1/2 way there!

Chapter One: The Edge of Hell
Ok, this is where my game starts. I won't go into the story again but you start on a train coming back from another city and the train crashes, you hit your head - bam, amnesia. Cheesy but that can be worked on.
Anyway, I created the background for the title in Photoshop and then created the image for the Seed (the red glowing circle) in the material editor. This is my first time using interactive menus in UI scene, but they are pretty easy to do, especially after having worked in flash for so long.
It then goes into a scene where you hear the train come into the station. I used this matinee sequence, which lasts 13 seconds, to load in all the levels. In fact, The game only appears to take 0.1 seconds to load (using stat levels), on my PC by using level streaming. There is also no slowdown or lag as it's basically a blank screen with a verse from O'Fortuna on which I thought was fitting, all the loading happens without the player realizing.

Coffee, Nescafe, Hot.

That was a reference to Picard asking for Earl Grey....obviously. Anywhooo, this has been a very productive and busy week for me. I didn't think it was possible to work 19 hours a day for seven days, but with the help of an amount of coffee that would kill a small elephant, I've produced a great show piece for todays presentation. Mix that in with the 3D work I've been doing plus my materials in UDK and I think today should go down great. When I get back I'll upload some screenshots, maybe some  videos and write up on what I've done.

It's all soooo quiet

I've decided not to post any screenshots of my work up until the presentation this coming Monday. I'm really busy atm, working from 11 in the morning till 5 in the morning (Yeah, 17 hour days....) on this project and I'm loving how it's coming along. So I don't want to post any screenies until I have it just right, with lighting etc.

Edit: A couple of things I will say, first, lightning. Doing it with 4 dynamic lights was a bad idea, I had a look at my lighting complexity and everything was red, I was wondering why it was so laggy. Anyway I deleted them and ta daaaaa, it's all fast again. Secondly, I got GoW working on my laptop, loads of things wrong with it which comes down to bad porting from Epic and M$. Anyway, I published my map to see what it would run like on my laptop for my presentation, and even the old version, with SUPER RED lighting complexity was running smoothly at 60+ fps. So I think next Monday should go just as smooth.

Full Steam Ahead (Part 2)

OK, Client brief out the way, thank god. Now all I have left is my dissertation then I can put 110% effort into my FMP.

4+ Hours to make a light...
I had a couple of days break after I handed in my Client Project, but the other day I started working on my FMP again and I was wondering why the GoW editor didn't have very good lighting. It looks ok, but I remember the lighting on the XBox version being miles better. So I had a read about and I found some screenshots of peoples levels that had a lot better lighting. So I tried to get some dynamic lighting going when the player kicks a door down but it just wasn't working. I spent well over 4 hours trying to figure the problem out, writing on forums asking for help, trawling through the UDN. I managed to get the lighting working in both UT3 and UDK, but GoW was being a stubbern git...

So I decided I would look around the games files to see if I could find a problem, and sure enough, looking through the games .ini file, the dynamic and composite shadows we're turned off, as well as the bloom... No idea why. Anyway, after I fixed that I had a masssssive moral boost. I went on a frenzy last night and today creating some matinee and interactive scripted sequences and I also imported my railroad and built the train and train station.

 MOAR Writing
I really need to concentrate on more of my games aspects and ideas. I want to be a level designer, so I'm pretty much spending all my time on the level, but this project will also be marked on the actual game concept etc. So, I've made a list of things I need to do, such as write down weapons, what they do, what they look like and a brief outline of the weapon. I also need to write up about the characters in the game, both major and minor. There's a ton of other aspects I need to write about as well, such as how the level design is to pan out, the pacing of the level, sequences and other interactive scenes I want to include and also the conversations the player will have in the game.

Screen Shot Heaven/Hell
I decided to take a lottttttt of screen shots to bring anyone reading the blog up to speed. I added the lights to get a feel but I'll be getting rid of them once I've uploaded the pictures. It looks nice, but it's not worth the build times until I get to the lighting stage.

 

Automated Introduction

I was having a think, and I came to the conclusion that I really need to play over some of the greats again just to get a few ideas. So I was making a list and obviously Half Life was at the top, and one thing that I loved, and one of the things it's most famous for, is it's automated entrance that lets you see the majority of the level. Although Half Life adds in extra effect by showing you the level before shit hits the fan, there is no reason that I can't try and implement something into my level which has a similar effect.

My level is pretty much set-up for this, I have the train station and the train on which the player arrives. I could have the player restricted to the train, with the ability to look through windows, or just one side of windows if I wanted to speed up production and also have the player not miss anything. Some of the things I could add would be people running or having fights, scream sounds, fires in the city, explosions, even the trains lights going on and off. Anything to add to the experience. So, I best dust off that old digital download and boot up Half Life 1 and 2 again.

Being a perfectionist can be a bad thing!

I don't know how many hours I've put into this one material, but I think it's getting there. I've managed to reduce the amount of operations it takes and I've also added a few more effects. The main one being the waves around the edges and how they reflect and refract light. As it would be a lot close to a solid surface near the coast line, it would have a lot more chance to bounce light around, not just back out the water but around the coast line. Light near the coast also has a lot more of it's original strength, the deeper it gets, the less light gets through. I also have this effect around objects as well.

PANIC!!!!! (In the disco!)

OK, bad Chris, bad bad Chris. I thought hand-in date for the group project was the 15th, but that's the presentation date! I actually only have to this Friday, so it's going to be full steam ahead for the next few days. I'll need coffee like neo needed guns! Anyway, before I found this out I did a bit more to my room.