finlaylawesunit04

[finlaylawesunit04]

[Half term] looking adding a weapon switching system. [might add shotguns or something unique]

[finlaylawesunit04]

[Half term] looking into how to change the graphics [this is for a menu option in game]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLCNedDnWTY&list=PLIKUlDx2gWfhLzMONozewtSagf2oohXHe&index=29

[finlaylawesunit04]

[Half term] looking into Adding Aim down sights

[finlaylawesunit04]

[Half term] looking into Adding bullet spread.

[finlaylawesunit04]

Evaluation

What went well in this project?

In this project I found that the level design went pretty well as I learnt how to properly use foliage which is all the placeable things like grass, tree's, wood logs on the ground etc and I learnt how I should be placing them around a level to make it look detailed. Overall I feel like I did a pretty decent job at the level design as I have a pretty spooky scene which was what I was going for and the level includes a lot of pumps on the ground and obstacles to doge to keep the movement of the game fresh as moving around places can be quite challenging when enemies are attacking you.

My melee AI also went pretty well in certain areas. To start of with no matter where the melee AI are looking and where the player is on the level they will chase that player down and move around obstacles to find them then once close enough they will attack the player and play, deal damage to the player and play an attack animation with sound effects. A good thing about this enemy is that with the animations it will play its running animation then when close enough it will play its attack animation however if the enemy is close enough to the player whilst they are both in a running state then the enemy will be playing its running animation for the bottom half of the body and the top part will be playing the attack animation. The only issue with this enemy is that I didn't manage to get this enemy particular to playa  death animation once shot enough time buy the payer because I coded this enemy differently to the other.

My ranged shooting AI didn't go too well however I did get it to work to some degree and there were some positives. If you are in the vision of the ranged AI then it will run towards you and shoot you and those bullets will do damage and the gun will play sound effects however it all has a lot of bugs as to start of with this AI will only notice the player if they are standing right in the pathway which is bad for this game mode as this is a zombie survival style of game so the enemies need to constantly be chasing after the player to keep that intense and stressful gameplay other wise there are just glitches where the player can just stand behind the enemies and shoot them because the enemies wont react as the player isn't directly in front of them. Another issue are the animations as this AI was made by a very basic tutorial and I had to try and make a good 50% of the stuff on my own which is quite hard as I haven't had that much experience with AI so one things is that the whilst the AI is alive they will constantly be playing a running combat animation which is bad for the main reason that as this AI stands still when the player isn't in front of them then they will just be playing a running animation whilst not moving at all. However I did manage to get a death animation playing for this AI which was really cool so when the player shoots them enough and the AI hp is has depleted then they will play a death animation and stop all movements and stop shooting so that was something really cool and was a pretty big successful thing of the AI. One other last but small issue with this AI was the shooting of the AI as the bullets don't shoot directly straight they will be shooting too far the left so most of the time the player just wont get shot because the AI isn’t shooting in the right direction unless the player runs on the enemies left side or if the player stands still. 

Overall though I feel as if I did a decent job with AI as my time management for this project wasn't that good so I had to rush the AI but I feel as if they turned out alright and they definitely had some positives! 

Another thing that went well in this project is that I had a fully working enemy spawner/wave system which would spawn in a specific number of AI and it would randomly chose how much of each AI would be spawned in and then after all AI is killed the next wave will spawn and this time an additional AI will be spawned and this will happen after every round making things progressively harder as time goes on. A cool feature that I managed to add was that in the top left of the players screen it would show the wave number that you’re on and the number of all remain AI left alive. This part of the game was essential as this puts together the target of my project which is randomisation and my randomization in the game comes down to the spawner as the spawner randomly choses how much of what enemy gets spawned and this happens for every round which is great as this adds a fresh environment for the player because they wont always get the same situations because in the later parts of the game they might have to fight more of one enemy compared to the other which they didn't experience before.

What could of gone better?

Some of the big things that could of gone better in my project is my time management and organisation of what I should be and when I should be doing things. To start of with I should of done all of the coding and dev stuff that didn't include level design first as that's the most time consuming, most important and the most challenging part so cracking on that at the start is the best options as if I left it to the second half of the project then I will be in a rush and things might take longer than expected leaving me unable to finish things. My time management was really bad in this project as I spent way too much time ont eh level design side of things and fluffing around too much testing stuff out in level design making me have a very short time to actually dev the actually game so I should of set myself specific amounts of time to finish certain things in the project so I know that I wont go overboard in a certain tasks and then have less time to complete other tasks

I also think that my AI could of gone better as I couldn't get both of my AI to 100% do all the animations I wanted them to do and there were some issues mainly with the ranged shooting one but I cant fault myself too much as AI is incredibly hard and I have barely any experience with it so in future projects I will have to do tons of deep research on how to make very good AI.

For the gun play the only two things I think I could of done better are the animations as I didn't manage to make a reload animation which would of been really cool to have and I should of made a system where if the player is running then they will not be able to shoot and they play a running animation with the gun.

What will you do differently next time?

Next time I will definitely be improving my time management making a well planed out mind map on how much time I can spent on each section of the project to keep myself 100% on track and to make sure I can complete every task because I hate having uncompleted things in my project so setting time periods to do things will be a massive helping hand.

Another thing I want to do next time is do way more work at home wherever it be blog work of dev work as I have the resources to do work at home but I get distracted and give up too easily at home so next time I need to push myself to do some extra work at home as it will save a lot of time because I wont just be working at college meaning I can get things done faster as I wont be waiting for the next week at college to do work but instead finish tasks at home so I can progress quicker and move onto other things quicker giving me more time to focus on other tasks that I have.

Overall I think that this project did work out well as I really wanted to harness my level design skills and learn more about level design and I 100% did achieve that as I gained a lot of knowledge on level design and besides that I also managed to achieve my tasks of creating a randomized zombie survival style game so I didn't have any massive missing wholes in my project it was just that some things didn't get as well made as I hoped like the AI. But all in all I got my game made and it fully worked with just some bugs here and there but I learned tons of skills like world building and AI code giving me a massive helping hand for future projects as I'm sure I will definitely need loads of knowledge nn level design and AI code in my future projects.

Over the half term I might try to add some extra things to my game such as reload animations, bullet spread and some settings things like making a graphics settings which would all be some good knowledge to have as It might mean I wont have to spend time learning how to make things in future projects as I would have already practiced it previously.

[finlaylawesunit04]

Clean up all final work, make .EXE’s, render images, record videos etc.

[finlaylawesunit04]

What are your plans for the next two days?

My plans for the next two days is to try and get a few more tasks to my game to give it some extra polishes for example I want to add an aim down sights feature for my guns and I want to add bullet spread and sound effects. If I don't have time or have struggles completing them then that's fine as I have done everything I set out for myself. However I would like to push myself to get those tasks done.

Other than tweaking stuff in my game to finalize it I need to make sure that I have all my blog work done so I'm going to go back and complete any uncompleted ones that I have left behind as its key that I have everything noted down as that's where my grades come in place so I 100% need to make sure I get them all done.

[finlaylawesunit04]

Testing results - make sure all testing is written up, not just images of graphs, tell us what you learnt.

Through my tests results I have gathered that my game looks really nice and the design is cool however the AI is really lacking on variety and what thy do. To start of with I only have two AI and one will do a basic charge at the player and slashes them with a sword and the other when it see’s the player it will follow them and shoot them. The Issue mainly with the AI isn't the one that uses a sword as it charges the player and attacks them, does animations and all that perfectly fine its just that the shooting AI has trouble finding the player and gets stuck in places, it doesn't animate properly and the bullets have trouble locking onto the player so I will need to fix that if I get the time.

I have learnt through this project that I must focus on the coding and all the makings off the game first then do level design as in this Project I was too eager to learn how to properly level design and spent so many weeks on making a level only leaving me left a couple of weeks to do all the coding. So I have learnt that If I spend more time on the code and do that first then do the level design I wont have to worry about rushing out anything or having uncomplete things due to poor time management. I feel like it would also be a lot more organized if I did all the code for everything first as then I can adapt my level to what I have made to get the best out of everything because If you make the level first you have to pretty much pray that everything falls into place how you wanted it to.

In this project I have learnt an incredible amount of things and one begin level design as I got a missive re cap on how everything works and how to do everything, all that's left for me in the level design department is must continue pushing out levels to get better at where I should place things and how I should design things but that will just come with trial and error.

[finlaylawesunit04]

Reflection on last week - how did it go?

Last week went really well as I got a fully working Melee AI that will spawn in and immediately run towards the player and then when they get close enough they will attack the player and deal damage. This AI was really fun to make as it had some advanced things in it like when the AI is attacking me whilst both the player and AI are moving then the AI will only play the running animation for its legs and then the attacking animation will continue playing so that was really cool to learn. I also got to get a good introduction on how hit boxes work as I had to make some for my enemies swords so now I have a basic understanding on how hitboxes for AI work which will be an incredible helping hand for future projects.

With the AI I just talked about I also made it so my player can kill the new melee AI by shooting them, this was an easy system all I did was make a quick health system then just made it so when the bullet came in contact the will die after a certain amount of shots.

Another thing I made was an ammo system that also included a reload system which was really fun making and learning about as this is a key thing for FPS games as having ammo changes so much on how players will play games because all of a sudden they have to be ten times more careful as if they charge into enemies whilst low on health then they will be sure to die so adding ammo creates a new barrier of challenge as it gives the player another task to focus on. Learning how to make this system has an amazing piece of knowledge as I will 100% be needing these systems in future FPS games that I will be making. I also added the feature that when you reload it will play a reload sound effect and when the sound is done playing then the reload will be fully complete.

I also made the enemy spawner/wave system for my game which was really cool as I now have it so in my game a wave of enemies will spawn and there will be a counter on the top left of the screen which will show the wave number and the number of enemies remaining, after all enemies in the wave have been killed then the next wave will spawn in and after each wave an additional enemy will spawn in making the game increasingly harder as time goes on. This was a good system to learn how to make as in future projects I'm sure that I might want parts of a game where there is a spawner/wave system needed.

[finlaylawesunit04]

Making an ammo system and reload system. [And a reload animation system]

Here is the fully working ammo system that allows you to shoot bullets and and reload the mag and the the total amount of ammo will decrease. You wont play an animation yet as I haven't made one. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv84hwLpoEc

[finlaylawesunit04]

Adding sound effects/music to my game.

Adding sound effects to things is actually really easy as for most things after the action is played you will just connect the last node of right before the last node you will be get a play sound at location and connect it together.

In this picture below for my first person character all I did was after my first person projectile has been spawned it will play sound at location which is my blaster sound and then I sue my ammo but you could but the play sound before the spawn projectile, after it or even after the use ammo node it doesn't rally matter.

In this example for my melee AI I just have that after my player has taking damage the sound will play, again you could put this node before or after the player takes damage this was just one example but it doesn't really matter too much where you put it as all the code happens instantly so as long as there isn't a delay it will have straight away.

To actually get the sounds into the game all you have to do is drag your mp3 file into your folder and then you’re good to go to add it on play sound node.

[finlaylawesunit04]

Getting feedback on my game

[finlaylawesunit04]

Making the AI spawner/ wave system for my enemies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgw9V3b_QyU

Adjusting the spawner to make it random [replacing the flip flop node wit the branch and the random bool].

[finlaylawesunit04]

Reflection on last week, how did it go? [EGX]

Last week activities:

Last week overall was a really stressful and annoying week as I did a lot of things as trial and error and most things I tried creating either turned out terribly or just straight up didn't work. I didn't get to blog down these steps as I didn't feel it was worth doing it as most of the tasks I did just didn't benefit anything.

However I did get some things prepared for my game such as some more sound files, models for my AI that was a massive bundle of them that included all types of models which was really cool. 

I have set up lists of to do tasks for myself that I need to get done and I am checking them off as soon as they are completed for good organisation and to keep me on track.

EGX:

EGX was a really interesting and fun time as it was my first time going to a game convention so the experience was really fresh and enjoyable. It wasn't as big and extreme as I hoped it would be but things got rushed due to covid so a lot of stuff wasn't there. However all in all it was a great time going around playing the new games, buying merch and looking at the tournaments.

here is a picture of some frames I got:

[finlaylawesunit04]

Testing assests - do you have what you need?

Though the unreal engine marketplace I have gathered countless free content to add to games and for this project I found a load of models, animations, textures and more to add to my game. I will show a screenshot showcase below of some stuff I have that may be in my game

Here are some skeletal mesh’s:

Here are some animations:

Here are some textures:

 Here are some static mesh’s:

[finlaylawesunit04]

Any additional research, could be new tools? Testing methods? bug fixes? additional features?

Additional research:

New tools: I haven't need to look into any other tools as I have only had to use unreal engine so far which has been good.

Bug fixes:

One bug I had to fix was that my crouch system was really glitchy as it wasn't setting the capsule height properly when I was going down then when going up I set the values all wrong and this led to glitches like my camera being able to continuously get higher in the sky if I spammed the crouch button which was weird so I had to go to my capsule heights and set them the the appropriate heights and change some other values.

The main issue was I kept on adjusting my characters capsule so the crouch kept on getting more glitchy because I wasn't changing it in the crouch blueprint as well so I had to go the player view port and get the height of the players capsule and then in the crouch blueprint set the height to its current height and then divide it by two to the get the half height.

Then I had to change some vector + vector nodes to + -0.5 and the other one needed to be + 0.5

Another bug I had to fix was that when I was playing my game and the enemies got to close my bullets wouldn't collide properly with the enemies and there was an easy fix for that. The easy fix was going into the first person character blueprint and then where the projectile gets spawned I had to change the collision handling override to “always spawn, ignore collisions”.

[finlaylawesunit04]

Have you got your MVP? when will you start testing?

My MVP was to create a cool looking map with high detail on it in a forest theme and then my game play would be a zombie survival game so that would include making some AI that attacks the player, an enemy spawner to spawn in the AI and a wave system that continues to spawn enemies after you have killed all enemies on a wave.

So far I have achieved all goals that I set out to make as I have a cool and well designed map that I'm proud of as its my second ever time trying to make a map. I have a fully working enemy spawner, wave system that will increase the number of enemies spawned after each wave has been completed.

In the next couple of days I will be asking some friends to play the game to see how they feel about the game and fill out a google forms with some questions I want them to answer.