or UE4 is required.

Junior Vehicle Artist Codemasters         9 reviews -         Over the past 30 years at Codemasters, we have consistently developed innovative and successful award-winning racing games. Our studio’s have a rich and unrivalled heritage of multiple award-winning racing games, and these titles embody our cornerstones of passion, quality, continuous innovation, and an all-encompassing ambition to be the world leader in what we do. Working in a passionate close-knit team that ensures your voice doesn’t get lost in the crowd, you will deliver ‘AAA’ racing games within a studio that will value and recognise your contributions. Join our talented and experienced team now to re-invent and shape Codemasters’ most ambitious racing title ever, from its inception to a genre-defining experience. Our mission is to be the world’s number one racing games developer – so if you share our ambition, please join us for the road ahead. Essential Skills Aptitude for hard surface 3d modelling Excellent sense of form, mass and volume An keen eye for detail while maintaining efficient model making Experience in Vehicles/props modelling (high & low poly modelling/sub-division modelling/patch modelling) Able to optimize low-polygon or mid-low-polygon models while taking aesthetic and technical considerations into account Vehicle/props texturing, lighting & material creation Experience in applying and tweaking shaders General knowledge of art and technical standards for vehicle design in games Understanding of vehicle design and construction Passion for cars and car racing games and motorsport Software 3DS Max Photoshop Desirable Skills Livery & Logo design. Knowledge of mesh topology optimization techniques Understanding of PBR shader workflows Understanding of vehicle rigging for game Understanding of Photogrametry Understanding of the compromises and constraints inherent in the production of in-game art Reference gathering experience – on location photography, data/data collation, driving license, passport. Appreciation for Industrial Design Strong verbal and written communication skills. Ability to document your process Software Substance Painter, Designer Marmoset Toolbag ZBrush

videos of interest

GDC: Fallout 4 Modular Kit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBAM27YbKZg

GDC: Watchdogs 2 AI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHEcpy4DjNc

https://80.lv/

New Software Project Alchemist from creators of Substance painter Allegorithmic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8zE8hvP23I

[andrewspeedfutureworks-blog]

What Skills Do I need to Improve

I feel that I have solid foundation for producing hi and low poly models, that being said there are still a few things that I still need to improve.

The process of baking is one that still alludes me. I understand how the process works, but my own attempts of baking a high to low model have not been as successful as I would like.

The other aspect I need to work on is texturing. I am more than competent with unwrapping. but the textures I have produced so far need a lot of work. whether it be photoshop, substance painter or other means. I’ve been advised to look into substance designer.

over the years I have learnt Cinema 4D, 3DS Max and Maya. but it would be nice to add zbrush to my skillset. At the minute I’m looking more towards vehicle or prop artist. and maybe even environment art As I like the idea of building modular kits that can be used to produce environments that I would never have thought of creating just on my own. Zbrush would probably be more applicable for props than vehicle but I feel its always good to learn more.

[andrewspeedfutureworks-blog]

After fixing my AI i began playing with an elevator system.

the Ui is all set up. I have set up the elevator to move but unfortunately the player falls through the floor.

I have found a lengthy video on the subject which i will watch when i have 2 hours free.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1Frz4WXS84

I still need to look into the surveillance camera but that should be pretty easy. the free blueprint project provided by unreal should be very useful.

[andrewspeedfutureworks-blog]

Side Project - Gibson ES335

http://www.stewmac.com/ this site contains measurements for hardware such as bridges, tailpieces, 

[andrewspeedfutureworks-blog]

Update

Small Update. Yay i fixed my AI. so next step is to add in a second patrol and second AI to make sure that all works okay, then add a camera that can detect the player and signal your location.

I was trying to figure out a way of alerting the player when they’ve been spotted. add first i thought a red splash that appears briefly on screen but this is obviously more commonly used when a player takes damage. So as with everything else so far i went back and looked at MGS. i remembered reading an article about how they had done the stealth to dramatic music but the site had escaped me.

I found an abbreviated version on http://metalgear.wikia.com/wiki/Metal_Gear_Solid_Original_Game_Soundtrack

Below describes the music and how it was achieved.

A synthetic feel, often similar to ambient music, which increases pace and begins to introduce strings during the more tense moments, was used for the in-game moments with a distinctly video game style looping nature. Cut scene music, however, is more overtly cinematic, with stronger use of orchestral and choral elements.

I wish I had thought to do this earlier but i imagine that to achieve something similar would require a lot of back and forth work with the collaborator to get right. and unfortunately time isn’t on my side.

HUD Tutorial

http://shootertutorial.com/2015/11/10/ue4-tips-plug-and-play-radar/

Camera change from roam to elevator. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cG3DDGz_TbKMM-j4Mk4Y1MTZkPwWSeXS/view

[andrewspeedfutureworks-blog]

What To Do Next?

So after speaking to John about my project i have decided to review my initial aims.

I have had some issues with the AI patrol which were previously working fine which of course is frustrating. i imagine it will be one silly mistake but im sure i can fix it so im going to move away from it for now and work on other parts of the project.

I want to add a camera./spotlight which will move left to right and when the player walks into the path the ai wil be alerted to this location. this will mean that the ai will move to the area if the player has already escaped the area they will look around near by area for a few seconds then return to patrol.

The other thing is i wanted to have objectives so at the minute im thinking of keeping simple. 

Objective 01 - get to the elevator.

this would possibly allow me to make a simple puzzle base game. Similar to my first part of this project. so the player will complete a room and then start on a new room. each room could get harder so .

Level 01 - 1 AI

Level 02 - 2 AI

Level 03 - 2 AI and Camera

Level 04 - 2 AI and Camera but a timelimit

etc

[andrewspeedfutureworks-blog]

Killer Portfolio

presentation of CV no game art (models in game) no clearly shown work difficulty accessing stuff

work more important than CV CV must be relevant

software experience isn't massively important

don’t show bad work/weak work

tumblr blog is not a portfolio

spelling and formatting is very important

creating work based off ip is fine

environment is okay to be shown as a reel but stills can be more useful

focus on the section you want to do

keep up to date portfolio

know your audience send relevant work to an employer

[andrewspeedfutureworks-blog]

Assignment 03 - 06/03/18

Just alittle update. I have found a village called Warnham which is located in the Horsham district of West Sussex. around 1h30m from central london on a train. I feel that this would be a good setting for my level. As the story suggests the character works in london so the location is good. and Although the village is fairly large the section where the station is as shown below is secluded from the rest of the village. The problem i have faced from the beginning of this project is finding a realistic setting to base my design on where there are few houses/building near a station. most village i have found would have upward of 50 buildings which is obviously to much work for such a short project. there are around 16 houses. 8 of which are almost identical and the rest are just slightly altered versions of the original. which means i could produce 2 or 3 types of houses with minimal pieces. there are many trees which will also help making the level look like it has more depth.

Although I still intend to visit ramsbottom to get photographic reference i willbe  using this as my main setting and secondary photographic reference.

I’ve also just found that what appears to be a road that crosses at the bottom is actually a blocked off path. which would help with containing the boundaries of my level. this means i just need to find something that could block the road as it leads off to the left

[andrewspeedfutureworks-blog]

Game Specialism

I decided i wanted to go get an even better understanding of the behavioural tree and found pluralsight had a very detailed tutorial series on a stealth based AI game by Patrick Haslow. This was interesting to watch and had to some intersting things that had crossed my mind but i had not already implemented. i decided to follow the course and completed the tutorials in the series. this was very useful. accidentally solving one issue i had which was to allow there to be multiple ai in the level with different patrol paths. I found myself following in some parts without fully understand why things were being created. It does feel like at times alot of explanation has been missed out. but its left me with a few ideas of things i aim to intergrate into my own project.

[andrewspeedfutureworks-blog]

Game Specialism - update

January just as December turned out to be pretty hectic, then February turned into a pretty horrible month from, being unable to work due to Repetitive strain injury in my wrist left me unable to do anything for the week before and during development week which wasn’t ideal to then being sick the week after.

Thankfully the little time i have managed to work on this project have been very productive so thats always a plus.

so first just a little side note. i decided to follow more in key with the MGS type games the camera just wasn’t set up how i wanted, to much movement allowing players to easy see where the AI was Patroling.

step one was deleted the mouse input

Next step disabling use pawn control  rotation and inherit yaw as well as also changing the distance height and rotation of the camera.

These setting setup the camera as wanted without any interference from the mouse, but it meant the player would only face forward when moving (back to camera)

The solution to this was in the (self) section of the blueprint disable use Rotation Yaw.

This now allows the player to move 360 degrees while the camera always follows from behind. The numbers maybe tweaked later to give a better view of the action but this is much more like what i imagine when thinking of the stealth games. And although this is pretty straightforward. while merging various projects together i found my self having to google this solution for the second time. so now it can remain here for future reference

[andrewspeedfutureworks-blog]

Assignment 03

Research.

I decided to set my game in a small village. for reference i will using the town of ramsbottom. although there were be few landmarks that will make the real life counterpart. Mainly will be the train station.

My level will be considerably smaller than the actual village as i will not have a enough time to create so many variations of houses i will keep to 2 or maybe different types.

I think i will keep the river as this is a good way to block off the outside world

I was considering the idea of having one or two roads that lead to know where but are seamingly endless but I’m not sure how feasible that wil be

List of models to build

Train Station

- The standard height for platforms is 91.5

Length 19000cm Height 91.5cm Width 50cm

2-3 Houses

1 row of shops

Phone box

Post Box

Bench

Bracelet

Key

Unreal Character is roughly 182.5cm tall