Blizzard Project
For the Third Large project we would be using techniques from previous projects that we had undertaken. This project consists of 4 days total that included Pre and Post Production time within. This was the first large project where I decided to work in a group with Max Whaler and Dan Timmins.
We decided to create a Icy maze in a barren frozen wasteland littered with wooden planks, metal sheets and other smaller objects. The aim is to reach a lighthouse in the center that also acts as a very important tool that the player can use. Since the game is set at night and the is a Blizzard occurring constantly, it will assist the player in a visual way allowing them to see their surroundings and tell them where they should be heading.
I decided to create all of the textures for the game, since I enjoyed making them and decided it would be the most suitable portion for me to make, while I was doing this, Max would create and modify sounds for us in the game and Dan would play the most important part of actually creating the maze itself.
Since the walls were made out of concrete, I selected a previous concrete texture that I had used and added a translucent blue effect over the top giving the impression that’s its cold and a layer of frost or ice has formed onto the Maze Walls.
These would be placed around the maze and unlike last time, they look semi-realistic because the blood has had a direction that it traveled in, the is places where it is more dense than others in the texture giving an impression that they were attacked from a certain position and the blood sprayed this way and this is better than just a solid red puddle.
This texture is to go between the separate wall segments on boarders that surround the wall segments. I started by grabbing a brick texture off of the internet. I cropped the image so that just a single largely brick remained i then duplicated it and placed them side by side and used the Spot Healing Brush to remove the obvious lines between them. I then used the clone tool to grab small parts of the image and place them around randomly to create a more believable texture, I then used the paint brush tool to paint a very opaque blue layer so the wall look cold and will suit the environment that its placed in.
I decided to create the Barrel for our game that would act as a healing point for the player to regain some health back as they progress through the maze. I created a cylinder and hollowed it out using the ‘Edit Mesh’ option and ‘Beveled’ it to make it hollow, I then added to Tauruses to add a little extra detail and break up the large amount of surface. I then exported it and imported it into UE4. I dragged the parts into an actor blueprint and then saved it.
Making this texture was quite difficult for me since I didn’t really know how to make rust because I hadn’t done it in any previous project, so I began by going on the internet to get a general idea of how rust looks and the way it forms onto metal surfaces, this proved useful because I got a useful understanding of it.
I opened a new file in Photoshop and painted the background a neutral Grey color and then selected an orange color and found a brush that worked well for the purpose I needed it for. I made the rust slightly transparent so the it would give a more realistic effect and the sense that it wasn’t a solid color. I changed the color and added a few spots of darker rust for a little variety and so It wouldn’t just be two solid colors.
I created a Normal Map to give the texture some roughness so it looked like the rust had actually formed on top of the actual texture. I saved both of these textures and imported them into UE4.
After adding the textures, the barrel looked fairly realistic and believable, adding the particles was new for me but one of my group members added it with me so I can use it in the future, for my own projects, even though the particles are squares and basic, I think it works well with the art style of the game.
After just using a solid white color for the snow, we decided it would be to basic and boring. To make the texture more impressive I hopped onto Photoshop and created a more detailed and lifelike one. I used the concrete texture and then used the paint tool with a large brush and made the snow slightly opaque, I then generated a Specular and Normal map to add some depth and shininess to the ground and small mounds of snow that have formed inside the maze.
After Saving the textures as BMPs I imported them into UE4. I set them up as a material and after seeing them as the floor texture, we decided to change the Texture Coordinates so the size was slightly bigger so the pattern didn’t repeat as much. The Normal map added really nice touch the the snow, so it looked like it had height and the surface was rough. The Specular map gave a nice shine to the snow.
This is the final product of the maze, however the Exponential Height Fog is turned off or you wouldn’t be able to see it, since the map is covered in a thick navy blue fog that’s acting as the fog. The is also a number of sounds that play a random a you progress from Wind to a creepy monster sound just to keep you on your toes as you advance through.
Post_Production
Firstly I am very happy with the way the project turned out and working in a group proved to be a useful aspect because of how the work was split between us.
Our group set out to created an icy maze in a frozen wasteland, a blizzard would be occurring constantly, impairing vision and hindering your progress, a lighthouse would help guide you around with it’s large beacon of light. As well as this, your health would be constantly depleting suggesting that you’re dying of hypothermia and barrels would be placed around providing warmth, and providing a regeneration effect.
I would like to build on my 3DS MAX skills, because I’m still very uncomfortable with that program and wish to improve my knowledge and understanding of it, since it’s very useful in creating smaller assets in games. In upcoming projects I will try and use this program as much as possible because I didn’t use it very much during this project.
Working in a group was definitely a pleasant experience and I hope to work in a group again because I believe we worked effectively together and split the workload evenly and because of this we produced an exciting game with several mechanics and a level of difficulty, however I believe working independently is also incredibly important because you have to rely on yourself a lot more, and think about decisions a little more, and be more strict with time restraints because it’s just you and would like to gain more experience in both a team and independently.
The were a few things that I would’ve liked to improve on my part during the project like ‘The Lighthouse’ didn’t have a texture and considering that’s where the game ends you would like the player to end in a nice environment and feel achievement and if a large and important asset in the game isn’t textured it makes the game feel slightly cheap and rushed which is an issue I’d like to avoid in future projects. During Pre-Production our group decided to include smaller assets littered throughout the maze such as wooden boards, pieces of corrugated metal and I think we decided to do this because it would make the maze slightly more interesting in some strange way, and we didn’t do it possibly due to time constraints. However I believe the bareness and emptiness gave a sense of isolation which is something we wanted to capture, A desperate survivor trying to find their way out of a frozen maze while slowly dying and I think we captured this aspect quite well during the short amount of time we were given to complete this project.
Georges_Games 