#uclangamesdesign

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Testing Portal Mechanic

I have decided I will be making my door scene using a portal mechanic alongside a locked door where the player must retrieve a key to open it, also a switch for a cupboard-type door where the key will located.

Before designing my scene, I have prepared all the necessary Blueprints in UE4 so I am able to easily add them into my level.

The First Portal Blueprint Attempt (somewhat failed)

I did a bit of research online on how to create a portal, and came across a video tutorial. Although the portal mechanic worked, I had issues when the end portal had a different rotation to the first portal walked through, as I struggled to get the player to rotate to the same direction as the target exit was facing.

As you can see, I also had some issues with the visuals, including them being very expensive to run.

These were my Blueprints:

Link to tutorial used: https://youtu.be/F28NKqG7ce8

After trying out this tutorial, I went to my course tutor for help who showed me a different method of creating a portal, one where the player rotation change worked as well...

The Second Portal Blueprint Attempt (success!)

This method seemed to work much better. The only change here was that we aren’t teleporting back from the teleport location, as I don’t particularly need this anyway. 

Here’s how it was done:

Two new blueprints were created: the Teleport and the Teleport Location

Teleport BP

A simple door frame was added as well as a box to trigger the event. A variable was also added and made visible (”Instance Editable” or the eye symbol next to variable checked) so the teleport location object/blueprint could be referenced in the blueprint.

The blueprint event graph for Teleport BP

Teleport location BP

For this blueprint, you can see another Static Mesh door frame has been added, alongside an Arrow which we will use to dictate the player’s rotation change (as seen referenced in the Teleport BP Event Graph).

The area I have circled in green shows the variable that was created so that I can reference it to the Teleport Location in the world map, like shown below.

The area circled in red shows a reference to the Arrow used in the Teleport Location BP so we can impose the rotation of the player with the arrow.

Games Design: XB1000 - Hammer Girl Brief 

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Creating Blueprints for Collectable Items

To begin this UE4 brief, I started by following a tutorial to create the blueprints shown above using for what would be collectable items in-game: a mushroom and a gem (crystal). 

Thinking Back

I began the production of Hammer Girl by working on Photoshop and paper, this was for the first week of the project as I basically wanted to get any rough level ideas and mechanics down as soon as possible so I would have the rest of the project time to work on the aesthetics and blueprints of the game. When I went on to using the Unreal Engine in the second week I learnt how to use different areas through the YouTube videos provided by the course and Unreal’s official YouTube channel.

I spent a large amount of my time placing smaller assets in the scene e.g. Trees/Fences and after creating say a tree line, I would go back I would put a box over the whole tree line set the box to not be rendered in game but to have a collider, so I could create and area for the player that he would be in confined in, because of the positioning of the camera for Hammer Girl you could see past many of the walls I used as a boundary of the level. This lead to the world feeling empty. I wanted to make the player feel as if they are in a much larger world. So I placed Assets outside of the playable level. By the baker’s house there is a fence to mark the walls of the level, instead of leaving the area on the other side as just a grass texture, I added trees and a gate beyond the gate there was a wooden plank path towards the fishing area. Even though the player could see the fishing area. He would never be able to reach it, in my opinion it made the game more immersive as it never broke the set leaving it empty.

The original purpose of Hammer Girl was to teach the students a base understanding of the Unreal engine interface and blueprints. I feel as I came away with a vastly improved knowledge of the Unreal Engine, but because it is such a large program there is still lots more to learn, over the course of the three year course I hope to keep on improving. Me personally I learn by doing or taking action so watching a YouTube video was the best way for me to learn blueprints. I would get the video up on the other monitor and play it simultaneously as me creating the blueprint.

What I would Change:

Model, unwrap and Texture some of my own assets to add to Hammer Girl.

Add some sort of NPC that would act as an enemy to Hammer Girl maybe even a variety of different classes, one could attack hammer girl another  could just be there to steal her collectables.

Work on more levels. By that I mean having more stairs/Hills/floors to Hammer Girl. I feel like that is a very strong aspect to a good level design.

Thinking Forward