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Speed Climbing (Olympic Sport) Research

Speed climbing is indoor rock climb climbing where people compete to climb a rock wall to the top in the fastest fashion. Both athlete have the same hold separated by the same distance, whoever is fastest to the top is the winner. 

I could use this by watching video and seeing how they climb, what kind of posture they do, what jumps they do, all this would help in creating a realistic but optimum climbing that is fast. 

I could also add similar rock climbing places within my game but I think it would be best to keep the climbing the way it is now as I have already began development of the climbing mechanic. If I had more time, adding climbing like this would add more depth to the climbing. 

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Final Major Project Evaluation

Evaluative section on the media and techniques that were used and explored in your project. What did you learn? How did research help this? How did these techniques meet your proposal? What did I learn?

I really enjoyed the idea generation and utilised mind maps on Draw.io. I feel like I was able to really explore a variety of concepts and develop the ideas that most interested me, at the time, further. 

I used MAYA to create a hut and to model a character. This more time in MAYA allowed me to get more familiar with the 3D modelling tool and how to properly drag out faces to extend and create what I needed. Creating the hut, this took longer than I wanted but I was still able to get something I could use out of the final outcome. I was able to bring in and manipulate a cube to resemble a typical house / hut shape. I definitely would not have been able to do this in the first year. 

During development I lost all my work, the file containing my Unreal project somehow got corrupted or unreadable. Even though I lost my work, I was able to explore different approaches and techniques to get back to where I was. Also, re-going over things I had done, this sort of reaffirmed the knowledge and helped to fill any gaps I had forgotten from the earlier stages of the development of the game. I think even though I lost the work, this was a good thing for this project and me as it solidified the methods and code more so as I had to redo everything. And, even though I didn’t achieve what I wanted I still learned new skills like world development, sculpting tools in Unreal, Importing animations from an external place into my Unreal Projects and more.

Purpose / theme / concept

Evaluative section: the thought processes and the way you solved problems. The creative journey and the decisions you made to meet the context and theme of your project. What did you need to change or explore to make sure you hit the themes of your proposal? Did you need to alter your idea or direction / outcome?

At the start of the project I did not have a solid foundation of what I wanted to do, I knew I wanted to do something narratively and create a world design. I started putting all my ideas down which then stemmed into the idea I brought into the most. I really liked the opportunity to create a lush, peaceful environment for this tribe that would be offset by the approaching darker theme of a doomsday scenario of global proportions. 

When I found the idea that most interested me, I looked at games that featured aspects I wanted to do. For example, for the climbing mechanics I looked at games like Uncharted and looked at how they taught the player climbing, different ways you could climb like rope swinging and ledge shimmying. Narratively I looked at games like Fallout, Uncharted and The Witcher 3 to find how I wanted to implement dialogue, whether I wanted to write everything and have the player press through the dialogue or whether I wanted to have a dialogue tree. 

I researched various different tribes around the world and this helped me generate more ideas for asset designs and character designs. Through research of these tribes, specifically tribes located in places like The Amazon where surrounded by lush green trees and healthy environments, this research helped me visualise how I might go about creating something peaceful and open and was used to directly help create my happier, more colourful environment that the player would be placed in. 

A big portion of the time for the project was placed in doing a climbing mechanic. This climbing mechanic was one of the few gameplay elements I was interested in implementing into my project. Instead of like most games where they would delegate a specific spot on a specific wall or object, I made mine to work on anything that hit a certain height and distance from character parameters… or at least tried to. In my head this seemed like a good idea for doing a climbing mechanic but I think if I had done better research into climbing mechanics earlier on it would have led to better ways of implementing such a mechanic that were less time consuming. I used Youtube tutorials to help with the climbing mechanic. 

Code again was something I struggled with but less so with this project, I was able to focus mostly on world development and the code I did I was able to draw upon previous projects like with the dialogue systems and data structs. 

Outcome

Evaluative section on the final product. Did you meet your expectations? Does your outcome fulfil the project that you set and meet your FMP brief? What Could’ve Gone Better?

I would have liked to have developed the game further with more polish to the climbing mechanic specifically. Due to my level of skill in coding I struggled with creating this robust climbing mechanic in a quick manner. Also, because the climbing mechanic took so much to get to the level it is now, I was unable to really expand on the dialogue system as the climbing mechanic took up a lot of the time. From a learning perspective I am happy with what I was able to achieve as I definitely was not able to get even halfway through this project without the experience and knowledge from the previous project which I think demonstrates that I have improved in various areas through this and previous projects. 

Through the delegation of time dedicated to getting the climbing mechanic up and running with a level of polish. I need to better spend my time planning the project as well as not just planning the overall narrative of my future projects. I would hit a wall attempting to develop something, this could be trying to implement an animation, then when I got stuck I would move onto developing something else. This led to a few things being 50% completed and it was harder to keep track of what needs further development and polish and what was actually to a level I was after. This was a problem in the previous project as well, I think I need to be more aware and strategic in my approach to developing these ideas. 

Secondly, better art direction and being able to create my own assets to a style that fits with other created assets so that assets don’t clash themes and styles like they would if I bring assets in from places like the Unreal store or Mixamo. Though I did create a model of the huts in MAYA and made it have a slanted/uneven look, I really didn’t like the outcome and feel it came out to house’y’ shaped, with the roof in particular, but I think it shows good progress in my MAYA abilities.

I wasn’t able to implement the dialogue system as the climbing soaked up so much time. Next time better planning and more dedication I think I would’ve been better suited to getting more done. Can do this by better utilising MoSCoW and other methods to save backups of the work to save and maintain work. I can do this by backing up the files onto my laptop at home and onto other hard drives and USPs. 

I believe the game stayed within the boundaries of the theme I set out to complete, I was however unable to achieve a working dialogue system with the polish I would have liked and with a working animation system. I wanted to create the game's theme in a more understandable manner then at the stage it was left at. 

Still don’t know how to do animations. 

Conclusion

Evaluative section on the processes of evaluation, feedback and peer assessment. On reflection how you could have improved your project and what could you have done to support the improvements needed. What have you learnt and what do you need to make sure you do next time to improve your project?

In reflection and on peer assessment, I would have liked to implement and stayed to a more thorough, more detailed schedule. I feel like this would have helped me to achieve my project goals. 

Secondly, I would have spent more time researching climbing mechanics and this could have led to a potentially better approach with less time having to be delegated to get it up and running. This may not have had a huge difference in the final outcome but with more industry knowledge in how other people implemented such mechanics could have been useful and allowed me to achieve more holistically. 

I wish I could’ve achieved everything I set out to do but some things like animations and such took longer than anticipated and took more time than I thought I would need to delegate to them. Finicky things like finding where to edit and insert new animations and importing animations from Mixamo Without Skins so that the animation would import in instead of the characters mesh and skeleton. 

I also was able to utilise MAYA in some way which was something I wanted to do at the start of the project, even though the result of the MAYA creation was not what I was happy with, I still learned and gained confidence in MAYA. 

When I came up with the idea for the project, narratively was the primary focus. Things like “this would be the character's motivation” and “this would be the reason why the character is in the position they are in” were thought of first. In hindsight I think a more holistic approach about just how I would implement certain things down to what code it most likely needed would have helped me achieve a more fuller outcome.

As my ambitions and as my confidence grew, narratively and in MAYA specifically, I wanted to implement these into the project but as I'm not accomplished in these aspects to a level that I would like, the project timeline expanded as I either tackled elements differently than initially planned or added smaller things that accumulated project time over a period of weeks.

At the start of the course I didn't want to do university but over all the projects I have done on this course, even though none of the projects turned out how I would of initially would have liked, I enjoy the creative side of establishing my ideas, creating these narratives and exploring these ideas within the game engine and in my head. I also like the research that goes into bettering my ideas so that I can improve upon them.

I like the opportunity to create games that have an impact on people and I feel university offers me a good chance at bettering my skills and knowledge in game engine and industry to achieve the games and works I want to achieve. 

Peer Assessment

Through feedback I was able to determine better ways to do the climbing mechanic, a more industry design. This being instead of climbing anything that hits a certain height and distance from player requirements, you can delegate certain objects and walls to have a “point” on them somewhere where the player snaps to and the animation trigger of hanging or climbing is activated here on a Boolean. 

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3 concepts steered into the one I chose

Initially I put all my ideas down onto a mindmap, doing this I found a really wanted to do something narratively and world/environmental design. I wanted to do something narrative. Games like the TLOU and the Uncharted series I think inspired me to choose a more world story telling approach.  

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Using a Mixamo Character instead

I am switching to using a Mixamo character instead of importing the one I created in MAYA to allow me to be quickly finished with the development of the character and focus more on getting the climbing as polished as I cam. 

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Corrupted work REDO

Re-doing lost work.

By having to redo everything again, it can reinforce the things I have learnt as well as allow me to get a better understanding of importing and setting animations. 

I have visually re-placed everything down again, and re-did the landscape. 

Reimporting the Mixamo Character

The character also lost their look visually. 

I re-imported the Mixamo character and set this to be the characters skeleton + mesh. 

Animations

The animations and the code related to climbing also broke or doesn’t work how it should anymore so I will be re-doing that as well. 

Redownloading animations from Mixamo. 

Before, the animation of “Freehang_Climb” did not gel well with the hanging animation. The “Freehang_Climb” hanging animation was more loose and hanged fully extended, where as with the hanging animation with the knees up pressed against the surface in front. The transition between these animations was very “wonky” and I have brought in another animation from Mixamo that should work better paired with the “Hanging Idle” animation, both these animations start off in very similar positions with knees up against the surface.

Below I have switched in the better animation in the animation blueprint for the character.

Forward Line Trace

Height Line Trace

This makes both line traces activate on space bar (jump)

1, 2 and 3 are a part of the same code chain. Where one ends the next one continues. 

This code checks the thirdpersoncharacter to check for falling. If true, set variable Drop to false.

This is the hanging animation working. Walking up to the surface and jumping moves the player in accordance with the line traces. I then set a socket in the skeletal mesh of the character in the hand so that the snap point will be the end point for the hand, this made it look better and more like the character had gripped onto the edge, before the character pelvis in the skeletal mesh was the snap point and this placed the hands to air and appeared to be more floating and actually stuck to the edge. 

Re-Doing Landscape + Environment

Something else that needs re-doing is the landscape and the environment. Since I have already done this before, it should be fairly quickly to get back to where I was with the environment.

I added a sky sphere and made this to look more like a sunset or sunny day, this better fits the theme of this small village being a peaceful place. 

I have replaced all the huts in pretty much the same placements and angles as before. I really liked the layout of these before as it sort of delegate certain things to each smaller hut locations, you’ve got the main ones congregated closer to each other and the ones not so critical off to the side.

I have also re-placed down the obstacle courses in the same way as before as I felt the way it was teaches the player what they need to know and it wasn’t too hard to pass the obstacle course. 

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Can’t get animation to trigger

Following the video, I have created a montage of the animation and set this montage to play when the Boolean “IsClimbing” is true. Also, when this is Boolean is true, players will “Stop Movement Immediately”, essentially meaning that when the character stops moving when the line trace requirements are met, the animation should play alongside the “Stop Movement Immediately” 

During this point, the player is suspended with the “stop movement immediately” node, the animation montage should play, this animation is the hanging animation but it does not trigger. 

This is the animation that I have imported and should be playing when the criteria is met. 

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Final Push - Changing Way Climbing Works

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxbju_QotS4&t=42s

Created two new functions, these will be the 2 different line traces

Forward vector for the two line traces

In the event graph, allows to see the line trace during gameplay.

Height Line Trace. Used for getting the data and value for the the ledge is. ie how high to the ledge.

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Final Push - Expanding the Obstacle Course

Adding to the obstacle course to add depth and more to do in the starting area, as well as to teach the player different climbing niches. 

 Area 1 is the beginning climbing course, little punishment for failing other than restarting. This course ends with a flag atop the last platform. 

Area 2 would introduce other mechanics like rope climbing and jumping off the rope. This area will be slightly advanced from area 1 and the punishment for falling will be more substantial. 

I needed something that would cause the player to force the reset for if the player fell off. I thought about using water but water would take time to do and another potential plan was to dig like a deep trench but this might look weird with the trees in a deep chasm like that. A quick way that I could do was to create a parameter around the second climbing area so that the player could not enter the area on the ground, this would also leave it free for me to place a collision box inside the parameter that would reset the player to the start of the obstacle course. I can have a invisible wall around the fence line to stop the player from climbing over the fence and hitting this collision box so the only way the collision box can be touched, is through failing and falling off the course. 

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Final Push - New Animations

We added newer animations to the player, as well as change the mesh of the character. We changed the characters look to better resemble the theme of the game. 

We added new animation because when we brought in the new character, even though both were from Mixamo, the skeleton was different and this caused a deformed new mesh with General Grievous looks.

Animation and Blendspace picture + Explanation 

Pictures of the character

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Final Push - Climbing still not working as wanted

Climbing still does not attach the scene correctly, the player will be brought up to where the scene is, fall and attach roughly half way down the white cube. 

If I am unable to get this particular climbing to work how I wanted, we have looked into changing the climbing mechanic to a different form, more like a free form climbing mechanic where the player can climb around the obstacle. 

Potential new climbing mechanic 

https://www.google.com/search?q=climbing+mechanic+ue4&rlz=1C1GCEB_enGB1003GB1003&oq=climbing+mechanic+ue4&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i546l4.4672j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#kpvalbx=_DQRoYoeCDsijgAaUlJzQCw12

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Final Push - Asset Pack

Placing down logs + Adding new obstacle courses + Death or punishment if fall off

I have deleted the tree placeholders and painted in foliage (trees) around the parameter. 

Adding fireplace area with assets from pack.

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Final Push - Adding Landscape

I have created a landscape and this will be the platform from which I will be adding assets from the asset pack and bringing up hills and mountains with the sculpt tool. 

I have added grass around the playable area, this better resembles the forest’y’ look I am after. 

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Final Push - Fog Cloud

I have decided to move on to developing the landscape and using a combination of foliage trees from a import asset pack and sculpting mountains and obstructions with the landscape tool. 

I cannot get the look right and using the particle system to do this is proving difficult and taking too much time away from development of the things like landscape and environment development. 

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Final Push - Added Some Colour

I have added some colour to help paint a better picture of what things are. I made the logs and tree within the climbing course area typical brown tree trunk colour to help paint these as trunk or logs. 

Also added colour to these other platforms in the climbing course to help tell the player that these are stones or large boulders.

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Final Push - Telling the player what to do

Because the NPC + Dialogue System wasn’t introduced, for someone to play it now in it’s current state would have no idea what they can do, how to do it and why they can do it. To quickly resolve this issue, the first idea that comes to mind is to add a widget holding text of the controls and mini tutorials of what is available in the games current state. 

Doing one widget to hold this information should be relatively quick to achieve which still leaves me time to polish other things.  

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Final Push - Character Decisions

We had designed a character in MAYA and researched different versions and varieties of it. 

Due to time remaining to polish everything and a final big push, a time saver would be to leave the character in it’s current form of a Mixamo character instead of adding these details and creating these variations. I would’ve liked to implement these designs but evaluating the time left, it wouldn’t be time productive for the stage the overall project is in.  

Concepts and Ideas for Variations

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Game Research - Ghostrunner

I have just played this game and it is a momentum, precision, time trial game. 

It is very quick and focuses on movement. I wouldn’t necessarily use the type of movement within this game but it does feel very fluid and smooth which would be something that would make my game better to play if I can really polish up the climbing mechanic. The wall running is interesting too, I wouldn’t necessarily use a similar mechanic but it does add a lot of depth and adds to the things the player can do. For instance, the first level of Ghostrunner teaches the player wall running to get over a gap but later on they pair this with another wall running section so you have to jump from wall run platform to wall run platform which adds to the things the player can do and learn.