fpsprojecttjc

[fpsprojecttjc]

My Final 3D Game Outcome.

I am very happy with how my game turned out. It looks wonderful and it feels amazing to play. I have attached many screenshots and a gameplay video:

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Cinematics in UE5

Cinematics are a good way to make cutscenes or trailers for your game. The way that these are made is quite simple. You create a level sequencce and add a camera to the port. Add a key frame where you want the scene to begin and then move the camera to where you want it to go.

Cinematics have been used within the film and music industry quite alot. One example of this is Love, Death and Robots. They used Unreal Engine very heavily to make this project and it turned out wonderfully.

Another example of how Unreal Engine is used in in the Madalorian. They use green screens and then build the area in Unreal before placing the character into it. This works very well and allows the creators to get very in depth and surreal lands without too hefty costs.

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What is the Niagara System

The Niagara System is a partical effect system that allows the user to make custom partical effects. One example of Partical Effects being used in game are in Mineraft. Potions give the player different color partical effects

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GreyBoxing

Greyboxing is a technique used by developers to create a 3D world quickly and without any of the details. It allows the dev to map out the wrold and get to an idea that they are happy with, before models begin to be made.

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Decals

Decals are a system that allowws for a secondary texture to be temporarily or permenantly be applied to an object. One example of decals being used heavily is in Splatoon. In Splatoon, Decals are the entire gimmick which allow the player to dip in and out of the splatters.

Another game that used decals is Valorant. Decals are used to place people's sprays onto walls.

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What Is Quixel Mixer?

Quixel Mixer is a tool that allows the user to paint diretly onto their model instead of or as well as UV wrapping it. This is useful if you want to add paint splatters after UV wrapping it. Here is a case where Quixel Mixer can be used to create detailed materials.

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Here is my Final Submission Slideshow. I am very happy with how this project went and how the slideshow looks!

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Voxel Styles in Game

Voxel Styles in Games often give a sense that the game is casual. Minecraft is quite often a very casual game and so the voxel style is reflective of that using this ideology. Crossy Road is another voxel game and its the kind of game youd play if you were bored on your phone on the bus. Its very casual. These 2 Games contraft heavily as one is a very immersive 3D game and the other is the player tapping to cross the road as a chicken. They contrast very heavily and I feel that is one of the main things about the voxel style. It has alot of variation across its catalogue. Here is a list of games:

Crossy Road

Minecraft

Teardown

Skies of the Past

Fugl

The Touryst

Bonfire Peaks

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What is a UV Map?

UV Mapping allows the creator to put a 3D model into a 2D form to apply a custom texture to it using images or colours. This UV Map is usually exported from Maya or Blender into a JPG format and then edited in Photoshop. Then it is reimported bacck into the program as an image material. Here is an example of a UV of my Crate.

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Ambient Sounds in Games

Ambient Sounds help to immerse the player in the environment and to convey a certain emotion to them. For example, people would make creepy forest music to instill a sense of unease and fear. Here is an example of creepy forest music. It has minor key piano and animal sounds faitly in the background.

Disclaimer - I found this on a free MP3 website. Will put the link here

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Sound Cues in Games

Using audio to guide players is an effective way to help them navigate through the game. Audio cues can indicate the player's location, hint at a secret area, or alert the player of an incoming danger. In the instances that im going to discuss today, Danger, Fishing and Mining are all themes.

My Example Game is Stardew Valley. While Fishing, an audio cue plays to alert the player that I fish has bitten. Here is a video tutorial on how to fish and the sound and icon alert that comes with it.

While in the Mines, there can be rock creatures that spawn from floors 30 - 40 in the dark. The best way of knowing this is via an audio cue. They make a rock moving sound effect to notify the player that there is a dangerous creature that has awoken. Here is a video of this sound effect. Watch from 7:55 to 8:10 to see the rising and sound cue.

While mining, whever you make it 5 floors deeper, a new elevator spot is lit. To tell you this, the game plays a ding audio cue and turns the light on above it. Here is a link to a page where you can hear the ding.

All of these sound cues impat player behaviours. When people hear the fishing sound, they press left click to try to catch the fish. When people hear the elevator ding sounds, they contemplate whether they have enough time/energy to go down 5 more floors and when people hear the rock golem sounds, they prepare their swords as rock drakes do alot of damage.

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My K9 Digital Crate

The Requirements:

All textures must be in one UV

Must not exceed 10K tris

Must display the model in Quixel Mixer

It must be a 2K texture

Overview:

For my professional brief, I decided to make a crate that can be opened with a crowbar. It will have an elaborate opening animation where the top of the crate slides off, the sides fall down and then the top moves back to the centre and moves downwards. I wanted to make my cube not just be a bunch of rectangles turned into a cube so I wanted to use booleans to cut into my rectangles to make it more realistic and I wanted it to look great.

How I Made The Crate's Shape:

To make the shape of the crate I first spawned a cube in Maya and scaled it to the shape of a medium thickness oblong. I then duplicated this 6 times and configured them into the shape of a hollow cube. The reason I couldn't just use a boolean to hollow out a cube is because for my aim of the sides falling down, they all had to be seperate pieces. I then spawned a square and enlarged it to about 5mm thinner than the sides. I then duplicated tis cube 5 more times until I had 6. After that I linked the cubes as a boolean and pushed the cubes into the sides of the crate which would give me the 3D crate cutout that I wanted.

How I UV Wrapped The Crate:

To UV wrap this crate was a painful process because of how complex the shape was. It took me 4 different attempts and alot of mental blockage but I finally did it. I first moves all of the UV for all items onto one square. I then obtained the UV snapshot and places it into Photoshop where I proceeded to spend the next 2 days looking for a suitable wood image to use until I finally found it. It was quite simple but it gave me the confidence boost I needed to sit through 2 hours of UV wrapping this god forsaken crate. 2 hours later I had finally finished it before I realised that I should have tested one section to see whether I was happy with it. I hoped that this would work well and I would be happy but I was also nervous about it. Luckily it was a lovely looking crate so with excitement I exported it as an FBX and slapped it into UE5 where it looked perfect.

To Conclude:

This process has been long winded, complex and confusing. At many points, I have not wanted to continue and have run into many ssues, all of whch I combatted by restarting or asking my friends for help. I am very happy with my crate and also very happy that the process is all done.

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How Stardew Valley uses Music to Convey Emotion

Stardew Valley is a very versatile and open game. With open games often comes many different areas such as places of Horror, Loneliness and Hapiness. Stardew shows all 3 of these using the following locations:

Community Centre (Pre-Rebuilding)

Mines

The Town

The Community Centre uses eerie music and sound effects to cconvey a sense of unease and uncomfortability to the player. Here is an audio file of the Community Centre. The strong winds and wind chimes in a minor tone convey a deep emotion of "I shouldn't be here" to the player.

The Mines have very quiet and mellow music that gives the player a sense of purpose while slaying slimes in the mines. Here is an audio file of the mines. The lone dings make the player feel alone but confident while in the mines.

The Town has a very country music asthetic to it which I feel is a perfect fit for such a quaint town. It gives the player a strong sense of comfort and safety while in Pelican Town. Here is an audio file of Pelian Town. It's upbeatness and charm is reflective of that of the Town itself.

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Wacky Weapons

Mr Toots - Red Faction Armageddon

Mr Toots is a unicorn that shoots out of it's bum. This is a very wacky weapon. I could implement a similar idea by using a crouch mecanic to make the player shoot into the sky.

The Dubstep Gun - Saints Row IV

The Dubstep Gun is a weapon that fires long-range pulses of energy to the beat of an electronic song, the song being determined by the costume selected for the gun. I could implement a similar idea by using sound attenuaton around the bullets that fire to play a song when the gun is used.

Grooviton - Ratchet And Clank

The Grooviton is a floating silver disco ball, which rotates in the air, blasts disco music and projects colored lights around. The Golden Groovitron appears identical other than its gold appearance rather than silver. It is able to make people nearby dance. I could implement something similar into my game by making all enemies nearby stop moving and walk in tight circles to the music.

The Penetrator - Saints Row III

The Penetrator is a 1 Meter long Dildo attatched to the handle of a baseball bat. It has realistic veins and physics that simulate that of a dildo. It was edited for the Japanese market due to content regulations. It was asked that the veins and physics be removed. The veins were but the physics remained. I am not going to talk about how I could replicate this in my game.

Mutated Milk - Team Fortress 2

Mutated Milk is a weapon which upon a direct hit, a bread monster appears squirming and biting the target's head on the side they were hit from for 10 seconds. If hit more than once, it is possible to accumulate several bread monsters on a single victim. I could recreate a similar effect by making a projectile remain in place upon collision and remove the player's controls.

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Quixel Studio and Online Models

I have decided to get models for my village, grass and stones from Quixel studio and other platforms as they are tedious and time consuming to make and UV. I will give the links to the quixel studio projects that I use for my game here.

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Using the Niagra System in UE5

Today I have learnt the basics of how to make a Niagra System. To begin you must create an Empty System, which is done like so.

This has created an Omni-Directional Burst. This can be controlled via the details panel on the side upon clicking once on one of the details on this panel.

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Games that were made using Maya

The Last Of Us. Maya was used to make the 3D models, facial expressions and environmental assets in The Last of Us series.

Call Of Duty Modern Warefare 3. Maya was used to make the animations for this game.

God Of War Ragnarok. Maya was used to make the animations for this game.

Marvel's Spiderman 2. Maya was used to make the 3D models and animations for this game.