Callum Pascoe - Specialist Subject Blog

Today I have been testing out Mixamo. Mixamo is a website that features a handy auto rigger for humanoid characters as well as a variety of animations that can be hooked up to said rig. Since both animating and rigging are such a time consuming processes this website and the accompanying  animations will help a great deal in creating the gameplay of my project as obviously attacks and other mechanics will indeed require an animation of some sort. However there are some obvious downsides as not creating my own animations will inevitably limit the scope and features of the game as I will be constrained by what animations I have at the time. However, it is incredibly unlikely that my project will come close to needing specific animations made as if I want to complete this project properly I will have to limit some of my ambitions. It is simply impossible for me to make a fully fledged action game on my own in the time I have. These animations will put a hard lock on my ambitions ...

I have created a level map for the level so I can now move on on creating the block-out in UE4. The player will start on the bridge at the bottom and walk towards the large castle gates into a small plaza with a fountain in the middle. From there the player is directed towards the large central building (which will likely be a cathedral) and the player will move through that go up some stairs and then exit through thhe back with another set of stairs leading them under the bridge between the 2 main towers.

I have started to create a block out the level in Unreal 4 in order to get a sense of the scope of the level and to generate some ideas. I have decided that my level will be set in a large gothic castle with 2 huge looming towers providing a visual focal point that the player will see at the start of the level and will hopefully want to reach and explore the castle. As the towers are such a key point in the design as well as the structure of the castle I have blocked them out first as the size of the towers will inform the scale of the entire level. The mountains in the background are helping in this regard as is the stack of Unreal default character models. The mountains will likely exist in the final level as to sell the scale of the castle to the player and give them a sense of accomplishment and progression upon reaching the top. However the current implementation of these mountains is far too polygon intensive and a waste of performance resources as a whole for a back drop. Polygo...

I have produced some minor assets in order to start the production of the level itself.

I have created some rough concepts for the project. Mainly on this "Fallen King" design, this is important for me to get right as a lot of the visual design of the castle and enemies will stem visually from the design of the king.

Before I started this college year I started to try experimenting in Unreal 4 and followed a series of tutorials and I roughly documented this process so it seems fitting to put those write ups on this blog as they are part of my process for this specialism. I have been following this RPG tutorial on Unreal to increase my understanding of the software and potentially expand the scope of my level to have more advanced gameplay systems than what the stock gameplay archetype templates provide. This tutorial uses the Blueprint systems to create a third person roleplaying game with health, abilities governed by a mana ability and regenerating of these different resources gradually over time as well as from pickups. I have made my own adjustments to some of the tutorial to add some polish to the healing system. Previously using just the blueprints form the tutorial would mean that when at full health the player could still cast the spell and waste mana when gaining no health. I ...

I have continued to work on the 3D model for my protagonist. I am happy with the overall progress I have made with this model but I am currently stuck on how I want to proceed with the look when it comes to the design of the arms and legs. This is pushing me towards creating concept art so I get a more specific idea on what the visual style of my project will be.