Level Ideas/ Blockouts
Here I have a sketch over of a blockout of a saloon that we had been modeling and this has helped me give myself some design ideas for my level design for my game. I plan to include a saloon as a sort of endpoint for my firing range course so it will be the most filled out and detailed part of my blockout so I will be able to take aspects of this sketch and apply it to my blockout. I really like the inclusion of an external balcony as this will be a good place for me to place enemies. I’m not planning to get assets for my game so being able to create an idea from reference that will give my level the feel that its a western theme is important.
This is my first blockout level design idea and as a first draft I am quite happy with the design of the saloon at the end of the level. Its the right kind of shape that I wanted but I could add some more detail to the outside of the blockout with the inclusion of the balcony as I did intend to do but I wanted to see a design without it to see how it would flow. I also like the start of the level, I tried to make it feel like you had just walked into a town with the large posts that would have a sign hanging for with the town name attached etc. For my future designs I want to increase the size of the level as I do like the direction this level has taken but I would like it to be a little longer.
This is my second level blockout idea and with this one I fleshed out the level a lot more with props scattered about the level such as barrels, wells and wagons and I think this really helped bring the level to life and give it some more character. I also planned out some enemy positioning in this build of the level to give me an idea and some reference of what my level could play like. I have made sure that everything is made to scale and only used the brush settings to manipulate the geometry which keeps everything consistent. I’m overall very happy with this design of the level though for changes to the level I feel as though I want the level to loop back around to the start and then reset so that the player would be able to run the course again.
This is the interior design of my saloon blockout. I based the design off of my research of saloons that I had done before coming to create my levels and some base design ideas I knew I wanted to include in the design was an upstairs balcony area as well as littered tables that could be used as cover for my targets. I’m very happy with the interior design of my saloon as it ticks all the boxes that I wanted from my saloon. Going forward into my final design I think the only things I would change about the blockout of my saloon would be the overall size of the saloon as in game it can feel slightly claustrophobic
This is my third and final rendition of my level design blockout idea is based on my initial design but with the addition of a back track which gives the loop around back to the start of the level and what I like about this idea is it gives the level a bit more length allowing for the addition of more obstacles and to potential increase the difficulty. I also like that fact that as it loops back around to the start of the level it has a natural way of ending the level and then resetting it allowing for replay-ability, I am however not a big fan of using my first map design to create this as I feel as though it’s too simple. When I come to create my finished design I will incorporate elements of this design into my second blockout idea.
Flow Diagrams & Psuedocode
This is a flow diagram for the logic behind creating my shooting mechanic in UE4. I want my shooting to be hit scan so I will use the line trace system that fires an invisible line in from the character that can register hitting with objects in the scene. I only want it to interact with the enemies in my scene so I will set it to only cast to the targets in the scene. This flow diagram will help me when I come to create my blueprint in UE4 as it shows me the logic I need to follow to achieve the outcome I want, I will still need to add the specific values for the impulse force and damage etc but it will be a helpful way for me to understand what I am trying to do.
I created this flow diagram to plan out my character movement in unreal. I found through my research that setting up the movemnt of a character is quite easy as it is something that is already has the prerequisites for movement systems so what I have to do is setup the inputs in the project settings. The diagram here shows me after I have setup the inputs I can very simply bind the movement input command to the inputs I have setup and then I can edit things such as the speed the character moves etc.
Psuedocode – Reloading
If “R” is pressed set Current clip to zero
Add delay (X amount of time)
Run Reload function
{Set Current clip to Max clip}
Here I have my psuedocode for creating the reload mechanic in my game and it is quite simple but will achieve my desired result and it does this by after pressing the “R” key the bullets you have will be set to zero so you cant shoot anymore and then after a short delay it will run the reload function which will set your bullets to full. I like that the code is simple and easy to follow as there is no point in over complicating a mechanic that doesn’t need to be complicated. I will be able to use this psuedocode when I come to create the blueprints for my reload functionality as its easy to follow and should be easy to adapt to UE4
Psuedocode – Ammo Check
On left click Press
Check if Current clip is greater than 0
If true run Shooting function/ line trace
If false do nothing
The psuedocode here controls an if statement that controls whether or not the player is able to shoot based on the fact of how many bullets are in the players current clip. Again this is a simple if statement but it will be effective and efficient for what I need it to achieve. I like this as it will be easy to implement it into my blueprints in UE4 and it will work exactly how I need it too and it would also be adaptable to other weapons if I needed as I could have an editable variable to change how many bullets are in a clip.
Blueprints and Test Programs
This is my player movement blueprint test program that I have created. It controls all of the movement and allows my player character to move forward, backward, left and right. I am happy with the way this feels in game as it is smooth and responsive, this means it fits my game perfectly and I don’t see myself needing to make any real changes to this when I come to create my finished blueprints other than the specific values of how fast the character moves etc. I realised that setting up the character movement in Unreal is fairly simple as it has pre-generated control systems for character movement so all that is needed from me is setting up the parameters of the movement and I made sure to return the value in the Z rotation so that when you look down with your character your movement speed stays consistent.
This is my test program shooting in this screenshot you can see how the blueprint checks for how many bullets are in the current clip and as long as that number is greater than zero you will be able to fire. This is a simple bool that allows me to set the ammo count of my weapon which adds another level of difficulty to my game as the player has to pay attention how many bullets they have to efficiently clear all of the targets in my level. Again this test program works as I want it to so when I come to creating my finish program I will keep this much the same as I am happy with how it functions.
Between these two screenshot you have my shooting blueprint continued and what I did here was setup hit scan shooting using a line trace system that checks in the visibility channel everything in a line in front of the gun and if it hits something it will apply a damage and impulse force at the location of the actor that is hit. This shooting system works how I want it to in my final game, I have included two types of enemies that I can shoot so that I could test a destructible mesh and a ragdoll physics target to see what would work better for my game and I decided I liked the effect of the destructible mesh better as it feels more like a target rather than having a enemy falls about after being hit. Overall I am very happy with the outcome of this test program.
This is my test program for the collectibles in my game. I created a simple parent class for the collectible in case I wanted to ever add more types of collectibles in my game and then it works by after overlapping with the player it will be destroyed by as per the blueprint in the parent class and then add one to the collectible count. I will use this as a quest system in my game which causes the player to have to collect all of the objects before they can complete the course meaning they will have to spend time looking around the level.
This is a video test of my game to help visualise how the the blueprints and mechanics actually work within the game and I am very happy with how the mechanics flow as everything feels very smooth, the iteration of the level in this video is very close to how my final idea will be constructed as I believe the level will last a good amount of time and when I have created the mechanics for the random spawning of my collectibles it will give my game an extra level of replay ability
Texture Ideas
This is a potential Texture and model I could use for the weapon in my game and I think it looks great and is well textured with great attention to detail however the texturing is slightly too realistic and for my target audience as if I was going to texture this game idea I wanted to have a more cartoon stylised art style which would be more appealing to my target audience (I was thinking something more like Overwatch). I’m not planning on using any textures for my game though as I would rather invest my time in creating the level blockout and the mechanics of my game rather than looking for texture ideas.
This model is my un-textured revolver that I created as part of my summer project and I am very happy with how this model turned out. It is low poly and I prefer the design of this revolver over the already created asset that I could’ve used from Free3D above because I think the revolver this design is based off of better fits the theme in my game. This model will also better fit the look of my game as I am not planning on texturing the level so the un-textured look of the model will fit in with the rest of my blockout.
This is another potential asset I could use for my game as I had the idea of having more than one weapon for the player to use and the Winchester fits the theme of my game as its a western era weapon. I would prefer if the texturing on the gun was more stylised into a cartoon art style which better suits my target audience but other than that I think the model would fit very well in my game however I am happy with only having the one type of weapon in my game as it allows me to better balance the level design around the weapon rather than two.
This asset pack is some art pieces that I would be able to use as background art or as assets within the level itself that could act as obstacles for the player to work around. The models themselves are very well made and I like the way the models look however again I don’t like how they are textured which during my time looking for potential assets has been a common issue so I think if I was going to use free use models I would need to be able to re-texture them into an art style that I would be happy with but this would consume too much of my time leaving me with less time to work on the mechanics of my game so I think I will stick to using a blockout for my level.
Level3GamesDevelopmentYear2LukeWadey 