FWXB3992 Honours Project - William Wood

[williamwoodfutureworkshonours]

From developing some designs for the logo of the company the game is based within, i though around the focus of bionic enhancements and what they focus on, since this is the companies focus I looked into what my game was about, the main focus i noticed was around vision and sight, using your observation skills to solves puzzles within the game, so this drew me towards having the company focus of retinal enhancements, so i began developing eye logos, once i had a few variations i asked my piers what they thought of them and to vote on their favorite. from there i took the most voted into finalization and modifying some of the elements from others, which worked out well.

[williamwoodfutureworkshonours]

Technical Artist Job: How To Prepare, What To Expect

In this episode let's talk about your career. What does it take to be a technical artist? What kind of skills to develop and how can they define your role in...

Recently i’ve found a link in reference to what a tech artist needs in preparation to going into industry, this is done from Tech Art Aid, which helps me aim towards my role in the industry

[williamwoodfutureworkshonours]

Breaking down this blueprint is for the widget where, they’re all fundamentally the same strip of code. just oriented around their own names, so when their event is called the condition is checked if they're enabled then the designated HUD will appear and removed any of the others.

[williamwoodfutureworkshonours]

Comparing the third room from the early stage to its current form, I find the aethetics brings out the room a lot more and breaking down the room, the player goes from the door they jump up the platform and grab the helmet, from there they make their way over the platforms to locate the combination behind the wall which is “275″ unlocking the door to the next room.

the aethetics is alot more appealing that the white box form, and sets a better atmosphere.

[williamwoodfutureworkshonours]

Aethetics

During development i set the games aesthetics to a set theme, making the rooms consist of a clean and uniform feel, with white panels and a single other colour within the rooms., additionally the floor and walls were using spline meshes which makes level designing easier and faster since the pieces can act in a modular form.

[williamwoodfutureworkshonours]

Breaking down the ability to X-ray the first question asked is; does the player have the helmet, this is to deny the HUD activating without the player having the helmet and introducing the mechanic to early. After the Boolean check has been made the next question  that is asked is: The ability that is currently selected is the one that corresponds to the ability to X-ray, meaning, Is the ability integer set to 2? after this the initial sound for x-ray activates, followed by a looping sound of being constantly within the x-ray state. additionally it changes the post process to enabled or disabled based on if it is on or off.

The post process is a radius which is created to check if certain materials have been given an adjustment to their scene depth. this is what allows for the silhouette of the players and boxes to be made within the game.

[williamwoodfutureworkshonours]

In the first person character blueprint, i needed to include a method for changing the abilities within the helmet, i created an integer comprised of three values, from 0-2 this was to designate each skill. 0 was set as zoom, 1 was set to laser and 2 was set to X-Ray. When the player used the Scroll wheel it would check first if the axis value has changed, if so it went into the scroll function. This is where it would check first; which way is the scroll wheel being scrolled from. next i have it asking what ability is currently being used and when the blueprint knows which is selected and which way it is being scrolled the next step is to choose whether to increment the value higher or lower. from there i add the sound of toggling the HUD within the widget blueprint as well as the audio.

[williamwoodfutureworkshonours]

In the first person character blueprint, i worked with audio student James Guidoccio to implement the jump audio. i found that attaching the unreal’s Boolean of is falling to the character movement will detect when the character is doing an airborne action, with this i just had to attach the get AK component and post event after to allow for the sound to play. but taking into account that the sound is from the feet i applied some adjustments to the audios location from the player location I've places a minus on the Z axis.

[williamwoodfutureworkshonours]

Room 6, is on of the rooms that i’m proud of designing, due to the way the components of the puzzle are brought together it makes the puzzle feel effective.

To do the puzzle the player must find the code (Red) which unlock the door to the button (Blue) this will lift the glass blocking the ai. Then using the laser the player can guide the ai onto the button to unlock the door (Black)

[williamwoodfutureworkshonours]

Room 11 introduces an interesting mechanic. utilizing the laser when the player hits the highlighted object the laser will bounce at an angle. in the code made for this its gaining the dot product which is the angle from the start and end of the first laser, then it gets the new location for where its hit the object and finally projects the new laser from the hit location + a new angle.

[williamwoodfutureworkshonours]

Room 12 introduces the player to a more platform based elements of the game within a safe environment. when the player steps on the button the platforms come out from the left side of the wall and a box spawns on the other side.

Placing the box on top of the button next to the next room allows the player to advance.

[williamwoodfutureworkshonours]

Room 13 involves utilizing a lot from what you have learnt from the other rooms. such as the toggling of obstacles. timed trials. pressured floors and the use of a moveable object, the box. This puzzle makes the player step on a button to open a platform against the wall away from the button and at the same time removed the forcefield obstructing the battery charger. from there the player gets over the platform and activates the box dropping when the battery is full. bringing the box back to the button allows the play to have the platforms open without a time trial and at the same time opens the door to the next room. 

[williamwoodfutureworkshonours]

Puzzle 14 Within my honours involves two focused aspects of the mechanics. 1. is working with the ai and the 4 buttons on the floor. the 2nd feature is utilizing the x-ray vision to see what changes are made behind the wall for when a button has been pressed. The aim for this puzzle is to get the ai to adjust the runway for a ball to roll into the end zone, this will open the door for the player to advance. 

Issues ecountered when developing:

Since updating the ai due to an unknown cause. the ai won’t respond as effectively as they use to in an early version so when a laser is shone on the floor the ai either takes a while to respond and goes to the initial placement of the laser and doesn't follow the laser when the player updates it. 

[williamwoodfutureworks]

Recently I’ve been conducting some game tests.

Amongst the 2nd year game design students as well as some friends and acquaintances I’ve gained valuable feedback. John Appleby sent me an email containing some of the feedback received from the second year students. whilst I’ve conducted a set of questions for my friends to answer. from the image it states

Will: so what did you like about the game, What did you dislike, how did you feel about the aesthetics of the game, did anything stand out to you? Will: >:) Ritosha: I like the different HUD mechanic with the googles I don’t think i’ve ever seen such a mechanic in a game, the concept with opening doors with codes was easy yet challenging :D I disliked the robot not responding in that one level lol and the lack of music but that’s obviously to come later Ritosha: from what i’ve seen the aestethic was fine nothing really stood out to me but i liked the robots design :D Will: Last question is there any additional feedback you would like to add? Ritosha: i like how even on the first levels the game provided some challenge and was’nt just a smooth breeze :D and id like to try it when its fully complete ofc

[williamwoodfutureworkshonours]

Epyval Font · 1001 Fonts

Download Epyval Font · Free for commercial use · Another gem from Graham Meade's prolific experience. · · The moment I saw the first letters Graham sent me, I could easily see them on poignant-r

For the logo design for the company within the game I decided to use this font for the typography, this is since I found it to fit the theme effectively

[williamwoodfutureworkshonours]

So the issue with it was that on the selected node with the arrow, it was hooked up to itself to be destroyed before it spawns itself resulting in a fail, so I needed to hook it to the one where the arrow ends.

[williamwoodfutureworkshonours]

Looking into it again I found the answer was a quick fix which will be explained in another post, but continuing developing this video shows the simple form of what the solution to the puzzle would look like