Reflection

 This is a screen shot of the completed level and below is a reflection essay on my experiance with this project.

Kyle Parrino

Reflection Essay

This was my second time using Unreal to create an open space, my first opinion of the program

was far from a good one but as I've learned more about it my mind has changed. It still feels clunky and

a little unorganized but with all the tools it has I couldn't find a better way to do it than they have.

My levels background is about a city of people who plan so far for the future the unborn

already have graves in the grave yard for them. I took the idea of the grave yard for the scenery and

made up my own story to make it into a short mystery game. I'm all about explosions and destruction

but I don't have the knowledge of how to do that kind of stuff yet nor the time to do it all in. I found my

experience with Unreal this time around to be much smoother than before and the transition from

model to the level to be much faster, most likely due to the work flow with place holders. I did think

my one trouble with this project being the kismet editor but I will say I found it to be one of the easiest

parts of the project to work with. The difficult part of the kismet editor is using the right actor or

movement type mesh but once all those are in place its just drag click and test.

One thing I look forward to learning on my own is programming I enjoy creating all of the

assets and the scenery its one thing that has always facinated me, but I like to know how things tick.

I've also always found anything technical to come to me rather easily, I picked up on html code rather

quickly and realize as school goes on more people ask me for help when it comes to anything technical,

I just seem to absorb it easier than anything else.

While working on this project I did learn about the wonderful time saving ease of use program

speed tree. I was planning on creating and texturing my own trees and that would take forever seeing as

it would be a first for me with a tree.

My overall impression of how this project turned out was fantastic, after seeing the others that

we saw at the beginning of the course I was surprised at how well mine turned out. I don't think it

excels much above them but it does appeal to me a lot more than the other ones and doesn’t look as

repetitive as I thought it was going to using modular design. I did find some trouble when it came to the

terrain editor, after I placed my terrain down I couldn't lower it to put in the water due to the constant

crashing of UDK when I tried to delete the original BSP geometry placed for the ground. Every time I

tried to delete it, it would freeze up and crash. All in all the experience with this level design was a lot

better for me than I thought it was going to be.

Modeling and texturing

This week the objective was to complete as much geometry and texturing as possible.

 

The above is the main starting area, obviously the ground hasn't been textured because of some dificulty with the terrain editor in unreal. 

This is a screen shot of the trees and the in wall graves. The trees I am surprisingly happy with thanks to speedtree that I learned about just in time to save me from the headache of making it from scratch.

Concept art

This is the concept for the players starting point. the colors being dull is intentional to express the feeling of agony that the story depicts. The decaying buildings in the back are a representation of the city that the main character (nathan) used to live in. Seeing as the game takes place with the character as a ghost realizing what he has done and being basically a nightmare I felt it to be appropriate. 

This is a concept of the gazebo where Nathan killed his wife, I personally wish I had the original to post but due to hard drive failure on my other computer it was corrupted. overall i feel it represents the general idea i wish it flowed together a little bit better and the lighting showed the emotion i was going for but all in all i dont think it came out to terrible for a last minute do over.

 This is a screen shot of my mesh list and original geometry place holder names, currently this is the bare minimum but if time allows I would like to add more variety while still keeping modularity.

geometry place holding part 2

 as of now I am working more in the kismet editor for the switches, overall its not to difficult im rather enjoying it and found some great descriptive resources online. I have run into some problems, having announcements come up while at the same time having a camera animation happen, as well as having the annoucements show for a longer period of time so the player can read them without rushing. Another problem with announcements is having them word wrap as 2 of them are traveling off the screen. The final issue is having  the light I want to move after a camera animation actually move and setting the delay. For right now I am done for this week, i am happy with my progress the level looks good and interesting the lighting is ok for right now it will of course change once the actual geometry is placed. The triggers and lights are working as wanted and the problems I am having should just be simple fixes or just slight adding of assets to the kismet editor.

Geometry Place Holder

This week its finally time for the building of the level, place holder objects anyway. I am currently in the process of placing the geometry for the level, after doing the reading on how important grid set up is I've decided to change the shape of the level to something more modular. However to keep the space interesting the objects that are not directly tied to the objective will have some random placement to make the cast shadows and overall appeal of the level more natural and interesting.

Map/Puzzle Flow

This is the set up i have in mind for the map, as of right now its dumbed down a bit from the Prototype as to allow room to explore but not to much as to get lost from the objective. To achieve this even further I may shrink the size of the set of trees in the upper right corner.

This is a flow chart of the puzzle set up as well as the light triggers and emotional aims at the different events. It is more simple than i would like it to be but due to time constraints I would rather have a completed puzzle than an incomplete one. For right now this is flow chart 1.0 if I am able to manage time properly I may add more to it. 

Prototyping

While making the prototype I found it difficult to make an interesting game space that wasn't so big you get lost in as to something so simple you lose interest. I'm trying to find that happy medium.

With the map drawn in its basic layout I'm trying to plan where the places of interest are in such a way that I don't make it to linear but don't set it up with so much back tracking that the player also loses interest. I plan to do this with lighting, making it so that the player will be able to explore the map but after finding one clue being able to easily track down the other from a distance but not from the other side of the map.

Addition:

To the map I decided to just use a legend seeing as how thin the paper is that it might ruin the map if I use markers on it.

Story: The story of the character your playing as is that he was once a proud rich man, his name is Nathan Poe.
He had a wife, Crystal, and a wonderful life but he was plagued by a second personality. The personality was uncontrollable and he was never aware of it, others noticed something was off but nothing too odd to mention.
      The worst folly of this was the alternate personality was its problem with anger, it would lash out at the smallest things, and became to much. He murdered his wife and was sentenced to death. During these events Nathan was clueless as to what had happened because the personality had fully taken over. until he believes to have come back from the dead and must figure out what has happened to him and why.