HND Project Week 25

Last week i couldn't get the character model to work in blender and so the alternative i have decided on is to use some assets from the unreal marketplace which are free to use in any unreal engine project. I would have liked to have made all of the different enemy types unique however i lack both the skill and time to create unique, detailed and fully animated models. These models are from a pack called infinity blade warriors

Normal Enemy

Bigger enemy

Boss enemy

I have decided that rather than using assets for the playable character i have decided to keep the basic Unreal engine mannequin and rather than creating a new character model, i have created armour pieces that are attached to the default model. This is because i have more confidence creating models that are not humanoid such as armour pieces or weapons. As well as this it saves time and would allows me to focus more on the mechanics of the game such as combat and enemy AI.

Helmet

Pauldron

HND Project Week 24

HND Project Week 24

This week i have tried to create a character model for my game. This was done by following a guide on youtube which is about creating  character using blender and using a plugin called rigidify to create the character skeleton.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSfh6YsA0LhuevD_gen5_nBnZDMaoP2Tr

Initially there were no problems creating the character in blender. I started off by starting with a cube and extruding all of the limb from the cube. The limbs and torso was then moved over the skeleton and the hands were created.
When i was happy with the shape of the player character i tried to set up UV mapping. However having little understanding of UV mapping and the program i skipped this and went to the next step which is binding the skeleton to the model. However this is where problems emerged. The plugin which created the skeleton, rigify, would not let me bind them together what ever i tried. I was going to create the enemy characters using the same process, however i am now going to find an alternative.

Although this process did not work, i am happy with how the model looks even though it looks like it is from late 1990's game with how angular an unnatural looking the body is. To make this look more natural, a smoothness modifier could be added so that there are more polygons. This however may have an impact on performance. As well as this, several of the angles messed up and did not look right when smoothed. For example the pointed helmet of the character, looked more like a bum rather than a horn or point.

HND Project Week 23

HND Project Week 23

Several weeks ago uploaded an image of one of the additional maps that is accessed from the hub. It is a gothic city called Ichorsford. The other map is a forest map full of grass, trees and several small forest villages made of wood. I have added i trees so far an created a small covered forest areas where there is very little light apart from torches on some of the trees. This area is a secondary area which is visible from the beginning of the level but can only be accessed when exploring the level.  In the middle of the map i am going to add a large tree surrounded by rocks. From this area it will branch off into one of the wooded villages with houses on stilts. Normal enemies and the larger enemies will be in the covered forest area and both of wood villages.

To keep the game playable with at least 30 frames per second, preferably 60 frames, i will have to ensure that there isn't too much grass to drop the frame rate. The grass, trees and other natural objects such as rocks and scenery is part of a demo pack that is available on the unreal learning section. The models are good as they allow quick placement of details in an environment, however these particular models are very high poly. this means that they are more intensive and require a better computer to process them. As such better placement and less models will increase the performance of the game.

HND Project Week 22

HND Project Week 22

Several weeks ago i posted an image of a rough sketch of a potential weapon it was a crossbow. This week i have created a new weapon for the game which is not a crossbow but a shotgun much like a blunderbuss. This was created in MAYA and i tried my best to make it all from one mesh rather than making the parts of the model separately like i did with the hammer in one of my earlier posts.

This was created from a cylinder in maya and the vertices and edges were manipulated to create the end model. There were some parts which were not part of the initial such as the grip, muzzle and iron sights. I rather like the design of this weapon as it is angular which sort of makes it look sleek. Having no prior skills in 3d modelling and texturing, i plan to use the base unreal textures such as steel or nickel when i import the model into unreal. This is so that the weapon looks metal. This weapon's type is not currently decided as it may shoot mini missiles rather than buckshot like a shotgun usually would.

If i decide to make the weapon be a mini missile launcher, i would have to create a missile in blender. That would be shot out the end of the gun.