Main Mechanic Working

So I have got my main mechanic working for the first VIVA pitch, below you can see the kismet code for it, it basically shuts down two doors that the player needs to get through to progress to the next area, so the player needs to investigate the area to find a way to do this, so he checks two datapads to find that he needs to go to an area of the ship (in this vid its a small sideroom) to turn on the main power so that the door he actually needs to get through powers up and he can get through that (both doors previously inaccessible)

DataPad

The Datapad you have seen in the videos before now has only been a test version, made with textures from internett on a very rudimentary block shape, I have completely redesigned it for the pitch, It now uses alpha masks and and a particular shader to get the holographic look to it.

This is the Material set up I made to get the Holographic look.

Skydome for Pitch.

For the pitch I want to have a demo of my mechanic working and for that demo I want the room it will happen in to be dressed in staticmeshes with texture on them, even though it will most probably not be the final textures, just something so it looks better and more complete, and in addition to this, since the room it will happen in has windows I need to have an OK looking skydome, for this I have created a galaxy, a planet and a star panorama entirely in photoshop.

Kismet problem.

I have a problem I can't understand, check out the image, both of these kismet "bundles" do the same thing, but they dont.

The one on the right does what I want perfectly, it starts a cinematic when I press the "E" key near the trigger in-game and also stops the cinematic whenever the player wishes when he presses the "E" key again, the one on the right is set up the exact same way, the EXACT, even all the little boxes and inputs are all ticked at the same places, so it should do the same thing, but it doesnt, because the one on the right starts the cinematic well enough but can only manage to end the cinematic during the first 2 seconds or so, if the player waits longer to end the cinematic he has to wait through the entire thing.

what am I missing?  what makes the switch not work after two seconds?

Cold Breath Test

This is to show how the cold breath will look. I havent actually figured out how to apply it to the player mesh, I have attached it to a socket in the socket editor but its not there when I play the level.

Radar Design

So this is the design I want for my radar, the last most important thing I need to get done before my VIVA presentation, I need to implement this radar design and get it working in UDK.

The faded wedge you see is suppose to sweep in a circular motion around the entire radar while the arrow is going to point towards the spot the player needs to go, and when the player fixes the power at that place the arrow should point at the next area which will be accessible only after the player has discovered all clues in the area he is presently in.

Kismet for the toggleable cinematic

Here is a screenshot of how the kismet set up is for the two toggleable cinematics demonstrated in the previous video.

Investigatory Mechanic Perfected.

I have now perfected the mechanic for investigations, the player can now hold the 'E' key to initiate the cinematic and when release it to get out of it, works on several different cinematics.

Part of Investigating Mechanic

I've used matinee and kismet to create a way for the player to read report screens and maps which is part of the investigation bit of the game mechanic, and the HUD elements disappear when cinematic is activated and returns when it is done.

Now I want to get it so that the player can activate and end the cinematic by pressing the user key, but so far I haven't figured out how to do that.

Smoke Test

Just a little smoketest for use throughout the level.

No crosshair?

I've been playing around with the idea of having no crosshairs in the game, to further increase both the realism and desperation when facing an enemy, its just better this way when the game doesn't rely on waves of enemies or constant shooting.

But this is of course something I will be testing throughout production.

Character in-game!

Finally managed to get my character in-game as the default player character, the weights are roughly painted so that is why there's some irregularities in the mesh, its using the default UDK animations. I have also changed the speed in which the character can move as I want the player to be walking and not running.

UDK Skel problem

So im having trouble using the existing skeleton from UDK to be able to use the existing animations in UDK, everythings been weighted properly and everything looks great until I try to test one of the UDK animations on my character in Anim Set Editor this happens:

Guns

So a couple of weeks ago I did a concept of a gun for the main character to hold and use throughout the gameplay to create more suspense, which in turn led to the creation of multiple enemy concepts, but back to the gun, I did the concept for it and then I did a quick model of it in maya.

Coloring Concepts

So I've done some color concepts of some of the character sketches i've done for the enemy, done using photoshop.

HUD

My first attempt at adding my own HUD to UDK has failed, but I have at least been working on a design for my HUD, I want to have a Holographic looking HUD, so I found some tutorials on the subject of photoshop techniques for holograph look. I used photoshop to show you how it would look in the game.

Gaming Design.

Having done some character designs for the enemy I have also delved into scripting to change the camera position in UDK to a 3rd person view, I finally found a script that I could edit to get the desired view that I wanted for my game, I may still change it ofcourse, maybe close up a little more on my character to get a more claustrophobic feel maybe or at least get a less open feel to it.

 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9CfdGVnWU4

Different Strokes

So I had my seminar last week and used most of the week before to work on that, but after that was finished I could finally work some more on my designs and scripting before I start my dissertation.

I've done some more character sketches for my enemy:

 

This is suppose to be a crazy paranoid crew-member in an armored spacesuit.

 

This would be a possible design for a robotic guard gone haywire.

Damn

I Finally get into UnrealScripting but then it decides to have an unexplained problem, did everything the tutorial did, everything, but still something isn't right and my scripts doesn't have any affect in game.

still working on it.

Enemy Concepts

So after Johns suggestion that I should maybe think of having an enemy in my game I started to concept some ideas for it, no color yet but i plan to do coloring after my seminar on tuesday.

Project Plan

I have drawn up a rough project plan which details how much time i have allocated to the different tasks that are necessary to finish this project when i should finished with them as well. I have scripting in all the months that we have because i think it will be necessary to be able to do the things i want to do, and also because i always want it on my mind so not to procrastinate.

Blocking out Lvl

I have started to block out the level in UDK, mostly based on my level map that i posted here the 20th, but what you do not see on the drawn map is that i also have a lower level which is going to be accessible by lift.

More Concepts

I've been thinkin of a new outfit for the main character, in addition to a gun, it felt too boring to have just a character in normal looking clothes running around, so i've been doing concepts of a more modern looking  jumpsuit outfit as well as a gun that the character would hold at-the-ready in his hand to create a little more supense.

Proportions

Here's a comparison shot of the my character before and after the 1st feedback.

Map

This is a rough drawing I made of the map that I will most probably use as the final map in UDK, i also plan to have an elevator that will take the player to a lower deck and possibly an upper deck as well.

I have also made my first "request" on epic's UDK forum about the sonar-like radar mechanic idea of mine.

 

It may be a small map compared to others but my idea for the level is to instead have many things for the player to do rather than have a lot of running for the player.

TestRender

This is a test render shot of the character I have made using first Zbrush then, using decimation master, transferred it to maya where I converted my Hi- Poly zbrush model into a Lo-Poly game friendly model.

I have had some problems with my normal maps making the characters face look very weird close up, so this is one of the things i still need to iron out.

Concepts

These are some concepts i did during the summer holidays, some of these are of an early character design i did of a man that was suppose to have a little futuristic design, and there is also some spaceship designs.

Looking at...

To get a little inspiration for how I want my ship interior to look like, I had a very clear idea of how the design of the ship ship should be, i wanted a dark, rusty, old ship with inspiration from hangar ships, submarines that kind of close narrow corridors.

Started The Blog

This blog is for documenting the production of my third year major project.

I started sketching ideas during the summer. This year i wanted to have a more controlled environment than what i had last year, i found it very difficult to cut off the map in a natural way last year, so this year i plan to have the lvl take place aboard a spaceship which will make it much more easier and also allows me to hopefully concentrate more on the important things.