Today we were looking at lighting in Unreal Engine 4.
We are doing this so that we can create a short horror puzzle game set in a small maze like map. Lighting is a large part of horror games and so learning how to create flickering lights and different intensities of light will assist us in giving our map a more horror like feel.
What are the elements that make a horror game?
A horror game will typically be very dimly lit with only few light sources to give the environment a eerie feel and discomfort the user. It will be accompanied by a soundtrack that speeds up to indicate danger or will raise in volume.
Jump scares are also a key part of any horror game as it causes constant tension and stress. It will also make the player more afraid as they would not want to be jump scared again. Jump scares usually will be the enemy in your face screaming or making some type of sound.
This is an example from the game Resident Evil 7 which is a first person horror puzzle game. This is the first main enemy you encounter and one of the first jump scares in the game.
Resident Evil 7 is a very good horror game from my experience as it has very dark themes mostly relying on little light and sounds to navigate the old house. It also has a very eerie soundtrack which accompanies the game’s settings perfectly.
Like most horror games though after the first 15 minuets you get used to the jump scares and start to expect them.
Horror games tend to be successful because it gives a different feel to other video games where you feel genuine fear whilst playing even though you recognize it as a game. They also get very good publicity as many YouTubers will create content based from the games such as pewdiepie who gave life to games such as “Amnesia: The Dark Descent”.
Video game publishers will also keep information in marketing materials slim so that the player will not have much of an idea what to expect. It will typically be some form of art or a small quote which is meant to leave the player curious
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This is an example of the main art of Resident Evil 7.
An actor is a type of object which can be given a set of instructions to follow, an example of an actor would be a static mesh actor. Here is a static mesh actor I made of a door, this is an interactive door which when you have the matching key card it will open.
Above are also given instructions to the actor to allow it to open when the first person player has the required key-card.
Today in Unreal Engine we were creating different types of doors, Automatic;Interactiv e; and keycard.
Automatic Door –
Interactive (E) Door –
Key-Card Door –
Key-Card Actor –
This was my first attempt at using Maya to create a completely unique shape which hopefully resembles a small spaceship, To do this I placed a cube and then reshaped it into a longer rectangle to give me my starting point of modelling the body. From here I used the extrude tool to drag out the sides of my spaceship and then lowered the end to give me a point which would later become my wings. From here I made my top wing which I selected the top of my rectangle in the face tool and selected a thin strip which I then raised and pushed back to give me the backwards fin shape. I was now ready to create the cockpit, to do this i just extruded the front middle face and lowered it a bit to give me the dipped windshield look. After this i created my boosters by creating the small cuts in the 2 side faces and using pushing the faces back into the rectangle to make it indented. I repeated this step for the back to create the rear thruster.
After this I used the soften tool to smooth out all of my hard edges and then colored the spaceship in.
Part 1 –
For the first part we were going to recreate a block of TNT from the game Minecraft, to do this I started off by placing a cube and then highlighting it in object mode. I then pressed the UV tab and pressed automatic, this gave me the best possible UV map for my block to unfold. I then opened the UV editor which gave me a panel of every individual cube face. With this I selected the edge mode and then sewed them all together to give me a layout of the unfolded square. Once I had done this I downloaded the minecraft TNT block texture layout which I placed over my UV map and resized to fit the layout. The final result is displayed above.
Part 2 –
For the second part I had to create my own random shape, to do this I placed a ring shape and resized using the vertex mode and soft select which allowed precise changing of every vertex of my ring shape to give me that random shape as seen above. To create a UV map of this I used my object mode to highlight it all and selected the UV tab once again, from here I pressed on Cylindrical and opened the UV editor. I then had to cut my shape into 2 parts, to do this I cut the center of the outside and the inside to give me a separation in my UV map.
From here I selected the shape again and pressed planar on the UV tab and set it to my correct axis. I did this so that I had my shape outline in my UV editor, then I done it again to my other cut half to give me the other side.
This then meant that I can add texturing to my shape. To test if my textures will be stretched I used a UV map to test which areas would be stretched and how much it will affect the rest of my shape, this is my UV mapper I used.
This was my first attempt at modular level design in Unreal Engine 4.
We used the Infinity Blade grasslands pack to give us all of the static mesh for our level. With these I decided to go for a road leading into a ruined castle, I used a mix of full and damaged walls as well as a lot of debris to try and give the impression that the castle is old. I used the rotate tool to put many things on their sides as if they had fallen down. I also used this to block off certain paths without adding an invisible wall as it felt more natural.
As you can see, from my screenshots, I used a pine tree cluster mesh to fill in the background so that it wouldn’t be empty and hopefully feel more lifelike and natural. I also added a strip of cubes which I added a muddy texture onto to give the impression that it is an old side road.
I had to use many light sources when making the castle interior as it would keep on getting too dark and as a result the player wouldn’t be able to see anything.
Overall I enjoyed modular level design but would wish that I could use my space a bit more freely so that I wouldn’t have large open areas which were taking away from the realism and aesthetic of my level.
Today I used Photoshop to create textures for this house in Maya.
Firstly, I started off with a empty UV map which is similar to a blueprint of the house which showed me what I had to texture.
I started off by adding several layers for different sections of my texture so that if i made a mistake I wouldn’t have to redo all of my work. I then used the polygonal lasso tool to select the parts of my house I was going to start with texturing, once I had done this I filled it in with a solid color and then went over it with different shades of the same color to add shadows ad other details such as grass and weeds.
Once I had textured my entire UV map I could then import it into Maya. To do this I selected the entire house and right clicked to display options, with this I pressed “assign new material” where I selected lambert and imported my saved file. My end results are displayed above in my screenshots.
Today I was using Bubbl.us to create a mind map of my own game, I started off by creating sub lines of each main aspect of my game, ranging from the story to a loot system I would like to include.
The overall description of the game is – “Zombies have taken over the world, you and a team of 3 will need to work together to defeat said zombies whilst fighting off another team in round based survival combat. You will have to use loot you obtain through killing zombies and level up to unlock your abilities, at the end of the wave based rounds both teams will fight to the death in “no mans land””
So far I have the main aspects noted but I still need to work on character designs such as costumes and their weapons. So far I have one weaker but faster character designed. I will also need to decide which art style I want to work on and currently I am interested in making it a realistic, gritty setting as if a war has just happened, this means there will be faded colours, ruins and lots of destruction.
I would like to develop on my level design as so far I only have basic concepts with no detail to them. I feel that this is important because without a level my game will be useless.
This is my attempt at shading using Photoshop’s tools, I used the polygonal lasso tool for the cube to add the side and top to my rectangle which I then colored in different shades of red to give the illusion of a light source impacting the object.
For the sphere I blended different layers of the same circle to add shading, then I lightened near the top on the lighter section to show where a light source has impacted the object.
Jake Ling's Game Development Progress Blog. 