Hello everyone, this past week I have managed to do much more than the previous blog. It just took a few days to settle into this new routine and environment. I have been working on a few things in the project as well as creating a new showreel. The showreel included clips from my Final Year Project as well as other projects that I have worked on throughout the years and is available on my Website.
Work I have done this week include;
- Creating Ammo/Item Drops
- Making Health More Visible
- Adding Art to the Second Room
- Adding Assets to the Following Rooms
- Planning a New Room
- Enabling the Player to Die
Creating Ammo/Item Drops
When an enemy dies, they should drop ammo. The player needs a way to replenish supplies. In order to create the drop itself, I first created a cylinder in Blender with no faces on the top or bottom and the origin being where one of these faces would be (at the bottom instead of the middle).
I wanted to create a pickup that looked similar to "The Division" and "The Last of Us" as I think that "The Division" makes them easy to spot and "The Last of Us" makes it easy to tell how much it contains.
From this, I designed this:
To create the fade on the cylinder, I only had to make a gradient opacity map in PowerPoint. I also made the icons in PowerPoint using simple shapes.
Each should be easily readable as; Pistol Ammo, Assault Rifle Ammo, Shotgun Ammo and Crafting Components. The icons only display once the player has gotten close enough and when the player presses E within range, the item will be picked up. The cylinder will scale based on a timeline in order to appear and disappear.
Making Health More Visible
When the player is low on health, they will need a health pack. I decided to make them easier to find, when the player only has 1/3 health. They will then have a green outline to indicate health. The check occurs when the player takes damage, if the health is under 33 it will cast to all health packs in the level and enable the outline. The outline will be removed when the player has used one, bringing the player back to 100 health.
I had to look online for help making this material.
I am unsure on whether the outline should be green or white, it is white for the time being.
Adding Art to the Second Room
I figured out how to make a decal. I drew the arrow using the paintbrush tool in Paint and then I removed the background and made a material. I then just had to plug that material into the decal and I could place it on any surface. I took inspiration from "Left 4 Dead" as it is a very useful and simple way of communicating to the player.
Here is a slideshow of the second room with art:
Most of the time went into lighting and more than likely isn't efficient. I'll be looking at this again some time in order to try and improve it.
Adding Assets to the Following Rooms
I have done very minimal lighting in these next few rooms at the moment as I have been pre-occupied with other tasks. I have, however, placed the needed assets.
Room 3 Slideshow -
Room 4 Slideshow -
Planning a New Room
With the gameplay working in the rooms implemented, it's time to plan a new one. This new room will contain a combat area, the player will face off against multiple opponents. The room will be designed as the area that the player character collects rain water. Since the player has practised the mechanics against stationary turrets, moving turrets and a moving enemy, The pacing will allow for fighting against multiple enemies.
The player will first get a view of the room in order to plan ahead and see what threats they will be facing.
After this they will had down the stairs and into the back of the room.
Enabling the Player to Die
As health and damage had already been implemented, this was easy to add. After damage has been taken, a check will see if the health is less than or equal to 0. If so, set "Dead" as true. All other mechanics now do a check to see if the player isn't dead in order to use them, when the player is dead they will be disabled. The animation blueprint will then check if "Dead" is true, if it is, the animation will then play.
Thanks for Reading
The project seems to be coming along nicely and the art looks pretty good. I need to make lighting more efficient and see if i can make the frame rate more stable, it seemed fine when I was working yesterday so it could even be an issue with my PC itself. I'll look into it.
Stay Safe Everyone.