esfpsgame

[esfpsgame]

Positives:

I really enjoyed working with 3D in this project and it has showed me how easy and fun it can be. I very much saw modelling as like a 3D ball of clay and that it would be similar to working with actual clay but it has a very very different process that I thought and I do enjoy it a lot. Painting the models was also very enjoyable, even if getting it to import was a struggle. The feedback was really nice to get as well and I am definitely going to use google forms for it in the future and get a wider sample size as well (asking friends outside of college for feedback on assets for example). I have done geography in the past so writing a good survey like that comes incredibly easy to me and the information was very helpful in improving my game and seeing what things I could have done differently or changed if I was to do it again.

Negatives:

The game wasn’t as long as I would have liked which was partially my own fault for not settling on my final idea sooner which has taught me that I have to think of an idea in advance and stick to it in my future projects. I also didn’t get to finish the scoreboard system that I wanted to. I also had the gun replacement modelled but when I imported it and set it as the player’s gun, it didn’t look as good as I had hoped which meant I should have done more research of guns in games of that style and what makes them look good (splatoon for example).

What I would do next time:

I would have picked the idea of a target shooting game first as then I wouldn’t have to change most of the assets and code I had built halfway through which would mean my game would be longer. I would also have made some more target models as I didn’t get to complete and import all of the ones I had made.

What I am looking forwards to in the next project:

As much as I love working with 3D, I’m glad to be getting back to 2D work, mostly because 3D is newer to me and 2D is more in my comfort zone meaning I can get more art done overall as I’m not learning loads of new programs and a new medium at the same time which is very helpful since the next project is very very short. I’m also looking forward to coming up with creative ideas for an arcade game and getting the opportunity to play more of them.

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New feedback

The feedback this time around was a lot more helpful as I had more responses and got a better idea of improvements I could make.

This tells me that people overall thing the game is at a good difficulty, if nothing, a little easy. People also thought the platform speed was good as well.

People's opinion of the can is about the same.

The same with the duck, most people had the same opinions again.

People got less points the second time around and there was less improvement although I think a few people only played it once.

A leaderboard would definitely be a good implementation as a quarte said they would play again with both types of leaderboard.

Moving targets will be something I add tomorrow if I get the time. That seems to be the most popular of the ideas I had to implement.

I assume the target amounts are good as half said it was, but one person wanted a few less and some wanted a few more.

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Questionnaire edits

After getting feedback, I decided to make it slightly more difficult and added a lot more targets. I also added a platform with a roof so that once you get to the end of the course, you can't shoot anymore targets and cheat.

I also added some more questions to the questionnaire after these edits.

This should give me a better indicator on if the amount of extra targets I added made the game harder or easier. It also then gives me an idea of which of my ideas to add in the future is the best (platforming level, moving targets, ect)

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Questionnaire responses

These are the responses and feedback I got from the first 4 players.

I'm not sure what people think of the difficulty as each response was different. No one said it was too hard which is good but I may make it a little harder as one person did say it was too easy.

For the platform speed, people generally seem to think that the speed is good and one person suggested having a few go at different speeds which I may implement later as it could add variety. This suggestion was helpful as I hadn't actually considered that.

People like the can design overall which is good. Fairly average feedback on it but I feel like personally, improving the model would help which is on my list to do tomorrow.

People like the duck which is good because it means he won't curse them and haunt their dreams.

Overall, people improved between turns which is good. I may make it longer though (which I would do anyway with more time) to give more targets to hit and shots to improve on.

I think I have to make it more obvious that the cans and ducks have to be hit as well. I may do this with a widget or an arrow pointing at it. For the end platform issue, you aren't supposed to shoot the targets from there but it would be a good opportunity to utilize the portal code I have and have the player teleport at the end so you can't store points. The stack of cans I may keep as I like the skill involved where you have to hit each can from the top to avoid losing points. This is something you may learn after a few tries so I won't change it. You are on a stationary platform too so you have enough time to hit them all if you're careful.

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Creating a questionnaire for playtesting.

Open questions are where the person filling it in can write whatever they cant and closed has a fixed answer they have to pick from. I also added a box for "anything else?"

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UI

I created a very basic placeholder UI for my game for playtesting. This is the code I used to link the bullet count and points to the widget and to display them on screen at all times.

I then got rid of the print string text as it was no longer needed and this is what I ended up with!

As far as font goes, I think I might go with something bold and pixelated. I found a few on Dafont that I like but I ended up going with Pixellari as I like it the best and think the / sign looks better.

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Orange can (and no wifi!!)

At the college on Friday, I made a new can to replace the old one. First, I coloured it in procreate like the other one and followed the exact same process with the new design. Once I had finished, I imported it into unreal and changed the texture of the can to the new one so I didn't have to recode anything. I did have more screenshots but the wifi went down on Friday and it is too early in the morning to redo. Below are also some pictures of the new can that I modelled in Nomad.

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Switching camera

If you wanted to direct the player to do something, one way is to "take control" of the camera and point it at something. This can also be used to blend cutscenes into gameplay. I won't use this in my game but it is handy to learn.

This is the code to create this. When the player walks into the box, the camera changes and when you leave, you get the player's camera back. You have to add a collision and a camera into the actor. The blend func does just what you'd expect and blends the camera change so it isn't instant.

If you wanted the player to walk into the box and have movement disabled until you have finished with that camera, you have to use this code here. It disables the player's movement when you walk into it, you can't move until the camera has finished switching. You could also have it destroy itself so that it doesn't play every time the player collides with the box.

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Signposting widgets

We have made widgets before but from the player character displayed on screen meaning that they can't be used in the actual 3D world. Doing a widget this way, means we can add animation, signposts or anything else we may need and have it in the world itself like any other object.

To create a widget, right click in the content browser and make it look however you'd like, just like in the last project. Next, you need to create a blank actor blueprint and add a widget component.

From the details panel after this, you have to find the UI category and find the widget class, then select the widget you just created. then you have to edit the draw size as by default, it is 500 by 500 which isn't what we are after. It needs to be 1920 x 1080. Then you can drag this widget into your level freely just like any other object! You can do many things with this as well such as setting up a collision box to play an animation (fading out for example), or having it delete at a certain number of points.

This can be used to display all kinds of helpful information to the player in a more creative way than a normal widget. You could use it to tell a player to climb something, an enemies health, display score or an objective or anything else you may need the player to know.

I will be using it in my game to display how many points the player got at the end of the level/game, and to display the objective to the player at the beginning.

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Water gun

I decided to make a water gun to replace the gun that the player holds as it fits significantly better thematically and it would be good to learn anyway. First, I modeled a gun in Nomad sculpt, using lots of geometric shapes and adding some detail in the form of buttons along the side and coloured bars along it. I then imported it into Maya, the same way that I did the duck. I did it this way as materials in Nomad doesn't work correctly when you import it into unreal. Putting it into Maya means that I can make any adjustments and edit the materials as I need before it gets put into unreal.

When I import it, it looks like this;

When you import it, Nomad doesn't save any of the colouring I did. This is fine though as Maya has a much more complex material and UV editor. Nomad registers the gun as one whole object but double clicking on a part in Maya separates it so each part can have a different material if I wanted.

First thing I did was add in the glass part. I made sure that in Nomad, I added the water itself by duplicating the glass part and shrinking it down. This meant that I could have the part see through.

Once colouring, I ended up with this.

Tomorrow I will get it into unreal.

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Win and lose states

Win and lose states are code that tell the player and game when you have lost or won. For my game, the win state is entering a collision box ( getting to point B). The lose states are entering a collision box (falling off a platform), or when an integer hits 0 (run out of bullets).

This is some very basic code for a simple collision lose state, it is the same for win state but without the open level code (that restarts the whole map). This works fine for my win state and the lose state for falling off but I also need to make another one for the players bullet count.

This code above is the code for bullet count, my other lose state. This sets the bullet count at a number (undecided yet), and then every time you click to fire your gun, it takes one integer value away. Finally, at every tick, the code checks to see if your bullet count is 0 or less than, if it is, you lose and it resets the level.

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Duck

I decided to model a duck for another target for my game in Nomad sculpt as I'm more used to it that Maya in terms of non geometric shapes.

I stared off with a sphere for the body and I essentially pushed it into the right shape with the symmetry tool along the X axis. Then the head is just a sphere with no editing. I initially had the head have a smoother attachment to the body but I preferred it without and the head essentially just being an unedited sphere. Next, I made the beak using a cylinder. The flat part inbewteen the top and bottom of the beak is the top of the cylinder as I thought it looked better, rather than having it completely smooth. I then duplicated it and moved it down so it created two halves of the same beak. Then I merged them and smoothed the joint a bit more as actual rubber ducks have the beak joint together. The eyes are two spheres again and the wings are a sphere that I molded into shape, adding some texture on the wings too.

I made the eyes slightly shiny as well as it was easier than making a UV map for the eyes that would add it manually, I also prefer this affect.

All looks fine with my model but when importing it into unreal, something went wrong and it looked like this. I tried importing it many different ways but each time, it looked like this. After trial and error with the import settings, I managed to fix t by turning off a setting called degenerate. The colour of the beak is wrong due to the lighting differences but I don't mind too much and I'm just glad it has imported fine.

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More target ideas

When testing the physics on the cans and seeing if I could get them to stack, I thought of a cool idea where there is a lot of variety in the targets as objects you'd commonly find at carnivals. I also decided that having a stack of cans you have to knock over to get rid of something blocking the path would be fun.

Games like hit thing with a stick thing could be incorporated if I have a wall with holes in it and in order to score those points, you have to hit a target as it goes out.

I could also make a basket and in order to get that point, you have to bounce a bullet off a wall, similar to the basketball hoops game you would often see at carnivals.

I could have ducks in a small pond or something as well and you have to hit the ducks for the points, kinda like the game where you have to catch a duck to win a prize.

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Making a target in Maya

I decided to make a simple target shape in Maya but with a few parts raised and lowered as I think it may look better in game. I colourpicked from my can design for the colours for consistency as well but in engine they look slightly different and I'm not sure why, possibly due to lighting but it isn't something you'd be able to see unless you are looking closely.

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What is Maya and how is it used

Maya is a 3D modeling software used by many professionals to create various different things from architecture to product samples for 3D printing and models for games and animations. Various famous games and films that use Maya include; Pixar (monsters inc, finding nemo, up, etc.), visual effects in shows like the walking dead and game of thrones and game assets for Halo 4.

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Rotation of platforms

Rotation uses a different variable as it works in a different number format than vectors (180 to -180). The colour is lilac for this code, it is essentially the same with a few different nodes. You have to use combine rotators rather than vector + vector as these aren't vectors. If you want the object to rotate at an angle, you have to set two different axis rotation numbers rather than one as unreal combines the value of both when rotating which makes an angle rather than the x axis turning and then the y for example.

Fixed code as it wasn't working correctly before:

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Voxel artist, Sir Carma

Sir Carma uses voxel styles for his art and it really shows how far you can push that style as it is much more defined 3D, with complex lighting, shapes and scenes. He uses lots of bold colours which fits well with the voxel style and strong lighting to make it feel sci-fi in some cases or very mechanical which compliments the blocky style.