Well, I got caught up on a bug, which is a little embarrassing, but let’s focus on the positive for now!
This week, I spent a little bit of time just setting up the project. Using the First person shooter Template, I created a small field, and started blocking out some of the area. My first goal was to set up the tower. Initially, I set up a giant cylinder. I wanted to check the size and how far I could see into the distance. Because a big part of my game is based on this first view of the world, I wanted to make sure the player could see far enough to be enticed to explore.
Just a lonely hollowed out tower. If you’ll notice I have the player view in the window on the bottom right.
The next step was building the walls around the tower. I wanted to make sure the distance between the tower and the wall didn’t feel claustrophobic, so I modeled that around the size of the tower. I ran a few times through the area just to make sure the distance didn’t feel too far away or too close. After much tweaking, I think I found a happy medium.
I hid the tower so you can get a good look at the steps. I adjusted the player's jumping ability to make sure they can make it over the blocks and later for the steps as well. A lot of testing is going into the feel of movement because, being the most used mechanic, it needs to feel amazing.
Next, I wanted to model some stairs for the tower. Since I am just blocking things out at the moment, I decided to use the spiral staircase within UE4 for now. I’ve played a little bit with it to get a good feel for it, and started adding in the different jumps the player will have to experience throughout the stairway climb.
Here’s a shot of all three pieces separated.
This is where it began to get a little tricky because I ran into an interesting bug. The lighting won’t build. For whatever reason the lighting won’t show up on the things that should be lit. This isn’t a new issue. It just isn’t something I’ve had to deal with for a long time. So, I made a mistake and spent too much time focusing on trying to fix it because I found it incredibly difficult to test the stairs without lighting.
Here’s a shot of the pieces combined. Unfortunately, it looks weird because of the lighting isn’t building. Also the ones here are static meshes I created instead of BSP brushes like in the previous images.
So that’s pretty much it for this week. Next time I post an update for Garden of Eden, I hope to have the forest filled out a little bit, as well as get the water around the tower put in. I also hope to have the stairs put into the tower and have the spinning blocks included as well.
Next week, we’re going to be spending some time looking into the character design for a certain forgetful fish’s parents. The week after that will be the next Gardens of Eden update, and the week after I’ll be taking a look at Gameloft’s Disney Magic Kingdoms.
See you next week,
Scott